In essence, “Clign” by Anthony Stan is a sort of “test condition” card change. In the effect, a deck is held vertically on its side on the palm of the hand. A card, perpendicular to the deck, juts out from the side. The magician waves their hand in front of the card and it instantly changes. The change looks fantastic.

Based on the packaging and the appearance of the change, I was expecting some sort of gimmick, which it does include. But calling it a “gimmick” is quite an overstatement. While the effect can’t be done with just a deck of cards, the gimmick can be made in seconds with an extra card. Which leads me to my first complaint. Even with the gimmicks, I feel $17 is a bit much for this release. Yes, the gimmicks are made from non-standard cards, but they are likely cards most magicians will have in their magic drawer. Releasing this as a download for $10 would have been more appropriate.

“Clign” comes with 4 gimmicks, each of which broadens the number of effects possible with the method. The 52 minute tutorial video covers the basic change of one card to another, plus another 8 routines (as well as several bonus ideas.) The highlights included a transposition, a pretty, two phase color changing deck routine, a cigarette through card effect and a moving ink routine. It should also be mentioned that in addition to the gimmick, some basic sleight of hand is required to get into position, and the change itself may be a bit knacky to make consistent.

The method is very simple, yet creates a visual, magical effect. And for what might seem like an effect destined for social media, the method is quite practical and feasible for use in the real world. However, while several of the routines showcase the change effectively, many of them utilize it as part of an overwrought, heavy handed, and poorly constructed method. Yet again, my suspicion is that the effects were created solely to demonstrate additional uses for the gimmick in order to justify a higher price. That being said, if you like the appearance of the change, and are willing to put some work into refining the handling, several of the effects are lovely and strong, and the principle is flexible and worth exploring. I think the main question to ask is how to justify the strange positioning of the card before the change. In the tips section he does mention justifying the position as making the card “sleight of hand” proof, which is an excellent idea.

At $17, you aren’t going to break the bank with this purchase. I do feel it’s a little overpriced, but if you like the appearance of the change, there are several good routines taught, and there is a lot of potential for personal creativity.

I do not get excited that often about new effects coming onto the market, and this one certainly did not cause excitement, but it did not quite disappoint either, however, and the possibilities with this gimmick are wide and varied. Before we begin, for those of you non-French speakers, the name of this effect is not a typo. It is a French word meaning 'to blink'.

The ad copy is completely honest but I do want to point something out: It says at one point that you can cause cards to change without touch, which is true to a point, then it corrects itself in the paragraph right after that so I do not consider it contradictory or deceptive wording. To clarify: You can cause a card to change without actually touching it, however, it is sticking out of the middle of the deck when it changes, so technically you are not touching the card directly.

The video is of good quality and there are two versions available to stream with the included password, a French version and an English version. There are also instructions on the website that you have to follow in order to receive a download link via e-mail should you prefer that. There is a live performance for each effect followed by the explanation, but this is not the case for a couple of the bonus effects, which is fine in this case because once you know how it works, you know the bonus ideas will work for a real audience just fine. Now, there is no speaking whatsoever in either language version, including during the performance segments, and all teaching is done to music with short lines of text appearing on the screen. They kept it clear and simple in that way, however (and this is my opinion), while the music was actually not bad at all, it was the kind of music with a common beat and rhythm and it actually put me to sleep a number of times. I will say that I appreciated the fact that the music is not blaring in the background the way it does in many videos like this. At least it was not the same annoying 15 bars of music looping over and over for the whole video, which is a total of just under 53 minutes. I would say that this made for a bit of a boring video to watch, but that may just be me. At the risk of repeating myself, again, the music was actually a pretty good selection.

The teaching itself was clear and easy to understand although in English there were a few times where you could tell that one word (and usually just one word) was mistranslated, but it was nothing that will bother any fluent English speakers. The place where this was really apparent was during the tips section near the end of the English video where a few words in each paragraph were slightly off, but again, the point of the idea was still understandable.

All this and I still have not mentioned that you get a few gaffs with the product. If you ever need to replace the non-normal gaffs, you can get them from a magic shop or in a standard pack of gaffed cards. The gimmick that is used to change from one face/back color to another can be made from any normal deck of cards and technically you can make 104 gimmicks from a normal deck - I cannot say more without saying too much but you will know what I mean if you purchase this.

Something that is not mentioned on the DVD that I thought of in my head and confirmed through trial and error: the condition of your cards may well affect the working of this gimmick. It does work reliably but you will do better with a newer, smoother deck rather than one that is worn or heavily broken in. Now, as long as you have the standard gimmick from this set, these effects can all be done with a borrowed deck - the gimmick can be carried in your wallet and it is easy to ring in and out of play. If you really think about some of the possible effects, certain gimmicks can serve more than one purpose, such as for the changing ink effects where you write a prediction on the back of the card and it changes with the wave of your hand. If you use a certain type of gimmick, that same gimmick can give you two different things to change from (not at the same time). I cannot say much more but once you understand the method, it will be clear.

The effects presented with this are all doable but I think some of them have a process that is a bit contrived in getting to the point where you cause the card to change or transpose or whatever. You will have to find some way to justify what you are doing with this because even for magicians, putting a card into a deck so that it sticks out the long side and cradling the deck from underneath is just not normal. Watch the ad trailer and you will see what I mean. The changes all look good, however as I said the positioning need justification and this is addressed in the tips sections at the end of both versions (French and English). As for the contrived nature for some of the effects, I think you can find a way to streamline them to fix that issue.

Something else that bothered me (from a technique standpoint only) was the fact that you have to line up the gimmick with a card before you position it for the change and it can, at times, look like you are doing exactly what you are doing. My point here is that you should find a cleaner way to line them up instead of doing all the adjusting the way it is done in the video, or find a way to do it in one action instead of two or three.

There is also a short section at the end of the video where he shows you how to do certain moves more in depth, moves that are used a lot with the included effects. This was a nice touch because in the explanations they were not even breezed over - it just said to "...do a Charlier Cut..." which some beginning magicians may not know how to do. I think they missed one although it is not hard to figure out and execute, and it is used more often than the Charlier Cut, and that is the Thumb Cut.

Overall this is a pretty good product with a lot of possibilities. All the gaffs necessary to do the effects taught in the video are included and are all easily replaced if it ever becomes necessary. A little playing around and you will easily be able to come up with your own ideas. If you like what you see in the ad trailer then you will like this and you will definitely have fun playing around with this.