Every Day decks

[masagin303]

Besides my usual budget victims (lately Copag 310 Slimline, Bicycle Jumbo, Red rider-backs...), I'm currently destroying a deck of Ravn III Sol. It's the Cartmundi's "Cambric 310gr Black Core paper with 9C² varnish", modern cut and it's soft but still snappy. It has very smooth edges and out of the box it's a bit tricky to faro. You will always have this feeling that you're going to destroy the edges while doing it. But I already did lots of them and cards are still holding together. When it comes to faro I very much prefer bikes' handling, otherwise it's a pleasure to hold and play with this deck.

[Fes]

New month and I haven't posted about my EDD list changes. Since I have a few minutes I'll do that now. My November list is hard to get a spot in on the line up and doesn't really change all that much from year to year. They're special decks to me.

A splash of Green Monarchs is another one of those decks I seem to always use in November.
Metal Rider Back the original red tuck version I don't have much of the blue's. Brilliant deck, Max crushed it.
Four Point use this deck a couple times a year but always in November.
Draconian I love Draconians, all of them. Yep, I do mean all of them. The deck I currently have in rotation is the one this link points to (Wildfire) for no other reason that it's the one I picked up and it's not December yet.
The Gentlemen 52 deck is always in my Movember line up.
Bicycle Mosaic a deck I wanted to use this month so I am. I enjoy it, not the beater or worker deck.
That deck is of course Tally-Ho Circle Backs blue this month because the desk deck is warmer.

Me desk deck gets a rest in November and is replaced with Stud playing cards. I just set the Studs on top of my Liberty Standards because the latter never actually leave my desk.

[hsbc]

When I somehow end up with more than one of a deck and it's not terribly valuable, I'll set it aside for games and cardistry (neither of which I really do much but that's another story) - so far I've ended up with a Delirium Ascension, Evil Deck, Black Monolith, Betrayers Invictus, 1000 Cranes, Table Players II (Bookmark?), Commoners, Postage Paid, Scarlett Bicycle, and Gold Artisans. The last two especially should be excellent for games

[rousselle]

Current daily rotation for me and the kids:

King of Tigers (gold)
Empire Keepers (red)
Bio-hazard (red)
Unicorn April Fools deck
Republic (green)

And, every once in a while, we play with one of my son's Legal Tender (Cold Foil v1).

[masagin303]

Currently destroying:
Tally Ho Elites
Gold Butterflies
Green Keepers
Ravn Sol

[masagin303]

Green Keepers almost destroyed, added Blue Keepers to the rotation. And it's the best USPCC can do. The only minor downside is the modern cut but I still can't faro on the table so not a big deal for me. For $4.99 it's a nice replacement for standard bikes. I love the lighthouse background.

[nessigator]

I’m not sure my Richard Turner gold labels would bring a smile to anyone’s face.

I love those, but just started using Bicycle Elite Edition from Penguin Magic

[Harvonsgard]

Current rotation

[justplaycards]

Todays fidget deck is Grimaud's Death Game

[rousselle]

Remember those error gilded Equinox decks from KWP? They had a whole bunch that were gilded poorly, so they sold them for a few bucks a deck, and I picked up a few and have had one of those decks in the rotation for quite a while now. Keeping in mind that they were poorly gilded, I have noticed that the gilding is wearing off far more quickly than I would have expected (actually, I'm not sure it even occurred to me that they would wear off; I always kinda thought that gilding was a guard against wear, but I guess I never thought it through, really.)

These babies fan great after an evening of game play with my teenagers.


Anyway, I decided to see what we're getting for these $25 and up gilded decks as far as daily use goes, so tonight I added the Golden Gilded Honeybees from Penguin Magic / Randy Butterfield. I love Randy's work, even when it's just subtle recolors of standard courts combined with a cool borderless back, so I've long been a backer of the Honeybees. But, I recently picked up one each of the gold and black gilded, and despite the fact that they are just so good looking I didn't want to subject them to the abuse my kids and I give cards when we play games as part of our nightly routines, I decided it was time to break one in. I went with the golds, and tonight was the first night I took these bad Larrys for a spin.

First of all, I'll note that they fan pretty much perfectly right out of the box, and absolutely perfectly after the tiniest bit of breaking in. These cards are supple (did they use Bicycle stock instead of Bee? I'm not sure, but the finish is perfect, either way). It could be that they feel as supple as they do because most of the decks we currently have in rotation are the comparably stiffer products of EPCC/LPCC and MPC. Not sure. But, oh my goodness, the difference in the feel with the gilding is both noticeable and delightful. They shuffle like heaven, and deal like a form-fitted clouds. These are cards that are so clearly born to be played. It was a pure joy to handle them.

We'll see how the gilding holds up over time. I'm assuming that wear on the red-gilded Equinoxes would be far more noticeable far earlier because of the bright coloring compared to the lighter touch of the gold. But who knows? I may end up throwing the black into the mix before too long, too, just for funzies... and also because I'm assuming the wear on those guys would be far easier to discern far earlier. If, that is, that's a thing.

But, yeah. Oh, my. These Gold Gilded Honeybees are truly an optimal experience out of the box. Glad to have added them to my daily repertoire.

[Bradius]

I got like a brick or two of those KWP Equinox gilded decks that had bad gilding. I have played around with a couple of the decks. I also found that the gilding didn't hold up very well to prolonged use, nor di they ever fully break in like I would have hoped. That said, I will probably never get an opportunity to get a gilded KWP deck for $1-2 ever again...

I feel certain better gilded decks will have gilding that holds up much better. That said, foil I think will just not hold up great on edges when used a lot.