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Everybody who's criticizing the person who voiced his discontent with whatever Carpenter did, is an A-Hole.
This is a bloody forum. Where else do we voice out opinions, if not here?
What are you guys, fu**ing thought police?
Screw off.
People should be able to voice their reasonable opinions, without being belittled and forced to read garbage such as - opinions only matter, when lots of people think the same way.
What the hell.
You people are all like each other. That's why UC forums is such an incredibly small part of the playing cards collectors market.
Nobody has the time to go through this crap.

PlanisViator wrote:Everybody who's criticizing the person who voiced his discontent with whatever Carpenter did, is an A-Hole.
This is a bloody forum. Where else do we voice out opinions, if not here?
What are you guys, fu**ing thought police?
Screw off.
People should be able to voice their reasonable opinions, without being belittled and forced to read garbage such as - opinions only matter, when lots of people think the same way.
What the hell.
You people are all like each other. That's why UC forums is such an incredibly small part of the playing cards collectors market.
Nobody has the time to go through this crap.

Name calling and over-generalization is worse. People will always disagree with each others' opinions and get into discussions or even arguments, but rarely do our members sink as low as to resort to the aforementioned. If you don't like it here, you're welcome to leave at any time.

PlanisViator wrote:Nobody has the time to go through this crap.

Contradict much?
Some people here clearly misunderstood my point and I'm sick of explaining it.

PlanisViator wrote:Everybody who's criticizing the person who voiced his discontent with whatever Carpenter did, is an A-Hole.
This is a bloody forum. Where else do we voice out opinions, if not here?
What are you guys, fu**ing thought police?
Screw off.
People should be able to voice their reasonable opinions, without being belittled and forced to read garbage such as - opinions only matter, when lots of people think the same way.
What the hell.
You people are all like each other. That's why UC forums is such an incredibly small part of the playing cards collectors market.
Nobody has the time to go through this crap.

The derp is strong in this one...

PlanisViator wrote:That's why UC forums is such an incredibly small part of the playing cards collectors market.

I'd be more than happy to know where is the bigger collectors market... truly...

Well, I just received my patron backer carat case. I like it. Now, if someone would like to donate a nice Aurum deck for me to put in the carat case, I would be much obliged

I agree....

Well I was a Patreon on the lowest level for a bit but he doesn’t communicate. Also posting pics of a Tesla that over $100K on FB that he got leads me to believe he doesn’t need the financial suppport in any way. I’ll be happy to support him on Patreon when I can also afford to buy the same car.

jerichoholic wrote:Well I was a Patreon on the lowest level for a bit but he doesn’t communicate. Also posting pics of a Tesla that over $100K on FB that he got leads me to believe he doesn’t need the financial suppport in any way. I’ll be happy to support him on Patreon when I can also afford to buy the same car.

Cool story.

The decks are shipping

Came in also today

Wow, those are beautiful. It's a shame Paul went AWOL.

I became a Patron after this deck was released. Six or so months of basically nothing, so I am out. I don't have anything of Paul's anyway. But, the lack of activity was really disappointing. Glad you are getting the limited decks.

vasta41 wrote:Wow, those are beautiful. It's a shame Paul went AWOL.

He didn't go AWOL. He's still around, just browsing as a guest to avoid logging in, constructive criticism and answering to peoples questions and/or concerns regarding Radia.

It will be interesting on how he goes about promoting his next deck on this forum.

I think the decks look great, except the handwritten number. That just lets it down.

I love Paul’s work but hate the Patron selling model. Hearing from those who did elect to do the Patron thing and then quit after getting nothing from it is hardly a mandate either.

I would have loved to have added this to my collection, but alas, I was not allowed to unless I paid a membership fee (and even then it wasn’t guaranteed).

Edit Oh and don’t get me started on Radia. Massively disappointing for me, many of my cards had surface scratches and localised indentations that bordered on creases.

What was the net price of these with fees and deck?

joeblow wrote:What was the net price of these with fees and deck?

$20 Initial deposit
$70 Balance
+ Shipping

Trades anyone? I'll make it worth your time!

Man I am FAST!!!!

I'm pretty envious. Sure looks like a gorgeous deck.

There can be only One. Congrats there.

I thought it was a slash for the longest time, like 1/25, with no number written in.

If you look at the pictures, you can see it's slightly ripped/popped out in a few areas.

I guess this deck really needed the casing

As for encarded decks, Radia was my first and last deck i am getting from him (just poor customer service and high ego)

Cardians wrote:Lesson learned, don't support this guy no matter how "limited" his decks are. If he can't be bothered to respond to my emails and/or come to the forum to explain or help the situation, it's just made my decision to continue to support him non-existent.

Funny how Paul had 78 members when the deck was release and now only has 66. Goes to show you I'm not the only one that has had problems with him or his lack of communication to put it in a better way.

My guess is he's more focused on his Tesla then his supporters/cards.

I never really understood what the hype was about Paul Carpenter's decks. Imo, the only great deck he's ever produced was Zenith. Most of his other decks are just arts and crafts projects on the tucks because the cards inside aren't really all that. He may be able to come up with some decent back designs, but I found most of his court cards seriously lacking. I view him as one of those artists who only comes on UC to sell his shit, but otherwise never engages in any other discussions or gives a f*ck about anything or anyone else. Paul should've known that that degree of elaborate laser cutting would make the tuck extremely fragile. If he's really blowing you off and not even responding about the damaged tucks, then he's an even bigger tool than we suspected. I really don't expect to see him around until he slinks back here to peddle his next deck.

alric wrote:

Cardians wrote:Lesson learned, don't support this guy no matter how "limited" his decks are. If he can't be bothered to respond to my emails and/or come to the forum to explain or help the situation, it's just made my decision to continue to support him non-existent.

Funny how Paul had 78 members when the deck was release and now only has 66. Goes to show you I'm not the only one that has had problems with him or his lack of communication to put it in a better way.

My guess is he's more focused on his Tesla then his supporters/cards.

I never really understood what the hype was about Paul Carpenter's decks. Imo, the only great deck he's ever produced was Zenith. Most of his other decks are just arts and crafts projects on the tucks because the cards inside aren't really all that. He may be able to come up with some decent back designs, but I found most of his court cards seriously lacking. I view him as one of those artists who only comes on UC to sell his shit, but otherwise never engages in any other discussions or gives a f*ck about anything or anyone else. Paul should've known that that degree of elaborate laser cutting would make the tuck extremely fragile. If he's really blowing you off and not even responding about the damaged tucks, then he's an even bigger tool than we suspected. I really don't expect to see him around until he slinks back here to peddle his next deck.

Unnecessarily harsh, and I respectfully disagree.

You're right that his court cards are "lacking" ("seriously" is pushing it), but his back designs are impeccable. Aurum is gorgeous. Chancellor is one of the most detailed card designs ever. Both Celestial decks are beautiful. The 52+ Joker Club Deck is out of this world, and one of my favorites. Radia is phenomenal and likely a one-of-a-kind deck for its production process. I think that the Tendril series is overrated, but they're still great.

How many artists, creators, and designers interact with us here? Not the majority, that's for sure. There seemed to be a dying-down period here, and people left and rarely come back. It feels like there's been a resurgence over the last year or so with new friends and lurkers joining the fray, and with that added activity maybe some of these guys will come back. I think it's in poor taste to hate on somebody just because they're not here, regardless of whether or not they used to be.

I can't speak for anyone else's experiences with Paul outside of UC, but my rare communications have been handled well. Maybe your choices in words is as off-putting with him as they are here.

TwoPiece wrote:How many artists, creators, and designers interact with us here? Not the majority, that's for sure. There seemed to be a dying-down period here, and people left and rarely come back. It feels like there's been a resurgence over the last year or so with new friends and lurkers joining the fray, and with that added activity maybe some of these guys will come back. I think it's in poor taste to hate on somebody just because they're not here, regardless of whether or not they used to be.

Lotrek, Lorenzo, Giovanni, Sunish, Alex Chin, Randy Butterfield, Kevin Reylek, Lance Miller, Rick Davidson, Karin Yan, Montrezi, Conturbia, Jody Eklund, Edgy Bros, I'm sure I'm missing many others. All these designers participate here at UC and have joined in discussions in threads other than the ones promoting their own decks. There's a reason they're more well-received than other designers who avoid UC.

I personally tend to avoid designers who's posts are almost exclusively just in threads promoting their decks. For example, Paul Ruccio's only posts here at UC are in his threads promoting whichever re-color of his airplane deck, I don't know if I've ever seen him post on any other topic. Joker & the Thief have become like that. At least back in the day when they were still doing deck reviews, they interacted more, but ever since they started selling decks, they only come to shill. And yes, Paul has become one of the artists I tend not to support anymore. I don't find it in poor taste to not like an artist who intentionally avoids UC or only comes here to only to sell their stuff, that's perfectly reasonable and human nature. Then you look at guys like Lotrek or Sunish, they're here participating in multiple threads, not just their own, and they shed so much insight into the production of cards and the technologies involved. As I said before, there's a valid reason why any of the artists listed above are so much better received than the likes of Paul or Jackson, poor taste has nothing to do with it.

Well feels like nowadays people are quite harsh on Paul because of his lack of communication and high price on decks. I will have to make some fair comment to defend for Paul

1. About his decks

Cannot disagree more about the criticism on the design of his decks. Aurum is still one of my top 10 decks. Ambassador is not as popular but the back design is great. I do not like Radia that much, but still there are some thoughtful design in it. And I do not like his coming new decks that much...

That been said, will I buy Paul's deck blindly ? NO. Will I keep checking on his new designs? YES.

2. About the communication

Agreed that not showing up here in UC is a loss for Paul himself and us as well. I would recommend whoever want to get his response try FB. He replied my IM within in one day every time I asked him a question

3. About the criticism on Radia from that Chinese guy

First of all, I know that guy as well, and he had quite bad reputation among Chinese collectors. Also he posted a thread in a chinese forum showing how he rip of the back of a Radia card. Was that picture taken when he's trying to rip off the back? I don't know. But based on his reputation I would not pay much attention to what he said.


All I have to say is there's no need to over-reaction. We buy decks because of designs, not because of artists. You may argue that a lot of us buy Lotrek decks in blind. But that was because he continuously shows great designs. To me it doesn't matter who the designer is. I was very sad about JR's 2nd edition Federal 52, but I would never say something like "I will never get anything from JR". In fact I bought a lot Maduro...

sinjin7 wrote:

TwoPiece wrote:How many artists, creators, and designers interact with us here? Not the majority, that's for sure. There seemed to be a dying-down period here, and people left and rarely come back. It feels like there's been a resurgence over the last year or so with new friends and lurkers joining the fray, and with that added activity maybe some of these guys will come back. I think it's in poor taste to hate on somebody just because they're not here, regardless of whether or not they used to be.

Lotrek, Lorenzo, Giovanni, Sunish, Alex Chin, Randy Butterfield, Kevin Reylek, Lance Miller, Rick Davidson, Karin Yan, Montrezi, Conturbia, Jody Eklund, Edgy Bros, I'm sure I'm missing many others. All these designers participate here at UC and have joined in discussions in threads other than the ones promoting their own decks. There's a reason they're more well-received than other designers who avoid UC.

I personally tend to avoid designers who's posts are almost exclusively just in threads promoting their decks. For example, Paul Ruccio's only posts here at UC are in his threads promoting whichever re-color of his airplane deck, I don't know if I've ever seen him post on any other topic. Joker & the Thief have become like that. At least back in the day when they were still doing deck reviews, they interacted more, but ever since they started selling decks, they only come to shill. And yes, Paul has become one of the artists I tend not to support anymore. I don't find it in poor taste to not like an artist who intentionally avoids UC or only comes here to only to sell their stuff, that's perfectly reasonable and human nature. Then you look at guys like Lotrek or Sunish, they're here participating in multiple threads, not just their own, and they shed so much insight into the production of cards and the technologies involved. As I said before, there's a valid reason why any of the artists listed above are so much better received than the likes of Paul or Jackson, poor taste has nothing to do with it.

Cool story. That's a minuscule percentage of deck artists/creators/designers; exactly as I said.

Lmfao, and agree to disagree. Metallica doesn't participate on Ultimate Guitar. Avoiding a product based on a brand or person's participation on this forum is just mind-blowing. Conversation over.

akicer wrote:We buy decks because of designs, not because of artists. You may argue that a lot of us buy Lotrek decks in blind. But that was because he continuously shows great designs. To me it doesn't matter who the designer is.

That's a perfectly fine collecting philosophy. . .for you. It's not mine. I don't know a lot of deck artists personally, so for those decks I purchase solely on the merits of design and price. Being part of Decknique and UC over many years have given me the privilege to get to know many artists. And for the artists of which I have some knowledge, character is a huge factor for me. I buy Lotrek's decks because of excellent design, but of equal importance because of excellent character. Now let's take Jackson. His poor attitude and arrogance is pretty well established here at UC. If that was it, I could get past that. But when he willfully and knowingly commits fraud by misrepresenting a deck made in China as one made in Taiwan, and still to this day refuses to acknowledge that fraud and rectify it (while quoting from the Bible, no less) even after being told directly to do so, then that speaks of serious character defect. At some point, for me, principles have to come in and I find myself unable to support such a man. For me not to buy Jackson's decks is 100% because of the artist's character, not because of the design. For me, Paul is unfortunately going down the same path as Jackson.

I want you to understand one thing: I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm right. I respect that you make it all about the design only. The only thing I disagree with is the pronoun your statement above begins with.

TwoPiece wrote:Avoiding a product based on a brand or person's participation on this forum is just mind-blowing. Conversation over.

I guess some minds are just easy to blow. Conversation continues, as it should.