From what I can remember, the vipers were E's subtle spin on the tally ho deck, I guess it was sort of like a successor to the black tiger deck. I'm assuming, as Don had mentioned, that through iterations the deck lost its 'viper' title due to marketing/trademark. The vipers should be the initial run with UV500.
The deck I have does not have the 'ultimate card handling' tagline. Instead it says, 'striking playing cards'. It still uses the Viper title. The bottom of the box does not have a barcode, which leads me to believe it was probably a very early run. I don't think E used the barcode reveal until a bit later. The bottom just says, "Exclusively sold by ellusionist.com tally-ho viper deck'
EDIT: According to an eBay seller, the 1st edition run of the vipers does not have a barcode.