The design appears to borrow from the "faux aged" look with the fading, but minus the aged-paper background. I would actually give him props for that - it's more unique. If only the pips didn't look so close to those from the Sultan Republic decks, standard and Treasury editions. Then again, I think he actually did it BETTER than E did - the light pips for E's decks were more like half-pips, while this deck went the smarter route and didn't alter the pips too dramatically in either color. And I'm digging the black/white/red palate on the courts. It's pretty sharp looking.
He's got large fields of light and dark on the back - but in the dark, black field in the center there's a LOT of fine detail work that will result in one of two things. Either the details will be lost, printed dark to the point of disappearing, or the black will have to be lightened up from black to a dark grey in order to allow it to show. Ellusionist had similar issues with the original black Arcane decks. I have some that are so dark that much of the details are just gone, while the ones light enough to show the details nicely aren't really black anymore. If he emboldened those lines and enlarged those details, or opted for the dark gray to fit the "faded" images on the faces, he could get them to look gorgeous. It's something I see all too often in first-timer decks; what you see on the monitor is NOT necessarily what you'll get as the finished print.
Overall, the design isn't bad. The faces are fairly traditional, but this is a good thing in a working magician's deck.
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