The World's Greatest Card Trick by Héctor Mancha Review

Welcome to Real Magic Review, my name is Steve Faulkner and this is the World's Greatest Card Trick by Hector Mancha. Before we do this, can you please like and subscribe? Subscribe even. Check out onlinemagic.co, that's my membership site. I'm so proud of it. 10 years in the making, loads of great Trustpilot reviews from genuine members. This isn't my mates getting along and trying to bump up the reviews. Any questions, you've got onlinemagic.co. 900 videos, special guests all the time, a new course on rubber band magic, there's a course on rope magic, the course on coin magic from beginner right up to professional, and loads and loads of card stuff, of course, because I love it. And, exciting times, I finally got my podcast together because I was waiting for a format I was really, really happy with. Now there is a Ask Steve show, which is just me answering your questions, so any questions at all, onlinemagic.co, including questions about the thing that we're gonna be talking about today, because I'm sure there will be many, but my interview show is, it's still Steve Fulton's Magic Show, so it's just on the same podcast, but it's Beyond the Wand, and this is where me and a guest create a first meeting with someone they've always wanted to meet, and we ask a load of questions around that to get not just into the magic side of it, but out of the magic as well, to see how magicians take it. The first interview was with Noel Qualter. It was an absolute joy. I'm just smiling now, so it's so much fun. Do check out that, Beyond the Wand, which is part of Steve's online, Steve Fulton's Magic Show, which is wherever you get your podcasts. Give it a search. Right, let's get on with the review. This has been a big talking point. The mistake they've made, I think, is it says download. It's not a download. This is a session you have with Hector Mancha where he teaches you this incredible trick that he performed on Penn & Teller. You watch the trick. I'll put, obviously, clips of the Penn & Teller performance on here. Car, any car in the world, 52 cars, and you said the six of clubs, and this is not only the six of clubs. But the point of this is you pay, and let's have a look at the current price, which I think we'll stay at that price, 435 pounds, so $500, I presume that is, to have a session with Hector where he coaches you through this trick, teaches you the trick, and says, look, if you still can't get it, come back and call me if you have any problems. It's a personal experience you're getting. Now, whether that's worth 435 pounds to you is irrelevant at this point. I'm just telling you what it is. So this is a new format. It's not something that's really been done before. Well, it has obviously been done because I receive coaching from people like Steve Reynolds on Zoom. So Zoom coaching and things like that isn't a new thing, but to go on someone like Vanishing Inc. and say, this is the trick you're getting, again, it says download, but it's an experience you have where you learn this routine. But why is it 435 pound? Is it 435 pound because it's the greatest card trick ever made or ever created or the world's greatest card trick? Well, that's a subjective thing, and that's a title for the trick. And of course, people say, well, it's not. I think this is the world's greatest card trick. That's not, that's, obviously, that's tongue-in-cheek. It should be taken with a pinch of salt. I know for a fact Hector does believe it's the world's greatest card trick as I've just had the session with him and I finished the session half an hour ago. Well, how can you review something you've only finished half an hour ago? I'm a card worker. I know I can do the thing, right? Without a doubt. So I know how hard it is. I know what certain people's experience with the trick will be based on the trick that I've just seen and the learning I've just had. It's £435 because Hector is spending his time coaching you through it. It is also that price because he doesn't want everybody just going download, click, right, I'm gonna have it, and everybody knowing about it, and most people that know about it not performing it because it's something that he's worked on for a couple of years, honing it down, performing it loads. You get the rights to perform this thing. You get more than one version, which we'll talk about in a minute. So that's what you're paying for. He, and I agree with him, and Noel Coulter did a similar thing with his pen and tell routine. So I don't want people just having it and just talking about it and not putting the work in. Then it becomes about just knowing how it's done a lot of the time, and it's too important to him for that. Now, some people say it's just about money. I tell you, my thoughts on this is that you would make way more money if you charged less for this. Very few people are gonna want to say, right, I'm gonna spend this money because I just wanna know it's done. The people who spend this money are gonna want to put it in their show. If you're putting in a show, most people are gonna be making that money back with their first gig, unless they're doing comedy clubs and stuff like that, it might take a few. So this is for the professional entertainer. Now, if you compare this price, and I'm not, this is no affiliation. I've got no, I know people say, oh, Vanishing Inc send you stuff and you feel obliged to, Vanishing Inc and everybody always say to me, as did Hector himself today, please don't be biased in this review. I want you to be honest. I'm gonna share it with you, just say what you think. So nobody ever kind of says, I'll send you this if you're positive about it. It's never happened. Okay, it's not expected. And to be honest, if someone did stop sending me stuff because I gave a negative review, I'd be totally happy with that. I got way too much to review anyway, so we're all good. This is my genuine thought of, I can see exactly why you've done this. I saw why Noel sold his trick that he spent so much time doing for 100 quid because he did not want it just to be common knowledge. And also, piracy comes into it. You get it, download it, or sticking it on there for a couple of quid. I'd be gutted if my stuff was on there and I'm sure it will be sometimes. You wanna avoid all that. You also get with this a follow-up video, which is not the basic idea, which you don't need, again, to stop piracy, but the other bits and pieces that you'll want to kind of reference after this. So you're not taking loads of notes, even though I did. So that's the reasoning. The reason I'm surprised is because Vanishing Inc. are very, very clear. This is not gonna be for everybody. 99.9% of people aren't gonna be interested because they're not gonna take it on, and say, this isn't for you. This is for those people that will think of putting this in a show. So there's really nothing to be upset about. There's tricks that I'd love to have that are 500 pound, 1,000 pound, but I'd love to have them, but I'm not gonna use them. So I just go, all right, I'm not gonna have that then. It seems expensive, but there you go, not for me. I would also say that coming from, and I think Rory Adams mentioned something like this. Do not quote me on that. I don't want to upset anybody, but someone said, you know, for a consultancy fee, which this kind of is, that isn't very much. You know, you're spending time with someone and having that option to go back to them. And to be honest, if I came up with someone who's coaching people through it, I wouldn't want to be spending 12 hours a day doing it. So I'd whack a fair fee on it. But what you're gonna want to know is, is it a good trick? How realistic is it? Is anybody be getting and going, oh, I can't do that. First of all, the Zoom session was wonderful. It was a great experience. Hector is a lovely human being. You can just tell. He's not the sort of person that's gonna hype something up, annoy people, send people off after a Zoom meeting being disappointed. He genuinely, you know, look at his stuff. You get a feel for this. You can read, but we all know when people are like that, and he's not doing any of that. He's not sitting there sort of counting his money going, ha ha ha ha. You know, none of that's going on. And then we're not mates. I've never really met him. I met him like very briefly, I think. I just like his stuff. That's not happening. He showed me the basic version trick, which is the version that he'd done on, did on Penn & Teller, that he'd done on Penn & Teller, that he did on Penn & Teller, which is great. You get someone out, you have a deck of cards. You go through the scripting that he gives you and tells you why he's doing the scripting, all that. You go through that, and you will be able to do that trick. You will have to prepare something. It takes minutes, but the preparation is obviously in the rehearsal and the practice, which doesn't take minutes. This is, I would say, low intermediate card work, no passes, no kind of difficult things to do. You're gonna be able to do this. If you look at that trick and you already do shows, you're gonna be able to do the trick. And it says on the publicity, you're not gonna be able to do this in the morning and take it out in the evening. Of course, I'd never dream of doing that, but I reckon if you got it in the morning and worked really hard in the daytime, most people would be able to do it at a level that isn't really good enough. But the point is, there's no moves you're gonna have to learn that are anything harder than you already do if you're handy with a deck of cards. So if you're looking at that and going, that's the trick, you're gonna get that, without a doubt. Now, then he said, there's the pro version. This is the one that he says, this is my, this is, you know, he's so pleased with the other one, but this is his thing that he's like, just mind blowing. They kind of even makes it even more perfect, which is, you don't have a deck, you don't even need a spectator. You can get someone in the audience to phone someone, do it all with them. You have one playing card. No deck you found, but there's one playing card in the glass. You go through the thing, show the spectator on the phone, and it's that playing card. He completely falls, just like, surely not. And I got that kind of feeling that we don't get, mate, that sort of tingle of going, no, I thought he was gonna go through a thing. I thought he made, there may be a dual reality thing going on. None of that's happening. The spectator on the phone sees the thing that they're seeing. There's no dual reality. He's not sort of signaling them, anything like that. It's spontaneous. There's no pre-show. I will allow the only thing that people might see as pre-show, which isn't pre-show, is what he says is that before he does it on stage, and if he's gonna get the thing where he gets someone to FaceTime someone, because he says, is there anybody that you can FaceTime? So you're not constantly FaceTiming people and they're not in. So no pre-show. The version he did, the pro version, is gonna take a bit more work. And as it says on the website, you're gonna have to make a gimmick up. Now, the thing you do to prepare for the basic version, basic, is gonna take minutes. And if you forget to do it, there's a way of getting around that. The other version is gonna take a little bit of time. You're gonna have to buy one thing probably for about $8. Don't quote me on that, which you'll be able to get in 24 hours. But a lot of you will probably have one of these things and you're gonna have to spend a bit of time creating a thing that allows you to do it. But it's very simple. Everybody's gonna be able to do it. And then the process itself of doing the pro version, when you see it, and if he was just to tell you about it, you'd go, oh, that sounds. But then when he shows you, and this is the point of the Zoom, you go, I didn't see that at all. And you're a spectator in that moment. And I don't think you get this as much on just a download. I think that fact that he's telling you why he's doing this thing, getting to this position, we do that. It's all justified and very, very important and very easy. And there's not loads of things to remember. There's just a few things. You can take your time, do this, this, this. And there's all the routine you need to not worry about the bit where you might go, oh, that's a bit bold. Just brilliant. Both of those to me, for a card worker, are gonna be quite easy. There's nothing in there that makes me go, if I spent a week on it, I'd be doing it next week. Of course, then I would have to get it better and better and better. But technically, there's nothing too demanding. Very clever. I haven't seen anything out there similar, but don't, some of you might have, but it's, that's just brilliant. And he's got versions if you're in a theatre with no Wi-Fi signal, he's got this great version where you just make a video with someone. So it's not, you're not videoing, calling anyone. You're gonna put your video on, I'll make you a video. So you do this, they can keep it. He's got a great version as well where you can get someone to go on Instagram Live and great for publicity and get their followers to watch the trick. So, that's all good. People have said, oh, do you need a phone? The minute you get a phone out, there's a problem. But it's not your phone. It's their phone. And it's not an app. You literally, they're calling someone. Yes, it's a phone, but it's, you're taking your phone out of your pocket and FaceTiming someone. And people say, why don't you use a stranger or something like that? No, I love the stranger app. The stranger app is stunning, but it's a completely different trick. You're not getting anybody out and going FaceTime anybody on your phone. They may remember it kind of that way, but it's not. It's a different thing. You're, they're FaceTiming anybody at all. It's, remember their family. As he said, the beauty of this trick isn't, I mean, obviously it is the perfection of the trick, but it's the play that you can get out of the fact that you're talking to someone on FaceTime. They could be at work. They could be in bed. There's so much you can play with. And that's where I think if you see the Penn & Teller version, part of me was going, yeah, it's a beautiful trick, but I've done how it's done. It's brilliant. But it was only in him talking about that, that I saw the potential in it. And for, you know, he says there's 10 minutes sometimes playing and improvising around the person on the phone. And it's, it's completely fresh to you because you don't know who that's going to be. Genuinely. So there's no Stooges, no proper pre-show, as we've said. Nothing that's going to make you go, oh, I don't like doing that. It's all, it feels like a proper card trick. No tech. And interestingly, it feels like a trick with tech. And by that, I mean that those miracles that we usually perform are usually because of tech. I thought that when I saw this. And if it was tech, I think most people would go, all right, fair enough. 500 quid. Do you know what I mean? But if, but we're looking at the, it's almost worth more because nothing's ever going to fail on you. It's, it's going to be totally within your hands and your control. And I love tech, of course, but you know, I feel way happier doing something like this. And it's really not what I thought it was. I've watched that Penn & Teller video again, and I couldn't, and I thought, I thought I had it. And then we showed it to me. It was actually simpler and easier than I thought. And I just went, this is great. Close up magic. Yes, you could do it close up. You put a table there and you were back there. But it's, it's made really for parlor and stage this, which again, just if you want to have a great closeup treat, you don't have to make 500 pounds for it. You might want to, but I think this is for stage and parlor. It's really, really amazing. I think not just because of the trick, but for me, because of what it gives you, the experience, the performance time, I'm not going to make any promises, but there is something in me watching this going, I don't see why I wouldn't put this in my show. I did a show the week weekend and I had a great show. And I started with a card thing, which is fine, but I'm looking at the card bit. And then I did a couple of other things that are really solid. And I think there's not quite there. I was watching a video and going, there needs to be something more solid down. I'm looking at this going, it's just perfect. And it's a perfect closer as well. I don't know what else to say. It is not for everybody. If you're watching this going, well, he's just being really nice about it. Cause he's got it for free and all that. If it wasn't worth it, I would, I almost wanted to tell you, cause I know what people are thinking. He's always positive. But again, would Hector have, offered to take me through this process, exactly how he takes everybody through the process. If he didn't truly believe in it. And this is the thing I have to keep saying it again and again and again. Nobody's going to send stuff, which they're not really, really into. And similarly, if you get free stuff, it's not that you're biased, you're more biased. I would be more biased if I spent money on something. Cause I want loads of hits. And I would want to have a really slated, if I get loads of hits, I'll say it's brilliant, get loads of hits. You know, if I was buying it and spending 500 quid on it, I'd want that money to be kind of, you know, translated in some way. So I can just say, that's all right. And this isn't, it's great. I think Hector's great anyway. The, in that way I am biased. And I think, I'd be very, very surprised if anybody has this experience, walks away from it with that knowledge and the thing that they can do and goes, ah, it wasn't worth it at all. The only way you're going to think that is, if you're not a performer and this is made for performers. And like me, if you're a hobbyist as well, this isn't probably for you. You know, I've got all this stuff for my hobby side. This is my performance side. I know this is rambly, but hopefully it answers all your questions. Let me just have a quick look and see if there's anything in the publicity that, not even certain magicians will balk at the price. So, so if you're busy professional performer, we think this is worthy of the highest consideration, especially when you take into account, you only need to book a gig or two before. Yeah. I mean, so you're getting a complete performance license for the trick. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, if I had this all money and I wanted that kind of trick, I haven't, you know, it's not something that I've got, I haven't got sort of that money to put into things, but I have if I needed a closer for a show and a cruise ship, you know, so there you go. Right. Waffle, waffle, waffle again. But I just, now I'm going to get some feedback on this. I'm wanting to kind of answer your questions before you ask them. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you for all of your comments. Even if you disagree with me, thank you for them. I really, really love reading them. And it means an awful lot. So please like, and subscribe, please share this. Thank you for spending time with me, Hector. It was a great start to the day. And he showed me something else. He's working well. And I was just like, that was great as well. So now please go and have a look at online magic.co like this. I don't think anybody's going to walk away going, that wasn't worth it. Any questions, you've got Steve at online magic.co and the podcast of course, Steve's magic show. And the interview I just did with Noel Qualter was just great beyond the wand. So check that out where we talk about magic and loads of non-magic stuff. And I've got a lovely interview. I'm recording Wednesday. So look out for the next version of that. Take care. See you later. Bye.