Twisted Blizzard

Grant

Disclaimer: I'm a total amateur hobbyist, and hardly a consummate professional.

This deck was one of my gateway drugs, as it were, into magic as a hobby, and any beginner looking to get into it would benefit from at least having Twisted Blizzard on the list of tricks for them to consider. The instructional DVD is fantastic, and will have you able to perform within minutes, regardless of your level of experience with magic. That said, experience has taught me that the surprise reveal of blank cards is the kind of thing that will get grabby hands on your cards, risking exposing the gimmick and making you look foolish. Make sure you establish early on in your patter that you want them to pick a card *without touching the cards*; later, you can justify it as wanting to keep the cards in pristine, white condition. Leave the cards visible on the table long enough for it to sink in that the only card with printing on it has been miraculously been selected, then pack up the cards and move on.

I personally perform a slight variation with a religious flavor. The spectator is asked to pick a card to represent Jesus; a King of Hearts from an ungimmicked deck is forced (I use the glide force, but any force that doesn't flash faces or involve the spectator touching the cards is suitable, such as the riffle force). Patter about how you hope they didn't pick the King of Hearts, because that would be cliché and terrible, then reveal the forced card and demand a completely different card be picked that isn't a King and isn't Hearts. Go into the normal routine, patter about Isaiah 1:18 ("Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow"), and show how the rest of the cards that aren't Jesus, though they're red on the backs, are white as snow on the faces! Twisted Blizzard scarcely requires religion to be an impressive trick, though; I merely cite this as an example of how it can be adapted to personal style. The patter is pretty much a blank slate waiting for you to do something with it. :)