So. Here is my first written review, and it is for the
Skulkor deck that I have bashed on for the past months.
Box: 3/5 The
front looks pretty sleek, all in black, with Skulkor and the logo in a faded white in it's center. One
side says "The United States Playing Card Company" and the other says "Skulkor Playing Cards Performance Air Coating".
Bottom has an ugly skulkor logo and some copyright info.
Top is just plain black.
Back shows the design. Doesn't look too good as a whole but is pretty detailed (see more info later).
Flap is a continuation of the back design and has the skulkor logo. The "continuation effect wasn't rendered well IMO and the logo is off-center compared to the back design.
Extra cards: 2/5 The deck comes with 2
extra cards. One is a
gimmicked card, which shows a faded version of half of the back design and 3 face up cards. Pretty useless IMO.
Front of this card is the same as those of the jokers. The other card is a
skulkor ad card on the face and the back is also an ad and also gives a link to a tutorial on how to use the other gimmicked card.
Faces: 2/5 The
jokers are both identical and show some sort of weird eagle. Pretty ugly IMO. No indexes on them. The
Ace of Spades is custom as well, and says skulkor on the bottom. No copyright info. Simple and horrible.
Faces are standard bike faces.
Back design: 2.5/5 The
back design is pretty much the same as on the back of the box, but with white and thicker borders. It is very detailed, but as a whole it doesn't make any sense to me. Nothing pops out, and the center wastes the intricateness of the edges ad corners.
Overall look: 3.5/5 These cards look amazing in all sorts of
fans because the corner design appears and looks great. The most beautiful of all though are
giant fans as half of the back design shows, and it truly looks amazing.
Handling: 4/5 Just like any USPCC deck, these handle great, both out of the box and after having been worked in for a while.
Fans aren't perfectly even, but they are very easy to do.
Faros are also very easily executed.
Stock and finish: 4/5 I believe these cards have regular
Bicycle Stock and
Magic Finish, but I can't be sure since the box keeps the secret pretty well in stating they use "Performance air coating".
Durability: 3.5/5 The cards hold up pretty well to regular use. Nothing exceptional, just like most custom bicycle stock decks. The finish seems to wear off pretty quickly though.
Improvement Obviously there is a lot of room for improvement. The center of the back design is confusing and doesn't add anything to the intricate edges. It would have to be rethought. The extra cards are a waste. I would have liked to at least see re-colored court cards to fit the "creepy/mysterious" feel. Inside of tuck case isn't black, and that is too bad. The Ace of spades would also have to be redone. Jokers are OK. Box isn't bad.
Overall: 3/5 Mediocre at best. If it weren't for a standard USPCC handling, these cards would have only weaknesses. The design is ok. No custom faces, and disappointing Ace of Spades, Jokers, Extra cards and box. A confusing back design.
Extra On an extra note, Skulkor really have to change marketing tactics, referring to us as brothers, considering their lackluster product to be a "revolution", selling ugly clips, brick boxes and rings for a lot extra etc.
***/5
Please feel free to comment below regarding my review and what you thought about it. Thanks a lot. Also, if you'd like to see more from me, please encourage me below as well. (These are pretty tiring to me
Thank you for your time and patience,
Nathan