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Review: Frost (Mikey V and Abstract Effects)

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Review: Frost (Mikey V and Abstract Effects)
« on: May 21, 2021, 11:30:07 AM »
 

EndersGame

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Frost (Mikey V and Abstract Effects)

A gimmicked deck where all the cards turn blank on both sides ... except your spectator's selection!

Overview

First a confession. I love gaffed decks.  Trick decks like the Invisible Deck, Brainwave Deck, Mental Photography Deck, and Card Toon deck make me salivate.  So when I heard about the  new blank deck effect entitled Frost which involves a gimmicked deck, I was ready to take the bait quite quickly.  Here's the ad copy that describes the basic idea of this gaffed deck:

"Frost is a completely gaffed deck that does all the work for you making it one of the easiest and most fooling, self-working card effects you will do! Printed with high quality stock at the United States Playing Card Company, Frost comes ready to go right out of the box!

Start by showing a full deck of 52 cards front and back, and with the snap of a finger reveal that every single card has become blank on the front and back except for the spectator's chosen card. You not only get the visual of showing all of the faces blank, but also get an extra kicker when you reveal that all of the backs have also turned blank except for their signed card! Your spectators can see the deck visually change around their card!
"

Anyone who's been around in magic for a while that reads a description like this will immediately have questions at this point.  What kind of sleight of hand is needed?  Does it rely on a rough-and-smooth principle?  Do you need to do any arts-and-crafts?  What's the card quality like?  The creators have anticipated these questions from us, and that's why the ad copy goes on to describe Frost with these characteristics:

"Visual, Easy to do, Self working, Ready to go out of the box, Printed by USPCC, Instant reset, No rough & smooth, No flaps, Full routine taught plus bonus visuals that are perfect for social media!"

Seriously?  That does sound promising! But does it live up to what it promises?  Let's find out.



The effect

The basic effect of Frost is that you can show a deck, front and back, apparently normal on both sides.  In an instant, you make the entire deck turn blank, again showing both sides of the cards.  In both cases you show all the cards.  Front and back printed.  Then front and back blank.

But that's merely how the Frost deck works at its most rudimentary level.  As a tool, you can easily incorporate this with many other elements, such as having a spectator's signed selection become the only printed card in a deck that has gone entirely blank, for example.  With that plot, you'd have a card selected and returned to the deck, and then the entire deck turns blank except the chosen card.

To whet your appetite, see the official trailer here, which shows this deck doing exactly what the ad copy has said it will do.



What you get

Inside a zip-locked bag, which is presented with an appropriately chilly looking "Frost" packaging, we get our new toy: a complete deck of gaffed playing cards.  Our deck comes inside a standard tuck box of Bicycle rider back cards, so from the outside everything looks normal.

Also included is a small card, which has the link to a special page over on the Murphy's Magic website.  Using the password provided, you get access to a 35 minute tutorial video which you can watch with streaming video or download (762 MB).



The cards

The cards are the usual Bicycle quality in red, and are poker-sized with have an embossed air cushion finish.  They're printed by USPCC so the quality is excellent.  But as you'd expect, they are gaffed.  The gaffed cards use the Maiden Back design, since USPCC no longer allows tinkering with the Rider Back design for gaff cards.  In light of the fact that it's a Maiden Back design, I was a bit surprised that the two "regular" cards included along with the gaffed deck were Rider Backs, but in reality these are so similar to Maiden Backs that I didn't even notice the difference until I looked really closely.

As mentioned, the cards are very gaffed.  But only in the sense that there's no way you could make a deck like this yourself, with the help of roughing spray or doing some arts-and-crafts.  Just as the ad copy promises, there's no rough-and-smooth, flaps, or anything like that.  Instead all the trickery lies in the printing, and everything else about the deck is normal.  There's a couple of "normal" cards in there too, as well as some cards which are just partially gaffed.  But the bulk of what you get is a deck of completely gimmicked cards that will work the magic.   What helps strengthen this trick is that both sides are gaffed, and if you're familiar with marketed effects like the Monte Cristo deck (Mastermind deck) and the Knockout Deck (Sneek-A-Peek), you'll have some idea of what's going on here.



The video

The video is quite good, and the 35 minute run time means that you don't just get the bare bones.  Everything is covered, from how the deck works, how to set it up, how to do the required moves, and some of the possibilities for routines and presentation.  There's no real close-ups, but you don't really need them either.  The sound is clear, everything is easy to follow, and you get plenty of ideas for polishing elements of the basic routine, and ideas for taking the routine in different directions.

The majority of the teaching is done by the Other Brothers from Abstract Effects, and is filmed from a single camera angle.  Part of the video also features Las Vegas magician and creator Mikey V, who tells something about how the deck originated, and offers an alternate way to present aspects of the routine, including a colour change ala Erdnase.



Difficulty

In terms of difficulty, Frost genuinely can be considered relatively easy to perform, and is almost self-working.  The deck does all the work for you, and as long as you can fan and spread cards relatively evenly, there's little to worry about.  If you're no good at fanning, then you do risk flashing the secret to your spectators, so some proficiency here is a prerequisite. In terms of the moves required to accomplish the "magic", all you need to do is displace a card or two, and rotate the deck, both of which can be done openly because a motivation for doing this is provided.

If you have the chops, you can easily add in sleights like an Erdnase Colour Change, to enhance aspects of the routine, and that is covered in the video tutorial.  But that's optional, and when all is said and done, Frost is very much on the easier side of things, and no real sleight of hand is required, which means you can focus on the presentation.



Other blank deck tricks

The concept of a blank deck begs comparison with other blank deck effects, the most well known of these of course being the Mental Photography deck.  A big difference is that the presentation of the Mental Photography deck has you to begin with a deck that is entirely blank, and then "print" cards.  I do really like that presentation, but the Mental Photography deck has some drawbacks as well.  One of the strengths of Frost is that you begin by apparently showing and handling a "normal" deck, so the instant that the entire deck turns blank becomes an incredibly surprising and completely unexpected magical moment.  Frost is also gaffed very differently, so you don't have to worry about operating with rough-and-smooth cards or anything like that.  In fact, Frost is much easier to use than the Mental Photography Deck in that respect.  The fact that you can incorporate Frost as a way to reveal a selected card is another positive, because it gives you more possibilities.  Personally I don't think Frost overlaps too much with the Mental Photography Deck, not just due to it using a completely different and easier method, but because it is really about a different effect, and because it can be used in combination with revealing a spectator's selection.

I've seen people compare Frost with other effects like Shin Lim's 52 Shades of Red.  I have no first-hand experience with this Shin Lim trick, other than knowing that 52 Shades of Red is heavily gimmicked in more unorthodox ways, whereas Frost is more of an ordinary deck that you can handle easily and that requires no sleight of hand.  Frost has also been compared with Dean Dill's Blizzard, which is a very popular trick that has been around for almost 20 years now. The effect of Blizzard involves your spectator freely naming any card, and after you take out that card and its three mates, you reveal that the named card is the only printed card in the deck while all the rest are blank.  It's a powerful trick, but it relies on a special gimmick, along with one very, very bold move.  This can create some practical challenges, and many magicians will simply be too nervous to do this.  Besides these there's plenty of other blank deck effects e.g. John Lovick's I Dream of Mindreading, Joshua Jay's Out of Sight, Caleb Wiles' Holy Blank, and others.  If you already have some blank deck tricks in your arsenal, you might pass on Frost.  But the method that Frost uses definitely makes it quite appealing, given how easy it is to use, and the different emphasis of its effect.



Other impressions

One nice thing about how Frost's deck is gaffed is how easy it is to display.  Once you're showing the backs as normal by fanning out the deck, you can immediately show the faces as normal, without needing to do any moves. What's more, when showing the faces to be blank you can also spread the cards quite wide, which really adds to the illusion that all the printing is completely gone.  And unlike some similar blank deck effects, the fact that you can show both sides to be printed, and then both sides to be blank, is a real strength of Frost.  It's worth highlighting that you genuinely can show virtually all the cards, because it's not as if the deck simply consists only of a bank of regular cards and a bank of bank cards, limiting you to just showing half of the deck.  So there are several elements that Frost offers in presentation that just aren't possible with some other blank deck tricks.

It won't come as a surprise that you can't hand the deck or the cards out for examination.  But that's true of the majority of blank deck tricks, due to the nature of the gaffed cards required.  You also can't show the full face and back of all the cards, although this can be done with some of the cards.  Because you display these as "convincers", there's no reason for your spectators to want to see the front and back of all the cards anyway.   What's more, when spreading the deck you can run through the entire deck, so your spectator also has no reason to think that he's only seeing part of the deck.  This can be an issue with the Mental Photography Deck, where you're really only showing half the cards with a double thickness, whereas in Frost you are genuinely showing all the cards from the entire deck on both sides, first printed and then blank.  By ruling out possible methods in your spectator's mind in this way, the end result feels more impossible.



Recommendation

To some extent Frost is a one-trick pony, in the sense that you're just going to use it for a single trick on its own.  But much like other popular gaff decks such as the Invisible Deck, the strength of the magic you can produce with this can make this worthwhile.  What's more, you aren't limited to just a single presentation, and can use this as a tool to do other things, such as by combining it with a spectator selecting a card and using it for the revelation.  Because Frost begins by having you show the cards as normal at the outset, you can also use it as a follow-up to a number of tricks performed with a regular deck, which will take the heat off the cards.  If you can find a way to ring in Frost with a deck switch after first performing some other card magic, you'd be set to produce a real miracle.

Admittedly the suggested retail price for Frost isn't cheap, clocking in at around $40.  But nowadays we're seeing a lot of marketed releases getting up around that price bracket, including specialty gaff decks used to perform a single routine (e.g. Brent Braun's Position Impossible).  Some tricks like Joshua Jay's Out Of Sight retail for almost double that at around $75.  But if you get a powerful routine that fries your audience, this price tag can be worth it.   The asking price will hold some people back, but given that the quality of the gaff deck itself is good, and that it's so easy to learn and perform, and that it comes with over half an hour of video instruction with tips and ideas, for many people Frost will be worth it.

A `blank deck' routine isn't exactly novel at this point, and the existing competition in this niche may cause the reception of Frost to be somewhat more `cool' than it deserves.  But Frost is something genuinely and entirely different from The Mental Photography deck, and deserves to be compared with other blank deck tricks rather than that classic.  It relies on a very different and yet clever method, is easy to use, and does offer some good possibilities for presentation and performance.  So if you like the idea of what you see in the trailer, then I definitely recommend giving Frost a look.

Frost is is available from your favorite Murphy's Magic retailer.

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