News: A Taste of Nostalgia, Ellusionist Releases Rockets Playing Cards

New from Ellusionist, the Rockets Playing Cards are born from a world of pure imagination. This tasty looking deck is styled from a popular frozen treat of time past, giving a sense of nostalgia.

The deck is semi-custom featuring a simple, imperfect border back design, a fun looking custom Ace of Spades and Joker, and standard pips and courts with a brighter and more radiant color consistent with the overall theme of the deck. The custom tuck is printed on a classic matte finish paper and features a lolly rocket flying through space.

Ellusionist is marketing Rockets as a cardistry deck and visually, the radiant colors and fun nature of this deck seem to accentuate motion and flourishes. Also, not forgetting the magicians, the deck includes a duplicate 9 of spades and a double backer for the working magicians who want to incorporate this deck into their routines.

Available now from Ellusionist for $8.95!

Card Gear: Alekz

Card Gear is our monthly feature dedicated to discovering new inventory, setup, and accessories used every day by card designers, cardists, magicians and collectors. The concept originated from the popular social media site, Instagram: #passthepockets. Whenever one of these hashtags come up on the social news feed, there's always something new to discover, no matter who that person is.

One of our reader from Romania shared his EDC with us. Alekz is a Back Office Agent for an international corporation. He is a magician and has been performing close-up magic for the past 5 years in pubs and other private events. When not doing magic, Alekz enjoys playing video games, collecting playing cards and a passion for photography.

Here are Alekz's gear (Italics are Alekz's comments):
+ Card Clip Joe Porper (An item designed to keep my cards straight and safe)
+ Butterfly Knife (Could be handy in any situation)
+ Apple Watch 42mm (Keeps track of my movement and helps me with some magic apps)
+ Rosary Prayer Beads Onix and Silver (I have a few rosaries, they fit my style very well)
+ Erdnase Deck (A simple deck with no complicated graphics on the back).
+ Razor Clip and Kings Cards Holder (It's an impression device, a deck holder and a bottle opener at the same time).
+ Dapper Deck (An elegant deck for fancy locations).
+ Spider Pen Pro (I love this. Levitating things I blows people's minds).
+ Half Dollar Coins (I keep this at hand for any coin tricks).
+ Executive Rubber Bands (I wear them near the bracelets).
+ Bracelets (Most of them are gifts and I wear them for fashion too).
+ Sticky Notes (There handy for mentalism tricks and when you want to note something down).
+ iPhone 7 128GB (It's my personal assistant in all things... including magic, I use it especially for Myke Philips and Greg Rostami apps).
+ JOL Wallet and Gimmicks (I use it for peeking, card to wallet and storage :D).
+ Smoke Sharpie by Alan Rorrison (Best smoke device in my opinion).


If you would like your card gears to be featured on Kardify, feel free to contact us.

Cardistry: 5 Things You Didn't Know About Metropol NOX and LUX 2017 Edition Decks

The Metropol decks are back! In 2014, the original Metropol NOX and LUX have been popular with cardists. The unique 4-colour back design and colour suits enhance displays and card flourishes making fans, spreads, spins and cascades look absolutely stunning!

Currently seeking funds on Kickstarter, the 2017 editions of the decks have been updated with a fresh colour palette and a slick new UV layer on the card backs, giving this set a premium upgrade you can literally feel. Here are 5 things you didn't know about the latest edition of Metropol NOX and LUX:

1. The 2017 edition of the Metropol NOX and Metropol LUX decks were initially planned as simple reprints of the original versions. Designer Mike Lambert told Kardify, "The more I thought about it though, the more I saw this as an opportunity to try something different while building on the original Metropol brand." With a fresh colour palette and a slick new layer of UV ink on the card backs, and soft-touch lamination on the tuck case, the 2017 edition Metropol decks will make a standout addition to any card collection.

2. The colour palette of the original Metropol NOX and LUX decks was a bit of an accident. "A little-known fact about me is that I’m colour blind. I do see colour, but a lot of them blend together and look the same to me. I’ve always been colour blind so it’s hard to describe to someone who sees colour normally. When I do any work with colour I always pay close attention to my RGB values to keep things from getting too wacky. For whatever reason when I was designing the original Metropol NOX deck, I didn’t check my RGB values… not even once!"

3. The Metropol Playing Cards logo is a combination of a number of different ideas. The first idea that comes to mind for a lot of people is a very minimalist skyline with the bars representing buildings. The height of each of the four bars wasn’t chosen at random though. "Hold your left hand up to the screen and take a look at the Metropol logo again. From left to right the four bars relatively match the length of your fingers from the little finger to the index finger. Coincidentally the heights are also relative to the heights of my family members with my Mom and Dad on the outside and my brother and I in the middle."

4. The original Metropol NOX deck was printed by the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC). "If you’ve ever seen the tuck case, you’ll notice the copyright information is printed on the back of the tuck, rather than the bottom like every other tuck case out there. The reason for this is somewhat strange. If a deck of cards is printed by USPCC and distributed from Canada, there is an unusual requirement that dictates text cannot be printed on the bottom of the tuck. This rule does not apply to decks being distributed from within the United States. As a result, the copyright information was placed on the back of the tuck and the bottom was left blank. Fortunately, Legends Playing Card Company (LPCC) doesn’t have the same restrictions which allow for a lot more design freedom. The design of the tuck case on the 2017 edition Metropol NOX deck has been updated to match the tuck design on the Metropol LUX series decks."

5. This will be the last release from Metropol Playing Cards to feature the classic Metropol minimalist design for foreseeable future. While the classic design will most likely resurface sometime later down the road, there are many new Metropol deck designs in the works that will be released before then. Some of the new designs build on the current Metropol style, while others move in a totally new direction. The future of Metropol Playing Cards is an exciting one.


If you like what you've read and want to support Metropol NOX and LUX 2017 Edition Playing Cards, you can find it on Kickstarter Here! Pledge starts from CAD15 (~USD$12).

Kickstarter: 7 Questions with Paolo Tisato of Aphelion Playing Cards

Parama Playing Cards' Aphelion - an elegant deck created for the collectors and magicians in mind - is currently live on Kickstarter seeking €7,000 (USD$8.5k) in crowdfunding pledges. Conceptualised by two Italians, Raffaele Ianzano and Paolo Tisato who are passionate about creating collectible playing cards and the art of magic.

Semi-custom, the deck features a custom back design, gorgeous Ace of Spades and unique jokers. The court cards are standard with updated colour palette to match the overall theme of the deck. Also, Pantone metallic gold ink will be featured on the cards giving it a touch of elegance.

We managed to catch-up with Paolo to chat about Parama Playing Cards, and the idea and design process of Aphelion Playing Cards.

For those of us who don’t know, tell us a little about yourself and Parama Playing Cards?
Raffaele is a collector and a teacher of small magic circle. My name is Paolo, a playing card collector, friend and Raffaele's student. We both come from north Italy and I live in Vicenza and Raffaele in Turin. In September 2016, we began the process of creating our first project and that brings us to the present, Aphelion, our third Kickstarter project.

What is your inspiration behind the Aphelion Playing Cards? How did you come up with the idea?
"The journey" is the theme of the project. "Journey" as a word can mean many things, from moving place to place, to soul searching. When something ends, it leaves a long trail of memories, and that is what we all will leave: experiences; and that is what we are: we are our experiences and someone's memory. Who better than Earth that have memory of infinite experiences? That is why this project was launched on the day of the furthest point on Earth's revolution, a lost place in a long journey of which it will remain a memory of endless experiences.

That is deep! Talk to us a bit about going from the first draft to the final version. How did you get to this finished product?
Firstly, the deck was created with the working magician in mind. The idea is for the magician to incorporate the deck into thier routines with stories. As such, the design has to be elegant and subtle. The design represents the journey earth makes around the sun. On the tuck, we inserted sun rays that always start from the center and on the back, hands. You may wonder, why the hands? Thanks to the hands that the magician uses, stories turns into reality.

The reason is much deeper... the man's journey. I would like to quote a phrase by Maria Montessori that fully sums up the concept "We can say that, once born, the man will walk and that all men will use exactly the same way their feet, whereas we do not know what will make the individual man with his own hands...Thanks to the hands that have accompanied the intelligence, civilization has been created: the hand is the organ of this immense treasure given to man."

How did you get feedback?
Remember when you finish a task and you show it to your parents... for the first time? They are never biased!! Haha! We posted a few photos on Instagram and generated quite an interest! This gave us the motivation to start the Kickstarter project.

What was your most brilliant breakthrough when designing the deck?
The updated back design gives us the possibility of a marked deck in the future. We'll tell you more in 2018.

What’s next? Can we expect more deck designs in the future?
We have several projects in mind but would rather work on one at a time. There are a number of old projects we want to complete, especially for those who first supported us in our previous Kickstarter. At the moment, we plan to relaunch Oris at the end of the year, and a Black version of Aphelion in March.

Finally, what are your favourite playing cards?
Raffaele : Tycoon, Gemini, Occults. Paolo: Citizen, Artisan, Makers.

Thank you for your time, Paolo and all the best! At the time of writing, the Aphelion is 75% funded with 21 days to go. If you like what you've read here and want to support Aphelion Playing Cards, you can find it on Kickstarter Here!


Pledge starts from €6 (~USD$7.50) and Aphelion will be printed by the Legends Playing Card Co in Taiwan on their Classic Finish.