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Details

Magician's Anonymous Playing Cards

Magician Anonymous

(Based on 1 review)
Designed by Magician Anonymous. These simplistic yet iconic back designs are perfect for everyday workers and card collectors. Made by the U.S. Playing Card Company and with magic finish, these cards are the top of the line.

Reviews

Tracy Atteberry

Official Reviewer

Jun 29, 2015

For the impatient, this is not my favorite deck and unless you have very specific needs and/or tastes it probably won't be yours either.

The box: The box has a matte black finish with silver embossed lettering. The back of the box is a replica of the back design and the front sports the designer's logo and text "magician:anonymous". Aside from back design, which we'll get to, there is not much to recommend the box itself.

Inside the box: There are 56 cards inside the box, the standard deck of 52, two identical jokers, a double backer matching the reset of the deck and a blank faced card. The ace of spades and jokers have a special design while the rest of the deck is the standard USPCC design stock. While some, especially collectors, may prefer a bit more customization in the rest of the deck, this setup is exactly what I'm looking for. The cards themselves handle exactly like you would expect of a deck from USPCC -- nicely.

The two jokers are identical and show a classy black suit and tie stencil design with the work "joker" in red below. Love it. The ace of spades I love less. It sports a black spade pip with the stylized M+A logo inside along with the word "anonymous" below in red.

Finally, the back design is a simple and elegant design with a flat black background, white border, and a theatrical mask stencil (white) at each end. One problem for back designs with a flat, dark, solid color is that over time they will easily show up scuff marks and scratches that may make your deck look less then credible (marked?). In fact, my deck came new with two cards that had such tiny, but noticeable, scuffs on the back. Whether or not you care will depend on how you use the deck, but it's something to keep in mind.

A personal quibble: I must say that I'm not a fan of the prominent display of the word "anonymous" appearing anywhere for a deck that will be used in front of other people. Unless, of course, you go by "Magician Anonymous", which most of us don't. Most of us, in fact, don't want to be connected with the word "anonymous". Now maybe you think I'm overreacting to this a bit. I mean, if you leave the card box face down on the table and don't draw attention to the ace of spades, then you'll probably have a great experience with this deck. But with all the other deck options out there, I just don't think I'll go to even that much effort. I have other things to worry about, like remembering my helper's name and that bit personal information she let slip a few minutes ago that I want to use as a callback at the end, etc.

As suggested at the beginning, if you like the back design and it fits in with what you're doing then the other downsides may just not matter to you. You should buy this deck. That said, I think they'll matter to enough people to remove a few stars.
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