The Destiny Effect by Michael Kras

This effect from Michael Kras comes packaged in a 13 page PDF file that you get for $10 ($5 occasionally on sale). In the trick, you walk up to a total stranger and have them name/pick a card. And then you reveal their name on the back of the random card they just named. Sounds great, right?

Well, there's some heavy memory involved here. 52 things you need to know, which will take quite a while to get ready/practice/memorize and possibly even make some crib notes in case you forget a few. Plus, it doesn't work 100% of the time. So you'll need some type of out or else find a different spectator that qualifies for a performance. And lastly, you need to carry around an obscure gimmick or use a very old move for the final convincer. Even worse, after the cards become older or suffer weathering, the gimmick may be exposed, and the card cannot be examined or handed out once you're done.

If you're willing to put forth the main effort of memorizing 52 items, you'd probably be much better off just doing so with a deck of cards, which opens up a HUGE variety of additional effects instead of just this one. There are a variety of great memorized decks available (Tamariz, Shadow Stack, Joyal, etc).

All those bad things aside, showing someone their name on the back of a card with no pre-show work would be quite startling. However the negatives heavily outweigh the one shocking moment (at least to me).

I will not be using this, and rate it 6/10.

Thank you for a thorough review!

I do wish to clarify one point, however... there is virtually no memory work involved with The Destiny Effect. Your deck is limited to 52 names of course, but they will be the most common 52 names in your area (I've included name charts in the PDF where I've listed the most common male and female names by age in North America) and I've never had to memorize them. Learning the spectator's name will immediately 'trigger' whether or not the name is in your deck. All you need is to be acquainted with the names in your deck, but memorizing all 52 in order is not necessary.