Mine arrived yesterday, and I spent a good few hours putting one through some serious use.
The reviews over here so far are spot on about the card stock -- it is indeed thicker, and more flexible than USPCC cards. I personally prefer stiffer and/or heavier card stocks... but still, the MPC card stock isn't bad, in my opinion.
(By the way, great review Rousselle. +1 to you)
I did notice "Made in China" marking on a photo showing the tuckboxes around 2 weeks ago when I was look back at their Kickstarter page. That did give me a bit of a shock at the time, because looking at the currency that pledges were set in, I figured that the "in house printing" was happening in Canada. Still I was looking forward to receiving them.
The comparison with the Nautical deck, in my opinion, is a fair one. There is some similarity in terms of feel. The MPC cards are thicker, and feel slightly less plastic-y.
S. Carey is indeed correct -- if you bend the cards (eg. If you're doing a pressure fan), then the cards will retain that bend. You have to turn the deck over and pressure fan them again to remove the bend.
Once broken in, I found them to fan without any problems. They don't fan as easily as Legends V2s, or any USPCC cards with magic finish... but still, I wouldn't say that they "fan badly".
Maybe it's just down to one's personal technique, but I found the MPC cards to pressure fan better than any other deck I have (I cannot get USPCC decks to pressure fan as evenly, and Legends V2s are just too stiff for it) -- I got perfect ones almost every time.
As I'm into gambling demonstrations and false deals, I put the cards through a lot of shuffle work.
The cards are traditionally cut (although obviously via a different process to USPCC), and so they shuffle a lot better when the cards are face down. For tabled faros, I had no difficulty at all. If you turn the cards face up and then try to do a tabled faro... well, best of luck brother.
However, I did notice one weakness in the cards... the corners. Assuming that I've not received a one-off not-so-strong deck, and that all MPC decks are like this, there is a durability problem.
If you do a few faros, wear and tear will start showing on the back of the cards, around the corners. The layer with the back design on it will start getting chipped.
In our games, me and my friends can easily start identifying cards if we notice that they're showing signs of wear like that. Lol.
Other than that, I have no real issues with the cards. I think they look great (it's great to see a full-bleed back design to compete with the Bees!), and that the cards handle than other "made in China" decks such as the Nautical and the Global Titan decks.
Although I cannot confirm it for sure, I do think that the cards will last longer (as in not clump and become unusable) than Bikes.
In terms of registration... overall, very good -- better than USPCC. However, not flawless like the cards printed at the Legends factory in Taiwan. I took a very very very close look at the cards... and some cards were very slightly off.
Still, impressive I think, because I guess only factories like the Fournier plant in spain and the Legends factory can get registration accurate to a millionth of a pixel.
If MPC can improve on their product even further (for one, sort out the chipping corners problem), then that would be great! I don't regret buying them at all
