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

MPC, pass

Decknowledgy wrote:MPC, pass

I like the tuck case. Will get one for display.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was on the fence. I like the deck, but $30 for two decks made by MPC...I am probably going to pass. I do like the deck, so I hope it funds. I just wish they could do it with another printer, but again it is tough to do it unless you get a lot of backers....

Hey guys! I am the designer of the deck, I will be happy to answer any questions that anyone should have. Thanks a lot masagin for starting the thread

Decknowledgy wrote:MPC, pass

Understandable! MPC is the only real option out there, unless one is confident he will sell at least 1000 decks that all other printers ask, and that seemed like quite the stretch to me!

Bradius wrote:I was on the fence. I like the deck, but $30 for two decks made by MPC...I am probably going to pass. I do like the deck, so I hope it funds. I just wish they could do it with another printer, but again it is tough to do it unless you get a lot of backers....

Thanks for the nice words Bradius! Yep, it's the chicken and egg problem - consider that with the unit cost that I am charged, if I get 100% funded I will probably lose a couple hundred dollars overall, it was really impossible to do it any cheaper without tripling the funding goal!

Dolape wrote:Hey guys! I am the designer of the deck, I will be happy to answer any questions that anyone should have. Thanks a lot masagin for starting the thread

Decknowledgy wrote:MPC, pass

Understandable! MPC is the only real option out there, unless one is confident he will sell at least 1000 decks that all other printers ask, and that seemed like quite the stretch to me!

Bradius wrote:I was on the fence. I like the deck, but $30 for two decks made by MPC...I am probably going to pass. I do like the deck, so I hope it funds. I just wish they could do it with another printer, but again it is tough to do it unless you get a lot of backers....

Thanks for the nice words Bradius! Yep, it's the chicken and egg problem - consider that with the unit cost that I am charged, if I get 100% funded I will probably lose a couple hundred dollars overall, it was really impossible to do it any cheaper without tripling the funding goal!

Yeah most creators try to sell their decks to retail or sell their own decks with a website after kickstarters to make their money back. Not many purely sell decks on kickstarter.

chicken_ql wrote:

Dolape wrote:Hey guys! I am the designer of the deck, I will be happy to answer any questions that anyone should have. Thanks a lot masagin for starting the thread

Decknowledgy wrote:MPC, pass

Understandable! MPC is the only real option out there, unless one is confident he will sell at least 1000 decks that all other printers ask, and that seemed like quite the stretch to me!

Bradius wrote:I was on the fence. I like the deck, but $30 for two decks made by MPC...I am probably going to pass. I do like the deck, so I hope it funds. I just wish they could do it with another printer, but again it is tough to do it unless you get a lot of backers....

Thanks for the nice words Bradius! Yep, it's the chicken and egg problem - consider that with the unit cost that I am charged, if I get 100% funded I will probably lose a couple hundred dollars overall, it was really impossible to do it any cheaper without tripling the funding goal!

Yeah most creators try to sell their decks to retail or sell their own decks with a website after kickstarters to make their money back. Not many purely sell decks on kickstarter.

That's a good point, in my case for a first project I considered that Kickstarter exclusivity was a good added value, given that I do not have a personal website to sell them afterwards nor any contact with resellers. Time will tell if that worked out well for me!

It's true that's added value but the fact that it's mpc means you also lose alot of value. I believe it would be a good idea to start reaching out now to retailers about selling to them right now so that you have more options

chicken_ql wrote:It's true that's added value but the fact that it's mpc means you also lose alot of value. I believe it would be a good idea to start reaching out now to retailers about selling to them right now so that you have more options

I will look into that, thanks a lot for your advice!

I love it when project creators listen to feedback and take it seriously. This is awesome. All we want, at the end of the day, is another great deck to feed our collection. Here's to this deck eventually reaching that goal.

rousselle wrote:I love it when project creators listen to feedback and take it seriously. This is awesome. All we want, at the end of the day, is another great deck to feed our collection. Here's to this deck eventually reaching that goal.

Thank you for your nice words rousselle, and for the wishes! This is new for me, so any sort of feedback is very much appreciated

Hi cardists! I apologize for bumping the thread, but I could use a piece of advice.

I contacted NPCC and they made me a decent quote. Basically, I could easily switch to them without much of an additional cost for me, and without changing anything in the campaign (besides the fact that they require min. 500 decks printed). I have been reading some posts and the reviews are quite mixed. I would have two questions for you guys:

1. How do you think MPC and NPCC compare? Would you consider -everything else being equal- NPCC to be a straight upgrade off MPC on both handling and "prettyness" or not?
2. More of a philosophical question - would it be ethical for me to change the printer now that the campaign is already running? I do not assume that many backers backed specifically because the printer was MPC, but it is still a change they would not have a voice on, and I am not sure this would be "acceptable", or at least fair to them. (Yes, it is my fault, should have contacted NPCC before and made this decision before launch).

Thank you for your feedback!!

1. Definitely NPCC is an upgrade regarding MPC. So that would be a great improvement for your campaign.
2. You can easily do an update expressing your intention and let current backers decide if they want the upgrade or not (just do a doodle)

You're not the only one who's had to make a switch midway. Just let your backers know and do a survey. You may want to use a SurveyMonkey to keep it confidential or use the comments to let the early voters influence the later ones.

I've got decks from both MPC and NPCC. NPCC makes incredible tucks, no one denies that. So you may want to see how much having an embossed then foil tuck will cost and put it as a stretch.

Both MPC and NPCC have upgraded their finish, so you may want to check that factor as well. MPC's Chao and their new cardistry decks and NPCC's Mongol deck have the latest finish. Not sure how much it'll cost you to upgrade to that finish. So you may also want to survey how important the handling will be for your backers.

NPCC does a great job with fulfillment as well , so that also needs to be taken into consideration.

So, I really wanted to prove my decision to vote for NPCC and so I've opened one Chao red deck (MPC) and one Mongol Empire deck (NPCC). Here is what I found out:

1. Overall they both handle surprisingly well.
2. They are both on a stiffer side of things.
3. They both fan really nicely.
4, They both dribble and spring according to their stiffness but with a trained hand, absolutely no problem.
5. I couldn't faro with the NPCC deck, I could faro one way very easily with the MPC deck.
6, MPC deck smells better. I know that's a weird one but the Mongol deck really doesn't smell good.

They are both very usable in my opinion. If any of them offers some significant price (or logistics, or any other) advantage I would go with them. In terms of quality, they seem to be on the same level and far from what I expected when reading reactions to MPC or NPCC decks in the past. I expected cardboard experience and I've got a card one.

True, but to an experienced hand (not mine really), there is a significant difference in handling from a USPCC deck and either an NPCC or a MPC deck of any type. This is to a lesser extent also the case with Cartamundi. Even I can tell the difference. I have not found that either MPC or NPCC fan very well. As you say, NPCC is very stiff, and I see that as a problem in handling. While I do think MPC is starting to make some better stock, their cutting is still not as good as USPCC or Cartamundi. Then you also have to understand that you can get some very nicely designed USPCC decks insanely cheap. If handling is your priority, you aren't getting an NPCC deck. As a card collector, I do like NPCC's tucks most of the time, but the cards don't wow me with quality. I get while small run issues are going to favor smaller printers like NPCC or MPC.

No doubt about that. This was to compare MPC and NPCC in the context of a KS campaign that decides to upgrade from MPC to NPCC. It doesn't seem to be such an upgrade in my eyes (or hands) and I would seriously consider the economic side of things in this case.

When I now, after playing with these decks, take for example new Ravn deck (Cartamundi), it's so much softer it's like from another universe.

Thank you all for the advices! The survey confirmed that all backers who expressed a preference prefer NPCC, so that's the way we are going forward. For Eric: yes, NPCC offer their 310 german linen stock, which is the one used for Mongol. Also agree on the tuck case, that is a straight up improvement IMHO

masagin303 wrote:So, I really wanted to prove my decision to vote for NPCC and so I've opened one Chao red deck (MPC) and one Mongol Empire deck (NPCC). Here is what I found out:

1. Overall they both handle surprisingly well.
2. They are both on a stiffer side of things.
3. They both fan really nicely.
4, They both dribble and spring according to their stiffness but with a trained hand, absolutely no problem.
5. I couldn't faro with the NPCC deck, I could faro one way very easily with the MPC deck.
6, MPC deck smells better. I know that's a weird one but the Mongol deck really doesn't smell good.

They are both very usable in my opinion. If any of them offers some significant price (or logistics, or any other) advantage I would go with them. In terms of quality, they seem to be on the same level and far from what I expected when reading reactions to MPC or NPCC decks in the past. I expected cardboard experience and I've got a card one.

Masagin, man, whenever I should drop by CZ beer is on me, thanks a lot for the effort once again!
My personal take on this, as someone who is a pure collector, is that the two main reasons for which I take NPCC over MPC are tuck case and reputation. I said in multiple occasions that I was pretty impressed with the handling of my MPC prototypes (I mean, I can faro the cards, and I'm about as bad a cardist as there can be one!). I agree that NPCC has been doing great tuck boxes, and also allows far far cheaper stretch goals cause they charge much less for embossing and especially gold foiling than MPC does.
However, the big problem here is that MPC is still considered a cheap supplier. It does not even matter whether it is or it is not (and I personally very much like what I have seen, and the professionalism they have shown whenever interacting with me). NPCC's reputation is just better, and I have to do the best thing for this project forward, and that is why I go this way.

Bradius wrote:True, but to an experienced hand (not mine really), there is a significant difference in handling from a USPCC deck and either an NPCC or a MPC deck of any type. This is to a lesser extent also the case with Cartamundi. Even I can tell the difference. I have not found that either MPC or NPCC fan very well. As you say, NPCC is very stiff, and I see that as a problem in handling. While I do think MPC is starting to make some better stock, their cutting is still not as good as USPCC or Cartamundi. Then you also have to understand that you can get some very nicely designed USPCC decks insanely cheap. If handling is your priority, you aren't getting an NPCC deck. As a card collector, I do like NPCC's tucks most of the time, but the cards don't wow me with quality. I get while small run issues are going to favor smaller printers like NPCC or MPC.

It is really not a matter of pricing on the USPCC side, it is more the complexity of having 1000 decks produced and figuring out how to manage them. If my project hits 100%, it will be roughly 200 decks. I would be left with a few weeks to understand where to ship the other 800 decks, and if I don't, I'd have to import them to Italy or Colombia, and fees would be a killer, and after that -whenever I hopefully find some resellers- ship them out again. I would probably be 3 grands in the red by that time, that is not sustainable for me sadly.
In my case, I did not think of this deck as a cardistry one, but more as a collectible, which is why I was ok with the printer as long as colors and lines looked the way that I wanted them to (and obviously as long as they did not feel like cardboard). I personally agree USPCC today remains undisputable the best in class for handling and I hope I will be able to work with them in the future, but today is not the day

Hey collectors!

After a long, long month, last night we hit 100%! Thank you to everyone that was there with positive or negative comments!

I'll leave the celebrations for when everything is set in stone. Now the mission impossible is trying to hit the first stretch goal!

Congratsulations. I was really hoping that this decks comes to live. This deck really deserves it. Kind of disappointing that a reprint gets 6-digit funds and a beautiful crafted deck gets almost no attention. Anyhow, congrats again.

Since, funds are limited for me, I couldn't back this because, as always, other decks on the list...
Hopefully I can get my hands on these when they are listed at a retailer.

We did it! Funding successful. Now time to deliver! Thank you all for help, support and feedback!

shiroo56 wrote:Congratsulations. I was really hoping that this decks comes to live. This deck really deserves it. Kind of disappointing that a reprint gets 6-digit funds and a beautiful crafted deck gets almost no attention. Anyhow, congrats again.

Since, funds are limited for me, I couldn't back this because, as always, other decks on the list...
Hopefully I can get my hands on these when they are listed at a retailer.

Thanks shiroo! I am very happy with just getting funded, because this is my first project, it is very nichy (not everyone is necessarily as interested in Colombia as I am!) and a bit outside of the ordinary, which I understand can be not ideal if the aim is to go viral. I received in general very few negative comments and a lot of support anywhere the project got shared, so this is to me a bigger win than a lot of profit. Definitely a great learning experience, hoping to build on it for the future!

Hi all! I hope you don't mind thread necromancy

I just wanted to post an update to say that, a couple of weeks later than I hoped, NPCC confirmed that rewards have been sent out. I would really appreciate if those who backed could tell me when they get there, even with a private message here or somewhere else, so that I can go back to sleeping at night

Also, starting January we will start to sell leftover decks on our new website, so if someone missed out they may want to register to the newsletter - I decided to keep pricing the same because shipping (especially to the US) will be quite a lot more pricey. We should have about 310 more decks available for sale.

Any questions, I am here! Thanks all once again for the support and guidance with the project

Dolape wrote:Hi all! I hope you don't mind thread necromancy

I just wanted to post an update to say that, a couple of weeks later than I hoped, NPCC confirmed that rewards have been sent out. I would really appreciate if those who backed could tell me when they get there, even with a private message here or somewhere else, so that I can go back to sleeping at night

Also, starting January we will start to sell leftover decks on our new website, so if someone missed out they may want to register to the newsletter - I decided to keep pricing the same because shipping (especially to the US) will be quite a lot more pricey. We should have about 310 more decks available for sale.

Any questions, I am here! Thanks all once again for the support and guidance with the project

My deck arrived last week on Thursday, I've picked them up today at the post office. They are really nice!

I just have to repeat myself, in 2019 MPC has IMO better card stock then NPCC and the switch wasn't at all necessary. Anyway, I wasn't planning to do cardistry with them and for my shelf or for a game of cards, they are absolutely ok!

Thanks for a well done Kickstarter project!

masagin303 wrote:

Dolape wrote:Hi all! I hope you don't mind thread necromancy

I just wanted to post an update to say that, a couple of weeks later than I hoped, NPCC confirmed that rewards have been sent out. I would really appreciate if those who backed could tell me when they get there, even with a private message here or somewhere else, so that I can go back to sleeping at night

Also, starting January we will start to sell leftover decks on our new website, so if someone missed out they may want to register to the newsletter - I decided to keep pricing the same because shipping (especially to the US) will be quite a lot more pricey. We should have about 310 more decks available for sale.

Any questions, I am here! Thanks all once again for the support and guidance with the project

My deck arrived last week on Thursday, I've picked them up today at the post office. They are really nice!

I just have to repeat myself, in 2019 MPC has IMO better card stock then NPCC and the switch wasn't at all necessary. Anyway, I wasn't planning to do cardistry with them and for my shelf or for a game of cards, they are absolutely ok!

Thanks for a well done Kickstarter project!

Thanks a lot here too! I don't disagree about the card stock, but it still seems to me that there is a general reputation that NPCC is better than MPC, and for this reason I don't regret making the change. Anyways, the project was also a great learning opportunity for me!