Magic Tricks

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Received my DEX today. First, let me qualify myself with indexes and at the same time give you my bias. Well, that's entertaining right there.

I have been messing with indexes for longer than some of you have been alive. I created my own index for the purpose of one trick. That trick was to have somebody freely name a card and then within seconds pull that card from mid air. I still perform that regularly in my walk around gigs.


I can retrieve "any" card from my index within 3 to 5 seconds, remove it in palm, transfer to backpalm and voila - out of thin air - your chosen card.


That's my bias - I think I have the best index available. This is not a sales pitch, because I don't sell my index. In fact I posted it freely in the cafe last February to anyone who wanted to give it a go. I haven't fully shared all of my tweaks, but the ground work is all you need to understand there can't be a whole lot better out there. At least that's my opinion.


On to DEX. Upon opening you will discover a very underwhelming looking utility device. You know this from the start if you had a chance to view some of the video early that accompanies DEX. Lloyd and Javier both say that the end result does not justify the amount of effort they put into this project. I agree, they came at this thing hard, but at the end sacrificed beauty for workability.


I wanted to like this, I really did. I'm an index junkie, and have purchased most of them out there, and made dozens of my own variations. And with all the hype and delays on this thing, I expected gold!


The concept here is a good one, and the video they put out with it is top of the line stuff...but that's all I got!


The actual product doesn't look very healthy. It basically looks to me like they simply stair stepped vinyl packet wallets and glued them all together. People are already complaining about the thing coming apart in various places, and mostly at the bottom. I put 48 cards in it, and I was nervous. I honestly cannot imagine somebody using this on a regular basis , and not having it fall apart. In and out of your pocket, jamming your fingers in tight spots to pull cards from cheap vinyl - what do you think will happen?


Funny to see how friends of Lloyd weigh in on this. The more I watch of the video, and then look at my DEX, the more I"m convinced there's a lot of "misdirection" in both advertising, hype, and finished product. Craig Petty posts an hour and thirteen minute video with Javier and Lloyd making this sound like the best thing that's happened to magic in years!


Gotta love the opening line -

"Welcome to Magic TV - today I'm chatting with two of the biggest names in magic right now. The entire industry is talking about these two."

Give me a freakin break Craig. You might as well have said - "Today I'm chatting with two of my best friends in magic, and we need to move some DEX units!

Don't get me wrong, I think Javier and Lloyd are both incredible assets to the magic community, as thinkers, inventors and teachers. But - "Two of the biggest names in magic right now - and, the "entire" industry is talking about these two"?

I'm guessing 95% of the industry has never heard these two names!

And Craig also called this DEX a "game changer"

It's a freakin card index Craig! A cheaply made card index - That's all - and it has issues!


Again, going through the videos, they make it seem like they've spent two years grinding this thing out,and finally arriving at some incredibly fine tuned precision crafted index!

They talk about trying different glues, and each unit handcrafted,special steps added to ensure perfect set up, the right material to use - on and on.

Nothing was fabricated, and the best materials were definitely not used for this project!

They purchased thosuands of cheap vinyl packet trick card wallets and glued then together to create something you could have done for $6.

Then they walk back the issues it's having and tell you to use a rubberband to hold the thing together.

The sad part about this is - it's Javier and Lloyd, both extremely talented, likeable and giving magicians. But I think they really did us wrong with this one.