It looks nice but the faces remind me too much of Magic-Con 2013's deck by the Bucks.
I actually love larger and simpler courts as I think larger courts are less bounded by the frame that they are in. And we tweaked the faces a little to make them a tad younger. I guess you are right about the courts looking like the magic-con '13 deck. Those are some of my favourite courts along side the Virts decks
They are great - there's lots of decks using that style. That itself might be the problem - it's becoming too common. Why make a deck that looks like so many other decks, especially if yours isn't the first to look that way?
It's hard to tell if the courts are more youthful-looking, considering you supplied us only one photo with a court card in it.
That is true. However we prefer the deck to not be so tricked out and be usuable and recognizable to laypeople. More pictures of the courts will be revealed in the coming weeks.
For now here is a picture of the ace of hearts. Enjoy
I think you've missed my point. I'm all for a deck that has the classic look to it - especially if it's a deck I plan to use for magic. I like presenting my audience with a deck they're either familiar with or that fits their sense of style. Since I don't usually have advance knowledge of one's sense of style, I have to go with familiar.
That doesn't mean the deck has to be dull and boring, either. It's an easy thing to retain the classic "International Standard" look while lending a bit of originality to it. Not enough to appear unfamiliar to your audience, but enough to make it noteworthy.
But it does mean that if you want to make yours a bit different, find an original way to do it. It looks a lot like D&D's deck from the court faces.
BTW: why "Mantecore?" It's normally spelled "manticore," so I'm guessing there's a reason for the misspelling (other than "I turned off the spellchecker")...
I totally understand the concern about finding an original way to be different. While the first 6 versions of the smoke and mirrors deck had simpler courts, they still had that frame around the courts. The magic con 2012 however, had that larger (frameless) courts but not the simple ones. Thus we merged both of them to create what you will see in the deck. Also, our courts still contain a little detail in all of them and we made some minor tweaks to the faces. I hope this addresses that point.
Regarding the spelling "Mantecore" instead of "Manticore", the latter refers to the a creature which has the body of a red lion, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth (like a shark), sometimes bat-like wings, and a trumpet-like voice (
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manticore). As you might have already noticed, there is nothing depicting a lion in this deck. In fact, the deck was named after the tiger that bit Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy. Although his name is commonly misspelled. We find "Mantecore" to be the accurate spelling of the tiger. Hence the name.