Fantasma Revenant Playing Cards Final Week on Kickstarter!

Last year, designer Giovanni Meroni designed and produced Fantasma Playing Cards, decks based on ghosts. The decks featured invisible artworks made of UV inks, receiving the “Best Innovation” from UC’s Deck of the Year 2023 awards. Now, Thirdway Industries returns with this series’ sequel, Fantasma Revenant Playing Cards on Kickstarter.

There are a total of three editions for this series: Ectoplasm, Vision, and Extreme. Both Ectoplasm and Vision are available to be obtained separately or as a bundle. Extreme is the most exclusive edition and can only be obtained within a very limited bundle.

The artwork for the cards is the same as its predecessor, but they will be printed with flashy neon inks. The artworks are visible in normal light, although they will shine bright when illuminated with a black light.

The illustrations will use green neon ink for the black suits, while orange neon ink is used for the red suits. The yellow neon ink is used for the small details of the artwork. The tuck box for Ectoplasm features custom neon green paper stock with artwork embossing. The box is printed with yellow neon foil along with holographic black foil.

The tuck box for Vision is two-layered. The outer sleeve is made with white premium stock with neon green and transparent wavy holographic foil. There is a small die-cut window that shows the skull image of the inner box, which features illustrations done in orange and green ink.

Fantasma Extreme is the most experimental deck for this latest sequel. The tuck box is made with pearlescent white metallic stock with holographic gold foil and embossing. The back design is made with hot foil stamping gold holographic foil.

The faces will have completely invisible artworks, which can only be revealed with the blacklight. When illuminated, the artworks will reveal FOUR different shades of invisible UV ink: red, orange, light blue, and blue. It is crazier than Fantasma Duplex from before. This deck would be the first TWI deck printed with Kingstar Playing Cards.

The cards for Ectoplasm and Vision will be printed by USPCC, while the cards for Extreme will be printed by KingStar Playing Cards Co. All of the tuck boxes will be printed by Boschiero & Newton. Pledge starts from €16 for Fantasma Ectoplasm on Kickstarter.

The Big Deal: Raymond Chandler / Philip Marlowe Playing Cards

Step into the noir world of Raymond Chandler and his iconic detective Philip Marlowe with this officially licensed collectible deck, designed by Jack Brutus Penny. Inspired by The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, these decks bring the seedy glamour and morally grey characters of classic detective stories to your hands.

The decks feature fully custom artwork by acclaimed artists, including Ilias Kyriazis (inking) and Cris Peter (color), adapted from the graphic novel Trouble is My Business. 

Each card forms part of a murder-mystery narrative, with court cards depicting noir archetypes, from femme fatales to detectives, and all cards piecing together to tell a story.

Two editions are available during the Kickstarter campaign: Technicolor Edition: Explosive, vibrant tones create mood-driven suits. Custom card backs, card-face foiling, and detailed interior tuck box foiling add a luxurious finish. 

Noir Edition: Dark, gritty tones immerse you in the detective’s world. Silver card-face foiling and monotone card designs highlight the story and suits.

Also, collectors can purchase mixed sets (two of each edition), revealing full scenes when aligned side by side. 

Printed by KingStar and pledge starts at $22 on Kickstarter.

Obsession Playing Cards by Thirdway Industries

Obsession Playing Cards are an artistic exploration of desire, dreams, and the fine line between fantasy and nightmare. Designed by Giovanni Meroni of Thirdway Industries, this series delves into the theme of obsession, crafting a collection that blends elegance, passion, and mystery.

Two decks are on offer during the Kickstarter campaign, Obsession Yearn and Obsession Rapture. The Yearn edition is the foundation of the series, embodying refinement with a striking color palette and a luxurious tuckbox. 

The design balances classic playing card elements with the distinctive Thirdway Industries aesthetic, ensuring a deck that is both functional and captivating.

Obsession Rapture edition elevates the theme with a more opulent approach. This exclusive edition features hot foil on both the faces and back of the cards, with pink and magenta foil for Hearts and Diamonds, and green foil for Clubs and Spades.

The deck is further enhanced with green metallic gilding, adding a layer of sophistication. Limited to just 777 copies, Rapture is a rare collector’s piece, housed in a luxury Italian paper tuckbox with shimmering green hot foil accents.

Inside, both decks feature fully custom elements, including aces, pips, and backs, while maintaining a familiar structure for ease of play. The four unique jokers combine the pink and green foil elements, creating a visually stunning addition to the set.

The decks are printed by Kingstar PCC and pledge starts at $15 on Kickstarter.

Final Days on Kickstarter, Damascus Playing Cards

Damascus Playing Cards by EmilySleights52 are crafted for magicians, cardists, and collectors, embodying the themes of resilience, strength, and perseverance. Inspired by the phrase, "The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire," this deck represents the journey of refinement and endurance, while staying true to Emily's signature theme of happiness.

Inside, the mirrored, borderless back design mimics the flowing patterns of Damascus steel, enhanced by metallic ink on both backs and faces. 

Pips and indices are outlined in silver metallic ink, while recolored standard courts feature swords designed to resemble Damascus steel. The deck includes identical jokers, a 7 of Diamonds reveal joker, a custom Ace of Spades, and a double backer for magic routines.

The deck is packaged in an elegant tuck case is crafted from thick white cardboard and features silver hot foil detailing. The back of the tuck proudly displays the deck’s central quote, "The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire," reinforcing the theme of resilience in both design and philosophy.

Printed by KingStar Playing Card Company and pledge starts at $13 on Kickstarter.

TCI Clubhouse Playing Cards

TCI Clubhouse Playing Cards are a new luxury series from The Card Inn, a UK-based playing cards retailer. Designed as a prestigious “clubhouse” for card players, magicians, and collectors, the series combines traditional playing card usability with high-end production details such as cold foil card backs, embossed tuck cases, gilded edges, and strictly limited print runs.

Designed by Alex Haines of A. Haines Playing Cards, the decks blend classic card design with modern elegance. The faces retain a familiar layout suited for card games and magic, but with refined details that elevate the aesthetic. 

Court cards feature a distinctive gold border that highlights the suit in all four corners, while the traditional color palette has been reimagined using black, red, white, and gold tones that reflect The Card Inn’s visual identity.

The Ace of Spades serves as a centerpiece, featuring an ornate design that pays tribute to The Card Inn’s origins since its founding in 2019. The remaining aces include decorative typography above and below the central symbols, adding further sophistication to the deck. 

Number cards continue the refined theme with elegant frames surrounding the pips, giving the cards a regal and cohesive appearance while maintaining the familiar sizing and layout players expect.

The card backs feature an intricate pattern available in either black or white, both enhanced with cold foil detailing. On the White & Gold edition, the foil appears brighter and more reflective due to the light background, creating a bold and radiant look. The Black & Gold version offers a subtler metallic effect that many magicians may prefer for performance settings where less visual distraction is desired.

The tuck cases are designed to match the luxurious tone of the deck, drawing inspiration from premium playing card brands while establishing their own distinctive identity. Gold foil accents and detailed embossing give the boxes a rich tactile feel and visual depth, turning them into display-worthy pieces even before the cards are opened.

Printed by Kingstar and pledge starts at $21 on Kickstarter.

Good Pals Christmas Playing Cards by The Card Inn

The Good Pals Christmas Playing Cards by the Card Inn brings the holiday spirit to life with four custom-illustrated decks filled with Santa, snowmen, reindeer, gingerbread characters, and more.

Inside, each deck features 100% custom artwork including foiled number cards, gilded edges, and thematic illustrations on jokers, courts, aces, and number cards. 

Court cards showcase festive characters such as Santa, Mrs. Claus, elves, penguins, and reindeer. Aces highlight cozy cabins and snowy landscapes, and number cards incorporate seasonal icons like stars, presents, and baubles. Unique jokers and additional art cards enhance the collection, making it a fully immersive holiday deck.

The Santa Edition captures cozy Christmas scenes, while the Snowman Edition extends that charm into a wintery village. The limited Snow Globe Edition (500 copies) adds red and blue foiled faces, and a gilded Snow Globe Gilded Edition (150 copies) features holographic glitter edges to mimic snowfall.

Printed on premium German black-core cardstock by Kingstar. Pledge starts at $13 for a deck on Kickstarter.

New Addition to the Chaos Playing Cards Series

Chaos Playing Cards by Thirdway Industries continues to live up to the name with a bold design philosophy that embraces unpredictability and color. Loud, vibrant, and deliberately unrestrained, the Chaos series is built for collectors who enjoy variety, premium finishes, and visually explosive decks.

The core release, Chaos Bestiary, introduces the deck’s defining feature: the “Chaos Factor.” Each Bestiary deck is produced with a unique combination of foil colors, making every copy visually distinct.

With at least four foil colors per tuck box, three on the exterior and one inside... no two decks are guaranteed to look the same. Some foils are even layered twice, combining standard metallic tones with transparent holographic effects for dramatic contrast. 

Artwork throughout the deck is fully custom. Even the pips are illustrated, each transformed into playful, creature-like symbols with horns, wings, and expressive faces. The court cards draw inspiration from mythological monsters, including sirens, dragons, and fish-men, giving the deck a cohesive but wildly imaginative aesthetic. Custom aces continue the theme with equally eccentric character designs.

Limited to 2,000 decks total, each Chaos Bestiary color variant exists in only a few hundred copies, reinforcing the collectible nature of the release. Complementing it is Chaos Pandemonium, a Kickstarter-exclusive gilded edition limited to 1,000 decks. This version removes the Chaos Factor in favor of a unified design, featuring holographic silver gilded edges, a fully foiled premium tuck box inside and out, and a numbered seal.

Printed on premium Italian paper and produced by Kingstar, the cards feature holographic silver cold foil on both sides. Pledge starts at $.. on Kickstarter.

Dualism Chroma Playing Cards

Dualism Chroma, the latest creation from Thirdway Industries, explores the delicate balance between good and evil through this extraordinary playing cards series. Designer Giovanni Meroni transforms the eternal conflict of light and darkness into a tangible work of art, a meditation on humanity’s inner contradictions.

Three decks are on offer during the Kickstarter project: Dualism Nightfall, embodying darkness and corruption; Dualism Sunrise, representing purity and virtue; and Dualism Twilight, a striking fusion of the two, where good and evil meet in a single design. 

This new edition expands upon the original Dualism deck that debuted in 2024 as an exclusive reward for Thirdway Industries patrons. The Chroma version introduces new foil tones, upgraded materials, and refined print techniques, while retaining the same symbolic DNA that made the first edition a cult favorite.

Inside, the card backs feature an intricate design of a two-headed dragon, inspired by both the Ouroboros and Yin-Yang, symbols of eternity, self-destruction, and rebirth. The result is an image that feels ancient yet alive, evoking an endless struggle between creation and decay.

Each court card appears in three distinct forms across the decks benevolent in Sunrise, sinister in Nightfall, and divided in Twilight, where the artwork itself is split down the middle in a one-way configuration.

Also, the court cards in the deck personifies a human contrast: love and lust, order and tyranny, wisdom and arrogance- reflecting how fragile the line can be between virtue and corruption. Through its art, Dualism Chroma invites players and collectors alike to explore that ambiguity and, perhaps, to confront their own.

The decks are packaged in tuck box by Boschiero & Newton featuring pearlescent paper, holographic foil, and embossed detailing, both inside and out

Each deck is limited to 777 individually numbered units, ensuring exclusivity for collectors. Printed by Kingstar, the decks feature holographic cold foil on both the faces and backs. Pledge starts at $87 for a set on Kickstarter.

Liminal Playing Cards by Thirdway Industries

Liminal, a new playing card series that exists beyond the door, suspended in a world that is both hidden and ever-present. This new Thirdway Industries' release will feature two versions of the deck, with final names still to be revealed. The red box edition, adorned with the Two-Faced creature, will feature metallic gilded edges and will be available exclusively to Patreon supporters of Thirdway Industries. 

The foil is luminous, and richly detailed, giving the cards a striking presence in hand. Both versions of the deck will be housed in tuck boxes made with custom specialty paper, enhanced by hot foil stamping and 3D sculpted embossing. This time, the embossing was designed specifically around the architectural form of the box itself, making it an integral part of the design rather than a surface embellishment.

From a design perspective, Liminal represents an experiment in a slightly different direction than Gio's usual work. It leans into surrealism, built on symbolic forms such as Betrayers and Order, but with greater detail and a structure that feels more traditionally “standard” for a deck of playing cards. Much of the visual language draws inspiration from classic French card design, while remaining fully custom throughout. 

The lore of Liminal is intentionally incomplete. It is not meant to be fully explained, only suggested. This ambiguity is central to how Gio approaches storytelling through playing cards. The Liminal World exists beyond the threshold, metaphysical in nature and hidden in plain sight. Within it rule four Genii... Hatred, Insight, Gold, and Blood- figures that serve as kings, sometimes benevolent and sometimes cruel, their true nature never fully fixed.

Alongside them are four Sirens, the queens of this world, whose voices shape its rhythm and tone. They are known as Devout, Serene, Majestic, and Alluring, each singing a different kind of truth. Standing at the threshold are four Guardians: Wise, Bestial, Favored, and Silent. Whether they exist to prevent entry into the Liminal World or to stop something from escaping it remains unclear.

The Jokers take the form of four beings known as the Wanderers, described as gods made flesh... strange, powerful, and incomplete. Only one is revealed for now: the Two-Faced One, a clever and opportunistic figure who shifts with the wind and survives by constant change.

Liminal wee be printed by Kingstar using gold cold foil, a process chosen for its ability to cover large foil areas while preserving extreme precision and fine detail.

Shadow Playing Cards, 48 Hours Remaining on Kickstarter!

Shadow Playing Cards is a fascinating deck currently funding on Kickstarter by Vermilion Collection. Designed by Filbert, the deck is inspired by duality and exploring the connection between the visible and invisible. On the design, Filbert mentioned on the campaign page,

The story of “Shadow” begins with my experience of collecting decks. I love finding artistic decks that have a quality feel in my hands. A lot of them deserve much more attention than they have gotten. As I became more and more deeply intrigued, I came up with the idea of creating one deck with two looks. After a year of design work and integrating various dramatic elements I find appealing (e.g., light vs. shadow, justice, evil, royalty, etc.), “Shadow” came into being. Hopefully, this whimsical urge of mine can bring you some pleasant surprises!

“Shadow” distinguishes itself in three aspects: (1) by expressing numbers as Roman numerals, (2) by reinventing the suits, and (3) by using fluorescent ink to give the deck a second look that’s hidden in plain sight. Under normal lighting conditions, the deck maintains a simple, clean yet elegant look.

However, when exposed to ultraviolet light, patterns printed with anti-forgery, fluorescent green ink reveal themselves, making “Shadow” a visually exciting deck fit for cardistry and other performance purposes.

The courts portray twelve personae with different occupations who are all dancers in disguise. When “the night falls,” their true shared identity is slowly revealed by gentle purple light.

The back design prominently features a clock face with roman numerals. The design is carefully curated and enriched with symbols to obtain a unique, meaningful visual when the cards are fanned out.

For this deck, Filbert replaced the traditional French suit system and used four symbols of power to denote spade, heart, club, and diamond. For example, the suit of clubs is here represented by the image of shurikens, a star-shaped Japanese concealed weapon used as a hidden dagger or Metsubushi to distract or misdirect the enemy.

The tuck box prominently features the clock face on the front and a die cut of a shadow figure wearing a cloak on the back. To give it a touch of elegance and class, gold foil is applied to create a sophisticated look and embossing technique for a raised effect.

The deck is printed by KingStar and pledge starts at $16 on Kickstarter.