After a seven-month drought, one of our best-selling decks of playing cards is finally back in stock. Our shelves are filled with White Arcanes, ready for you to scoop up.

Why the delay? If you’re on our e-mail list, you heard Jason talk about a slew of errors and delays. Because of that, we worked closely with USPC to ensure quality control for these decks.

Oh, there’s also some extra somethin’-somethin’ on these new Arcanes. The same Performance Coating on the black Arcanes and Shadow Masters is now on the white Arcanes. You are going to love how these feel. We think they will make you stop missing the old UV-500.

Grab a few decks today. Let us know what you think about this TRULY different finish.

As of late, there has been much debate about the Ellusionist Playing cards now touting the “Air-Cushion” finish label as forced by the legal team of US Playing Card. Some say that the Air-Cushion finish feels different in performance, or is inferior to it’s predecessor, the UV500 Air-Flow finish. In reality, the differences are so minor to detect, yet the debate rages on….

What do I say? Being the guy who actually works side by side with the US Playing Card’s Research and Development department daily, I say, let’s put this one to bed by trying out our latest round of Ellusionist decks printed at USPC.

Before we go any further, it’s important to know what’s going on with USPC, so if you need to catch up, I suggest reading this post in it’s entirety:

Everything you wanted to know about USPC & Ellusionist, but were afraid to ask.

All schooled up? Groovy. Now onward… as you’ve read, no matter what finish we design for our playing cards, USPC has forced Ellusionist and many other card makers out there to use the “Air-Cushion Finish” label if the decks are displaying what type of finish it has.

Given that, we have worked with USPC extensively over the past 6 months to design what we , behind the scenes, call the “Performance Coating”. This finish was designed for a very special project that I can’t talk about….yet. PC is one of the best finishes we have ever felt on ANY deck of cards, hands down. Yet, we are still bound by USPC to print “Air-Cushion Finish” on the box. Do’h!

So, how do we put this to the test? By your feedback. Some decks are ALREADY out there with the new veneer on them….

If you have purchased the Bicycle Shadow Masters deck or the Arcane Black deck within the past month, you’ll be able to feel the new “Performance Coating” . If you think you loved the UV500, and have bought one of these decks in the past 30 days, I call you to tell us what you think….

The decks currently in stock with the performance Coating:

Bicycle Shadow Masters

Arcane Black deck

Arcane White deck

Vintage 1800 Series Deck (RED)

Jason is the Vice President of Ellusionist and usually has a Beatles / Grateful Dead / Zeppelin mix playing 24 hours a day.

It’s Oscar time. This Sunday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will pass out their latest round of golden statues to the most deserving in the movie business. The Oscars celebrate the magic in movies, but sadly, there’s no movies about magic in this year’s list of nominees (except for “The Illusionist” in the animated feature category).

So we have some “Golden Deckies” of our own we’d like to give out. Movies about magic in the style of wizards and fantasy don’t cut the mustard for this list — we looked at instances featuring magicians in the real-world sense of the word. With that in mind, the awards go to: (more…)

Haunted Pack: Great effect, but the setup can be challenging if you’re not prepared or don’t have the right stuff. That’s what Patrick Kun thought about the classic trick. Building on the work of others, he figured out a way to present an authentic Haunted Pack effect without a lick of setup.

That’s a big deal, because the Haunted Pack is one of the creepiest, bizarre card tricks ever created. With either the power of your mind, the whim of your imagination or with the help of the spirit world (pick your favorite presentation), the cards move by themselves in front of your spectators’ eyes. Heck yeah.

Vector is a 100 percent off-the-cuff presentation of a Haunted Pack. Your spectators will choose a card and lose it in the deck. Then they will see the deck move itself slowly, like that steak creeping across the counter in “Poltergeist,” then it will eject itself and shoot out like Carol Anne across the kitchen floor. Creepy as get out. Or funny as heck, depending on your presentation.

Vector is available right now as a download. Get it, learn it, then go creep some peeps.