A basic Svengali routine usually goes like this: 1. The magician brings out a deck of cards and shows that it contains different cards. 2. The magician has a spectator select a card, show it around and replace it back into the deck. 3. The magician lays the deck on a table and asks a spectator to cut the deck. When the card is revealed at the location of the cut, it's the spectator's selected card. 4. The deck is made whole again and the magician taps on the top of the deck and it's shown that the spectator's selected card has jumped to the top. 5. The magician asks the spectator to cut the deck into three or four piles. Whichever pile the spectator points to, it's discovered that the selected card is found on top. 6. In the grand finale, the magician snaps her fingers and it's discovered that the entire deck has changed into the spectator's selected card. 7. At the end, the deck is shown to contain different cards. A Svengali deck can be used to perform the full routine as described above. However, many magicians might feel that the routine exploits the capabilities of the deck too much and exposes the fact that more there's multiple versions of a single card. A Svengali deck has lots of utility in a less flamboyant manner--being switched in as needed to support a card trick. A Svengali deck can also be used to force a card. A spectator thinks that he has a free choice of selecting any card in the deck but the trick deck makes him select one card