A Look at the Secret Virtuoso OC I & II Playing Cards

Earlier this week at a private event held by The Virts, the Virtuoso OC I & II playing cards were secretly released. The new collection looks familiar and is inspired by their previous releases, containing the iconic geometric card back design crafted for cardistry.

Huron Low mentioned that only a few people on their mailing list received the special invitation email and if you were not fortunate to be part of the event, Huron mentioned that he doesn’t know if he’ll ever release this special deck to the public. This release is a “beta” opportunity for a non-beta deck the Virts have spent months designing. ​

The online store was open for 72 hours and a deck was priced at $14.
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tAIpestry Playing Cards: An Interview With Riccardo Conturbia

tAIpestry playing cards is an experimental AI-designed deck by Riccardo Conturbia‘s new brand, Velata Playing Cards, born in 2021 from the ashes of his former company: Passione Playing Cards. Their first project: Love is a Smoke Legacy Edition is both a homage to the first Passione deck ever printed and a seed to the future of Velata’s endeavors. Riccardo told Kardify,

Giordano Loddo is my partner in crime in Velata, and our main goal is to produce cool, rich, and practical decks at a reasonable price. Both “Love is A Smoke Legacy” and tAIpestry will soon be sold on a brand-new website we are building together.

Last week, we interviewed Riccardo about the new deck tAIpestry, AI-generated art revolution, and the possibilities with this technology for playing cards.

Tell us about your new deck tAIpestry and what have you been creating with the AI Image generator?
It’s a concept deck, an experiment. We firmly believe in human creativity and want to work with human minds for our decks, but I wanted to try it at least once to create something different from our previous and future projects and unique. I’m not the only one, though; when I started working with MidJourney and Dall-E 2 in September, only a few Kickstarter projects for Tarot decks were available, and when I posted the first images on social media, tAIpestry was the first poker deck designed by A.I. techniques of my knowledge. Recently David Blaine published Singularity with the same base concept, and I believe more will follow.

All of the artwork on tAIpestry, box included, has been created directly by MidJourney and rescaled to enhance the digital resolution through A.I. techniques. The human intervention has been carefully weighted to stay faithful to the original concept: only some framing has been done to the fronts, and the back has been worked to become symmetric and ensure maximum playability.

What were some of the biggest surprises that you’ve seen while working with the technology?
How it’s quirky and picky with text input. For instance, changing the image’s ratio drastically changes the created artwork’s content, leading to unusable content. We had to make a lot of trial and error before finding the proper balance. Also, the concept of symmetry is not fully understood by the A.I., and I believe we’ll see improvements in this area in the future.

Having worked with this technology for a few months, what are some far-out possibilities that this technology might have for playing cards?
I think it is a tremendous tool to create concept art and help designers reach new frontiers for expressing new concepts. I also firmly believe we must be transparent and clearly explain what is produced by humans and what – if any – is produced directly by algorithms. Some concerning issues about the intellectual property must be addressed and solved; I hope this revolutionary technology will enhance the possibilities for everyone and not impoverish the market.

tAIpestry will be printed by WJPC and available now for pre-order here!

Theory11' The Dark Knight Playing Cards

Wow..! Theory11 with another EPIC movie collab deck. The Batman Dark Knight playing cards were released during this year’s Black Friday event. You can now relive the most iconic moments from the Dark Knight Trilogy every time the cards are brought out for play featuring fan-favorite easter eggs and callbacks to the films.

Like Theory11’s previous releases, the tuck box features 3D sculptured embossing, silver foil, and tons of intricate details. Inside, the deck features all of your favorite characters from the iconic series – including Batman, Bane, The Joker, Scarecrow, and Harvey Dent/Two Face

The deck has been designed from scratch including custom suits, character designs, Aces, the back design, and everything in between! Also, several easter eggs have been littered throughout the deck.

Both Joker cards star the much-beloved Clown Prince of Crime- a tribute to one of the most famous portrayals of The Joker.

Available NOW from theory11.com for $12.95.

Deck View: Silver Certificate (Foiled Edition) Playing Cards

Currency. Intricate. Foil.

Kings Wild‘s Silver Certificate Foiled Edition playing cards is the third deck in the currency-inspired series. The deck is inspired by US Silver Certificate Banknotes of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

This fully custom deck features hand-drawn renditions of the presidents and other key figures found on US currency and comes with multi-colored foil.

Silver Certificate Foiled Edition is packaged in a white minimalist tuck box with blue foil, giving it a touch of elegance. The deck is printed by the Expert Playing Card Co.