Smoke and Mirrors Playing Cards - Reviewed

[thanatos]

This is my first review but ill try to make it a good one. i was just bored and couldnt wait for the next day to go to my magic shop to get 2 more of smoke and mirrors. Anyways.

Looks, Appearances: Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I personally did not think the Ds were an eyesore when they were first revealed. The detail on the back design is detailed, whenever i handle them i cant help but look closer at the details. The court cards are another hate it or love it thing. I personally find them refreshing and the yellow, red and black give them a much simplified look. The ace of spades have amazing detail and looks great only second to cents or guardians ace of spades, only complain is that they could have been slightly bigger.
i give it a modest 7/10 for those who have doubts on the Ds, court cards and 8.5/10 for those who are fine with them.


Feel: To me its as close to Perfection as it can get. the Aristrocrat stock on these cards are just amazing... might as well just call them Perfect stock . snappy and they feel awesome to touch,kind of too slippery at first though until it is broken in . perfect for fanning and spreads too. my friend who cannot get a good ribbon spread for his life did a nice one with them. The snapiness is a plus and helps in shapshifter. If you thought split spades fanned well or handled well, they slightly edge them. For magic they are kind of great, im not much of a multi packet flourisher so i cant exactly comment much. But honestly, the only complain i could think of is the thickness of the cards. but that is an unfair complain as custom cards all have thicker stock then bikes. If they were as thin as bikes they would be the best cards ever. Ever . If your the type who likes the finish or stock on bikes and are rather cautious about purchasing custom cards due to one reason or another ill have to say u might not like these as much as me. I think people who love tallys and split spades lions will like these finish and feel wise ( design is a whole other thing )
7/10 for bike-lovers/bike purists. 8.5/10 if your okay with custom cards.


Final thoughts: I have owned mine for a week now and trust me iv done it all. Including, handling them with greasy hands after pizza . i have rather sweaty hands and i think these are holding up to my sweaty hands best compared to other decks iv tried. Iv placed them in my pants pockets without its box countless of times for hours straight, and its still holding up amazing in the hot, humid weather of singapore (the land of alladins), where even alladins are destroyed due to the temperature and humidity with ease. These cards are definately durable and their fanning ability are still retained after reasonable amount of use and torture . For those who care for cards using porpers etc, these will last you for some time....... maybe that was an understatement : )
OVERALL: ( after taking different prespectives and possibly unfavorable attributes of the cards eg. double Ds, court cards ) i give it a awesome 8/10.

Verdict: In my opinion these are worth the hype to some and not to others, there is no doubt they are a new standard for cards finish wise due to the aristrocrat stock but alas appearences could be its unfortunate downfall. worth my 15 bucks a peice from the shop i buy them from since i love every bit of it even the Ds

 

[FOO:L]

meh.
mine warped like hell when i just left em out of the box for a couple of hours.
but that was before i broke em in. (though they still kinda warp due to the humidity) they feel great though. They give my card clip something worthwhile to hold.

 

[ninja]

i love these and it is wierd one day i left my mirrors in my friend car for like 2 days and they were so warped i didn't want to play with them so the next day i woke up and took'em out of the box and it was fixed! there was no bend it just fixed it's self and i've had mine for like 3 weeks and they are still perfect!

 

[thanatos]

FOO:L mine did too but nothing some heavy books couldnt fix. but i didnt say anything about that cause guardians, cents, and ghosts all warped for me just immediately outside the box so i find it normal im more concerned about keeping it its pristine glory, i tend to handle cards everywhere and sometimes i dont wash my hands and that can make the ages darker and slightly less appealing i think ill grab a black tally from golden landmark too i really need a porper or card clip im still eating through cards at a fast rate.

 

[adjones]

FOO:L mine did too but nothing some heavy books couldnt fix. but i didnt say anything about that cause guardians, cents, and ghosts all warped for me just immediately outside the box so i find it normal im more concerned about keeping it its pristine glory, i tend to handle cards everywhere and sometimes i dont wash my hands and that can make the ages darker and slightly less appealing i think ill grab a black tally from golden landmark too i really need a porper or card clip im still eating through cards at a fast rate.

PM me for more info.

 

[ninja]

View attachment 930

PM me for more info.

damn that is a super card clip

 

[copperfield 14]

View attachment 930

PM me for more info.

You forgot to say that it costs 100 dollars.

 

[adjones]

Yup, we're only making these for serious buyers. But, if you are seriously interested, and are willing to pay the $100, PM me.

 

[trashmanf]

Yup, we're only making these for serious buyers. But, if you are seriously interested, and are willing to pay the $100, and are unable to spend five minutes and drill two holes, and want to pay three porper's worth of cash for two blocks and two bolts, PM me.

Here adjones I fixed your tagline.

 

[Creeper]

hahaha. AREP, since there isn't a rep system.


Drew said that it took him like 7 hours to make the first one. I would personally go for the Porper, because you can carry it in your pocket, and it looks pretty damn good.


For making gaffs, Lassen has a thing out that does that.

 

[adjones]

Here adjones I fixed your tagline.

Sorry, but you're showing your ignorance by thinking that it takes five minutes to build these, and they're simply two blocks of metal with bolts. If you want to make your own, go ahead... best of luck to you.

And yes, it did take us 7 hours, because we were messing around with paints, polishes, sanding, that type of stuff so we could figure out what looks the best. To build them now, it wouldn't take us nearly as long.

 

[42613]

2 Blocks of wood and clamps would do the exact same thing, and who cares if it looks nice?! You won't be toting it around or anything. You could make this for round $50 and it would take 5 min. and that's pushing it....

 

[praetoritevong]

No man, believe me it would take much longer to make anything that works properly... Quite apart from sourcing the materials, cutting the wood, drilling, etc... If you wanna post a YouTube of you doing all that in under 5 minutes, be my guest, I'll be enlightened. That said I'm not supporting adjones' product or his "marketing" if you can call it that, but on this point I do agree with him.

 

[Randomwrath]

Haven't we gone slightly off topic here?
Nice review btw, I personally am one of those people that doesn't really like the D's, but that's just me.

 

[adjones]

2 Blocks of wood and clamps would do the exact same thing, and who cares if it looks nice?! You won't be toting it around or anything. You could make this for round $50 and it would take 5 min. and that's pushing it....

Actually, if you want to continue this further, two blocks of wood and clamps would NOT deliver upwards of 4,000 lbs. of pressure, and apparently since you don't care if it works properly or not, you would probably select the cheapest plywood the store had, which would bend under the light pressure of the clamps, and ultimately cause the demise of your cards.

And about the "five minutes" thing... I don't know what to say. If you can take two one-inch-thick blocks of 60/61 aluminum (and this is assuming you don't own a drill press- which we do), and drill two holes into each one (after you took the couple of minutes to measure twice), and THEN tap the holes (I'm sure you don't know what this means, or how long it takes, but it is essentially putting threads into the holes you've just drilled, and can easily take upwards of 20 minutes by itself to do properly.), and then sand both blocks (which can also take at least 20 minutes, simply because we start with 200 grit sandpaper, and work our way down), and then Kwik-Seal the studs, and finish putting it all together, and finally put the rubber bottom on the press... all in under five minutes- you will come out with an extremely crappy product that will show by the quality of your work- or lack thereof.

I'm sorry, but by arguing that you could do this in 5 minutes, you are further proving your ignorance in things of this nature. We are selling these for $100, that's it. If you don't want one, great... don't buy one. If you think you can do it yourself... best of luck to you. Or if you're just one of those people who think they're always right about everything... well, I think I've proved that we know what we're talking about and take our time to make a quality product.

Sorry, but you're wrong on this one. But, like praetoritevong said, if you can make it in under five minutes- I would love to see a video of it.

 

[trashmanf]

5 minutes is an obvious exaggeration. He's saying that because it's two blocks with two holes in them, which it is. Does your $100 price tag include a torque wrench to get that 4000 lbs of pressure out of some hex-headed little bolts? How did you arrive at this "4000" number anyways? (same way you arrived at the $100 price tag I'd imagine) And why on earth did you tap the aluminum, when you could just put a nut on the other side (or countersink it into a bigger hole)? Now, if you break the bolt off in the block, you're f***d, whereas a nut system would just drop off for easy cheap replacement.

the impartial might wonder, why is trashmanf going off on this kid. It's because I just feel that theory11 in general is responsible (by setting precedence) for alot of these "captain slaughter" things where someone is trying to sell a much lower value item than existing substitues already on the market. But I hope your sales are REALLY taking off, after all you can laugh at me, all the way to the bank (like that kid that got black jerries made for $20 online and sold them for $150 on ebay HAHA!) after all there is alot of ignorance in this world to be profited off, and by shopping around for said ignorance on theory11 you're greatly increasing your chance of hitting your target demographic!

 

[ZachMueller]

5 minutes is an obvious exaggeration. He's saying that because it's two blocks with two holes in them, which it is. Does your $100 price tag include a torque wrench to get that 4000 lbs of pressure out of some hex-headed little bolts? How did you arrive at this "4000" number anyways? (same way you arrived at the $100 price tag I'd imagine) And why on earth did you tap the aluminum, when you could just put a nut on the other side (or countersink it into a bigger hole)? Now, if you break the bolt off in the block, you're f***d, whereas a nut system would just drop off for easy cheap replacement.

the impartial might wonder, why is trashmanf going off on this kid. It's because I just feel that theory11 in general is responsible (by setting precedence) for alot of these "captain slaughter" things where someone is trying to sell a much lower value item than existing substitues already on the market. But I hope your sales are REALLY taking off, after all you can laugh at me, all the way to the bank (like that kid that got black jerries made for $20 online and sold them for $150 on ebay HAHA!) after all there is alot of ignorance in this world to be profited off, and by shopping around for said ignorance on theory11 you're greatly increasing your chance of hitting your target demographic!

If you do not agree with Drew's prices, don't buy it. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Didn't your parents teach you that trashmanf?

At least he knows how to perform for real people, unlike some people who just do Back Palm productions and XCM

 

[filth0013]

If you do not agree with Drew's prices, don't buy it. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Didn't your parents teach you that trashmanf?

At least he knows how to perform for real people, unlike some people who just do Back Palm productions and XCM

wow you are such a hypocrite.

you just said that "if you dont have anything nice to say, dont say anything at all," and all of the sudden you bash trashmanf for doing XCM.

is that something nice to say?

and what does adjones being able to perform for people have to do with an overpriced card press? wtf.

 

[praetoritevong]

What do card presses, hypocrisy, XCM, prices or demographic have anything to do with Smoke and Mirror decks? Come on guys, back to the topic if you want to say something, enough advertising/criticism/arguments please.

 

[The Tumbleweed]

These decks have become my favourite. Partly because they are the best looking and feeling cards I own, and partly because I get them for $10 at Taylors. Oh yeah.