In this episode we take a look at the first playing cards from designer Alexandre Matencio,
the Diva Playing Cards.
Also we give you a chance to win a copy of the deck for yourself and announce the winner
of the black DKNG wheel deck.
All that coming up next!
[Music]
There's an entire subset of playing cards that I confess I’ve yet to fully dive into.
That isn’t to say that I don’t own these decks. The ones that fall into this category.
In fact I own quite a few.
Some of the most popular ones actually.
But often these decks feature relatively simplistic, if colorful designs, and are geared towards
those with more nimble fingers than myself.
Im talking about decks built for cardistry of course.
Some of the more popular hype deck manufacturers have massive followings and each release whips
up a frenzy that leads to near-immediate sell outs.
The deck I’m reviewing today, the Diva deck, is from a first time designer however, but
it captures a lot of what defines the niche.
Welcome back to the go-to place for the playing card enthusiast, I’m the Gentleman Wake.
If you are new here, we hope the value we provide will compel you to like, subscribe
and hit that notification bell.
Stay tuned all the way to the end for a chance to win a Diva deck directly from me.
The Diva playing cards were first launched via kickstarter in March of 2018 and the deck
landed in the hands of backers by October.
The deck comes packaged in a white matte cardstock tuckcase.
The front of the box features a mosaic of colorful blocks and shapes within the framework
of an invisible 4 x 6 grid.
The colors are mostly shades of the primary colors; red, yellow and blue.
The front also announces these as the first edition.
The sides of the box continue the motiff and the back features a petal shape extracted
from the design fanned out to look like a tulip.
At the bottom in tiny writing announces the 3000 deck edition size and the year of production.
The bottom of the tuck names the printer as Cartamundi, and that the deck was designed
in Paris, France by Alexandre Matencio.
The tuck has no seal and the tuck flap features the multi-colored flower once again.
The striking back design is the first aspect that immediately grabs you once you pull the
deck out of the box.
The two-way back design is comprised of a multitude of geometric shapes; Rectangles,
quarter circles, squares, etc. on a 6 x 4 panel grid set within a white poker style
border.
The interplay and formation of the shapes produces a fluidity to the card backs that
really plays with perception.
Sometimes the design recalls familiar shapes and I feel like I can see the number 96.
Other times I see the letter Y or perhaps a capital D for Diva.
At one point I started to interpret the darker fields as shadows cast by the lighter toned
forms and the design almost took on a three dimensional feel.
It’s definitely an eye-catching design that plays well for the decks intended cardistry purpose.
The card backs are reminiscent of some notable designs, including the cardistry con LA 2017
deck and the Berlin Cardistry Con 2016 deck, which Alexandre himself names as an influence
on the kickstarter campaign.
Alexandre also cites artists Peter Tarka, who works primarily in 3D but features a lot
of the same intersectionality of the Diva design, and a 2D artist of historical significance,
Sonia Delaunay, who is most definitely a major influence with her use of geometry and vivid
colors.
This is a completely custom deck.
The pips are similarly stylized to the back design.
The black of the clubs and spades replaced by the deepest shade of blue in the deck’s
pallette.
The index font is small and modern.
The most interesting aspect of the spot cards is the irregular and very non-standard pip
placement, which lacked consistency from suit to suit and even on cards with the same number
value.
Some of the cards had some interesting patterns formed by the pip placement, specifically
the nine of diamonds which forged a giant diamond from the formation of pips and the
nine of spades which actually formed a X.
The ace of spades features a giant spade pip encased in additional shapes and forms.
The remaining aces all feature large corresponding pips with more of the same style shapes found
on the backs.
The court cards are completely stylized, if vague, representations of the traditional
court members.
Almost as if rendered at the height of the Bauhaus art movement.
They are abstract to say the least.
Still you can make out crowns and hair and heads shaped like the playmobil toys i played
with as a child.
Despite the effort into making each spot card unique across the suits, the courts do NOT
adhere to the same rules apparently, as the designs are shared across all four families,
with only color swapping differentiating the red suits from the black, or in this case,
dark blue ones.
There are two identical jokers included in the deck as well featuring the tulip logo.
Additionally there’s a blank card and an ad card featuring the names of some individual
integral to the production of the deck and the kickstarter campaign behind them.
The deck is printed by Cartamundi on the true linen b9 finish stock.
The deck is certainly thicker than most decks out of the USPCC but the stock is flexible
and easy to fan, spring and flourish.
Of course the colorful back designs lends itself supremely well to just about any cardistry
moves although perhaps not an ideal choice for magic or gameplay due of course to the
custom faces.
The Diva deck is still available at playingcarddecks.com where you can use promo code Gentleman10 to
save ten percent off your order.
If you want a chance to win a Diva playing cards deck from me I’m gonna give you the
details for that in a second.
But first, I’ve been recently uploading closed captioning for my videos and wanted
to make sure to let you all know so you can take advantage of that feature if you need
it.
Just click on the little cc overlay down here to turn them on.
Ok contest time, here’s what you have to do.
1.
Like this video.
2.
Be a subscriber to this channel.
And 3.
Comment below and let me know how and where do you like to watch Youtube.
With coffee in the morning?
On a study or work break?
On the train?
Let me know.
Congrats to Brett McHan winner of the black DKNG Wheel deck, contact me via Instagram
to claim your prize.
A special thank you to my Patreon producers for their awesome support.
And thanks to you for watching!
I’ve been the Gentleman Wake.
Don’t forget to subscribe by clicking here if you haven’t already.
To check out another video click here.
Until next time!