 Hey everybody, welcome back to Magic Orthodoxy. My name is David and this is a review for Erdnays by Madison. Alright, so Erdnays by Madison, what is it? It is a collection of videos that teach the different slides and skills that Daniel Madison has learned and pulled from his readings of the famous treatise The Expert at the Card Table written in 1902 from SW Erdnays. This is a recent release from illusionist.com and if you'd like to see the trailer, this is it. I am Daniel Madison. One year ago, I decided to take on Erdnays. I have spent over a year studying, memorizing, mastering the infamous book from 1902, The Expert at the Card Table by SW Erdnays so that I could bring to you Erdnays by Madison. This huge project is not just about me teaching everything from Erdnays. This is a truly unique project in which I will teach you how Erdnays has influenced my career for over 15 years. With 8 hours of instructional, intricately detailed footage, I will teach you in the biggest project I have ever worked on, everything that I have made my own from Erdnays. Available in very limited quantities, the Erdnays by Madison box set includes my very own annotated Erdnays, a hard copy of the Erdnays by Madison edition of The Expert at the Card Table which includes a new introduction from myself. The box also includes the Erdnays by Madison deck of playing cards as used by Erdnays himself in the book The Expert at the Card Table and also a very limited Erdnays Green version of the same deck of cards. This is not a gimmick, it is more than a book, it is more than a download, it is more than a deck of playing cards. This is my tribute to The Expert at the Card Table by SW Erdnays. I am Daniel Madison and this is Erdnays by Madison. Alright, so that was Erdnays by Madison, of course lots to say, lots to put into this. Of course we want to jump right on into it, so the first thing we have to ask is what's in the box? What's in the box? Well Illusionist is offering this in a couple of different ways. The way I purchased it was as the collective bundle, alright and so what's in the box? You're going to get a soft cover copy of The Expert at the card table. It's a white cover with the new Erdnays by Madison little swiggle logo and then you're also going to get two decks of cards inside that box. You're going to get the green Erdnays deck and then the black Erdnays deck and in addition to that you're going to get a PDF which is the copy of The Expert at the Card Table that's been annotated, which means written on from Daniel Madison and you're going to get eight hours of downloaded video of Daniel Madison teaching you a lot of these slights, cuts and moves. Of course it is possible to separate your purchases. You can get just the decks with the book or you can get just the downloads or you can get them all together. The reason why you would get all together would be to of course minimize cost and then to get the PDF. If you want the PDF the only way to get it is in the bundle. Is it what I thought? You know what? It was a little bit confusing because I really thought at the beginning of this when I went to go hit purchase I really thought it was gonna be Daniel Madison teaching you how to do all the tricks from The Expert at the Card Table or at least some of them or most of them or I just thought it'd be him going through the book page by page step by step you know repeating a lot of what's taught there and that's not what this is. If you get the downloaded video it's not gonna be Madison teaching you Erdneis. It is true to its title. It's Erdneis by Madison. Okay so it's Madison's interpretation of Erdneis. It's his thoughts. It's his improvements. It's his this is what I've taken and this is what I've given back and so one of the things he said was this is how he took the lessons from Erdneis and used them for his own good. Okay another thing that he said in the video was this project isn't me teaching Erdneis. It's teaching what I took from Erdneis and how I made it my own thing. At one point in the video in the download he even describes this as being less about Erdneis and even more that it's a mechanics version too. Mechanics was one of the videos that Madison put out. In fact there's eight moves on this video. There's eight moves on this download that are from mechanics not directly from but the same thing taught. So you kind of have to think of this as this goes in light of when he did how to cheat at cards or when he did moves or when he did mechanic. It's all kind of in that same series. What's the overall quality and production value of the video? The video itself is filmed a lot to make it look like the book. It's like the illustrations in the book. You know in the book if you have the book there's all these figure illustrations where it's just the hands holding the deck of cards and what Madison has done is he's kind of blocked out all the environment. He's wearing black on black. He's got black all the way up all the way to his sleeves black chest black background. So really the only thing you see are his hands and the card. So it's made to look a lot like the illustrations and so in that regard it almost appears to be what would Madison's version of the expert at the card table look like. If Madison was gonna write his own copy of it release his own copy if you were gonna do the same type of project what would his version look like? What would the urnase by Madison look like? And that's what you're getting. Is it well made? You know what it's gonna have similar categories to how to cheat at cards especially with the shuffling in the hands and shuffling at the table starts the same way. Also kind of has the same categories that urnase did in his book with the exception of the ledger main. And like I said it's if Daniel wrote his own copy of expert at the card table. Alright so how about the book? Is the book well made? It's a very well made softbound book as you can see it's not the same size probably as the copy that you have at home. This copy is more of a pocket size like you could stick this you know put in it and stick it in your back pocket carry it with you. It's a little bit more compact. It doesn't really have anything in it that's necessarily new okay. It's only got a preface which is like three four pages of Madison talking to you at the beginning and then another two of him responding at the end. So pretty much it's really just the expert at the card table with a brand new cover okay and Madison's preface at the beginning. The playing cards are done in the same manner as a lot of Madison's other decks. Very simple, very minimalistic, lots of white space. Across the front of the tech case it says urnase X Madison or urnase by Madison and you have this little squiggle line that is a direct take from the illustrations that are in the book. The sides of the tuck case are both blank and the bottom has a little bit of ad copy. The top simply says urnase and Madison and it has Madison's logo and the back design of course is the back design of the cards. There is no tuck seal on the box which is nice and that is pretty much it for the tuck case. Let's take a look at these cards. These cards are printed from the United States playing card company and they are come on their retail stock. They do have a modern cut and air cushion embossed and if you'd like to learn more about stock, cut or finish you can click the link below in the description. A lot of people are always going to ask how these cards feel, how they handle. Best thing I can do is measure them for you. I can stick 10 of these in the caliper and give you the exact measurement of what 10 equal to so that you will have a better idea, better understanding and then compare them against other decks that maybe you've held before or owned before. So 10 of these cards, okay, 10 of these in the caliper come to 2.71. Now 2.71 for me is a little interesting because I haven't had a measurement of 2.71 yet. I've had 2.72 and I've had 2.70 but I haven't had 2.71. So 2.72 would be like the keepers, you know, with the new crush stock that Bicycle has and the new Art of Play Memento Mori deck comes in there. So this is a really thin deck, okay, so again this is Bicycle's new crush stock. It's gonna feel very thin, very applyable in your hands. The back design is taken straight from the pages of the expert at the card table. If you look through the illustrations, of course you notice that there's a little squiggle mark on the top and bottom of each card and that really we think is because, you know, the illustrator didn't want to go through the trouble of drawing a back design on every illustration so we made this little squiggle but it's an interesting thing to emulate when making an original deck of cards that honors the expert at the card table. With this deck you're gonna get two original jokers. It's an illustration from the expert at the card table but with a little bit of a nuance. It has tattoo work all over the hands that are mirroring Daniel Madison's hands and then you'll notice that one of the jokers says the figure is Madison and the other one says the figure is Erdneis. Also with this deck you'll get two additional cards. You'll get a double backer which is great for magic tricks and then you'll get an ad card that explains a little bit of the project of the Erdneis by Madison. Your Ace of Spades is very big and bold and has no writing on it at all and the only way to denote that it's part of this deck is to notice that it has a little Erdneis squiggle underneath the spade pip. All of your pips, indices, and court cards are all going to be completely bicycle standard, universal, making them great for gameplay, magic, and flourishing. Of course because it is a Daniel Madison deck it will have one exception. The King of Diamonds will be the Daniel Madison King of Diamonds. Now of course if you get the box set you're also going to get the green edition of the cards and really the only thing that's green is that the squiggle mark is now green and not black. All right so what's going on with the project, the teaching, the videos, what's up with that? Because when Madison first released it he made a lot of bold claims and said that he was better than Erdneis and what's going on and how do I process this release? Okay so let me just tell you. First of all anyone who knows Madison's background, Madison's history, or at least the character that he portrays, he says that he is an ex gambler. He originally was a gambler who found his way into magic much like Erdneis. Okay that is really Erdneis' story as well and really the expert at the card table is more of a book for gamblers and gambling techniques to teach to magicians. Now a lot of magicians hold the expert at the card table as their Bible, as their treatise, okay, but really it's a little misguided as it's more of a gambling book per se and really because Madison has a foot in both realms, right, he has been a gambler and a magician. Who better than to judge the book? Who better than to judge Erdneis than Daniel Madison? I don't think very many of us are both professional gamblers and magicians, right? We haven't done both. We've either done one or the other. You may know some slides, you may know some moves, you may even know some gambling magic tricks but to say that you actually place money on the table that you make your living gambling probably not, right? So when he makes this claim that he's better than Erdneis it's because he is the judge that can actually make that claim to say that you know what I've lived in both realms. I've read this book and now hear my thoughts and really to say that you're better than a book from 1902 or that you're better than an author that for all we know is fictitious it's a pretty easy claim to make and I would think that most of us are better than our heroes. You know you are. You're better than your heroes because a lot of our heroes existed a long time ago. They were in a time that limited them, there was limited knowledge and now you have more exposure, more knowledge than even your heroes had. So the possibility that you could now exceed your heroes is a reality. You know if I say well okay who's the best martial artist and you say well Bruce Lee. All right Bruce Lee is the best martial artist but why is he the best? Well he's the best because he broke new ground. Well granted and nobody can go back in time and break that ground again. Who's the best escape artist? Harry Houdini. All right so why is he the best? Well because he broke new ground. Granted and nobody can go back in time and take that away from him but is he still the best escape artist? Has no one ever been better since him? Is Bruce Lee really the best martial artist? No one's ever been better since him and that's such a sad thing to say because if that's true that means there's no hope. We can never get better. We can never get better and if we can never get better then that means the best is behind us and what lies ahead of us? Just mediocrity? What a terrible dream. What a terrible vision for for magic to say that we can never be better than our heroes and I would disagree. I think that's not true. I think we have our heroes. They're back there. They broke new ground. They're legendary. I would say that. They're legendary. You know we can't take their legend away from them but certainly somebody could come along and be better than Babe Ruth right? Someone could come along and be better than Bruce Lee or better than George Washington. They don't have to be the best for all time and so for Daniel Madison to make that claim I don't think it's that absurd. I don't think it's out of the box. As magicians that's what we should aspire to do. We should always be aspiring to to have the best second deal, the best cop, the best frustration count, the best any card to any number, the best color changing the deck, the best ambitious card trick right? We should always be aspiring to stand on the shoulders of giants, to stand up there and reach high above where we think well nobody's reached up here yet that could be you. All right that could be you and really what this project is is is it's not Madison deconstructing Erdneis or tearing him down it's taking that book from 1902 and bringing it forward into the 21st century and saying all right if there was a modern day Erdneis, if there was a modern day expert at the card table this is Madison's take. This is Erdneis by Madison. I hope that explains it for you. I hope that puts it into a better perspective. I appreciate the work. I enjoyed it. You know I actually own pretty much everything Madison's ever put out whether it be PDF, download, decks of cards, whatever. I think the only thing yeah the only thing I don't own is his collection like I don't have the Madison collection the big big book the big hundred dollar book. That's like the only thing I don't own. I've wanted it. I've always wanted it but price has kept me away from it but yeah so you know this is another collection that I've enjoyed and I'm glad it was released. Positives. All right it's one of the positives to Erdneis by Madison. You know what this is a beautifully produced project it really is and so I would highly encourage you especially if you're a fan of Madison or Erdneis to pick this up. Negatives. All right so what are some of the negatives you know like we say around here there's negatives to everything these are just the negatives that I see they don't have to be the negatives that you see. Like I said it's not it's not Madison teaching you Erdneis directly and a little bit that's kind of what I was hoping it would be you know and that's my own fault for putting my own preconceptions on top of this project but that's what I was hoping it would be because the 1902 book has always been a little elusive for me. You know it's funny to hear all these critics bash the project and say you know well how dare you tear down Erdneis but the fact is a lot of you have never read it. You haven't read it you know you bought it because you heard it was the best and when you got it you were excited and you started to read it and then you went oh this is boring or then you went oh this is complicated or I can't figure this out and then you put it on your shelf and now it sits on your shelf as a trophy but you didn't read it you know you didn't read it and and so I was really hoping this would be Madison teaching me the book because the book has always been so elusive to me and so far away and I was really hoping somebody from the modern world to kind of bring it into my world and help me to understand the book. I was really hoping he would be a coach in this regard but you know again like I said that's just my own misconception and so that was really the only negative for me and takeaway. All right so is it worth your money? Like I said at the top of this it's about a hundred bucks and it's only worth buying the collection if you want the PDF. If you don't care about the PDF then I would say break it in half you know it's going to cost you a little bit more but you can space out the payments. I would say get the decks first get the decks first because those will sell out okay those will sell out the downloadable videos won't sell out. Illusionists will have those forever they'll always be available to you maybe one day they'll even be a little cheaper they'll run a sale I don't know but get the decks first I think that's the most important part get the decks get the book and then if you need to space it out monetarily wise you can get the downloads later. Who would like this? I think fans of Madison fans of Erdneis fans of gambling slides if you've got all the other things like I said how to cheat of cards or moves or mechanics this definitely goes along in that vein if you've appreciated those videos you'll appreciate this. All right so that is my review of Erdneis by Madison from Daniel Madison and Illusionist.com I got mine from Illusionist.com and I would suggest you head there as well thanks bye