SHIELD by Biagio Fasano

S.H.I.EL.D. (SelfWorking Honestly Impromptu Effect: card Location in the Deck) is a collection of four of my latest automatic card magic effects, never previously published, characterized by the fact that they can be performed with extreme ease, requiring no technique or manipulation by the magician, and being completely impromptu, performable even with a deck borrowed and shuffled by the audience.

The first and last effects, “Say My Name!” and “The Final Countdown”, in addition to being fully automatic, can be performed entirely in “contactless mode”: the magician, after handing the deck of cards to the spectator, will simply give him the instructions to follow and will not touch the cards again until the effect is concluded. The only trick that needs a little preparation is the third: “Game of Life,” but this will be performed openly in front of the spectators and will be an integral part of the effect.

I consider each effect to be a magician fooler, having managed to amaze many conjurer friends with each of them as well, whom I thank for giving me their time and providing some useful suggestions.

These are the 4 card effects included:

Say My Name!

A deck of cards, shuffled at will by the spectator, is cut on sight into three piles, according to the instructions of the magician and the spectator himself, who immediately afterwards chooses a card and loses it in the deck. By separating the deck at different points, four bundles are formed and the spectator is asked to choose one of the four cards that now stand on top of each. Having reassembled the entire deck, it will be precisely by pronouncing the name of the chosen card and matching each letter of the spelling with a card taken from the top, that the spectator will incredibly come to find his own card!

Assistant & Magician

From a borrowed shuffled deck, the illusionist draws the card that a spectator will have chosen to represent him as assistant and another to represent the magician himself instead. The viewer will then cut the deck into three packets and from the middle one choose and memorize the top card and then loses it in the deck. the assistant, by means of his card, will immediately eliminate a good half of the deck, leaving it to the magician and his card to incredibly find the chosen card by means of a few more discard operations.

Game of Life

From a deck are drawn the 16 cards, pictures and aces, representing the 4 elements and 4 different types of life forms on our planet. Having chosen a card to represent an attempt to create life from chaos, despite various shuffles and dealings the spectator will incredibly find himself separating the cards first by color, then by suit until he finds himself in his hands uniquely the card chosen just before at random!

The Final Countdown

A deck of cards, also borrowed, is given to a spectator to shuffle at will; then he is asked to cut it into three piles as equal as possible. After the viewer has chosen a card from the middle pack and lost it in the deck the illusionist says he can find such a card solely through “body reading,” and to this end, he invites the spectator to remain impassive as he turns over the cards one by one from the top of the deck to show them to him. Despite this, at one point the magician will confess that in fact the success of the experiment is based solely on the spectator’s subconscious, as it is impossible for it not to betray the expectation of the arrival of the chosen card. In fact, to give a demonstration of this, he will begin a brief countdown corresponding to each of the cards that below the spectator will turn over, and, having arrived at the fateful zero, before allowing him to turn over the matching card, he will ask him to reveal aloud what the chosen card was. In general amazement, it will be seen to be that very card!