A "Triumph" Card Magic Trick Method

Among all the plots in card magic, Triumph is surely one of the most iconic—at least among magicians.

The idea of the effect is simple: in a deck of cards, face-up and face-down cards are shuffled together. At the climax of the effect, the performer reveals that all the cards have returned to the same orientation—and in versions where a card was previously selected, that card ends up as the only one facing the opposite way.

That, in short, is Triumph. Many believe the plot was invented by Dai Vernon, though that’s not exactly true. Vernon was the first to give this effect its name, in 1961.

Before that year, several magicians had already played with the premise of mixing face-up and face-down cards, often ending the routine with the deck restored to a single orientation.

According to Conjuring Credits, the first to do this was Theodore DeLand in 1914, with his effect Inverto. For those unfamiliar—DeLand is the unsung hero behind much of modern card magic, having invented many of the gaffs and printed gimmicks we still use today.

The methods typically used to accomplish Triumph fall into two camps: those based on sleight-of-hand, and those relying on gaffs and gimmicks.

In terms of sleight-of-hand, Vernon himself was the one who began consistently applying false shuffles to this plot.

Often, we associate Triumph with a gambling-style, tabled effect involving multiple riffle shuffles and so on. That said, there are notable exceptions—versions that employ technique more loosely and with different stylistic choices, like the well-known handling by Dani DaOrtiz.

As for gimmick-based approaches, the two most well-known methods are the use of double-backer cards and the stripper deck.

Both are among the most common gaffs in magic: the first allows you to show a shuffled deck from one side and an ordered one from the other; the stripper deck, on the other hand, lets you "strip out" cards facing the opposite direction.

About 90% of all Triumph versions you'll find use one of those three methods. And there's nothing wrong with that—except that we've become so accustomed to the look of those methods that many versions replicate that look even when it's unnecessary.

It's as if we’ve started carrying around restrictions that don’t need to be there. Triumph doesn’t have to be an effect based on riffle shuffles. It doesn’t have to involve passive spectator participation. It doesn’t even need to be built around the idea of spreading the cards on the table.

If you’ve made it this far, you're about to learn a version that avoids all of that, using a method anyone can do, regardless of skill level. The method is basic, but the effect’s interpretation is different—and it’s built to be interactive.

A magic company’s ad might say: this is a Triumph that happens in the spectator’s hands. And it’s true.

The Effect

The performer and spectator each take half of a deck and begin shuffling it by throwing packets onto the table alternately, forming a new, random order together.

At some point, the performer turns over some face-up cards and throws them onto the pile together with the face-down cards thrown by the spectator, creating a mix of face-up and face-down cards. The spectator can take other cards and turn them face-up as they please, continuing the shuffle. Eventually, they’re asked to think of any card.

The two take half the pile each again, but this time, the performer asks the spectator to imagine that every card returns to the same direction the moment it leaves their hand and lands on the table.

And that’s what happens: the cards from both packets begin returning to a unified orientation as they’re dealt onto the table. All except one—the one chosen by the spectator.