Box:
The box is lovely. This is a pricey deck, and I guarantee the box has something to do with that! Embossed fonts, metallic shimmer finishes: this box has it all! It's designed great and seems to be printed on a recycled-style card giving it a soft, bespoke feel. One gripe I would have though is that it is so modern and distinctive it burns all bridges with the traditional style boxes that all card enthusiasts have come to know and love. I'm not sure how well it will age, or even how much like a box of playing cards it actually looks like, it is very collectable though!
Backs:
The backs are pretty sick. They're white on black which I can stomach a lot more than I can black on white, but I still prefer blue or red (get used to hearing that a lot). The design is incredibly bold (compare it to the Karnivals) and looks stunning in a packet fan. It's those circles again! If anything though it is a little simple, and much like the box you get the strange feeling that you're not 100% sure if this design belongs on a deck of playing cards...
What's really going on with that artwork?
The eye of Horus inside a floating pyramid with II above it (presumably for Theory 11) and rays of illuminated light radiating around. There's some nice flourishy stuff and a couple of swords in the middle. Oh, and a small scarab crawling around the border! Nice.
Fronts:
Honestly? I don't like the joker or the ace of spades (sorry Theory 11!), the designs are just too linear and robot-like; a deck supposed to be dripping with mysticism should have gone for a more mysterious look in my opinion. The pips, picture cards and colours are completely custom which I can't help but admire, and they do look great, I just prefer the standard USPCC artworks personally.
Overall verdict:
Dreamy deck. Very heavy, cut very precisely (smoothest edges), finished superbly (fan great and feel great), they were so thick they ruined my pinky 2-grab off the bottom though! Probably wouldn't want to perform with them, would be great for playing home poker games though and the deck is very collectable as a result of how customised it is. Clearly a big winner despite me not liking every creative aspect of what it has to offer.
i also think that this box design looks nice, although i think that the cards (although a nice change) have a rather uninspiring back design.
ReplyDeletei also find the jokers and ace of spades a bit dull, i think that a joker would look best if it was a coloured bicycle design (obvisously two identical jokers, the garentie joker ruins the deck). I think that the ace of spades in a tally-ho deck is one of the best aces around i think that it would look amazing if it had gold outline to it?
I also think you should know that i have seen many people complaining about the pips in the sentinals due to there size, ive heard that because they are small they dont show up well in a ribbon spread or fan.
cheers
Joe