The History of the Jerx Decks
/Jerx Deck #1
This was the deck that was included with the very first book I released. Features custom jokers and Ace of Spades.
This deck was printed by Expert Playing Card Company.
Jerx Deck #2: Squishers
Based on the Bulldog Squeezers back design.
This deck also includes a fake advertising card that’s used for a reveal in a trick of mine called Shitshow. I’ll include a pdf with instructions for that trick with any orders for this deck.
Jerx Deck #3 - Fannies
This is probably the dumbest idea for a Jerx deck, and hence, one of my favorites.
The idea started as a joke in this post, and became a reality a few years later.
Instead of red and black pips, this deck uses brown and pink pips which allow a new equivocal statement (as explained in the post above).
The back design continues the butt/vagina duality of the equivoque.
Jerx Deck #4 - Mushroom Sprites
The viral sensation. Millions of views on TikTok can now be yours.
The Goodfriends Greeting Company (a Christian greeting cards and other paper goods company based in the midwest U.S.) put out this deck in 1974. The card backs were intended to be delicate fairies dancing around the head of a mushroom. That’s… not what other people saw in the back. (It’s still unknown if the designer intended this.) The deck was pulled from the shelves weeks after its release. They sat in storage for decades until 2020 when the remaining decks were finally made available. Or so you tell people.
Jerx Deck #5 - Empoisonneurs
I wrote years ago about why it’s good to have a “bad marked deck.” My idea there is basically this… People already know about the concept of “marked decks,” but most people have never seen one. So if you show them a bad marked deck, but you just act as if it’s a normal marked deck. Then they will assume marked decks are much less useful than they really are.
It’s similar to the concept in magic where you talk about “palming” a card and openly expose a bad palm. If people assume palming involves a stiff, cramped hand, with part of the card peeking out, they’ll be less apt to think of palming when you use it later and your hand looks normal.
With the Empoisonneurs, I made a professionally printed “bad marked deck.”
As I write in the instructions for this marked deck, what makes it bad is:
1. It's labelled on the card case as a marked deck. ("The first thing you can do to check for a marked deck is look at the card case. By law all of them need to indicate it's a marked deck. So if you don't see that, you're probably safe.")
2. The markings are easy to spot.
3. But the markings require a lot of work to decode.
4. You need to see the full back of the card to know the markings.
5. The markings only work in one orientation of the card, and it's very difficult to know the orientation of the card.
If you purchase this deck, I’ll send you a pdf explaining the general ways of how I introduce it into an interaction with the people I perform for.