Ellusionist - Bicycle Legacy Editions

[jerichoholic]

To me, the embossing and foiling only refers to the newly designed tucks. The descriptions of the cards specifically state that the Black Ghost and Shadow Masters have an updated design, but doesn't mention anything about the Black Tiger deck being different in any way, but I hope all three decks got new designs.

It appears not many people were biting at the $25.00 price tag for individual decks, so E lowered the price to $16.00 per deck. The 3-deck set remains at $49.95 along with the $12.00 per deck add-on.

No shit. Who in their right mind would pay $25 for those? lol

[hikeeba]

plus you get the free gifts as they count your $12 decks as $25 for the gift.

I guess I waited too long on this - now the price is $16, not $25. (Guess too many ppl took advantage of that, which is odd since their promotion rules do state that the 'gifts' are supposed to be after promotions and discounts.)
Also, they show up at $13 in the cart, not at $12 like in the copy. They really are incompetent.

[octave]

are they printed on black paper? the edges look amazing on one foto, as if they were blackened? have not seen that before on a deck without the use of a black sharpie.

[sinjin7]

I got these in and I have to say that I was let down by the Legacy Editions, unfortunately, especially at the prices they're sold at. To answer Octave's question above, while the pictures do look like the edges of the deck are black (suggesting black stock, or at least sharpie'd edges), its just trick photography and the edges are normal. Here are the specifics:

Tuck Boxes - Probably the best feature of this set. The embossing is great and accented nicely by the black foiling. The one big miss for the tucks is that all the white elements of the tucks should be in silver foil instead of white ink. The white ink contrasts nicely with the matte black tuck material, but comes off as a little cheap, imo. Silver foiling would've been so much better and more befitting a legacy edition. Certainly the $16.00 per deck pricing should demand silver foiling instead of white ink. The custom stamp shaped seals are in silver foil and have the initials of their respective decks (BT, SM, & BG), but I could do without deck seals in general, and these left a bit of adhesive residue when I removed them, and matte tucks are more susceptible to this.

Black Tiger - The most disappointing of the three decks. The cards are pretty much the same as a standard Black Tiger deck. The backs are identical, as are the Jokers with no reveals. The AoS is the same except for the words "BLACK TIGER" printed beneath the center spade. The courts are just slightly modified, I didn't even notice it at first. Basically the courts are a little less filled in than the original courts. The diamonds and hearts do have red pips.

Shadow Masters - There is more customization on this deck, and that's primarily on the back design and the AoS. The back design is very nice, with a simplified Rider Back design in white and filled out with the rest of the Rider Back design in gray. The Jokers are the same as the originals, except that the reveal is a bit different. The AoS is simplified and more minimal than the original, but its executed well. The court cards are the biggest disappointment with the Legacy Shadow Masters because they are the same courts as the Black Tigers! The shadow effects on the courts and pips which made the original Shadow Masters so nice is completely gone and they totally punted by using the same courts as the Black Tigers. Unbelievable.

Black Ghost - This deck is also very similar to the original. The back design is basically the same, but without the faded edges. The Jokers are identical to the originals. The AoS is the best feature of this deck, with the snakes entwined within the center spade pip being skeletonized, very nice. The court cards are the same as the Black Tiger courts (where the courts are somewhat less filled in), but with the Ghost deck treatment (all white pips except for the red pips outlined in white underneath the indices).

All versions come with a double backer and one ad card touting these as Legacy Editions. I guess if you're strictly a collector who never opens their decks, then the Legacy Editions are sufficiently different enough with their tucks to be worthwhile in your collection. But if you care about how the cards themselves look like inside, then the duplication of courts on the Black Tiger and Shadow Masters decks is unfortunate, especially with the Shadow Masters losing their shadow effect, and the Black Tiger Legacy deck is especially disappointing because the cards are virtually identical to the original version.

On a side note, I picked up a few Aurelian decks with my order and one of them had a $10.00 bill inside, it made me feel a bit less ripped off by the Legacy set. The Aurelian deck doesn't come with a deck seal, and I would imagine E is more likely to put money in their decks that don't have deck seals because it would be easier to do so. I also got one Madison Blank deck. It's my favorite Madison deck of all.

[hikeeba]

I also got one Madison Blank deck. It's my favorite Madison deck of all.

It is also mine! Penguin charges $5.95 for a double blank deck! These are a steal! (oh yeah, and minimal madison - that's always good)

[jerichoholic]

Wow, available from playingcards.net for the low price of $99.95! I seriously don't understand how they determine their prices, surely nobody would pay that much for this. Is Michael Ferrante working for them behind the scenes? lol

[shaitani]

I just read a comment (the only one) left on Kardify's article about this release:
http://www.kardify.com/2016/12/news-ell ... egacy.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The comment was by a user named "MagicMike Kelley" and it was a response to the original email announcement about the release.
Here is a transcript of what he said:

Scams. Look at the lovely Team E email I got today.

This
email is BULLSHIT. Brad Christian did NONE of that. *I* did
that...Brad turned me down and *I* had to work out the initial deal, get
the cost details and initial approvals / amounts worked out with the
USPCC before Brad would even consider it.

Brad
and Ellusionist refused to make a contract with me but promised not to
forget where this came from. E has since made millions on this and I'm
here with my thumb up my ass.

Looks like Brad has gone so far as to even forget who came up with this.

Thanks a lot assholes and Merry Christmas.

For reference, the original email from Ellusionist said in part:

In early 2003, in the very beginnings of the Ellusionist brand, Brad Christian crafted a Photoshop image of Black Tigers, and wrote a letter to the ultra-conservative, 126 year old behemoth, United States Playing Card Company.
He asked them simply to do something they had never done. He asked them to step outside of their box, their comfort zone, and allow the printing of an outrageous, completely BLACK version of their beloved Bicycle deck.

They loved how different the deck was.

Thus giving birth to the custom playing card market. Shooting up the rankings and selling over 1 million decks in their original designs.
...

I normally wouldn't draw attention to random allegations in a comment section, but this is a pretty small community and this didn't appear to be a passing troll comment. Does anyone know anything about this? Or have anything to substantiate the claim one way or the other?

[rousselle]

So, if you do a google (or, bing or yahoo, I'm sure) search for "magic", "Mike Kelley", and "ellusionist", you see a whole lot of results on reputable sites and site archives listing Mike Kelley as the creator of the black tiger deck. The first site to show up is the Ellusionist Forums (pretty reputable site, no?) which features a thread on "Interview with Mike Kelley...Black Deck Creator". The interview in question is posted by "strmagguru" and opens up with this:

What made you photoshop regular Bicycles in the first place, let alone edit them?

It was a dark and stormy night... OK, well it was night time anyway, and I was standing outside on my back porch at night fanning and dribbling a deck of blue Bicycles while smoking a cigarette(Not recommended ) I had my handy dandy new Sprint PCS Camera Phone and took a picture of me doing a fan. I emailed myself the picture, opened it up and thought, "what if I..." and went ahead to inverse the image. I was greeted by this AWESOME picture >of a black deck of cards in a not so perfect fan. All sorts of things ran through my mind at the point. I then took a blue backed card face down and the Ace of Spades face up angled them next to each other with the Ace on top and did shot again. Took those and sent them to Ellusionist, and the rest is history.


What does it feel like to have created such a boom in the magic community?

Honestly...It's kind of surreal. I'm very excited to be a part of it all, and just glad I was able to make a contribution that others are so hyped about.

You should read the full interview (found here: http://forums.ellusionist.com/showthrea ... r&p=167578); it's interesting, and it acknowledges some of the known issues with black decks and how folks have experimented with addressing them. Brad Christian posts the following comment later in the thread:

Good interview.

The new second edition has two addtional GAFFS for magicians to fool around with.

1 The same white faced three of clubs - black back as always.

2. An ace of spaces that is whacked out. The inner portion (spade, writing, etc) is twisted to the right so it faces 1 pm. You can do a color change and totally tweak the writing on the ace... or say you got a weird one in your deck and then "fix" it with a flick.

So, yeah, it's kinda immortalized on their site that Mike Kelley came up with the idea, created the photoshopped image, and that Brad and Ellusionist were public about acknowledging it at the time. The interview was posted in June of 2004.

As recently as 2011, E was still publicly acknowledging Mike's creation of the Black Tiger: https://www.facebook.com/ellusionist/po ... 3828252264

So, yeah. The marketing team at E kinda did a stinky thing here. Which is too bad; Brad is well known as an innovator in his own right, so it's not like the company loses anything by correctly attributing credit for kicking off this trend to Mike Kelley.

[vasta41]

Legacy Ghost now available: http://www.ellusionist.com/ghost-deck-l ... ilable+NOW" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;





ALSO, save $10 on the Legacy Box Set when you buy a Ghost (which comes to $15 per deck is you buy all 4, including shipping).

[MagikFingerz]

ALSO, save $10 on the Legacy Box Set when you buy a Ghost (which comes to $15 per deck is you buy all 4, including shipping).

Slightly more tempting than before, but still overpriced IMO.

[badpete69]

$19 including shipping for 1 deck.. yes a little steep

[jerichoholic]

$15 shipping to Canada, no thanks, I'll get it from a reseller. What happened to $9 shipping? What a ripoff!

[octave]

you are right, I just checked and the lowest shipping rate increased to 15$ from 9$. I just missed ordering for the old rate in 2016 I guess. But still, its half the rate I would have to pay with theory11 or Dan and Dave. So I still appreciate ellusionists effort. Due to expensive shipping costs I missed a lot of great deals already. If I visit the US the next time, I'm sure I will run into trouble explaining at the customs why I return with a bag full of playing cards

[badpete69]

I bought 4 decks and that made it $13 a deck including shipping.. Already sold my extra to other members

[sms69x]

Love this quote:
"The deck has been stripped of color, until only beauty remains."

I read that as "We were too lazy to even think in something so it will be like the original."

[vasta41]

All 3 black legacy editions are now only $9.49: http://www.ellusionist.com/catalogsearc ... cy+EDITION" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[badpete69]

Yep now that some of us got screwed paying way more. Here's the rest of the stock cheap. Hehehe. One day I will learn

[akicer]

guys, Ellusinist is hosting a buy 1 get 1 free on the black legacy box, go check out!

and using 'MARCH10' you get another 5 dollar off!!

[theCapraAegagrus]

A good deal IMO.

[MagikFingerz]

That would be great, if I wanted two of them...