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Thank you for posting this HSBC

Click Here for the Pre-Launch Page for anyone interested!

Here's a sneak peek of the Diamond Court Cards coming straight from the gym! - Watch out for those broken borders!

These are now live.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/in ... ck-energy/

you know I dont know that this campaign is going to succeed but Im going to give it a 10 for style.

@Manu @EvilGamer

Wow, you guys are the real MVPs! Your support has been out of this world!

Sure, our KS goal may seem a tad daunting, but hey, we're all about breaking a sweat and pushing our limits!

Truth be told, many campaigns start with low goals and end up with massive numbers thanks to shipping costs that can eat up to 40% of the goal. We're aiming to keep things transparent right from the get-go and to keep things fair, we've got one shipping price for our global gang, which took a lot of intense talks with our logistics partners.

You might have noticed I've been quiet for a while on UC / socials. That's because I've been busy working with WJPC technicians (yup, I speak Chinese) to cook up something extra special behind the scenes. Fingers crossed, it'll be worth the wait!

Thanks again for the love, peeps!

TBH I like to see high goals, it shows confidence in being able to pull the campaign off. But you do have to get there....

Interesting choice to go with holographic foil. I would've loved a foiled version that wasn't holographic as I'd much prefer foil over metallic inks.

I do find the art to be really creative.

The deeper, richer colors of the Deluxe edn look fantastic

kevork wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2023 4:36 pm Interesting choice to go with holographic foil. I would've loved a foiled version that wasn't holographic as I'd much prefer foil over metallic inks.

I do find the art to be really creative.

Hey Kevork, great seeing you here and thank you for supporting the campaign! 🫡

Originally, I had this grand idea of putting hot-foil on top of cold-foil. So then Blackout Brother had to restyle the cards for better die-registration to make it happen. But when we brought it to the technicians, they just couldn't quite nail the look I wanted.

I still wanted to make the cards extra special, at any cost, thus I made a dual-sided Holo edition with cold-foil.

In fact, we’re still trying to make it happen (if it does, it would be a free upgrade, but we’ll inform the backers). I was literally chatting with my rep at WJPC 20 minutes ago.

In the meantime, everyone please enjoy these photos:

Honeybee wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2023 7:20 pm The deeper, richer colors of the Deluxe edn look fantastic

Hey Honeybee,

Spot on! The Deluxe Metallic Edition is the bee's knees, a total bestseller! Working in the luxury sector, I definitely think the colours look very premium, so much so, that I even made a t-shirt out of it!

these are kind of novel i suppose. i dont care for standard courts. just as much i dont care for those that take the standard 2d court bodies and put weird 3d heads on them, like friends and family. this is opposite in taking the 2d standard court heads and putting weird 3d bodies under them. actually, on a t shirt it is pretty fun but as a deck of card for me as a collector, not really my thing. i do hope they do well though as they are different and innovative, dont think that is the right word here.

'' You won't want to miss out on the Deluxe Metallic [xxx/500], Limited Holo [xxx/200] and Holo Gilded [xx/52].


These are ACTUALLY limited''

this kind of thing right here, will turn me off from a deck straight away. this kind of ad copy gets commented on frequently by others here as well. pushing rarity and limited, when they are only rare and limited artificially by the number you decided to print, isnt seen as positive around here usually. add to that, i think many have gilding fatigue. every deck these days, no matter the design, has gilded options. in this case, and many others, multiple. when i started collecting, gilding was rare and unique, usually on a fitting design that was more luxurious or fancy. as i understand, it used to be for preserving pages of fancy books. the nice leather bound editions of literature. not the paperbacks or users manuals. this seems kind of the equivalent of gilding the little setup booklet you would get with your walmart home gym equipment.

STLBluesNut wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2023 9:47 am these are kind of novel i suppose. i dont care for standard courts. just as much i dont care for those that take the standard 2d court bodies and put weird 3d heads on them, like friends and family. this is opposite in taking the 2d standard court heads and putting weird 3d bodies under them. actually, on a t shirt it is pretty fun but as a deck of card for me as a collector, not really my thing. i do hope they do well though as they are different and innovative, dont think that is the right word here.

'' You won't want to miss out on the Deluxe Metallic [xxx/500], Limited Holo [xxx/200] and Holo Gilded [xx/52].


These are ACTUALLY limited''

this kind of thing right here, will turn me off from a deck straight away. this kind of ad copy gets commented on frequently by others here as well. pushing rarity and limited, when they are only rare and limited artificially by the number you decided to print, isnt seen as positive around here usually. add to that, i think many have gilding fatigue. every deck these days, no matter the design, has gilded options. in this case, and many others, multiple. when i started collecting, gilding was rare and unique, usually on a fitting design that was more luxurious or fancy. as i understand, it used to be for preserving pages of fancy books. the nice leather bound editions of literature. not the paperbacks or users manuals. this seems kind of the equivalent of gilding the little setup booklet you would get with your walmart home gym equipment.

Hey Jason / STLBluesNut,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts even though the art isn’t for you. I have a big collection myself and it would be a lot larger if I bought everything on the market. To be honest, I did hire the Legendary Blackout Brother to design these cards, first and foremost for myself, friends and family, before everyone else, as fitness plays a huge role in my circle.

The way I see it, there’s no point hoarding hundreds of the same deck and so I thought I’d offer them to like-minded enthusiasts to enjoy them too! On the other hand, having collected playing cards for a while now, I wanted to be the change I’d like to see, so I took it upon myself to offer custom thin-crushed decks at an affordable price. (That’s why I’ve spent a whole year perfecting this, only to sell the Classic version at $7 a pop.) If I were doing it purely for the money, I’m muuuuuuch better off doing my day job

And yeah, I totally hear you on the whole artificial rarity and gilding overload thing. - I’ve gone through 3 major factories to get to this point, all offering certain benefits and drawbacks over each other + a whole lot of gatekeeping while I’ve been trying to learn about production. Trust me; you’d be surprised at the creators who lie about the numbers, quality and even the factories they use. Some of them are idolised here. However, the thing with actually getting to know what goes on behind the scenes is like learning a magic trick; once you know the sleights, it's impossible to unsee it!

My goal is simple: high-quality decks that don't cost a fortune. And if I ever go back on my word and make a "limited edition" V2 printing of the exact same thing, just to meet demand, I'll eat my deck whole

InterrobangCards wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2023 9:12 pm I still wanted to make the cards extra special, at any cost, thus I made a dual-sided Holo edition with cold-foil.

At times where almost every deck comes with a diffraction foiled (no one ever did a true holographic foil btw - just saying) version, I really can't tell what makes anyone think it would be special yet alone extra special . But mileage may vary.

Very nice twist on the standard court style. Definitely the most effort I've seen for a very long time in the realm of modifications to standard courts. Not the artstyle I'm personally interested in but overall a great job done.

Harvonsgard wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 6:14 am

InterrobangCards wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2023 9:12 pm I still wanted to make the cards extra special, at any cost, thus I made a dual-sided Holo edition with cold-foil.

At times where almost every deck comes with a diffraction foiled (no one ever did a true holographic foil btw - just saying) version, I really can't tell what makes anyone think it would be special yet alone extra special . But mileage may vary.

Very nice twist on the standard court style. Definitely the most effort I've seen for a very long time in the realm of modifications to standard courts. Not the artstyle I'm personally interested in but overall a great job done.

Harvonsgard🫡 Thank you for your kind words about the art, it was amazing working with Charles (Blackout Brother) to make the vision come to life. The illustrators I hired prior to him for this project didn’t really nail it, but hey, it's my first time tackling so much graphic work.

I totally hear you on the holographic craze taking over in varying degrees. But I'm curious, what do you mean by "true holographic foil"? As I’m still pretty much a beginner in the card-making game, it would be nice to know so I could up my game! (Google seems to show diffraction foil as an interchangeable word for holographic foil )

When working with 2 out of the 3 major manufacturers, I was given a book of foil and paper samples to choose from which didn’t really cut it. I ended up asking them to try and source others from new suppliers, only to discover a whole new world of textures and printing techniques that’s as vast as the ones in the fashion industry.

Unfortunately, not all factories bother with inquisitive and picky customers such as myself, who likes to sample, resample then ask lots of questions because business-wise, they get by just fine with creators that print on whatever’s cheapest and call it a day. Additionally, many factories seem to have other business outside of card printing, such as big Government contracts for printing flyers, signs and whatnot.

Anyway, here’s a little peek behind the scenes at one of the first concept arts we’ve made for a Hot-Foil version of Jacked. This was prior to the Cold-Foil Holo version. But as I mentioned above, I wanted to combine both techniques, regardless of the cost as it was special (to me) but then at the time, people were saying how hot-foil was everywhere as well Even so, when we did actually run the test on cold-foil + hot-foil, it didn't really come out the way I wanted, so we picked the cold-foil version over this since it looked similar to the Deluxe Metallic ink version. But perhaps, if the community did like it, I'd be happy to include it.

InterrobangCards wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 12:11 pm(Google seems to show diffraction foil as an interchangeable word for holographic foil

Lel, that's why google (and/or AI for that matter) suck ass. They only give you the average answer instead of the correct one. Google says it is interchangeable because the vast majority uses it this way - even in this very card forum producers and collectors use it interchangeable just because it's the status quo and I guess it serves common lazyness to use the short "holo" instead of the longer term diffraction. Even I use it regularly because who want's to be Don Quichote all of the time?
Diffraction foil - well - simply diffracts light and that's why you get the rainbow/iriedescent effect.
Holographic foil does contain a hologram, a 3d image, logo or picture. You see these on authenthicity stickers of more expensive products or on id cards/passports, collectable trading cards and stuff.

Harvonsgard wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 7:19 pm

InterrobangCards wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 12:11 pm(Google seems to show diffraction foil as an interchangeable word for holographic foil

Lel, that's why google (and/or AI for that matter) suck ass. They only give you the average answer instead of the correct one. Google says it is interchangeable because the vast majority uses it this way - even in this very card forum producers and collectors use it interchangeable just because it's the status quo and I guess it serves common lazyness to use the short "holo" instead of the longer term diffraction. Even I use it regularly because who want's to be Don Quichote all of the time?
Diffraction foil - well - simply diffracts light and that's why you get the rainbow/iriedescent effect.
Holographic foil does contain a hologram, a 3d image, logo or picture. You see these on authenthicity stickers of more expensive products or on id cards/passports, collectable trading cards and stuff.

Interesting I gave my rep a call today and asked to see some examples from collectable card games. It’s pretty cool, won’t work with this project but maybe the next... it's definitely got my wheels spinning so thank you for that!

Only 2 days to go - it is not going to get up

Honeybee wrote: ↑Sat Jan 13, 2024 6:53 am Only 2 days to go - it is not going to get up

You're right, we're only half way there.

I have been planning to relaunch again on a later date. I'm currently working with 2 factories (WJPC still being one of them) to see if I could get a better deal + keep the same quality.

Definitely lowering the goal this time and cutting back on the number of rewards offered all at once.

Thankful for everyone's support so far, I didn't really have any expectations on how the community would react to this project at first, happy to say that I was delightfully surprised

This project has now been relaunched.

Cute, but $30 for one deck, shipped? Nope.