– Intro / Brief Overview
What’s up everybody and welcome to Magic For Beginners, my name is Keith and in today’s video we’re going to be looking at and reviewing The Guarantee by Eric Stevens which is a joint release from Magicbox and Stellar Magic which is a new brand called “Stellar Magicbox”. And because I’m so kind to you all, I’ve sorted a discount to be used on Magicbox on all products to get you 10% off your order, along as you spend £10 or more. If you use the discount code MFB like Magic For Beginners at checkout, that’ll save you some money. Check out the description for more information and other discount codes too.
– What Is The Routine/Trick?
So what is the trick then? This is a fun little effect using a deck of playing cards. You show a joker and say that you have written a random number on the back as your prediction. The spectator can choose any random place in the deck for the Joker to go, and place it there themselves.
With no cuts, breaks or sneaky moves, you start counting out the cards onto the table until you reach the Joker and then guess what… Yep, that’s right the random number that you had written on the back of the joker before the trick started matches the position of the card in the deck.
This is a super easy and self working card effect which requires no sleight of hand and can easily be reset and it’s ready to perform straight from the box too.
– How Much Does It Cost?
Let’s talk costings and this is available from Magicbox for £25 and of course if you use the discount code MFB at checkout, you’ll get 10% off the order which makes it £22.50, so you can have more money to spend on other things on the site… Like Money Spinner which is my current favourite trick from Magicbox, but sometimes struggles to be in stock as it’s a best seller on there.
Grab your copy from here: https://magicbox.uk.com/products/the-guarantee-by-eric-stevens
– Quick Performance
Of course with all of my reviews that I film, I want to put in a performance from myself showing the effect and this is no different, so let’s jump to a performance of this effect.
– What Do You Get With It?
If you buy this effect, what do you get with it? You get a deck of cards which is wrapped in a wrapper that has the Guarantee logo and design on it and when you open that up, you’ll get a link to the instructions/tutorial too which is hosted on YouTube and is just under 33 minutes long and includes a performance from Eric along with the tutorial.
For the deck of cards, you get a full deck of cards along with a Joker card which is used to perform the effect, however due to the nature of the effect, you don’t have to use the Joker card, you can actually use any card that you want, like a specific card in the deck, or even a blank card either left blank or something wrote on it, or even some random gaff card, depending on the way that you want to present this.
– Is It Easy To Perform and where can you perform it?
Is it easy to perform? As stated in the video earlier, this is a super easy and self working magic trick so even beginners can do this trick no problems at all and doesn’t take any skill at all to perform. You should be able to take the deck out of the box and then perform it right away. Of course, to get an understanding of the effect, you need to watch the tutorial, but it really is easy to perform.
This can be performed in any situation and can even be done surrounded 360 as there’s no specific angles which you can and can’t perform with, so you should be good to go.
– Can You Inspect It?
Can this be inspected? I’d say that the deck can’t be inspected, but you can freely show the cards to the spectator when you handle them and perform the routine, but you can’t hand out the deck to the spectator before or after the routine.
– Is It Well Made?
Is it well made? I’d say that it is well made and should last a while because it’s a normal deck of cards as such and you can easily replace the cards in the deck should one get ruined and the card which you use to perform the trick can also be replaced easily with another card, so due to this then the main card is fine too and will last a long time. An aspect of it may need to be replaced or refreshed, but that’s a 30 seconds job, if that.
– Positives
Let’s talk about positives and the fact that this is such a super simple self working magic trick is a positive for me because a beginner magician can perform this easily and even a seasoned professional can perform this and due to the ease of this trick, they can then focus primarily on the trick and the performance piece rather than any sleight of hand which is always amazing.
– Negatives
As far as negatives go one negative you can see is that the deck cannot be inspected which is a bit of a drawback for some people, but for others it may not matter. On top of this, the deck is a one trick pony so you’d need to consider pocket space in with this effect if you want to carry it around with you. I suppose you could maybe use the effect in conjunction with something else, like for example using the selected number from the deck to be used with a Digital Force Bag reveal, or something else number related which really opens up the trick to so many more opportunities than just the meant effect. I suppose in a way, this should be in the positive section because despite seeming like a one trick pony, there’s so many more options available for the trick than the basic handling and now gives you a new way to essentially ‘force’ a number on a spectator that was free choice on selecting that number.
Maybe I should create a new spin off video on the channel where I discuss effects and what they’re meant to be used for or performed in a certain way and how you can take the effect or gimmick and totally turn it on the head and make a brand new effect or way to use that, would people be interested in something like that? Let me know in the comments.
So that’s the review for The Guarantee by Eric Stevens which you can purchase from Magicbox and of course, remember to use the discount code in the description for some money off too. What’s your thoughts on the effect and is this something that you would use in your routines?
If you want to see more reviews on the channel, then there should be some videos popping up on screen now for your viewing pleasure, so click on one of those to see more magical goodness, but until next time, see ya!