(chill downtempo music)
- All right, so as you can see, we have two slices of bread,
which means this next card trick is a sandwich trick.
We'll leave these slices over here.
Lee, can you go ahead and say "stop", whenever you like?
- [Lee] Stop. - Right there,
have a look at that card.
That'll be your card, I need you to remember that,
and we'll leave that card somewhere in the middle.
Now, this is where we're gonna use one
of the slices of bread, and we're gonna
actually have that slice disappear.
Watch closely as (mouth clicks) gone,
somewhere into the deck.
We'll need the second slice, as well.
We're gonna have that disappear somewhere in the deck.
Just watch it.
Keep your eye on that slice.
And gone.
Hopefully, the two pieces of bread have found
their main ingredient, your card, the seven of diamonds.
Delicious. (subsonic whooshing)
Yo, what's up, people?
Today, as you know, we're announcing the winner
of the contest, but not only that,
we got a few interesting decks of cards to review.
Really interesting decks of cards, actually.
Really interesting (chuckles).
I don't know why I did that.
Before we get into anything, I will let
you know the winners are listed down below.
So we've chosen 10 people
to take home a $100 gift certificate,
whether that's to Art of Play or Puzzle Master,
your name should be in the description,
and you have received an email if you did win.
If you're watching this and received no email,
unfortunately, you didn't win this time.
But stay tuned, 'cause there will be more contests,
maybe even bigger contests, on this channel, soon to come.
By the way, thank you to everybody
who subscribed to me over on Twitch.
I appreciate it, we're having lots
of fun streaming over there.
All right guys, enough of that.
Let's get into today's video.
We are looking at three, I'm not gonna say
my top three decks, but the three decks that
I've found the most interesting in recent memory.
These were sent to me by either Art of Play
or my friend Piff, Piff the Magic Dragon.
You may know his brother, Dave.
I'll stick to making YouTube videos.
So without further ado, let's get into checking out
these decks, and find out a little bit more
about what lies inside.
So first of all, we're going to take a look
at the Art & Machine deck.
(relaxing downtempo music)
This is the Art & Machine deck by Ryan Hewlett.
Each suit in the deck focuses on one
of these four moments, the new typography
of the Bauhaus era, the mid-century book cover design,
the late 20th century silk screen poster aesthetic,
and the contemporary art design in the age of mobile.
That is kind of what this whole deck focuses on,
it's basically a celebration of typography and art,
which is really cool and simplistic.
So the faces of the cards are super creative
and very individual, which doesn't make
this ideal for performing magic,
because it is a bit confusing when staring at a card.
However, this is a beautiful deck
to just have laying around the house.
I love the minimalistic back design.
I know it's just an X with some circles on it,
but it looks really dope, and it fits
with that orange color, which is really cool.
The cards, themselves, are quite soft,
and very, very fun to handle.
I've been holding these cards for
probably about three, four days,
and just literally fidgeting around
with them, and they still hold up.
They feel really, really nice.
They're not too stiff, so they're perfect
for Faros, and springs, and that type of thing.
The tuck case design is really,
really cool, really abstract.
I like it a lot.
I've gotten a lot of questions.
I posted a photo of this in Instagram.
A lot of people asked me what this deck was.
Now you know, it's the Art & Machine deck.
I'll leave the link below.
Next up, we have a new NOC deck.
A little bit refreshing in the NOC world.
If you're not familiar, NOC was
just one base color, which is cool, which is really nice.
It makes for a very simplistic design,
but they've added something really cool to this,
and we'll get to that in a second.
Let's look at the tuck case.
This tuck case is the first time
I've ever seen a tuck case like this, super unique.
A perforated design on the back and the front,
so the back sort of reveals the back design
in a sort of gradient tone, which is really sick.
Designed and produced by Art of Play,
in collaboration with Alex Pandrea.
So aside from the tuck case being super cool,
modern, CNC-ed, I've never seen anything like this,
so I like that they're, I don't wanna say thinking
outside the box, 'cause they're
literally thinking about the box.
It's cool to see some refreshing, new developments
in the world of tuck cases.
We've seen a lot of different tuck cases over the year.
This is one that I've never seen before,
and it opens up some new doors in the tuck case world,
which is really exciting for nerds
like me, who collect playing cards.
The cards, themselves, are really cool.
They've got this warm tone gradient.
There's also a greener version,
which lime green, and sort of graded to yellow.
This one, however, does have that warm sunset tone,
which is really, really neat.
It is a symmetrical back design.
The faces, themselves, as you can expect
with any NOC deck are standard, which I appreciate.
In this deck, you do get some identical jokers,
which are also very minimalistic, as well as some ad cards.
The ace of spades features the Art of Play logo,
which is also really neat, and very, very simple.
It's nice to see collaborations coming out,
like NOC and Art of Play, you have,
as well, the Smoke and Mirrors
and Anyone Worldwide collab, which is also really sick.
So I really appreciate that.
More and more, we're seeing playing cards be featured kind
of like a sneaker brand, where they collab
with other brands, and I love seeing that.
So that is the NOC deck, which I do like.
It's probably my favorite NOC deck to date.
I like the other colors,
but you do kind of get bored of them.
This one, I think, stands out a little bit more.
Now, finally, finally, the Piff deck.
Piff the Magic Dragon you may have seen on AGT
or Penn and Teller Fool Us, hilarious comedian
that does magic, dresses up as a giant,
stupid-looking dragon, which is so funny,
is self-deprecating, and sort of heckler humor.
This has really thrown him into the spotlight,
and he's become very sort of famous
and streamlined for not only his outfit,
but his Tacular, his pop-up tickle trunk,
if you will, of magic tricks, as well as his assistant,
Mr. Piffles, who's a little chihuahua puppy,
dressed up, as well.
So he's done something really cool
with the tuck case, as well.
He's turned it into a little, mini, portable Tacular.
So you now have his giant Tacular
in a deck form, which I think is really smart.
The back design, itself, looks really, really good.
We'll get into the extra cards,
and everything else that you get with this deck,
'cause there's a lot of stuff you get with this deck.
But the back design is actually really, really beautiful.
It has a simplistic back design look,
kinda like you would see on Bicycles.
The cards, themselves, do come
in Mnemonica stack which (clucks tongue),
thank you very much.
I do enjoy it.
Although the faces of the cards are very different
from one another, they make it a little bit hard
to tell which card is which.
That's the only thing that,
the spades are made of fire,
which look like this, and it kinda makes
it a little bit confusing comparing it to the hearts,
which are made of roses, which obviously,
you look at them, you know that they're hearts.
Spades are just a little bit (mouths trumpet).
But aside from that, the cards do handle well.
They're made from USPCC,
and they have a one-way back design,
which I've found out, so if you look at the water,
it is a one-way back design, which you can
also use to your advantage in a magic trick.
But not only that, he's included a bunch
of magic tricks, and a bunch of magic gimmicks,
with this deck, which is super, super sick.
So first of all, aside from the Tacular,
you also have two extra Tacular legs.
So you have these legs that, in case the first one breaks,
you've got some backups, which is really cool.
The jokers feature a five of diamonds reveal,
with Mr. Piffles on it, so you can obviously have
them choose the five of diamonds
to lose into the deck and turn the joker
into this card, which then shows them what their card is.
Also, which probably my favorite trick,
you have a sandwich trick in this deck,
so basically, two slices of bread.
You can also add some cheese and ham into it,
if you like, which is really funny.
I like this, 'cause there's a lot
of room to play, for your own sort of creativity.
If you wanna create your own trick,
you can use these in any which way you want,
but they're really cool.
Piff actually teaches all these tricks,
just a really basic trick, for each
of these gimmicks, on his Website,
which you guys could even check out
without buying the deck, which is really cool.
So you get some freebie tutorials, there,
but not only that, if you buy the deck,
you also get another trick incorporated,
with Mr. Piffles being shot out of a cannon (claps)
into the deck, a classic in magic,
but actually really funny to do,
and kinda silly, which really represents his character.
All right, Lee, for my next trick,
I need you to say stop, whenever you're gonna choose a card.
- [Lee] Stop. - Right there?
Have a look at this card.
It's okay if I see it, actually.
It's the eight of hearts.
We'll leave that, actually, in the middle, somewhere,
and for this trick, we're gonna use
my lovely assistant for the day, Mr. Piffles.
And as you can see, he's in a bit of a precarious position.
Mr. Piffles, he's sitting inside of a cannon,
but not for long, 'cause if you just wave
your hand over Mr. Piffles, (whooshes)
he gets shot out of the cannon,
and he gets shot, actually, somewhere into the deck.
Let's see if we can find him in here, somewhere.
Mr. Piffles!
Where you at (chuckles)?
There he is.
Mr. Piffles shot himself into your card,
the eight of hearts.
All in all, he put a lot of work into this deck,
not only from the back and the face design,
everything is custom.
Really, really well-done, and I think
it's a great piece of playing card collection
for any collector out there, but not
only that, if you're a magician,
and you wanna have some fun, and be a little goofy,
this is also something that you can walk around with.
Ladies and gents,
that concludes today's playing card review.
We were looking at three really unique decks
of cards that have come out recently.
By the way, if you guys want me
to review any other unique decks,
or decks that you think I might like,
whether they're on Kickstarter,
or whether they've been out for 10 years,
drop a comment below.
Let me know, maybe, your top three decks
that you would like to see reviewed on this channel,
and I'll do my best to get to those.
That being said, guys, smash like,
subscribe, hit the bell, and all
that stuff, and we'll see you on the next video.
Peace!
(chill downtempo music)