When I was starting to write my Happy New Year 2026 post, I included a part that mentioned "I spent a lot less on magic this year.", but I thought about it and I don't think that's entirely true, though it does feel like it on a higher level.

This post is less to put a dollar amount to things and more to see, for myself, whether I've been careless with my "budget for magic" during 2025. Let's find out together, shall we?

Subscriptions

I'm going to start out with listing the subscriptions I have; they seem to be the easiest to enumerate off the top of my head and I will say the most about them, individually.

Vanishing Inc., Masterclass

Coming in at $50 per month, this gets me access to the monthly Masterclass lectures, plus the "VI Studio" to stream a bunch of other videos on demand. It used to give free shipping on all orders too, but now that's available for all customers if I recall correctly.

While it's been great, I don't think it's entirely worth it for me anymore. I'm currently watching Ryan Plunkett's Masterclass, which is from 2023. I haven't gotten to any of the ones from 2024 or 2025 yet...

Genii Magazine

I always buy the 3-year subscription to Genii, both physical and digital, and I technically bought it in 2024 so it doesn't really count against my 2025 budget. It's $159 total though, so if we wanted to break it down annually for the sake of argument, that's a solid $53 for 12 issues of the magazine.

I'll be writing another post or two about Genii coming up soon, but I'll leave it as "this one's not going anywhere!"

One Ahead

I started subscribing to the digital newsletter "One Ahead" back in 2023. It was a Black Friday special, $52 and it came with a physical book. I must have blinked and missed 2024's renewal, because when I got the receipt for the 2025 renewal coming in at $100, whoa.

This one's going to be on the chopping block for me; I've found no use from it. I know I said "digital newsletter", but that's only because their blog posts get sent out in an email (e.g., "digital newsletter") too. The posts are hit-or-miss useful for me as a hobbyist magician, and the things I catch the most are calls to upgrade my membership or pay more for this year's book, etc.

I'm all for supporting other magicians, but in a world where my free time is in the negatives, this one's too expensive to make the cut.

The Jerx

I'm a supporter of The Jerx, at the R.U.M. level, and I don't see that status changing anytime soon (at least, not by me). Though his writing style is not super welcoming to younger magicians, I'm not a younger magician so it kind of works out for me =P

Tricks

The "Tricks" category includes individual "tricks", which could be a video tutorial only, or something like Ties (which I bought five 10 packs of). I was going through my online orders, since I didn't visit a physical magic shop throughout the year, and I was happy because I didn't really buy a ton. I picked up: Ties, H20 (video tutorial only), Seeing Stones, Rope + Professor's Nightmare (tutorial), Notion of Motion, Cryptext 2.5, and One Coin Routine (by Azim Guliyev).

These online purchases came up to a whopping $288. I was happy with this! Until... I remembered I also attended FISM and visited the many, many booths they had. I'll enumerate the tricks I picked up there in a separate post, but those came in at a total of around $300 too. So, yeah.

Books + Videos

Any type of book, booklet, lecture notes, or video (that teaches more than one trick) fall into this section. I... well, these all came in at around $1,100 for the year 😱

I did get some pretty decent deals on books and picked up 24 books in total -- all physical, no "e-books". The biggest chunk of change was for Marlo's Magazines and 6 (by Dani DaOrtiz). The former were 6 very large volumes, the latter was one very tiny book. Almost a booklet, if it didn't have a hard cover.

Decks

Normally, yeesh. Normally I spend way too much on decks of playing cards. My goal is to always use them, and I rarely do. I go through one or two decks a week and yet my collection has always grown at a faster pace than that, so I legit have a few thousand just sitting and collecting dust. This past year though, I cut back substantially! I spent just over $200 on decks, and those were for Mystery Decks by both Art of Play and Dan & Dave -- two separate orders. The latter has arrived already, very shortly after ordering. The ones from Art of Play though, I've been waiting a few weeks for them and they're still not here!

Now, to caveat the above... on Kickstarter I backed 6 different campaigns for decks of playing cards. These came in a total less than about $500. None of these are decks that I'd use for magic though, they were purely art based and to help support the creators. Since they are playing cards, I feel like I should mention them here and include them in the budget.

FISM

As mentioned above, I went to FISM! I'll be writing all about that trip separately, but let's throw a rough ballpark cost for the FISM ticket, flight, and Airbnb at about $2500. I'll omit food, and the actual goodies I purchased were included above already. I would say that it was more expensive because it was hosted in Italy, but that's similar pricing to anywhere in the U.S. too.

Putting it Altogether

If we exclude FISM, but not the things I bought from there, the total I spent on "magic" in 2025 comes in around $3,441. It's closer to $6k if I lump in FISM's costs -- but let's pretend that attending conventions is magically free =P

Again, ignoring FISM because that was a thought-out and predetermined cost, over $3400 in a year is... well, a lot. Honestly, it's more than I thought I spent this past year. I was trying to cut back a bit, especially on decks. Why "cut back"? Not because I'm losing interest -- not in the slightest, I still read (or watch) nearly everyday and I do practice every day. But, my library is already overflowed and I have more videos that I'll ever be able to watch. Buying more, in a sense, takes away from what I have.

I'm getting a puppy in a week or so from now. I only mention that because, if you're not aware, taking care of a puppy is a lot of work during the first month or two. Magifest is at the end of January, so I won't be attending this year... because of the puppy. I also don't attend the summer conferences (normally in Vegas), so we can assume conventions are out of the equation this year. Though, I've been keeping my eye on TRICS (held in North Carolina in November). We'll see!

I always say I'll cut back on Kickstarter campaigns, but every once in a while something really nice catches my eye. Only time will tell there.

And as for books... well, it's the first week of the year and I already spent close to $300 on a handful on eBay. Yay me!

I performed Socks for my family (err, for one of my kids only) and he went crazy for it! I have both the regular and holiday edition and it was Christmas, so holiday socks were adorned.

If you're familiar with the trick, this post's kind of a review and alteration idea. If you're not familiar with the trick, well, it involves socks.

I've always disliked the idea of having the cards "fix themselves" as the kicker; it's neat, but in my opinion once you show your socks matching, you've directed the spectator's attention away from "cards". I was thinking that a better presentation would be to break it up into multiple phases.

Phase 1 - A Matching Pair

The first phase would have the spectator finding a matching pair of socks from a shuffled pack. That's one pack, not one from the left pack and one from the right.

Having both packets of cards put together, there are different ways to have this prepped to go into the full routine later but I think the easiest is to just have  the original right and left packets setup and "offset" from the get-go, and then just place one of the packets on top of the other. They'll look shuffled, mostly because you'll be showing the audience a deck that has pictures of socks and not numbers with pips.

You'd need to be able to force two cards, one from the top half of the packet and one from the bottom. They would be in known-number positions, assuming you set up the deck ahead of time and didn't mess up any false shuffles, so you'd have plenty of forces to choose from.

So phase 1 would end with the spectator -- or even two separate spectators now that I think about it -- selecting two identical socks!

It would be easy to leave that pair out of the deck after they select them; otherwise, you'll need to replace them into the exact places they were removed from.

Phase 2 - Matching the Pack

The second phase would have the pack split into two, shown to be non-matching, and then magically "fixed" so that each card from both packets match.

Continuing directly from phase 1, you can false shuffle the entire deck if you want and then split it into two. If you remember what the bottom card of the top packet should be, this shouldn't require any counting or even a faro check, just make sure it's the right sock and you're good to go.

At this point, I would run through the regular handling and display of the trick. Showing the top card from each pile at the same time, setting aside the two cards the spectator stops you at, and then running through the rest of the cards. Then, you can start revealing that the piles have somehow magically sorted themselves while saying something like "I like your style! Personally, I take the easier way out and pre-sort all of my socks ahead of time, but you go head first into the chaos." I would very likely adjust what I say based on who I'm performing for, but this would be the general idea.

Also, I've disliked the whole "showing every single card individually" as the reveal. There are a lot of cards! I'd probably just flip over the first 5 one at a time and then flip both packets over and spread them -- like the "out of this world" reveal. Not sure which would be better, but I know that I don't like the drawn out reveals myself.

Phase 3 - Socks!

The third and final phase is the big reveal. It's not even a kicker really, and I think that's fine. Phase 2 ended with the deck being shown all matching, but there are still two face down cards that were selected by the spectator earlier.

Drawing attention back to the two face down cards, say something like "With how much time I've spent at the laundromat, it shouldn't be a surprise that I can make all of the socks match. But before I did any of that, back when it was chaos on the sorting table, you selected two cards. One from each shuffled packet."

Then, do the reveal like in the original trick itself.

In my opinion, I think that this would be a stronger way to present the trick overall. Don't get me wrong, the trick works well as it is, but -- and this may 100% be because I'm mainly a card worker -- the revelation of real, physical socks matching randomly selected cards is way stronger of an ending than showing the packets of socks matching.

Inspiration + Crediting

I bought Socks shortly after seeing Michel Huot perform it at Magifest a few years ago, however, he didn't do the trick you'd buy online, he did a larger stage version of it. It ended with the revelation of, you guessed it, the socks on his feet. When I received the trick and watched the presentation and tutorial of what I received, I immediately felt what I described above -- that something was off with the ending.

However, I never really performed the trick even though I always wanted to. Heck, I even wore the socks to a couple events just in case an opportunity presented itself. But, it didn't. This holiday season, however, I decided to force the situation and I did ... at least, at home. I wore them to another event afterwards, but that one didn't pan out either (it wasn't the right venue anyways, so I'm not upset).

Anyways, after I performed it at home, I felt great for finally showing it off ... but my suspicion was confirmed. The "kicker" was good, but it turned the jaw dropping sock reveal moment into a more relaxed "wait, what?" type of thing.

A couple days later, I was sitting in an airport waiting for a flight and catching up on reading The Jerx and came across a post: Mailbag #155. In the post, someone's asking Andy about an older post. One that describes an alternative handling for Socks. Sure enough, it exists!

He calls the original post Mending Socks, but honestly, that could be a name for the different handling of the trick overall -- at least, the way his trick idea goes.

I could actually see myself performing the trick sort of how he outlines it too; however, the main inspiration I drew from his post is something I didn't think prior: combining the packets into a single deck (e.g., my Phase 1). Well, that, and the confirmation that at least one other person out there thinks the trick could be stronger by moving the sorting to before the big reveal...

I took an unannounced break from writing for a week or so, then I happened to get extra busy at work for a few more weeks... next thing you know, months went by. In fact, it's almost been a year since my last post 😢

I'm very grateful to the many of you who wrote in during my absence, it's awesome to know that there are folks reading the blog and finding things useful. Honestly, I didn't mean to step away for so long. It was a snowball effect that led to this becoming the hobby that was shelved rather than prioritizing it like I wanted to.

The great news is, the time for writing is back!

I'll get more into things in the next post or two and will recap some of the fun events from 2025, plus some fun ideas for 2026. Today though, I'll keep it short. Today, I'm just wishing you a Happy New Year and I hope that your 2026 is the best yet.

Keep it magical y'all!

- @gbabbits

A little over two years ago, I wrote a post that highlighted "Orbits Dopest!", a competition put on by Orbits Playing Cards. While there were prizes along the way, the grand prize was a sweet $10,000 to be given at the end of the year -- 2023 -- to the best cardistry video of the year.

The contest itself was simple, at least in terms of what you had to do. To enter, using an Orbit deck you'd post a cardistry video on Instagram and tag it with #ORBITSDOPEST. That was it! Each month, a winner would be selected by Orbit and they'd win the monthly prize, then finally a grand prize. Nice, right?

While my Sybil Cut game is strong, I am not a cardist, never have had ambition to be a cardist, and know my skill limitations -- I had zero intention of entering this competition. Did I consider practicing more? Yeah! Do I still actually want to learn more cardistry, for video purposes? Heck yeah! Do I care enough to compete in a cardistry competition? Not slightly. But that doesn't mean I wasn't interested! And yet... I personally forgot about it.

Let's put a quick pin in that thought, we'll get back to it.

Fast forward to a few days ago, @theorbitdeck posted a ... blog post, captured in the form of still images, on Instagram. Why they didn't use their blog is beyond me, but hey, to each their own.

You can view the original post here, or scroll below where I've retyped the entire thing word-for-word in case the post is removed. It's a gem alright, coming in at nearly 1900 words, and covers a large swath of topics.

Chris, the mastermind behind Orbit Playing Cards, really opened up during this post and detailed his take on the implosion of the Orbits Dopest competition. His raw, unfiltered transparency laid bare a mix of personal, structure, and potential community challenges that ultimately derailed the contest. After re-reading it a couple times, here's the main gist of it in the order that I think flows best (for a summary):

• Personal Struggles and Priorities
  • Chris candidly shared how becoming a new dad and dealing with financial pressures sidelined the contest. Orbit, it turns out, isn’t the behemoth many assumed; it’s a one-man show for the most part.
    
    
• Design Flaws in the Contest
  • The monthly winner format inadvertently discouraged submissions of groundbreaking moves, as entries not chosen often disappeared. This flaw stifled momentum and alienated participants.
    
    
• Cardistry's Decline on Instagram
  • Chris observed a sharp drop in cardistry content engagement, which he attributed to changes in Instagram’s algorithm and a possible decline in creator motivation. This impacted both the art form and Orbit’s sales.
    
    
• The State of Cardistry and Playing Card Brands
  • The demand for playing cards has dwindled, creating a "card recession." Chris detailed how this economic shift has affected the industry, including Orbit's business model.
    
    
• Future Ideas and Community Involvement
  • Chris pitched a pro-cardistry initiative, envisioning sponsorships akin to the skateboarding scene from the 70s / 80s. He invited feedback, showing a genuine desire to learn and rebuild trust with the community.

First off, respect to Chris for baring it all. That level of vulnerability is rare. But let's not gloss over some hard truths.

My initial question is quite literally "how can you offer a $10,000 prize, without having the $10,000?!" I get it though, he planned to line up the income stream from the V9s to fund the prize, and maybe in a perfect world that would have worked. But even so, that's promising something you don't currently have and that's just a big miss.

I'm empathetic to the whole "life gets in the way" aspect of things. I'm also not a stranger to brands doing giveaways, winning, and not receiving the prize -- by no exaggeration, I'm still waiting on close to 50% of the giveaway prizes I've won over the years. Some have even been from larger brands, but most are smaller.  The reason I say this is that, in addition to venting, the majority of "giveaways" require no actual effort from anyone. If I don't receive a deck that all I had to do was "drop a comment and win," guess what? I don't care.

Now, if I had to practice cardistry for 6 months and post a bunch of cardistry videos to my Instagram account -- which is not the focus of my account -- and then the prize just disappeared... well, yeah. I'd be a bit upset about that one.

That said, the pro-cardistry idea is intriguing. A dedicated revenue stream to reward creators could breathe new life into the art form and help brands like Orbit regain relevance. However, execution is everything. Without proper planning and support, this too could spiral into another well-intentioned fiasco. Honestly though, I'm not sure why this hasn't been done yet?

The question remains: can the cardistry community rally once again? Or, has it really declined to the point of just being a past fad? Let me know your thoughts here!

Here's the full re-typed post from Chris; the paragraph formatting is my own, but the words are all his:

Yo community,

Chris here. Orbits Dopest Competition imploded in a perfect storm. I'm going to be 100% transparent about it. First I'd like to thank the community for keeping the pressure on me about this. It's super important that you speak up and stand up to card brands. Never stop doing this. Keep us all accountable.

Orbit started in 2012 with me teaching card technique that I had personally developed. In 2015, against all odds, the first edition Orbit deck was funded on Kickstarter. I was blown away. The brand began to take shape and rose to levels I could have never dreamt of. Around the covid years I started to notice a significant drop in cardistry on Instagram, maybe due to the changes with the algorithm. Maybe cardists got tired of their videos not being seen and interacted with. Peer feedback is super important in an art like ours.

That online crowd participation was massive and now I see great cardistry with no comments on the video. I know you guys make cardistry because you love it and not for the comments but it definitely feels good to have the community have your back.

During this time I noticed a drop in sales even though for years prior we saw a steady rise in success. I took it personally. I thought this showed disapproval for Orbit. I couldn't understand what was happening especially with so much I've done for the community throughout the years. We've had small contests and Free Orbit Friday for years but I wanted to bring something bigger to the table. A $10k cash prize. I thought that would inspire the community to go through their gems that they never released. This was a Hail Mary attempt to bring the hype back to cardistry and also bring the party back to Orbit. I obviously also have to think about the business side of things because Orbit feeds my family but taking care of the community would also help Orbit. Everybody wins. This has always been my philosophy - Do everything in your power to take care of the community, not because this equals more money but because it creates a welcoming family vibe where everybody is valued and they know they are.

This is what I would have wanted in a brand when I first started studying card technique. I thought a year long competition would be dope and it definitely was for a few months. I think the structure of the contest was flawed to begin with because it discouraged people who dropped a move they've been working on, only for me to choose another move. What I should have done was select 12 moves in the span of a few months instead of one winner per month while discarding previous entries. I'm definitely not as good as you all are with cardistry but because of editing all the Orbit Jams and being part of the community for so long, I know what good cardistry looks like. I wanted all my selections to be top tier. In the first few months there were so many incredible entries and I received backlash almost immediately for selecting one move and not other moves. I was confused and felt guilty every month. Then I started seeing moves being submitted that were posted for other contests.

Once I fully understood what was happening I realized that I had to pick previous entries. I went back to promote 3 dope videos to be winners but they were deleted/archived. I'm assuming it was because those moves were sacred and they worked so hard on them only to not be chosen. I understand if that's why they were deleted. So the contest itself lost steam partially by the design of it. It was my fault, not yours.

A few months into the contest, my daughter was born and I underestimated how expensive babies are. I also underestimated how little free time I would have after becoming a dad. So there I was, sleep deprived for about half a year, confused about how to move forward or even properly identify what was going on with the Orbits Dopest Competition. And it paralyzed me from addressing it while I focused on my family.

Regardless of how big you think Orbit is, I basically do everything on my own. I don't have a giant team. I used to have a big team when the demand for cards was at it's peak. I've got help from Daniel on the art side of things but the entire business is on my shoulders as well as being a new dad. It all took so much time and attention and I was extremely burnt out. I didn't know how to move forward and it felt like the entire community started diminishing that year. I definitely could/should have handled it more tactfully but I'm human and humans make mistakes. Again, I didn't understand what was happening so I didn't know how to address what was happening. None of this was malicious, just poorly managed and misunderstood.

I hope you can forgive me. I love the cardistry community so incredibly much. There was a massive delay with the V9 Orbits that was out of my control which halted the next Orbit Jam. The smaller release decks make decent money but nothing compares to the main numbered editions. I was counting on that deck, the entire structure of my business is built around the numbered editions. It's been so strange to watch the demand for cards diminish over the years. I don't think brands will ever admit this publicly for fear of damaging public perception of their success and reputation but I've talked to a lot of other brand owners and they're all feeling the heat of the card recession. This is why you're seeing way less cards being produced while being printed with companies who will charge less than USPCC. I don't blame other brands for doing this, they're doing their best to stay in business. I've got so much respect for other card brands and it hurts to see them all equally being hit.

We're all cool with each other and our competition is friendly. There's only one brand I don't get along with for personal reasons. There were some distasteful remarks that were said by the brand owner about the brand's own supporters that only me and one other person heard and it really got under my skin because I want you all respected even when the cameras are off but that's for a different conversation. The reason why I'm telling you all this is so you fully understand what's happening behind closed doors. The demand for cards dictates almost everything us brands do for contests. I can't speak for other brands but for Orbit, I always spend tens of thousands of dollars on building the art and campaigns for the next 3-5 decks. usually about a year in advance. There's a careful ecosystem when it comes to a business.

Money made by the brand needs to be reinvested to build onto the next year of the brand. It's not like I pocket 100% of the money earned, that's not sustainable. The demand for cards declined drastically in 2023 and it continues to drop.

I looked up the Google search trends on the word "Cardistry" and it matches my sales graphs by the year almost identically. The V9s should have come out in 2023 which would have easily covered the prize money but because they were delayed, literally everything else was delayed along with it. I had runway built for the next year and the rug was pulled out from under me. I had to choose taking financial care of my family and giving them my attention over the contest. I think any good dad in my position would have done the same. Demand for cards hasn't died, but it has taken a huge hit. And because of that, the entire ecosystem is disrupted. Is this short term, is this long term?

Nobody knows for now. Long story short, we ran out of cardists, funding, and overall demand. I felt that the design of the competition discouraged people from submitting new material. It's a multifaceted answer to the "What happened to Orbits Dopest?" question. Which is why it's been so difficult to fully understand and explain what happened. So now that we know what happened, how would you like me to move forward? If it were up to me I'd want this contest to pick up where it left off. I don't want this contest to disappear. When the V9s drop I'd like to reactivate this contest. The current winners are still in the winner circle. I know this is unusual but I know this could work. Since day one I've known I'm nothing without you all. I never let the success make me forget that the most important thing is this community. Furthermore, after giving away thousands of decks over the years there have been a few people that never received their prize. If that's you, please email me at [support at theorbitbrown.com] so we can rectify this.

I hate knowing that some people never got their free decks. I won't be able to sleep at night until I know everybody received their prizes. None of you should ever feel timid about speaking to me. I'm just a dude. I respect all of you and all of your concerns.

I also had an idea to start pro-cardistry. Think of it like when skateboarding began to go pro in the 70s and 80s and skaters could make money from sponsorship deals if they were good enough. The idea is to make a deck specifically for pro-cardistry and all the profits from that deck would be put into an account specifically for video payouts. So you could make a couple hundred bucks per dope video you make with an Orbit deck that's under 90 seconds. What's dope about this program is any brand could do it, you wouldn't be tied to a contract. You could make a living off of making cardistry videos.

What does Orbit get out of it? We want two things.

1. We want cardistry to go viral again like it used to in around 2019.

2. We obviously want more attention on our brand. Essentially, the more success Orbit achieves, the more we can give back to the community with events, jams, giveaways, and sponsorship programs.

If this is something you'd be interested in, let me know in the comments.

So enough from me, I'd like to hear from you. What would you like to see happen with Orbits Dopest? I welcome any and all criticism. I truly love you all so much and I'm quietly working behind the scenes to bring the the hype for cardistry back. I don't want cardistry to die and I don't want Orbit to die. V9/V9ps are in full motion and I can't fucking wait to show you what we've done.

Chris

Ps. sorry for making you binge read through all of this. This was long as hell but I wanted to be thorough.

Peace

A month or two ago, honestly I don't recall at this point but it felt like that short time ago, I went to Portfolio52's website (portfolio52.com), and it didn't work. The website just didn't load. I went back the day after, and again it eventually timed out. It was as if the website... stopped being a website.

Checking the Instagram account, @portfolio_52, they haven't posted since last year! Whelp, so much for that one.

But wait!

While scrolling Instagram just the other day I came across a post from @xdecksrarecards, the owner of x-decks.com.

Long-story-short, Portfolio52 has traded hands and while the website does finally load again, it'll soon be "Decklopedia". The landing page for this new website is decklopedia.com. It's live right now, but is just a simple landing page with the text:

What's most interesting about this to me is that Decklopedia isn't just "the new" Portfolio52, it's changing it by adding functionality, normalizing content, and potentially more. From the post, here's the sneak peek they're providing so far:

Currently, they don't have a unique Instagram handle set up or anything other than @xdecksrarecards, but you can email them if you have thoughts, feedback, or ideas.

I'm excited to see what'll come of it, so I know I'll be following along!