Tendril Ascendant(2015) by Encarded Playing Cards
So I ordered these a month ago straight from Encarded.com, and they finally arrived in the mail this week. Not bad. Another saturday review! (100th post! Things are getting serious.)
Lets begin with the box. As far as custom boxes go, this one is up there with the goods. You’ve got a black box with the tendrils motif running throughout. This version in contrast with the blue Nightfall(review planned) has the spirograph looking design on the card backs. The artist Paul Carpenter really does a good job with the more custom ones. This deck also had a limited run of gold embossed Ascendants, available only through Kickstarter though.
Well, there’s the faces of the cards, which carries the same flavor as the box. Blue and Green replace the standard black and red for the Tendril theme.
Court Cards are both blue and green and the colors mesh nicely.
You get a blue joker, a green joker, a double backer, and a white face card. I haven’t opened the Nightfall blue version yet, but I forget if that’s what the faces look like. Maybe?
Well, its Kentucky bicycle stock, so no surprises there. You’re buying a custom deck rather than fancy superior card stock. Soft bicycle cards that probably won’t last long through everyday use.
Here’s a video of the card spinning around. At slower human speeds, the tendrils are visually appealing. I guess that’s how I’d describe it.
I guess for a tabled face spread, some of the royals over flow where the numbered cards don’t.
Giant fan here looks much nicer than a single layered fan. Faros decently like USPC stock should.
The back border are about half as thin as the standard 808 rider backs.
As of April 2015, I think you should still be able to order from Encarded.com if you’d want to grab this deck and the other at 15$, a couple $ more than if you had pledged on Kickstarter. Not bad.
Final thoughts: If you’re into Paul Carpenter’s well designed custom playing cards, you probably have the more limited versions with the custom tucks, seals, wrappings, bells and whistles. For the every day collector like me. Well, you should probably pick these up before they hit Aurum’s 25-40$ price range.
–Kudos
RamblerKudos 