Thanks Anthony, for that excellent photo of the courts on the 'mystery rare deck'. (+1 again for you brother!) When I received mine, I was gobsmacked by the metalic gold inks... its shine really isn't that far off gold foil.
Nurul, I'm sure you'll love the shine on the rare deck -- I've not seen anything else like it.
I opened a deck of Serpentines on the day I received the package, and I've given it about 6 hours of shuffling so far. As expected, the quality (printing, durability, handling) is far superior to USPCC in all respects.
(Even though USPCC's new cardstock *is* an improvement, in terms of durability it still sucks pretty bad -- the edges on one of the private reserve Madison Rounders decks started getting dents after just 2 hours. These Serpentines are still going strong though.)
The feel of the cards are unique... different to anything else out there. The cards are by far the thinnest that I've ever handled (even thinner than the Erdnase 216s by CARC), and so I did expect them to not last too long... but the European cardstock is surprising durable.
Out of the box I initially find them a little awkward... but them after breaking them in, kind of like the Legends, I found the handling to improve. Now I really do like the feel of the thin, yet snappy cards.
Although the edges look similar to USPCC (in that they don't have the glass-like smoothness of the Legends or Sharps), they faro incredibly well -- in fact, I found them easier to faro than any other deck I've ever used. The thinness of the cards probably has something to do with that.
Personally, I love this deck -- for both the handling and the classic design. I hope LPCC bring out a second edition of Serpentines in the future, or that they bring out more decks with a classic design.
I'm actually going to buy some more of these, just in case they run out!
