Mental Match: How 17 Tiles Became an Impossible Magic Trick

(This blog is a transcript from The Mind Burp Podcast, which you can listen to HERE)

One idea. 17 tiles. Two impossible predictions.

Yep, today we're talking about Mental Match.

And strangely enough, it all started with the game Scrabble.

Can You Turn a Game Into a Magic Trick?

I've always loved games.

I've also always loved taking something familiar and asking:

“What if I did something completely different with this?”

I've never wanted everything I create to involve a standard deck of playing cards.

So several years ago I started thinking about Scrabble.

We've all seen those little wooden letter tiles. They're tactile, recognisable and, most importantly, they don't immediately scream:

MAGIC TRICK!

That gave me an idea.

What if I took the concept of Scrabble tiles but replaced the letters with playing-card values?

That eventually became an effect I called Scramble.

The Original Scramble Magic Trick

Instead of letters, the tiles represented playing cards.

There were tiles for Ace through to King, along with Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds.

The spectator would toss the tiles.

Any that landed face down were eliminated and those landing face up remained.

They continued until eventually they were left with a playing card, let's say the Three of Hearts.

Then came the prediction.

The little drawstring bag that had been sitting there from the beginning revealed the Three of Hearts.

That was it.

Simple.

Self-working.

No difficult moves.

And everything packed back into the little bag.

It was essentially a card trick without cards.

Scramble Became One of My Most Popular Tricks

I launched Scramble at the Blackpool Magic Convention several years ago and absolutely loved performing it.

More importantly, other magicians loved it too.

I sold loads of them.

I'd make another batch, they'd sell out, and then I'd start getting emails:

“Vinny, when are you getting Scramble back in stock?”

I'd restock it.

It would sell out again.

That kept happening.

Eventually I started thinking:

Could I take this idea further?

I didn't simply want to reproduce Scramble.

I wanted to improve it.

And that's where Mental Match started.

From Scramble to Mental Match

Mental Match uses 17 specially designed tiles and a small drawstring bag.

The tiles are roughly an inch square, which makes them really tactile.

That's something I particularly like about the trick.

The spectators can handle everything.

They can mix the tiles.

They can toss them.

They can make the decisions.

There's no complicated sleight of hand going on.

From the audience's perspective, everything feels incredibly fair.

The First Mental Match Prediction

The first phase has its origins in Scramble.

The tiles are mixed and tossed, with the spectator gradually eliminating them until they're eventually left with a number and a suit.

Together, they form a playing card.

Let's say the Three of Hearts.

You then reveal that the card has been predicted on the bag from the very beginning.

That's already a really nice piece of mental magic.

I could have stopped there.

But I kept thinking:

Can I get another magical moment out of these same props?

That's where another old principle came into play.

An Old Domino Trick Gave Me the Second Idea

If you know my magic, you'll know that I absolutely love mathematical principles.

I've created loads of maths-based magic over the years and explored it extensively in books such as Mind the Maths Magic and My Head Hurts.

One old mathematical effect I've always liked uses dominoes.

Imagine secretly removing a domino showing, for example, a six at one end and a four at the other.

The remaining dominoes are then arranged into a chain by matching the numbers.

When the chain is complete, the two numbers at the opposite ends correspond with the two numbers on the missing domino.

It's a lovely principle.

And that got me thinking.

What if I could apply that idea to Mental Match?

But rather than numbers…

What if I used colours?

That was the Mind Burp moment.

Turning a Mathematical Principle Into a Colour Game

So I added colours to the reverse sides of the Mental Match tiles.

Red.

Blue.

Yellow.

Purple.

Green.

Black.

And others.

Once you've completed the first prediction, you're ready for something completely different.

I turn the second phase into a game.

I tell the spectator:

“You've got 30 seconds. Make the longest row you can by matching the colours.”

So black connects to black.

The colour on the other side might then be yellow.

They find another yellow.

That might lead to green.

And so on.

Suddenly they're not watching another magic trick.

They're playing a game.

The Second Impossible Prediction

I love this part because there's some interaction.

You can start counting down.

“30… 29… 28…”

They start rushing.

Everyone's getting involved.

Eventually they've created this long line of coloured tiles across the table.

Now I draw attention to the two ends.

Maybe there's blue at one end and red at the other.

I point out how random that appears.

The tiles could have been arranged differently.

The colours could seemingly have ended up somewhere else.

And then I remind them about something that's been sitting in full view from the very beginning.

The bag.

One drawstring is blue.

The other is red.

They match the two ends of the chain.

That's the second prediction.

One Prop – Two Completely Different Magical Moments

This is probably what I like most about Mental Match.

The first phase feels like mentalism.

The second phase feels like a game.

And then the game unexpectedly becomes another piece of mentalism.

You get:

Prediction → Game → Prediction.

And you're using exactly the same props throughout.

Nothing new gets introduced.

Nothing disappears.

The bag has been sitting there all along.

Even the coloured drawstrings have been staring everybody in the face from the beginning.

They just didn't realise they were important.

I love that kind of thinking.

Sometimes Creating Magic Means Combining Old Ideas

Mental Match is also a great example of something I talked about in another Mind Burp

Podcast episode: where ideas actually come from.

Very few ideas appear completely out of nowhere.

Mental Match has several strands of thinking behind it.

There's Scrabble.

There's my original Scramble effect.

There's an old domino principle.

There's maths.

There's colour matching.

There's mentalism.

There's gaming.

Individually, they're separate ideas.

But bring them together in the right way and you get something new.

That's what I love about creating.

Making the Mental Match Bag Wasn't Quite So Simple!

One of the funniest parts of creating Mental Match was trying to explain the bag to the manufacturer.

I needed a drawstring bag with:

one red drawstring and one blue drawstring.

Sounds simple.

Apparently it wasn't!

There were conversations about whether I wanted half of one string red and half blue, whether both strings needed different sections and all sorts of combinations I hadn't even considered.

Eventually I basically had to get a bag and colour it with marker pens to show exactly what I meant.

THIS STRING RED.

THIS STRING BLUE.

Eventually we got there!

It's funny because sometimes the tiniest design feature in a finished magic trick can require a ridiculous amount of discussion behind the scenes.

Easy. Simple. Powerful.

Mental Match fits perfectly with the philosophy I've always had at Neo Magic:

ESP — Easy. Simple. Powerful.

It has to be easy to perform.

It has to be simple for the audience to understand.

And the end result has to be powerful.

Self-working doesn't mean weak.

Quite the opposite.

Because I'm not concentrating on knuckle-busting sleight of hand, I can concentrate on the people.

I can talk to them.

I can laugh with them.

I can let several people get involved.

And I can concentrate on the presentation rather than worrying about a difficult move.

A Card Trick Without Playing Cards

That's another thing I particularly like about Mental Match.

It's essentially a card trick without cards.

You can carry it in your pocket.

You tip everything out.

The spectators mix the tiles themselves.

They can handle them.

You can involve one person or several people.

If I'm performing for a couple of people, for example, I might have one person work with the number tiles and somebody else deal with the suits.

It becomes much more interactive.

And because the props are tiles rather than playing cards, it immediately feels different from another card trick.

Even Ari Could Perform It

When I received one of the prototype samples from the manufacturer, I decided to try it with my son, Ari.

This was shortly before his fourth birthday in May 2026.

He absolutely loved it.

More importantly…

he could do it!

That's how simple the basic mechanics are.

The retail version is recommended for ages six and above, but watching Ari understand the basic idea demonstrated exactly what I wanted from the effect.

There shouldn't be a huge technical barrier between opening the box and being able to perform something magical.

You Can Learn Mental Match in Minutes

Mental Match is genuinely something you can understand incredibly quickly.

There's no complicated setup.

No knuckle-busting moves.

No memorisation of some enormous sequence.

The clever principles are built into the effect.

That means you can concentrate on what really matters:

making it entertaining.

And because the second phase is essentially a little game, you can make that section as competitive and fun as you want.

What's Included With Mental Match?

Inside Mental Match you get the complete set of tiles, the specially designed drawstring prediction bag and full instructions.

I've also included a blank tile, which gives you some additional flexibility if you want to experiment with your own ideas.

That's something I really like doing with my releases.

I don't necessarily want to say:

“This is the ONLY way you can perform it.”

If somebody develops another handling or presentation, brilliant.

That's part of the fun.

Written AND Video Instructions

Another thing that's important to me is providing proper instructions.

Mental Match comes with written instructions as well as video tuition.

I've had reviewers such as Magic Orthodoxy mention this positively with previous Neo Magic releases, and it's something I intend to continue doing.

Video instructions are fantastic.

But what happens in three or five years if a video link changes?

You've still got the written instructions.

Keep them in the box and you can always go back to them.

Sometimes old-fashioned isn't such a bad thing!

From One Mind Burp to a Finished Product

That's the story of Mental Match.

It didn't arrive fully formed.

It evolved.

Scrabble inspired Scramble.

Scramble inspired Mental Match.

A mathematical domino principle inspired the colour phase.

The colour phase inspired the bag.

One idea led to another.

And eventually I ended up with 17 tiles, a little bag and two impossible predictions.

That's what a Mind Burp is all about.

Want to See Mental Match in Action?

If you fancy performing Mental Match yourself, you can find Mental Match on the Neo Magic website, where you can also watch it in action and see exactly what the effect looks like.

It's compact, self-working, interactive and designed for magicians of pretty much any ability level.

And if you've already got Mental Match and you've come up with another presentation, handling or idea for those tiles, send it to me.

I genuinely love seeing what other people come up with.

One idea can lead to another…

…and sometimes that's where the next Mind Burp begins.