I don't think I will believe anything any of these companies say any more on the forums or elsewhere. Ellusionist are liars...

Uh, excuse me? Say what you will of other companies (actually, that said I can't think to fault Dan and Dave on the honesty front either) but I'm not going to sit here while you libel against a company where I personally have been in charge of the marketing and public outreach for three years.

At no time has anything we've said been a lie. There have been cases beyond our control where timeframes have changed (Pure Smoke Colors anyone?) and instances where our business decisions have changed over time, always to the benefit of the customer - but no point when we could be accused of being 'liars'.

1) They considered and designed a red Arcane deck.
2) They did a test print of uncuts.
3) For whatever reason, it wasn't made.
4) The uncuts go on sale.
5) People eat 'em up, love the design, beg E to actually make the deck.
6) Seeing an opportunity, they make the deck as a holiday 2013 premium.
7) They toss Black Club members a free deck - in essence, tossing them a bone to make them happy they're members, also making them more inclined to renew said membership, which by now has pretty much paid for itself or is close to it for most members.

I'm happy I'm in the Black Club, that's for sure.  It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it in the end.

Nail. On. Head.

Point 3. I honestly don't think the case of sheets was even opened when they arrived in the Texas warehouse. I think they were just moved to some corner and literally forgotten about - inventoried as whatever other sheets they arrived with (possibly Black & White Arcane uncuts) until Texas was shut down and everything moved back to Cali.

Points 5 & 6. Exactly. I initially wasn't a fan of getting these turned into decks. I liked the idea of only the sheets existing - it's never been done before. A sheet of cards for a deck that doesn't exist? That's awesome. But, I can't pretend the onslaught of comments asking for it to be made into a deck didn't convince me we should do it. Facebook, Twitter, Emails and Reviews all lit up saying they wanted the deck to be made of these. And - we wanted to do a Christmas deck as well, so - the Red Arcane was born, and is (almost) literally hot off the presses. Those Black Club members that ordered today will likely get to hold the finished deck in their hands even before I do. Pete had them overnighted to him as soon as they hit the warehouse so he could get me photos for the Email today, and my own couple of decks are probably still sitting in a distribution centre in LA somewhere, before they make the hop across the pond.

Point 7. Very true. Whilst an email will go out closer to the BC anniversary to remind people what being a Black Club Member has meant during its first year, there is an element of 'Here's another Freebie' to it as well. However, what people don't realise is that the majority of our Black Club Members didn't join until after February this year, which is another 4 months away, so giving them a Red Arcane deck now isn't as much of a 'renewal boost' as it was us realising that it's about time we put out another member bonus.

On the absolute level - my own thoughts were that giving away a free deck this close to the Holiday Giveaway would assuage tempers somewhat that Black Club Members would not get the usual 24hour PreSale for those products released on the 19th (as mentioned in the email). The major reason behind that is that we didn't want to open up the BC Presale the day before the Holiday Giveaway was to start. Black Club members who ordered on the 18th would be pretty damn annoyed they didn't get their free gifts or entry into the Giveaway Competition, and it wasn't possible to allow the Free Gifts only to Black Club members with the system we developed, so a compromise was reached. And I personally hope that people do not feel put out that this was the course of action we had to take. Hence - Free Stuff.

So, yes wall of text  - but it's at the benefit of transparency.



Thanks folks.

-J

Quote from: mirciusx on October 24, 2013, 10:49:38 AM

Otherwise I don't know what to do...one or two blue or only one and wait for a better deal to Black Friday?

It might be wise to wait. No guarantee what deal they'll have... BUT I was told they'd be having a Holiday Promotion that's "supposed to be the best one yet" that's suppose to be out Mid-November (maybe) but I guess take that with a grain of salt.

I'll say now - if you're after Blue Rounders, this is the way to get it. It's true there will be a way to get one in our Holiday Promotion - but if I were you, I'd pick up a Brick of Brownders. Keep it on the DL - but you'll need to spend more to get the Blues come Holiday Giveaway.

Also - The Card Cheat Handbook is ages old. It contains some stuff that's in HTCAC (like the Blood Marking System) but HTCAC is much more comprehensive and contains a heck of a lot more material. Anthology is basically every PDF Madison put out between 2000 and 2010, plus Revelations 03 (the book - not the webshow) and Five.

-Jake

Hey Guys,

Don's asked me to come by and clear the waters in regards to what's happening at the moment.

Basically what's happened is yes, we have sent an offer out to a select number of customers, offering them incentives to join the Black Club (as the screenshot above shows). This was after we offered existing black club members the chance to pick up the uncut gold arcanes. The Black Club email explaining that we would be sending out this offer is here;
http://hwst.ellusionist.com/cds/BlackClub/GoldSheet/GoldSheet.html

We did indeed also send out a number of emails to a small group of customers who were not yet part of the Black Club with a special offer to join (as explained to BlackClub members in the email they received). This email, in its entirety, can be seen here;
http://hwst.ellusionist.com/cds/BlackClub/Invite/GoldInvitation.html

So yes - both offers are absolutely true.  Hope that clears things up!

All the best,

-Jake

P.S - If you did not receive the Black Club Special Invite from us and you would like to take advantage of this offer, shoot me an email to jake@ellusionist.com and let me know.

Well before revolutions 9, I thought there was going to be another color.

1. When you order rounders, on the order they are known as MADISONRBLCK. There is no need to add the BLCK on the name if black is the only version available. They would only be known as MADISONR or MADISONRNDR.

2. You have to listen how Daniel introduces the Rounders in revelations 9. He calls them Rounders Black Edition. Another hint there is more then one color available (RED).

These are indeed RED Madison Rounders.

Ever heard of 'Black' Tigers? Have you heard of White Tigers? Or Blue Tigers? Or 'Slightly Reddish Salmon Tigers'
The 1800 'Series'? Not really much of a 'Series' there.
First Edition Artifice? They were called 'BLUEARTIFICE' before Dave, our webmaster who enters all these things, even knew that Red Artifice was going to exist, let alone Green, Purple or Black.

What it comes down to is 'How do we make these easily identifiable when picking an order' - the answer is most often 'Describe it' - and make it simple. We had problems with 'SULTANR' and 'SULTANT' (Republic and Treasury) so Republics were renamed back of house 'SULTANRBLCK' - despite a) them not actually being black, and b) there not being a White, Red, Blue, Brown, Purple or Green Republic. There's no real rhyme or reason behind Dave's naming conventions. He calls things what he wants.

I can't confirm or deny if Red, Teal, Aubergine, Cyan, Burnt Sienna, Aquamarine, Lilac, Mustard or Taupe Rounders exist - or are ever going to be made - but I can tell you that there are no Rounders decks currently on my release calendar - there is however, another two decks that are.

-Jake.

I think the "ick" part of Tragic Royalty was the gray background ink they used and it was the paper that was UV-reactive. 

Actually - I think you're right about that. There was something wrong with the Tragic Royaltys, but I don't know that it was the UV-reactive ink and/or paper that was the problem.

I standby my previous though. Reactive inks - UV, Glow, Thermochromic etc ruin the handling of cards. USPCC's tried many a time to bring something new to playing cards after the UV500 was discontinued, and every test was what Edison would call 'a way of not doing it'.

-Jake.

how much is shipping for 4 decks ?

We've got this amazing thing called an 'integrated checkout' at Ellusionist. You put what you want to buy into your cart, and then fill in the details with where it needs to be sent. Once you do that, the 'integrated cart' tells you which shipping options apply to you, and how much to pay for each. From there, you can continue through to the 'payment processor' - or keep shopping.

-Jake

We don't even know yet if it's a CARC deck.

Yeah... You can update that to a positive too.
Not sure how much I should say about this, so I'll keep it to; the 'Erdnase' thing is correct; it does relate heavily to him - and the two colors are correct too.

-Jake.

How on God's Green Earth did this project get funded? The 'creator' needs to be shot. Ugh! And I thought those damn Cthulhu things were bad. It looks like they've taken a 7 year old's design for court cards and the run them through the neon glow filter on photoshop. I'd say that the back was two pieces of ClipArt stuck on top of each other - but not even MS Clipart is that bad.

This is my favorite part of the whole thing though;

The cards are being printed by TM Playing cards, the reason we choose this company is because we have done work for them in the past and have seen their technique in creating playing cards. From what we can see it is far superior then most companies out there.

Did you see the typo? Here, I'll point it out;

From what we can see it is far CHEAPER then most companies out there.

There, I fixed it.

I hate the fact that they used the name 'New York Lights' for this deck. This could have actually been a great deck of cards - incorporate a minimalist New York Skyline at night on the back, take your pick of landmarks for inspiration come jokers and Ace... This is why I hate KickStarter for playing cards. Because anyone with a copy of MSPaint now calls themselves 'a Design Company' and trivialises the art of playing card design down to the level of ineptitude.

 It's like performing heart surgery with a plastic spatula - sure, it may be possible, but it doesn't mean it should be done, and at the end of the day, there's going to be a lot of dead bodies lying on the floor. Y'know, because one of the actual playing card design companies will finally snap and go postal on a mercy killing.

-Jake.

There really are only two types of finishes that come out of USPCC

A misconception. USPCC will state straight out that there are only two finishes. They'll also state straight out that (now) there are only two stocks (not called 'Bee, Bicycle, Aristocrat, Casino' or anything of the like, but instead called 3xy & 9xy) - both are most likely true... for off-the-street customers and the 'standard' printed decks they run in the millions. It's not the case with their bread and butter custom customers (like us, for example). We can source an almost infinite (ok, not quite - but a massive number) of combinations of stock & finish - and there are other customers out there who can as well. Not sure if CARC would have access to whatever they wanted, but the Bucks most likely would.

Rik - your problem is that you're using the wrong cards, a common ailment - but luckily I'm here to help. Head on over to http://ellusionist.com/playing-cards for the cure. If you feel like brushing your teeth after handling these... it's because of the drool.

You're welcome.

-Jake

All Black Club members were sent a deck courtesy of Daniel (and us, of course) - this includes international customers.

Yes, there are indeed 'unpublished' perks of the Black Club, but we prefer not to spoil any surprises - which is why noone received an email shipping confirmation - didjya notice?

We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of future privileges - but I can say that the Rounders were only sent to existing members of the Black Club - 'gotta be in it to win it' sort of thing.

As it is you still get minimum 5% off all purchases (excluding Gift Cards), 24 hours pre-release purchase window for all new releases (and most sales, where we can) and of course access to the Black Club store - which is ever-expanding (oh - and the Welcome Kit, 3 Free Downloads etc, etc). We've got plenty more planned as well - so yeah, it pays to be a member.

Release date is still under wraps for Rounders for a little while longer and as always - Black Club will be getting first bite of the cherry when they're released (along with some other goodies finally coming out as well).

-Jake

I'm starting to think Kickstarter is the worst thing to happen to playing cards since... Karnival Dead Eyes? (Sorry - couldn't think of another deck that was a total design failure... unless you count Propaganda 'Turkey-Backs' in their baby-sick yellow...) Oh wait - I've got it...

I'm starting to think Kickstarter is the worst thing to happen to playing cards since Magic Makers started ripping off Ellusionist designs (Black Spider, anybody?)

You can cite T11's 'The Cream rises to the top' wire argument - but who the hell wants to deal with separating the cream off the other 90% of 'not-cream'. It only makes you realize that there is a heck of a lot of 'not-cream' out there, and it used to go straight down the drain, rather than peddled as 'I can't believe it's not Cream'.
You can buy cream pre-skimmed in a bottle you know - and that's how it used to be. Each release was Cream. Every now and again a 'Half'n'Half' would slip through - but you wouldn't get the fetid cheese that KS has been birthing of late.

I think I've labored that metaphor long enough - onto this 'hot mess' then.

Courts - Cartoony decks don't really do well, but I can see a sort of appeal to the Comic-Book crowd with these, so from that point of view - they're not too bad.

Aces, Backs, Box - No. Just No. Go away and do it again. My 7 week old son produces better artwork in his diaper than the atrocities that have occurred with this deck. In fact, if the Ace of Diamonds was orange and didn't have screaming mouths in it, I could have sworn the inspiration came from the half-assed bowel spray he did this morning.

I know that the deck designers drop in here from time to time, so I'm hoping the constructive criticism above assists them in what will no-doubt be the second or third funding effort for these... things.

It's a good concept - so good in fact, that it's been done numerous times - but at the moment - it's exactly that. A concept. When we design we take a concept, and hone it over a good 30 or so variations to come out with something polished. 

Maybe the designer should keep refining this concept, and for the time being stick to artwork that isn't going to be a permanent reminder of just how awful this art currently is - you know, like tattooing people.

-Jake.

If Maric is bridge-sized, then I believe THESE ones are the ones that come with a gaff/Maeda ad card (can't remember which one it was).

The Mr Maeda's have weird Jokers of Tomohiro Maeda - they kinda look like Geppetto and Pinocchio. I bought a whole heap of the twin sets off Jamie a few years ago (which was stupid because I really only like the Blues) but I unfortunately also had a quite a few Gold Trim tallies. They inevitably became mixed, and there really is no way to distinguish between the two.

-Jake.