Masterpiece by Rick Lax and P3 (Penguin Magic) is a killer card prediction routine that uses just one card and fries your spectators. The performer holds up one card and asks the spectator to choose any playing card number, between 1 and 10, as he displays only one card in his hand. After a series of questions, that the spectator answers, a suit is names and a card is created. The performer rips up the card (thereby eliminating the cards that were not chosen) and hands a corner pip to the spectator. In the end, it is their chosen card.
This trick is one of the few that I carry with me every day – just in case – someone out-of-the-blue says “show me something” and I am in the mood to oblige. I always carry masterpiece with me in my phone case.
When you buy masterpiece you get 26 gaffed cards. As of the writing of this review, Penguin Magic charges $19.95 (and free shipping) for the trick with a 36 minute downloadable or streaming instructional video taught by the creator. The gimmicks are not all the same for varied outcomes.
A few things about Masterpiece: You are only holding one card when performing this trick. Your spectator truly and freely chooses a number that will match the card. There is some easy equivoque required, but nothing too complicated. Lax teaches the trick with a “miss”, but then magically morphs the fail into a dead on winner. Some may decide to go right for the “hit” and others may like the magic misstep.
Penguin Magic sells refills since every time you perform this trick you will rip up one card. The refills cost 39 cents per card. The cards are printed by the United States Playing Card Company and have the Maiden Back design, which is very hard to distinguish from the rider back or mandolin back, unless you are a professional card player or magician – and even then it is unlikely to be detected.
Lax’s instructional video is very good and starts off with a few live uncut performances. He goes through the instructions with meticulous detail leaving no questions left unanswered.
This trick is very easy to learn and perform, but may require just a few minutes (literally just a few) of thought to get the steps of the routine down cold. Watching the instructional video will likely be all you need before you start blowing people’s minds. You can repeat this trick in front of the same audience and get different outcomes every time, but I would shy away from that to protect the method. After you rip up the pieces of the card, you hand out only one piece of the card and cannot show the other pieces to the spectators. That is not a problem as I have performed this many times and never, not once, did any spectator ask to do an inspection after they were flabbergasted by the magic.
The promotional video indicated that the spectator “decides” upon a suit, but that may be what they think happened after a subtle magician’s choice.
Like I said, I carry this with me every day. It is very economical and you should have it with you too.