Bicycle Venom and Venom Strike, from Alakazam Magic (UK)

[Don Boyer]

These are on sale now at Alakazam.co.uk.  Info courtesy of 52cartes.

First, the Venom deck...

[bmpokerworld]

We should have these and the Venom Strike decks in stock by the middle of next week. They will be $9.95 per deck.

Thanks!

[Don Boyer]

...and now, the Venom Strike deck...

[Michael]

I'm a fan of the backs and jokers of the Venom deck. I don't like the Venom Strike back as much.... But I really really like those courts! maybe I'll get a few if the Venom Strikes.

[Nurul]

ooft .. i likey very very much, just placed my order

[MrMollusk]

I like the Venom Strike courts.
I haven't seen a deck styled like that.

[Don Boyer]

I like the Venom Strike courts.
I haven't seen a deck styled like that.

Neither have I.  They're pretty sweet.  I'm gonna see if someone Stateside will be carrying it soon.

[Pacis]

Definitely great looking courts (Strike ones)
But I love more the backs of the Venom.

[Samurai007]

We should have these and the Venom Strike decks in stock by the middle of next week. They will be $9.95 per deck.

Thanks!

I might be placing an order again soon, so I think I'll wait till you have these in stock.  Any other decks that you'll be getting soon?  It'd be nice if you had a "Coming soon" page with pictures of decks arriving in the next month or so, the expected arrival date and price.  It would be a BIG help in deciding when to order so that I can save on shipping and not have some great deck appear a day or 2 after I place my order and be kicking myself for not waiting a bit longer...

[bmpokerworld]

We should have these in stock later today. We will not have a coming soon page as we do not always want everyone to know what we have coming in before we get them.

Thanks!

[Don Boyer]

We should have these ion stock later today. We will not have a coming soon page as we do not always want everyone to know what we have coming in before we get them.

Thanks!

Well, I think I speak for the rest when I say that if you gave us a heads-up, even if it was only as short as a single day, we'd appreciate it.  I'd like to order this from you when it arrives and I'm betting I'm not the only one.

[bmpokerworld]

We should have these ion stock later today. We will not have a coming soon page as we do not always want everyone to know what we have coming in before we get them.

Thanks!

Well, I think I speak for the rest when I say that if you gave us a heads-up, even if it was only as short as a single day, we'd appreciate it.  I'd like to order this from you when it arrives and I'm betting I'm not the only one.

These are now listed on our website along with the Bohemia decks.

Thanks!

[Samurai007]

I spotted it and placed my order last night for about 5 different decks, including the Venom Strike.

[Samurai007]

...and now, the Venom Strike deck...

Now that I have these in hand (Thanks for the fast shipping,   bmpokerwrld!), I have to say I'm a little disappointed.  In hand, the back design is very dull and faded in color, the skulls blend in with the background and the snake is a dirty brownish yellow.  Looking at the pictures from that post, it's now obvious to me that the picture was lightened and retouched.  Check out how bright the whites are on this card pic:



vs the whites on these pictures:





The blue skulls and yellow snake are similarly much brighter in that picture than they are in real life.  Here is a completely unretouched scan on the card back as it actually looks:



While it is a very cool looking design, I don't know how USPCC could print such a muddy-looking back and say "Yep, everything looks great, go ahead and run them all like that!  It should have been much, MUCH brighter and striking... I mean, c'mon, it's blue skulls and a golden, coiled snake, called Venom Strike, it should have a bold design that practically leaps at you from across a room!

Very disappointing.

[Samurai007]

Here's what it should have looked like, brighented and increased the contrast.  Took less than a minute to do it, not hard at all.



And incidentally, that's likely also what was done with that promo picture above, which is why the white is similarly brighter...

[Don Boyer]

While it is a very cool looking design, I don't know how USPCC could print such a muddy-looking back and say "Yep, everything looks great, go ahead and run them all like that!  It should have been much, MUCH brighter and striking... I mean, c'mon, it's blue skulls and a golden, coiled snake, called Venom Strike, it should have a bold design that practically leaps at you from across a room!

Very disappointing.

This might not be USPC's fault.  It could just as easily have been some poor color choices made by the designer.  It's distinctly possible that the designer created the cards in RGB and simply converted them to CMYK to send to USPC, not realizing or remembering that the conversion can alter the colors from what they appeared like before and you need to go over it post-conversion.  Occasionally I've seen designers inadvertently post CMYK images auto-converted to RGB on Kickstarter and they look almost like negatives - when they convert them to RBG the right way, however, they look much more normal.

Things like this happen in contract work a lot, more than you'd realize.  Some idiot screws up the language of the contract or submits faulty information, and the contractor has to go with the faulty information because that's what's written in the contract, even if there's no way possible that the contractee wanted it that way.  Do it the correct way rather than the contracted way and the contractee has grounds to sue for breach of contract.  You go with the lesser of two evils.

I'm willing to wager that Alakazam decided to forgo getting printed proofs.  It would explain the cards looking like that and USPC could simply say "This is exactly what you contracted for," leaving Alakazam with no legal recourse to get the cards redone without paying for another print run.  It's not as if USPC doesn't know how to make a proper black deck, now is it?

[Samurai007]

While it is a very cool looking design, I don't know how USPCC could print such a muddy-looking back and say "Yep, everything looks great, go ahead and run them all like that!  It should have been much, MUCH brighter and striking... I mean, c'mon, it's blue skulls and a golden, coiled snake, called Venom Strike, it should have a bold design that practically leaps at you from across a room!

Very disappointing.

This might not be USPC's fault.  It could just as easily have been some poor color choices made by the designer.  It's distinctly possible that the designer created the cards in RGB and simply converted them to CMYK to send to USPC, not realizing or remembering that the conversion can alter the colors from what they appeared like before and you need to go over it post-conversion.  Occasionally I've seen designers inadvertently post CMYK images auto-converted to RGB on Kickstarter and they look almost like negatives - when they convert them to RBG the right way, however, they look much more normal.

Things like this happen in contract work a lot, more than you'd realize.  Some idiot screws up the language of the contract or submits faulty information, and the contractor has to go with the faulty information because that's what's written in the contract, even if there's no way possible that the contractee wanted it that way.  Do it the correct way rather than the contracted way and the contractee has grounds to sue for breach of contract.  You go with the lesser of two evils.

I'm willing to wager that Alakazam decided to forgo getting printed proofs.  It would explain the cards looking like that and USPC could simply say "This is exactly what you contracted for," leaving Alakazam with no legal recourse to get the cards redone without paying for another print run.  It's not as if USPC doesn't know how to make a proper black deck, now is it?

You may be right, but if I were working at USPCC, and I saw the first test batch come off the press looking like that, I'd call up the designer, quickly scan and email them a pic of the back, and say "Hey, they came out rather muddy looking, here's a scan, are you sure this is how you want it?"  I mean, that should just be common decency and quality control!  Because even if some other guy designed them, the cards will have a big "Bicycle" logo on every box, and that means the quality of the cards will reflect on Bicycle much more than Alakazam Magic. 

Also, if they didn't ask for a printing proof, this deck should become the poster child for why that is a bad idea...

[Don Boyer]

You may be right, but if I were working at USPCC, and I saw the first test batch come off the press looking like that, I'd call up the designer, quickly scan and email them a pic of the back, and say "Hey, they came out rather muddy looking, here's a scan, are you sure this is how you want it?"  I mean, that should just be common decency and quality control!  Because even if some other guy designed them, the cards will have a big "Bicycle" logo on every box, and that means the quality of the cards will reflect on Bicycle much more than Alakazam Magic. 

Also, if they didn't ask for a printing proof, this deck should become the poster child for why that is a bad idea...

You're right pretty much on all counts.  For all we know, Alakazam got a scan from USPC performed in CMYK and again failed to convert properly to see it correctly.  They'd have been all thumbs up, not realizing what a muddy mess was being created.   I think the only thing that can be said with some degree of certainty is that someone or some set of individuals got sloppy at either or both companies and this was the result.

Were I designing a deck, I'd never go to press without a hard copy proof sheet at the very least.  I'd want a totally "pure" look at the end result and not a bunch of pixels that can look different under different circumstances.

Here's to hoping they sell this stuff out and go for a second, BETTER print run.

[RandyButterfield]

You're right pretty much on all counts.  For all we know, Alakazam got a scan from USPC performed in CMYK and again failed to convert properly to see it correctly.  They'd have been all thumbs up, not realizing what a muddy mess was being created.   I think the only thing that can be said with some degree of certainty is that someone or some set of individuals got sloppy at either or both companies and this was the result.

That could be very true. If it was a physical painting that was scanned in, or shot with a digital camera, the colors would need a lot of manipulating in Channels after the RGB to CMYK conversion. RGB blacks or dark greys turn to muddy messes when converting to CMYK. A good Rich Black is somewhere around 30cyan, 30magenta, 30 yellow,100black. A Black background that originated as RGB will convert to something like 88c, 78m, 98y, 89k. Without manually taking the values down that value could print out horribly (I'm guessing this was the leading cause of Reagan's Steampunk Deck that printed as a dark muddy mess).

For my day job I do a lot of designing but I also have to cleanup a good number of print files supplied by other agencies that want to use us to broker the printing as well (we use LA Press - the same printer that manufactured the ORNATE, BC Luxury, HOPC Collector's and CCC's Quicksilver Brick Boxes!). I am constantly surprised at how often these other agencies or their Freelancers supply such poor quality or RGB files that they think are Print Ready. I usually spend a lot of time removing a ton of unused channels, masks and clipping paths they almost always left in the files. I don't know what they're teaching these young designers in Universities / Art Schools these days, but after seeing the files I do every week I'm assuming USPCC gets a lot of challenging print files from all over the world!

Thanks, Randy

[sway]

Now that I have these in hand (Thanks for the fast shipping, BMPokerworld!), I have to say I'm a little disappointed.  In hand, the back design is very dull and faded in color, the skulls blend in with the background and the snake is a dirty brownish yellow.  Looking at the pictures from that post, it's now obvious to me that the picture was lightened and retouched.

Thanks for the heads up. And yeah, it's a big let down for those who have already purchased the deck.

I think the major problem here is that Alakazam's advertised cards are very different from  their real cards. It's a very serious thing to mislead consumers with images that conceal production mistakes.

[Samurai007]

I agree, and letting people know what they really look like was the reason I posted.  The face cards look very nice and are certainly unique, the card quality is Bicycle standard, nothing special (Some of the other decks I bought at the same time, like the Artisan deck, feel a little better IMHO).  I'm not saying don't buy them, but know what you are actually getting.

By the way, you might also notice that any pics that show the back of the Venom deck have also been lightened.  I didn't buy the Venom deck, only Venom Strike, but assuming the cross-deck double-backer card in the Venom Strike deck is accurate, the white/grey outline of the snakes and the red swirl are clearly visible, but the other details (red swirls and grey swirls in the "open" spaces" are very faint.  Also, while the design is a mirror image, it is a 1-way back because they put a grey, smokey pattern behind the picture that is lighter and darker in different places on 1 set of snakes than the other set.  Here is a scan of that back:

[Don Boyer]

Old topic, new life...

You may be right, but if I were working at USPCC, and I saw the first test batch come off the press looking like that, I'd call up the designer, quickly scan and email them a pic of the back, and say "Hey, they came out rather muddy looking, here's a scan, are you sure this is how you want it?"  I mean, that should just be common decency and quality control!  Because even if some other guy designed them, the cards will have a big "Bicycle" logo on every box, and that means the quality of the cards will reflect on Bicycle much more than Alakazam Magic. 

Also, if they didn't ask for a printing proof, this deck should become the poster child for why that is a bad idea...

Let me tell you a story about how contractors work.

A building is being built or renovated.  Contractors are hired - plumbers, electricians, etc.  The jobs are bid upon by the contractor, lowest bid wins.

Now let's say that this contractor sees a flaw in the plan - a fixture in the wrong place, a missing junction box, whatever.  The contractor will do EXACTLY what's stated in the contract - in fact, they're legally obligated to fulfill the contract as written.  If there's an error in the plan, it's not their error, it's the error of the property owner who contracted with them.  It's up to them whether to inform said owner, but many won't because of the whole process involved - adding a rider to the contract, paying more money, yelling at the drafter, tending to bruised egos, etc.

USPC, when hired to make a deck, is a contractor.  They work with what they're given.  I'm sure in many cases they try to spot errors, but unless every single employee you have is dedicated to delivering the best work possible, there's a good chance that something like this can slip through.  Now you tell me - have you ever seen a workplace (outside of an Apple store) where every single employee, to the last man/woman, is that dedicated?

[Anthony]

I'm glad this discussion came up again ove the last few days, I've been looking at these and it's unfortunate that the end product was so far from what it should have been.