It is essentially a deck of 52 different colourful cartoon style designs with regular Bicycle backs.  There are all manner of animals and vegetables but as far as I know no minerals (unless you count the bottle of coke!).  In addition to more normal items there are also a number of more ‘magical’ ones – wands, top hats etc.

The artwork is attractive and would be especially appealling to children.  Having discussed the cards with a number of other magicians we could see a whole load of applications for them – from normal card tricks for children who might find it easier to remember they had selected a ‘dog’ than a seven of clubs – to packet type tricks.

There’s a matching ‘gaff’  deck called Fake’n’Genious which have various special cards to co-ordinate – e.g. a broken heart, an empty coke bottle etc.  Together this would open up a lot of possibilities.

We have two minor criticisms. Firstly, there is only one of each individual design in the pack. If you just want to incorporate individual cards into a normal deck for a punch finish, this is fine. But typically in any kind of packet trick you would need multiple versions of the same image (with the noble exception of Colour Monte and variants!) – which would require several decks of cards.

Secondly, and related to this, is price. The price point is a wee bit steep if you are wanting more than one deck. If they could get the price point down a bit that would make quite a difference.  And at around £20 for the matching fake deck I’m struggling to see the market.  Of course, from one point of view you would pay that much for a trick, and this is potentially enough for several tricks, but from another point of view you’re paying £20 for a pack of cards!

But there are lots of possibilities here, and the images will certainly get your imagination going.  Fast’n’Genius Deck is available from MA Pro Magic (who kindly supplied a review deck) for £12.21.

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