Svengali Pro

The perfect deck of cards for walk around magic and your opener. Perfection at its best

Not real happy with this deck, got it because you do not have to make your spectator cut a certain way, but what I got was the cards being cut wrong and it is 50/50 if they get the force card, not good especially in a performance, lucky I tried these out before. I emailed the company and let's see if they make this right, if not this deck is not worth the extra cost.

This deck doesn’t get much love from some reviews I’ve seen on other magic sites, but it does from me. The cut of half the deck is smaller than that of other Svengalis, meaning that it’s more difficult to detect, which suits me fine; recently I’ve had to return two decks from another manufacturer that were cut right down to the back design on one end of the cards. However, this very narrow cut also means that cutting doesn’t consistently bring the force card to the top…at first. My solution has been to bow the cards out slightly while cutting, which releases the short card to the top of the deck’s tabled half. I keep doing this bowed cut over and over for 5-10 minutes or so, and by then the entire deck retains that slightly bowed shape—not really noticeable, and really, what difference would it make if someone did notice it?

Once your S Pro is properly broken in, it’s a remarkable tool. I prefer to dribble a deck by its corners (I can never seem to get the grip right to dribble it by the ends), but my quirk suits this deck fine; the force cards cascade beautifully. And the fact that the force cards are also side-trimmed means no worrying about spectators cutting the deck the wrong way, because there isn’t a wrong way.

Last thing: the video tutorial is less than half an hour (I think?) but is both clear and imaginative. Among several solid routines, it teaches a quick and easy little Svengali CAAN routine that I hadn’t seen before. With a little work on a unique presentation it could be quite impressive—not a bad day’s for a self-working gaff deck. The S Pro costs more, sure, but after my crudbomb of an experience getting two unusable decks from a respected manufacturer, I don’t mind the higher price point.