Win all of these!
Drawing on April 1st, 2024
Details

Ultimatum Deck

Brownley, Steve

Alakazam UK

(Based on 2 reviews)
The Ultimatum Deck is easy to use yet allows for some world class card effects including:
- Repeat Card At Any Number: The holy grail to many and now you can perform it with 2 spectators
- 3 Choice Cuts: 3 Cards are selected and lost back in to the deck. Now take a step back as a forth spectator cuts to all 3 selections!
- Luck And Intuition: This one is a mind blower, 2 spectators cards are found. The first is at a freely chosen number and the second is found by a spectator tossing a card in to the deck and you dribble them on to the table

The Ultimatum Deck comes complete with custom deck and online video instructions. Awesome card magic that's easy to do and totally mind blowing!

Reviews

Stuart Philip

Official Reviewer

Dec 11, 2022

Overview

The Ultimatum Deck is an awesome project with a gaffed deck that lets you do a variety of miracles. Just imagine that your spectators pick 3 card from the deck and then they cut the deck and the 3 cut to cards are actually the 3 selected cards. Well, that's what this deck let's you do. It is really awesome. With the Ultimatum Deck you can also do am awesome ANAAN with more than 1 card and several other equally amazing tricks.

The UD come with a downloadable instructional video that is an hour and 43 minutes long. The quality of which is not the finest, but the content of the material is amazing. So, if the bottle is dusty, the liquor is still clean.

The specially organized UD comes in a Bicycle stock deck which cannot be inspected by your spectators. Although your spectators do handle the deck when they cut it, they cannot hold it and cannot be given license to inspect it.

The tricks are easy top learn and easy to perform and the reset is very quick and also easy to do.

The downside to the UD is that you cannot really perform more than one trick (among the several that are taught) with the same audience. So, in that respect, it is like a one trick pony. But, what a pony it is!

Effect

As described above, the effect is that a spectator finds their chosen card in the most amazing ways.

Method

The method is based upon a specially created deck that must remain under strict control of a magician. Audience management is therefore a must.

Product Quality

Excellent. It is a deck of card. The instructional video is very informative, but the production quality is not the best. There are two sets of instruction - the original instructions and the newer instructions with Mark Elsdon as host.

Ad Copy Integrity

The ad copy, which follows below, is accurate and fair.

The Ultimatum Deck is easy to use yet allows for some world class card effects including:

- Repeat Card At Any Number (The holy grail to many and now you can perform it with 2 spectators)

- 3 Choice Cuts (3 Cards are selected and lost back in to the deck. Now take a step back as a forth spectator cuts to all 3 selections!)

- Luck And Intuition (This one is a mind blower, 2 spectators cards are found. The first is at a freely chosen number and the second is found by a spectator tossing a card in to the deck and you dribble them on to the table)

The Ultimatum Deck comes complete with custom deck and online video instructions. Awesome card magic that's easy to do and totally mind blowing!

Final Thoughts

This deck is great, but not totally original in most of its constructions. The tricks taught are where it is at and I love the UD.
(Top ▲)

Doc Johnson

Official Reviewer

Dec 28, 2015

PROS

After some intro and history of the deck and the effects, they go directly into some effects possible with this gimmicked deck.

FREE CHOICE CUTS
Performer shuffles the deck. Three participants select a card each. A fourth participant cuts the deck in thirds. The top card in each pile is the selected card.

DOUBLE ACAAN
Two cards are selected. The cards are shuffled and spread. The two select a number each between one and 52. The cards are counted and each of their selections are removed from the deck.

ULTIMATUM STOP
This is done with a couple. She cuts the deck and looks at the card she cut to. Performer deals out cards and he stops at any card. He stops at her card

LUCK AND INTUITION
Two people select a card. Performer asks one if they would like to use luck or intuition. They say “Luck”. He turns to the other and says: “That leaves you with intuition. Using your intuition, name a number between 1 and 52.” They cut the deck. Performer counts to their number and that is the other participant’s card. performer goes back to the first participant and asks them to toss the found card into a deck of cards being dribbled onto the table.

The video also includes original footage with several additional routines.

The explanation is EXTREMELY thorough as you get the original complete explanation of the deck and a number of effects with three individuals in a magic session environment and you get a newer explanation of a number of effects. There is some overlap of the effects, but each set of explanations has a ton of great routines.

The difficulty level ranges from beginner to more advanced, depending upon the routine performed. On this video there are a large number of effects to choose from, ranging from really easy to more challenging. However, even the more challenging routines don’t involve knuckle busting sleights. They involve more practice and being accustomed to the way the deck works.

The system and routines are true to the ad copy. If you liked what you saw, you are going to love this.

CONS

You must know this is a gimmicked deck. While the video covers how you can display the deck in such a way that is doesn’t appear gimmicked, you can’t turn over the deck to a participant to examine.

I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t cover more about bringing the deck into play and taking it out of play. Magicians perform in a wide variety of settings. Most magicians are amateur, performing in casual settings with family and friends. In those more casual settings, you will do an effect, and another individual in the group will want to show a card trick or suggest you play poker, etc. They didn’t get into any exit strategy at all. In the Suggestions section, I will cover such an idea.

VERDICT

I would have given this five stars if they had just covered how to take the gimmicked deck out of play and perhaps a few suggestions for what to do next. People who sell magic should understand that their audience is not only professional magicians, but also amateur magicians who are mostly performing for friends and family, perhaps even other amateur magicians who are going to want to take the deck and do something with it, perhaps not even for inspection, but perhaps to show another trick or to use the card to play a card game. The suggestion section has an idea for this.


Suggestions

This is really a tremendous deck with a lot of potential. However, it can’t be handed out for examination. They do cover some ideas for how to do simple false shuffles and false cuts, but they really don’t cover anything regarding how to get the deck out of play. I have not used this deck, but if I did, I would modify my Ultimatum deck to contain either a specific four of a kind to do twisting the aces or all the sixes and nines which I use for oil and water. I would simply take those cards out of another deck and box the remaining cards. I would then place them into the Ultimatum deck, removing other indifferent cards. If someone asks to see the deck to do another trick or to play poker, or for whatever reason, I would say: “Wait, let me show you just one more thing”. Then, remove the packet of cards you need for the effect, let’s say either oil and water or twisting the aces, box the rest of the cards and place them in your pocket where the un-gimmicked deck minus that packet of cards is. Do the effect and then take out the un-gimmicked deck and hand it to the person to shuffle the cards into the deck. I would suggest you also be prepared with a “Can you do that one trick again?” question when you have a regular deck. Be prepared to do something similar, or just any strong magic effect with a regular deck of cards.
(Top ▲)