UnitedCardists.com - The forum for Cardistry, Magic, Custom Decks and All Things Playing Cards.

Heads up, folks! The official release for Iron Man deck from Card Mafia will be on May 29!

Don’t miss this piece of technology from Stark Industries

I didn't know that Stark Industries is in the sell-cheap-gimmicks-at-a-high-premium-business.

Harvonsgard wrote: ↑Tue May 25, 2021 8:10 pm I didn't know that Stark Industries is in the sell-cheap-gimmicks-at-a-high-premium-business.

We're in a hobby where we buy little packs of functionally identical paper toys for dozens sometimes hundreds of dollars, the whole industry is built around high premiums for gimmicks

Last time I bought Morésque I don't recall paying premium for a plastic toy .
Whole industry might be a a tad of a stretch.

Harvonsgard wrote: ↑Wed May 26, 2021 1:35 pm Last time I bought Morésque I don't recall paying premium for a plastic toy .
Whole industry might be a a tad of a stretch.

Little bit, everyone is looking for that gimmick....but cmon...it lights up!

Harvonsgard wrote: ↑Wed May 26, 2021 1:35 pm Last time I bought Morésque I don't recall paying premium for a plastic toy .
Whole industry might be a a tad of a stretch.

Lol moresque players might be closer to a reasonable markup but it's also being sold alongside 45 euro uncut sheets of the same exact cards... However you label them- art, toy, tool etc.- the name of the game is to produce and sell cards for profit. It may not be every deck but most of the core players in playing card production today are cashing in on a hot market. I stand by my initial comment, gimmicks sold for maximal profit are the bread and butter of the industry.

Wait, Official release? So what was the original 2500 deck release? A pre-release? Will there be any differences between those 2 decks?

istheis wrote: ↑Wed May 26, 2021 5:49 pm I stand by my initial comment, gimmicks sold for maximal profit are the bread and butter of the industry.

My post was just a joke referring to that the imaginary company Stark Industries is on the pole position of innovation. Not quite what you get here.

If you wanna expand on the follow-up; my statement does not stand contrary to yours. I just said, "a tad of a strech".
Furthermore, I didn't denied the status quo, I just question it as a consumer.
I love playing the capitalism game. It's great for us consumers IF we know how to play it. You can defend/justify what RS/CardMafia/Kevin Yu is doing here, that's cool with me as it is your dollars you're overpaying.
You're reasoning is like, my partner is abusive to me but that's cool because other partners get abused in their relationship as well (stark exaggoration but if you might know, I love to use exaggoration to make the point as clear as possible).
Your point with the uncut is not clear to me. That Morésque uncut is at/below market prices (1st V4 uncuts are e.g. $110 lol). Furthermore I always have been an advocate for, if you pay more for an uncut than for a deck you're doing something wrong.
Point being everyone could have this product for way less dollars as it is offered but light lights up - s go brrrrrrrrrrr .
All in good sports. If you like/love what you get here, all power to you. I wouldn't touch that deck if you pay me less than $50 but that's just me.

Eric Lee wrote: ↑Wed May 26, 2021 8:47 pm Wait, Official release? So what was the original 2500 deck release? A pre-release? Will there be any differences between those 2 decks?

No difference, these were pre released to people that backed the sword and shield kickstarter first.

Harvonsgard both of our jokes apparently implied something further since we continue to go back and forth. The abuse analogy is really ill suited here. The point you seem to be pushing is: These decks are inexpensive to produce but expensive to buy and people are being thoughtless when they pay the asking price. My response: The majority of collectors' playing cards are inexpensive to produce and expensive to buy. None of us are rational consumers here and really that's not the goal of our hobby. Since there aren't any other decks like this available our choice as consumers is buy or don't buy for the price being asked. Even though the whole thing is made of inexpensive cardboard, electronics and ink the complete product is worth more to people due to the clean design and execution of an officially licenced representation of a major character. Light or no light I personally don't see this as amounting to abusive overpricing of a gimmick. The demand is there and they've created a limited supply to satisfy it, I guess count yourself lucky that you're not interested in this particular gimmick.

Ehm... of course. Jokes often carry a deeper truth or are made to mask a point. It's not really a back and forth for me though, I just want some claims not leave uncommented (like the that Morésque is an overprized gimmick) since it is a forum and someone reading only one perspective could get a skewed view on things. Someone could indeed believe that $17 for Morésque is expensive and $70 (now on sale for $50) for this are reasonable.
The things in question are quantifiable by objective numbers. Unfortuantely we can't look into those numbers; I'm very confident in my estimates though. You seem to agree that I'm not far from the truth since, your point is not that the asking price is fair but that overpricing appearantly is the status quo. Which again, feel free to have that view but I beg to differ, not every deck producer is AoP or RiffleShuffle.
The analogy while exaggorated fits perfect because the same psychological mechanisms are at work (making exuses, searching for justifications).
My point is that you simply should reflect on your (not you personally but in general) purchases and be careful what you tolerate, it teaches people how to treat you, or translated to this situation be careful what you're willing to pay because producers will charge accordingly.
If you don't try to be a rational customer, that's your right. I definitely try to be and of course there're decks where my rational tends towards zero, but in those cases I'm aware of it and don't have a problem when someone points that out.

Yea at this point I think we're running circles where we mostly agree, we can all be mindful in our consumption and end up with different decks. I think you and I don't agree about objective value/worth but that's fine.

These are now available

https://thecardmafia.com/

And now completely gone
Hope some of ya managed to get it!

I've seen posts of people already receiving their Iron Man Mk85 deck by Card Mafia.
But to the horrors of those who opened it, they discovered that their tuckboxes don't have the switch - so the light will always go on every time the deck is opened. One had asked Card Mafia about it, and Card Mafia stated that the official release one really don't have a switch

That's really odd, as for those who have it before the official release, have switch in their tuckbox. Does this means they make a sudden change to the circuit board?

I am not sure I understand your question. I just bought one and have received it. I open the tuck, the light comes on. I close the tuck, the light goes off.

I think what he wants to say is that some earlier version of the tuck had a switch, which made it possible to turn off the light even with the tuck opened.

HFMJ wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 6:10 am I think what he wants to say is that some earlier version of the tuck had a switch, which made it possible to turn off the light even with the tuck opened.

Ahh, I understand now. I do not have a switch.

Im interested to see how easy it is to change the battery. It looks like the board is slid in, but i dont want to pull to hard for fear of damage. Thinking longterm of leaking/old batteries eating thru the paper.

macstrat wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:05 am Im interested to see how easy it is to change the battery. It looks like the board is slid in, but i dont want to pull to hard for fear of damage. Thinking longterm of leaking/old batteries eating thru the paper.

Could you change the battery without taking out the circuitboard?

istheis wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:08 am

macstrat wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:05 am Im interested to see how easy it is to change the battery. It looks like the board is slid in, but i dont want to pull to hard for fear of damage. Thinking longterm of leaking/old batteries eating thru the paper.

Could you change the battery without taking out the circuitboard?

I doubt it. I'm hesitant to try, but looking at it, it looks like a self contained CB with tuck designed around it. Would also make sense from a manufacturing perspective

istheis wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:08 am

macstrat wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:05 am Im interested to see how easy it is to change the battery. It looks like the board is slid in, but i dont want to pull to hard for fear of damage. Thinking longterm of leaking/old batteries eating thru the paper.

Could you change the battery without taking out the circuitboard?

I saw one guy in FB group who managed to dismantle his Iron Man deck… I think the circuit board is glued to the inside of the tuck.

The v2 is live now

https://thecardmafia.com/collections/av ... rds-mark50

I’m an Iron Man fan, and swooped in for a look as soon as the email about the V2 release arrived - having not liked the V1 cards I had hoped these would be more to my liking so I could finally get one - but unfortunately the cards themselves were just as undesirable to me as they were in V1 - oh well, perhaps I will get another chance to suit up should there be a V3…

GandalfPC wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 1:50 pm I’m an Iron Man fan, and swooped in for a look as soon as the email about the V2 release arrived - having not liked the V1 cards I had hoped these would be more to my liking so I could finally get one - but unfortunately the cards themselves were just as undesirable to me as they were in V1 - oh well, perhaps I will get another chance to suit up should there be a V3…

Their main selling point was always the box anyway, so it's not surprising. Just putting "Marvel Avengers" on the back seems particularly low effort, though...

MagikFingerz wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 3:36 pm

GandalfPC wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 1:50 pm I’m an Iron Man fan, and swooped in for a look as soon as the email about the V2 release arrived - having not liked the V1 cards I had hoped these would be more to my liking so I could finally get one - but unfortunately the cards themselves were just as undesirable to me as they were in V1 - oh well, perhaps I will get another chance to suit up should there be a V3…

Their main selling point was always the box anyway, so it's not surprising. Just putting "Marvel Avengers" on the back seems particularly low effort, though...

And also it is too bad that they decided to remove the switch, otherwise every bits of electricity drained just by opening it

The only differences I can spot in this v2 are these:

• The center module is changed from the circluar one into triangular. The rests are simply the same. The light is white instead of blue
• The color of the card back is darker red than the previous one. And the center of the card back design followed the shape of the center module. The faces are all the same. Hard to distinguish the suits
• The cards are printed by TWCC. Artwork might not really good, but fans of the card handling of TWCC can enjoy the cards
• V1 is Iron Man Model MK85, the one used in Avengers Endgame, while V2 is Iron Man Model MK50, the one used in Avengers Infinity War

Still, I am disappointed on several points:

1. They decided to remove the switch, which it’s beneficial to preserve the battery life longer. And also, they could have go for a rechargeable battery that can be simply charged with USB-C or USB 2.0. That way, it can justify the price and it is the simplest solution, but they didn’t
2. If they pursue the Avengers series of Card Mafia, shouldn’t they try to pursue the other heroes instead of just focus on Iron Man? Maybe Kevin can’t move on with the fact Tony died XD or other heroes just not as cool as Iron Man in terms of tech. Would love if they try…. Black Panther?
3. I received the email of the new edition just… three hours after the release of it, in which it is gone in less than a minute. Like wow, thanks for telling that late I know that they posts stuffs and the launch time in IG, but isn’t this considered not fair for those who doesn’t have IG?

If you bought Mark 85 deck you had access to an early bird web site and were able to buy before th public sale. Also this was only for the first 1000, there are more going to be made.

Their license probably includes the number of characters they want to use. So we'll see if they only paid for Iron Man or the other Avengers as well. If it's Iron Man only, then we'll be seeing lots of variants for the Iron Man.

Eric Lee wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:03 am Their license probably includes the number of characters they want to use. So we'll see if they only paid for Iron Man or the other Avengers as well. If it's Iron Man only, then we'll be seeing lots of variants for the Iron Man.

V1: Iron Man MK85
V2: Iron Man MK50
then what's next: MK 1? MK7? MK25? MK (insert number here from 1-50)