Cardistry: International Cardistry Open Off-Season Tournament

Introduction

Welcome to the Off-Season of the International Cardistry Open (#ICO)! After the success of the inaugural ICO, the Off-Season tournament will feature three-person teams from around the globe in a single-elimination bracket format. The goal is to determine the team that excels in all aspects of cardistry. This tournament is organized by theflush.com.au, Kardify, and supported by New Deck Order (NDO). The tournament will begin on 22nd January. Registrations open on the 10th of January.

Rules and Terms & Conditions

Please head over to theflush.com.au to read the full term and conditions of the tournament.

Tournament Format

#ico is an elimination bracket tournament. Each team consists of 3 members comprising of 2 performers and 1 editor. At least two members must be from the same country. Team members can change roles from round to round. Both performers must submit a video to the editor of which a single final edit is submitted as the entry. Teams will be asked to produce a 60 sec (max) video for each round. All raw footage must be kept for dispute resolution. Each round will be two weeks, 1 week and 3 days for filming and editing, and 4 days for judging with a 2 day break between rounds.

Sponsors

We have the biggest prize pool of any cardistry tournament to date and this does not happen without the generosity of our sponsors.

+ theflush.com.au
+ Kardify
+ New Deck Order

Prizes includes:

1 x Blue Fontaine (thanks to Fontainecards)
1 x Aquila Standard Edition (thanks to Kardify)
1 x Aquila Limited Edition (thanks to Kardify)
2 x Science Deck (thanks to sciencedeck.co)
2 x School of Cardistry Deck (thanks to NDO)
1 x CoSea deck signed by Jaspas (thanks to theflush)
1 x Calaveras deck (thanks to theflush)
1 x Sultan Republic (thanks to theflush)
1 x Bee Casino (thanks to theflush)
1 x Tally Ho Fan Back (thanks to theflush)

Prizes will be delivered to one nominated address by the winning team.

Can't do cardistry? Head on over to the #ico group page and enjoy: leave comments and feedbacks on      videos to support your favourite team or cardists! So, don't miss out! Join us and cardists from around the world over to compete, share ideas, and become the very first ICO team champion.

Collections: Fraggle Rock by The Spare Room

Something a little off the beaten path, The Spare Room and Henson came together to create a limited edition deck based on the Henson characters of Fraggle Rock. The playing cards, produced by the US Playing Card Company, feature all your favorite Fraggles in fine form, plus recipes and other words of wisdom from The Spare Room.

My kids grew up watching Fraggle Rock, and I have to admit I'm a big Jim Henson fan, the man was something special. But I know many will look at this and be turned off, but I have to say this deck was well designed and and has great detail. Beautiful embossing on the tuck, accented by gold foil are just the beginning of this completely custom deck. A classic back design was given a little "Fraggle" inspiration, the custom courts feature Fraggle's in classic court layouts, I even like the "Smallish" pips. The quality of this deck would put some modern decks to shame.

If you can get passed the subject matter for just a minute and you appreciate the creativity of the deck, tuck and cards, you owe it to yourself to add these to your collections.

The best part, they can still be had for $10.00 at The Spare Room, check them out.

The Collection segment is produced by Anthony Ingrassia of Kardify. No part of this article, images or video can be reproduced without written permission from the author and Kardify.com. To see more of  Sparkz- Anthony's collection please visit anthonysparkz.blogspot.com

Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Alberto Rodriguez and Moo Hyun Chung of the Daily Critter Playing Cards

Created by Alberto Rodriguez and Moo Hyun Chung, the Daily Critter Playing Cards is a deck of 54 illustrated critter puns based on their website they launched years ago. The idea was to illustrate a pun in the form of a fictional creature (a critter) everyday and the dynamic duo managed to draw over 500 critter puns in the past 5 years! However as life gets busier, updating the site became more challenging.

Recently, Alberto and Moo got together and decided to make a product out of Daily Critter and hence the Daily Critter playing cards was born! We had a chat with Alberto and Moo about their design background, the inspiration behind the Daily Critter playing cards, the design process of the deck and Kickstarter.

Can you tell us about yourselves and what is your creative backgrounds?
Alberto: I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic. Currently living in Seoul, Korea working as a copywriter and art director for an advertising agency. I’ve always liked to make things, write things, draw things and record things, anything that keeps my head busy.
Moo: Also born and raised in the Dominican Republic and currently residing in Rotterdam, Netherlands. I am unemployed. I spend my days drawing things or thinking about drawing things, or going out to draw things.

This is your first Kickstarter Project. Why Kickstarter?
Well, we thought Kickstarter would be the place that would give us the biggest opportunity to make our product a reality, seeing that quite a few playing card projects have been backed through here. We are not sure yet if it was the right choice, but nonetheless, we are enjoying the ride. :)

What is your inspiration behind the Daily Critter Playing Cards? How did you come up with the idea?
We’ve been doing pun based critter illustrations for the past 5 years. At first we thought it would be easy to draw a critter everyday, but with time, we realized that if we wanted to make good looking illustrations we had to give it more than a day. That realization inspired us to come up with the Daily Critter playing cards, instead of doing 365 days of moderate quality critters, we decided to focus on 54 critters and make them as beautiful and funny as we can.

Walk us through the process you took to design this unique deck. How did you get to this finished product? 
Since we were both illustrators, we needed to agree on a style. We ended up deciding that we should do everything with water colors, to match our drawing styles as much as possible. After that, we came up with puns related to the face, ace, and joker cards (Aces were the hardest) and then we went ahead and drew those critters from scratch. We didn’t know to what extent would we take the “everything should be water color based” but once we started is just made sense, to make everything with water colors, including the back of the cards, the logo, the box, and the numbers.

What was your most brilliant breakthrough when designing the deck?
I don’t know if it was a breakthrough, but we didn’t realize how long and how hard it is to make a whole deck completely with watercolors, I mean, even all the numbers were hand drawn, the red number 5 is different than the purple number

What are your thoughts about the continuous strong growth of playing card projects?
Love it! We think of custom playing cards as art that you can play with it, and at least for us, the more, the better. We love this trend, who knows, maybe you guys at Kardify should create your own crowdfunding website specifically for playing cards, we would be down with that. ;)

Thanks for the idea! Haha... Finally, what are your favourite playing card decks?
Alberto: To be honest I got interested in custom playing cards when I started making this one, since then, I really like the Brosmind’s deck and a Tim Burton’s deck I bought recently, I like character decks, specially those that have a character in every card.
Moo: I can’t say I have a favourite deck, but that doesn’t mean I am a stranger to collecting cards. Alberto and I used to collect trading cards and participate in weekly and major tournaments of Pokémon and Magic the Gathering. As to playing cards decks, I am expecting a few that are on their way soon thanks to Kickstarter.

Awesome! At the time of writing, the project is only 16% funded with 18 days to go. If want to support the Daily Critter Playing Cards, you can find it on Kickstarter here. 

Daily Critter Playing Cards will be printed by USPCC and pledge starts from $10.

News: 6 Most Anticipated Playing Card Projects for 2015

It’s time to start planning your playing card purchases for 2015. With so many amazing playing cards on the horizon, these are the ones we're most excited to get our hands on in 2015.

Six Strings Playing Cards by Kardify Projects

A collaboration between Three of Clubs and Kardify Projects, Six Strings will be a follow-up to the stunning Aquila Playings Cards. Designed by Ade Suryana, Six strings is a guitar themed playing cards, a tribute to the master musical instrument, the most majestic and fascinating one that makes the most rocking music.

Hive 2 Playing Cards by Brendan Hong

We love the Hive deck! Very charming and fun to use! Beautifully illustrated by Brendan Hong and produced by Kings Wild Project, Hive 2 will launch mid-January 2015 with new back, new courts and new awesome!

Delicious Transformation Playing Cards by Emmanuel José

Artist Emmanuel José will launch his fourth deck sometime this year. Like all his other decks, Delicious features the unique papercutting technique where all the elements and imagery are cut out of paper. Everything is drawn and cut by hand. The Delicious deck will be all about food and eating/drinking.

New Decks by UUSI

Looks like UUSI is not done yet after their six deck series. It would seem that there are a host of new decks coming this year including a Tarot deck, three mini decks, and copper gilded decks starting with Pagan sometime in March. Better start saving now!

Legal Tender Playing Cards by Kings Wild Project

There’s so much talk about this title, you’d think it’s on Kickstarter already — that’s how excited we are about this deck of cards! And it’s with good reason; not since the Federal 52 series have they been another money themed playing cards. Sometimes playing cards released in the first quarter fall off the radar when we think back on the year: this incredible set won’t be one of them.

No17 v2 Playing Cards by Lorenzo Gaggiotti

The original No. 17 Playing Cards was a secret project created after the successful Heretic Playing Cards for the launch of Cardlauncher. The second version features tweaks and improvements on the Aces and courts. This project will launch on Kickstarter and will be available in the first quarter of 2105. Not to be missed!

Can't wait! Let us know what you’re looking forward to in the comment section below.