This is my opinion so please respect that up front.
The Box: The first thing I looked over was the box. The box is beautiful and hands down one of the best looking I have seen to date. The Chariot in the front is very nice.
10/10
The Cards:
Back Design: The back design of the Guardians is very nice. The cards are one directional in a very subtle way. The Angels look great.
I was disappointed with the color. It's faded black. Look like they where printed at Kinko’s. If you compare this to the black on the box or the T11 card, you will quickly realize how faded it looks.
This may be by design, but I just think it makes them look bad. They are not as sharp as they could have been with a deeper black.
6/10
Front Design: The graphics on the face of the cards are sharp dark and solid. No faded colors here. The King, Queens and Jacks look amazing. Deep Blue, Dark Red and Silver replacing the yellow. They stand out very quickly as different. The reds on these cards are a shade or two darker. Very nice.
10/10
The Ace: The Ace is very nice, but not the best design I have seen. Again the color fade is noticeable here. Just compare the black on the Ace Design to the Spade Pip and you can see a major difference. I was very disappointed. The print quality of the Ace design looks cheap because of this.
7/10
The Jokers: The jokers are very different and I like the design. Again the print quality is not great with the faded black. Compared to the word Joker, it looks very cheap. One good thing about the Jokers is that they are both Identical. This is helpful because you can use them as duplicates in some tricks.
6/10
Card Stock: The card stock is OK. They are thicker than Standard Bikes, but not by much. They are not as thick as other custom decks available.
8/10
The Finish: The Air Cushion finish on these is not great at all. They don't move smoothly and certain controls are more difficult to pull off. Yes the cards handle OK, but for Guardians, I was expecting a high quality finish. The Finish on these is no better than regular bikes.
4/10
The Edges: Terrible. Let me say this again. They are terrible. For a deck that cost so much, you should not have to deal with such rough and terrible edges. Masters are just about perfect out of the box. Ready to perform. On the Guardians, I can hold them at an angle and see where the blade cut on the edges. When I started to riffle the edges, Card Stock Fibers where flying off on to my clothes.
I handled them for a long time and they get a little better, but overall they are of poor quality. Very disappointed. Regular bikes have better edges than these.
2/10
Handling: These cards handle OK. They don't handle like a $4.50 deck but rather like a $.99 Regular Bike deck. Once you get used to Masters, you can easily tell the difference between a standard deck and a Masters deck.
6/10
Overall: Honestly guys, I am very disappointed with the quality of the deck. If I am going to pay top dollar for a custom deck made for magicians, I would expect much better quality and craftsmanship. These Guardians feel like regular bikes printed at Kinko’s with poor quality black ink. The cards handle OK, but you can't help but wonder why you paid so much for them.
Masters and Ghost are so far superior to these that I can even begin to compare them.
The Double Backed card is great but it can't save this average quality deck. The T11 card seems to be printed of high quality black. Why did they short hand the actual print on the deck is beyond me? At least the T11 card makes a great book mark for my current Magic Book I am reading.
6.5/10
I will patiently wait for the revised quality versions of the Guardians.
The Box: The first thing I looked over was the box. The box is beautiful and hands down one of the best looking I have seen to date. The Chariot in the front is very nice.
10/10
The Cards:
Back Design: The back design of the Guardians is very nice. The cards are one directional in a very subtle way. The Angels look great.
I was disappointed with the color. It's faded black. Look like they where printed at Kinko’s. If you compare this to the black on the box or the T11 card, you will quickly realize how faded it looks.
This may be by design, but I just think it makes them look bad. They are not as sharp as they could have been with a deeper black.
6/10
Front Design: The graphics on the face of the cards are sharp dark and solid. No faded colors here. The King, Queens and Jacks look amazing. Deep Blue, Dark Red and Silver replacing the yellow. They stand out very quickly as different. The reds on these cards are a shade or two darker. Very nice.
10/10
The Ace: The Ace is very nice, but not the best design I have seen. Again the color fade is noticeable here. Just compare the black on the Ace Design to the Spade Pip and you can see a major difference. I was very disappointed. The print quality of the Ace design looks cheap because of this.
7/10
The Jokers: The jokers are very different and I like the design. Again the print quality is not great with the faded black. Compared to the word Joker, it looks very cheap. One good thing about the Jokers is that they are both Identical. This is helpful because you can use them as duplicates in some tricks.
6/10
Card Stock: The card stock is OK. They are thicker than Standard Bikes, but not by much. They are not as thick as other custom decks available.
8/10
The Finish: The Air Cushion finish on these is not great at all. They don't move smoothly and certain controls are more difficult to pull off. Yes the cards handle OK, but for Guardians, I was expecting a high quality finish. The Finish on these is no better than regular bikes.
4/10
The Edges: Terrible. Let me say this again. They are terrible. For a deck that cost so much, you should not have to deal with such rough and terrible edges. Masters are just about perfect out of the box. Ready to perform. On the Guardians, I can hold them at an angle and see where the blade cut on the edges. When I started to riffle the edges, Card Stock Fibers where flying off on to my clothes.
I handled them for a long time and they get a little better, but overall they are of poor quality. Very disappointed. Regular bikes have better edges than these.
2/10
Handling: These cards handle OK. They don't handle like a $4.50 deck but rather like a $.99 Regular Bike deck. Once you get used to Masters, you can easily tell the difference between a standard deck and a Masters deck.
6/10
Overall: Honestly guys, I am very disappointed with the quality of the deck. If I am going to pay top dollar for a custom deck made for magicians, I would expect much better quality and craftsmanship. These Guardians feel like regular bikes printed at Kinko’s with poor quality black ink. The cards handle OK, but you can't help but wonder why you paid so much for them.
Masters and Ghost are so far superior to these that I can even begin to compare them.
The Double Backed card is great but it can't save this average quality deck. The T11 card seems to be printed of high quality black. Why did they short hand the actual print on the deck is beyond me? At least the T11 card makes a great book mark for my current Magic Book I am reading.
6.5/10
I will patiently wait for the revised quality versions of the Guardians.
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