 Hey everybody, welcome back to Magic Quartz at Oxy. My name is David and this is a Magic Review. Hey today, we're gonna look at the Marksman deck from Luke Jermay. Alright, so what is the Marksman deck? Well, it sounds like it's a deck of cards, but it's actually a lot more than that. Luke is giving you a complete deck reading system that's gonna allow you to do some great feats of mentalism. You want to watch the trailer? This is it. The Marksman deck is a full show hidden in a deck of cards. Hiding in plain sight is a full performance of incredible magic and mentalism with playing cards. You know, I believe honestly that if you can tie your shoe laces, if you can do that, if you can tie your shoe laces, then that's significantly more challenging than performing with this deck of cards. So what do you get with the Marksman deck? Well, you get a really in-depth DVD with me teaching you how to use the deck. And the DVD doesn't just cover all of the kind of features of the deck. It also teaches a whole host, a whole variety of tricks that are specific to the deck. Tricks that you can't do with any other deck of cards that's out there. Once you watch the DVD, you know, very short space of time you'll be out performing these tricks because there's really nothing to it. The deck itself does all the work for you. It's a utilitarian tool that gives you a kind of, without exaggeration, never-ending flow of really effortless, really direct mentalism and magic with cards with very little effort. It's just so crazy. I don't know how any of it was done. You can't explain it. You can't explain it. All right, so that was the Marksman deck. Luke Jermay. This is being brought to you by the people down at Vanishing Incorporated. So a couple questions we always ask about all of our magic reviews and the first of which is what's in the box? All right, so what's in the box? You're definitely going to get the Marksman deck, obviously. You're going to get the Marksman deck and you're going to get access to the video and the PDF. Now, how that is packaged, I can't say because really, I've been listening to a couple of other different people who've received this and there's all kinds of combinations. So some people receive the physical DVD and the physical deck. Some people receive a shelled box and then inside the box is the deck and the DVD. Other people have told me they've received the hardshelled box, the deck, and then a download code, but no DVD. So regardless of how it gets mailed to you or shipped to you or what you receive, you're definitely going to get the deck. Okay, you're definitely going to get the video in some format and you're going to get the PDF. Is it what I thought? I knew it was a Mark deck. Actually, it's not a Mark deck. It's not a Mark deck. Let's differentiate. There are Mark decks and there are Reader back decks. This is a Reader Mark deck. Reader means you can read it right off the back. There you see it. There it is. If it says Sixer Clubs, it says Sixer Clubs. That's a Reader back. Marked back would be binary or scratch marks or some sort of pattern or flower petals to count. That's a Mark deck. So this is a Reader back deck. Is it what I thought? I did not expect the markings to be as big and as readable as they are. I think some people will be taken aback by it when they see it for the first time. They're going to think, wow, the back design is covered in markings. Like how is anybody not going to see this? There are five readable marks on each side, which means on the back of every card, there's 10 marks. Five on each side, right? It has to be readable from both sides. So this is an open marking system. Anybody could be able to see this, right? And so that was a little jarring. I was surprised. I was like, wow, it's not going to take you any time to look for these marks or for you to decipher what they mean. How are the angles? Okay, so the angles goes hand in hand with what we were just talking about. I think when we think about angles, we think about, well, it's suspected they're going to catch what I'm doing, right? Okay, so in regards to that, I would say don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Just relax. Luke Jermay uses this system all the time. He says he doesn't get caught. So if Luke Jermay doesn't get caught, you're not going to get caught. You have to treat it like it is an unmarked deck. You have to treat it like it is a regular deck. And if you treat it that way, if your body language says it's that, then you'll communicate that just with your presence. And if you can relax and not worry, then your spectators will. They won't assume anything. And I think most of the time as magicians, we're thinking about the back of the cards. We're thinking about the back. And we're burning that back and going, okay, what's going on? But spectators, they're probably more interested in the faces. Because really, when you ask them to select a card, they take it. They're so worried about hiding the face from you, right? They're worried about hiding the face. And for them, that's the identity of the card. They're not trained to think that the identity could be on the back. And if you watch Luke in the performance video, a lot of times what he does is he fans the cards face up towards the spectators. Like here, look at all the faces. They're all here. They're not in any particular order. And I think that gives them some reassurances. But at the same time, it's hiding the back design. Now, how are the angles for you? That's a good one, right? How are the angles for you? Because sometimes I would argue that when there are marked decks, people who have poor eyesight go, oh, wow, I can't read these. I had no problem. My reading glasses are really a low number. Okay? So my eyesight isn't really bad. But I do have problems seeing things close up. I do. But I think all these markings are a nice visible size and I didn't have any issues with them at all. That to say, can it be inspected? No. You can't have the stack be inspected. That if someone says, hey, let me look at those cards, I think you need an out or you just need to be able to manage your cards and your audience better that they don't ask you to begin with. What's the overall quality and production value of the video? A lot of time and care has been put into this project. And I think it's apparent from the very first frame. I mean, for the most part, Luke is sitting at a table. He's facing the camera. He is mic'd and he walks you through the how and why of every routine. And it also includes a studio performance, which is great. And I think you're going to get a lot of Luke's notes and his theory. It's a lot of fun to watch. I've already watched it twice. Like I said, somewhere else, Spanish Incorporated also has a live 45 minutes performance video. That is something that you can go and download. You can find that on the internet. If you have trouble finding that, I can find a link for you if you would like. All right. So what's taught on the DVD? You're actually going to get five tricks, okay, five different mental effects. You're going to get three tests of intuition, which is basically you allow the spectator to draw three different cards. And you divinely inspire each one. There's a dowsing one. There's a card peek routine. There's a card calling routine. And then, of course, a deck memorization routine. Is it well made? It's a deck of mandolin backs. So if you're not already familiar with that, this was a deck that was created so that magicians could manipulate the back design. Currently, the United States playing card company has their back design trademarked. And so if you're going to make a gaff deck with bikes, the only thing you could do would be to tweak the faces. Now they don't allow you to tweak the backs. And so because this is a back tweaking trick, you needed a back design that wasn't, that was open. It was open source. And so the mandolin backs were created to look almost exactly like a deck of bikes. I think most of the time it flies right by people they don't even notice. And of course, the box itself looks just like a deck of bikes. The great thing about this also is, and I don't quite remember if Luke covered this, but what you can do is you can buy the bicycle deck seals. You can buy the deck seals on one of your favorite magic websites. I know Penguin sells the moths where I got mine. And then you can just reseal your deck every single time. Resale your deck. You throw your jokers on top with your ace of spades, and then a couple of ad cards from another deck. And you can just reseal it every time. And it looks like you're opening a brand new deck, but you know that it's in a special stack that only you know. Now as far as the marketing system goes, the deck stack, I'm not really going to go into how or why. I mean, that's, that would be giving it away. And that's not my job to give away the trick. You should buy it yourself if this is something that you're interested in. I will say that it uses Mamanica deck stack. Okay. That's, I don't think that's a huge secret because there's lots of products out there that use Mamanica. And so that's part of it. And the nice thing about it is, let's say, let's say you're not as familiar with Mamanica, this deck will help you learn the Mamanica system. How much practice does this require? I think for the most part, as with most mentalist tricks, a lot of the practice goes into the routine, okay? Not so much the use of the deck. You're right. You're not learning slights. You're not learning a lot of like hard to do moves. You're learning the routines and you're learning the pauses and the beats and the rests and the momentum of each effect. And so I would spend a lot of time watching the performance video, almost as much time as you watch the explanation. Okay. I think there's some hidden gems in there that you'll really want to sit and listen to that I think are well worth it. So practice wise, I mean, you'll obviously have to learn which marks are which, obviously. But a lot of your practice is just going to be on routineing and just getting all that down. How much setup and reset is there? Like I said earlier, it's a mnemonica stack. So a lot of the tricks work in a cyclical rotating stack. Like you can cut it anywhere you want, but you have to keep it in the deck stack. In the video, I will say this, in the performance video, Luke does use three different decks. Okay. He uses three versions of the Marksman deck. So don't think that he's doing that entire routine with one deck of cards. Okay. He is using a deck switch. And I think that's good to at least have two of these. And I might just throw this out there. You're going to buy one. Maybe you should buy two. Have one that's always in the mnemonica stack and then have another one that you can ring in and out where the spectator can shuffle it. Positives. All right. So what are the positives to the Marksman deck? Luke Jermay has not just given you a fun toy. He's given you a working system. This will not only allow you to do all of the tricks on the DVD, but it will further launch you into new ideas as well. Let's dress up some old ones. Is it worth your money? It's $35. $35 for a marked deck of cards and a 45 minute DVD where you could do literally an hour's worth of material with this. It's totally worth your money. Should be more expensive. It's even affordable enough to buy a second deck if your deck wears out. Like they say in the future that they'll have replacement decks, but why? $35 is well worth it. Like I said, add two to card. Who would like this? Mentalists. Mentalists who like doing tricks with cards. Card magicians who are looking to break into mentalism. Fans of Luke Jermay I think would definitely love the Marksman deck. All right, so that was my review of the Marksman deck from Luke Jermay and Venetian Incorporated. I got mine from Murphy's Magic. I want to thank Murphy's Magic for allowing me to have this so that I could do the review for you. And if you would like to purchase it for yourself, you can find it from your very favorite Murphy's Magic dealer. Thanks, bye.