ARTIST: Jackson Robinson (Kings Wild Project)

[Don Boyer]

Jackson Robinson, designing decks under his brand Kings Wild Project, is a deck designer without equal in terms of his output - it's a rare year that he releases less than a deck every two to three weeks on average!  He is almost an industry unto himself, and this year, he's a nominee for Artist of the Year, while his very popular Lord of the Rings, Vol. 2 deck is up for Deck of the Year.  He is also among the rare few artists who self-produces his entire output and is successful enough to do so without using Kickstarter or other crowd-sourced funding.

Jackson's releases between July 2022 and June 2023, to the best of my knowledge, are (in no particular order):

• Apple Pi
• Lord of the Rings, Vol. 2
• Cherry Pi
• Legal Tender Sterling
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• Noel
• Flower of Fire
• Legal Tender Chinese Holo
• Oakeshott
• The Bird
• Crow Brand
• Marines
• Atlantis
• Cibola
• Crayons/Seven Colors
• Excelsior V1
• Truett .45
• Table Players Vol. 25 - Ironsides
• Table Players Vol. 26 - Provisorios
• Table Players Vol. 27 - Ace
• Table Players Vol. 28 - Schmidts City Club
• Table Players Vol. 29 - Swisher Sweets
• Table Players Vol. 30 - Rainier Ale

The Artist's Home Page and Store: https://kingswildproject.com/

[PrincessTrouble]

The deck pictured above (Fellowship of the Ring) is volume 1.  If volume 2 is indeed the nominee, it is the Two Towers deck.

[Don Boyer]

The deck pictured above (Fellowship of the Ring) is volume 1.  If volume 2 is indeed the nominee, it is the Two Towers deck.

Thanks for the correction, old friend!  My knowledge of cards is far less encyclopedic these days than it used to be, with so many new decks coming out.


And I have here a corrected link for the page on the Two Towers deck at Jackson's site:
https://kingswildproject.com/products/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-two-towers-luxury-playing-cards


Thanks to Jackson for pointing this out to me!  I never take it personally when corrected - I'd rather know what's true than insist on being wrong.

[Don Boyer]

Here are the images of his actual Vol 2 deck, The Two Towers.  It's a fine-looking deck, to be sure...


I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE ALL VOTERS TO CHECK OUT HIS WEB SITE.  He has made so many decks, my smattering of images doesn't do them justice, and if you don't already own them, I imagine you'll wish you did.

CLICK ON THESE IMAGES - the larger size is much better-looking.

[EndersGame]

For a deck to be eligible for a Diamond Award, it has to be released and in people's hands between July 2022 and June 2023.

The Kickstarter for Jackson's Two Towers deck (which is the one listed on the voting ballot) finished in April 2023, but these decks didn't come out before July 2023.  My understanding is that people don't even have them yet, and people are only just starting to get notifications that they are being shipped, as you can tell from comments on the Kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingswildproject/the-lord-of-the-rings-playing-cards-vol-2

They're also not available for purchase yet on this page over on Jackson's own site

So I don't even think this deck was even eligible to nominated for the 2023 Deck of the Year Award, and yet it made the list.  Did the nomination committee just blunder here, or am I missing something? 

[Don Boyer]

For a deck to be eligible for a Diamond Award, it has to be released and in people's hands between July 2022 and June 2023.

The Kickstarter for Jackson's Two Towers deck (which is the one listed on the voting ballot) finished in April 2023, but these decks didn't come out before July 2023.  My understanding is that people don't even have them yet, and people are only just starting to get notifications that they are being shipped, as you can tell from comments on the Kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingswildproject/the-lord-of-the-rings-playing-cards-vol-2

They're also not available for purchase yet on this page over on Jackson's own site

So I don't even think this deck was even eligible to nominated for the 2023 Deck of the Year Award, and yet it made the list.  Did the nomination committee just blunder here, or am I missing something?

Exactly - we blundered.  Many committee members nominated it, clearly from online images or Jackson's rep.  I can say that it looks like Vol. 1 may be eligible...


It's not always easy to research exactly when a deck went (or will go) on sale or became available to the public.  We used to keep a post thread that had all the releases in it, but the number of releases got too hard for any one person to track.


I spoke with Lee - he said to simply leave it for now.

[Don Boyer]

Ladies and gentlemen,


I spoke with Lee Asher about the error we made regarding the LotR Vol 2 deck, and Lee agreed to let me reach out to the voters who chose that deck and allow them to recast their DOTY vote.  Meanwhile, the deck has been removed from the ballot.


I want to extend sincere apologies to Jackson Robinson and the rest of the membership.  I regret not having caught the error earlier and want to thank EndersGame for bringing the error to my attention.


I also want everyone to be aware that Jackson is still very much eligible for the Artist of the Year nomination.  It's a rare artist that is both as excellent and as prolific as Jackson is - there is no shortage of examples of his work that he released during the eligibility period.