Premium Monarch Playing Cards by Theory11 - Elegant & Durable for Magic Tricks, Poker, and Cardistry | Perfect for Professional Magicians and Card Game Enthusiasts

I like this product, it's way better than other products I've purchased before.I'm not an expert, I just wanted some nice cards. $11 seems a bit much for these.The good: They are really pretty, and the design on the backs of the cards is unique and cool (i got the dark blue). They behave like cards should when shuffling, dealing, etc. The deck I got was in great shape, and the box is nice and well built.The bad: $11? If you gave someone the pepsi challenge and had them shuffle/deal blind a few times with these compared to a $3 bicycle deck, I doubt many people could tell the difference (I suspect the bicycles may actually win). Soon after opening the cards (same day) i noticed a few small gaps when looking at the deck from the side. I'm sure there's a name for that, but i don't know it. It seems like during shuffling/dealing, a few of the cards got slightly bent or something. It's nothing major and they're still usable, but again I've used $3 bicycle decks for years and they don't warp/bend on the first day in my experience. Also, I expected (and maybe this is my bad) to have more unique/original artwork. Aside from the Ace of Spades and the jokers these card faces look just like standard cards. That's fine i suppose but with a 'fancy' deck i sort of assumed the face cards and aces would be somehow different or cooler looking than 'normal' cards. Not a huge deal, but still worth noting.verdict: I'm not buying them again unless they're way cheaper (maybe $5 and maybe one with cooler artwork?), but if you just want a cool looking deck these seem decent to me. The backs really do look nice. I'm going to keep them in my poker kit for novelty but I'm also going to keep normal cards in there too.I like the fact that they don't smell and are Made in the USA on FSC-certified paper derived from sustainable forests using vegetable based inks.Amazon asked for a review for this:It is a set of playing cards: three decksEach deck has a different colored back: blue, green, redOn the front of each card, you will find different faces with different combinations of numbers or letters: A,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K and four different symbols using two colors: Red Hearts, Red Rhombus (Called Diamonds), Black Three Leaf Clovers (Called Clubs), Black Upside Down Hearts with the same stem as the club symbol connected on the bottom (Called Spades).You may wonder, "why no 1 card, all the other numbers are there..." well that A or "Ace" card takes its place. Each card will have the number of symbols on the middle of the card, and the number and symbol in two corners. The bottom one will be upside down, but you can rotate it 180 degrees, it will be right side up. The J, Q, K cards have a picture of a person on them. Hauntingly, the people have no legs, instead the upper half of the body is duplicated upside down where the legs should be. The Q is the Queen, the K is the King and the J is the Jack. Some of the cards hold weapons, others flowers and one looks like it is holding a toy for the bedroom. One of them appears to be killing himself.Here is a list of contents in each box: Ace of Clubs, Two of Clubs, Three of Clubs, Four of Clubs, Five of Clubs, Six of Clubs, Seven of Clubs, Eight of Clubs, Nine of Clubs, Ten of Clubs, Jack of Clubs, Queen of Clubs, King of Clubs, Ace of Diamonds, Two of Diamonds, Three of Diamonds, Four of Diamonds, Five of Diamonds, Six of Diamonds, Seven of Diamonds, Eight of Diamonds, Nine of Diamonds, Ten of Diamonds, Jack of Diamonds, Queen of Diamonds, King of Diamonds, Ace of Spades, Two of Spades, Three of Spades, Four of Spades, Five of Spades, Six of Spades, Seven of Spades, Eight of Spades, Nine of Spades, Ten of Spades, Jack of Spades, Queen of Spades, King of Spades, Ace of Hearts, Two of Hearts, Three of Hearts, Four of Hearts, Five of Hearts, Six of Hearts, Seven of Hearts, Eight of Hearts, Nine of Hearts, Ten of Hearts, Jack of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, King of Hearts, Joker, Another Joker.Please confirm that the cards you are looking for are included before making this investment.Seen these on “Now You See Me” movies and I absolutely love themGreat for cardistry, and okay for magic tricks. I know some people buy these for card games, but I'm not really sure why. At $10 a pop, these are pretty expensive to let your buddies paw them and spill beer over (which is why I buy Kems or other plastic cards for gaming).Theory 11 makes designs good cards. The Monarchs are made by USPCC, but under Q1 standards. Just FYI, Q1 doesn't mean they're using some special process, it means they have highest level of quality control technicians during the productions process, so these cards are as flawless as USPCC can make.The cards are very slippery, which makes them great for spreads and fans, but a little bit touchy for packet control. Definitely manageable though. The tuck case is gorgeous and feels great. I think the blue decks are the best looking of the Monarchs. The green has a nice "old timey" look, and the red is very regal, but the blue is just a great all around color for any use.The card faces are all standard except for the Ace of Spades and the matching Jokers, which are custom. These nice thing about this is that while the cards look classier than a deck of Bikes, they don't look like a trick deck.I think the best compliment you make about a set of cards is that they show and handle well. Monarchs deliver in spades on both counts.Great shuffle and manipulation feel, but the card backs look quite worn out after just a few playing and cardistry sessions. Probably not good for more than 3-5 hours of use before they look quite beaten up.This is awesome, lovely colors, simple and classy. It serves my purpose.These cards might be wonderful to look at and feel. I don't doubt their quality. We purchased them for luxury poker cards to replace the cheap "sports direct" cards we were using. However, I hate to say it, the 50p packs were better!The reason why is that these cards cannot survive being bent up slightly (commonly done to reveal what hand you have been dealt in poker). After just a few hours play we could already notice the cards deforming and lifting from the table.In addition, you could start to see some of the edges fraying slightly (not sure on the correct terminology for this, but lets say the edges of the cards started to look damaged, albeit very slightly)So please be careful before buying these. We ended up having to buy a different set on Amazon - 2 packs for £9. And they have proven to be excellent.Sorry to the seller. These do look wonderful, but for poker - No way.I'm not into cardistry like many of the people that have purchased these cards but I do play card games quite often and so I thought this would be a worthy investment. I've used them for a while and I'm happy to say that they are well worth it!Never in my life have I seen such a high quality deck of cards that have felt so good to deal with. They glide so nicely off of each other and so are perfect for any kind of card play.That art on them is also amazing. Many card decks have designs that have obviously used a template to cut out time from the design process but you can tell with this deck that a lot of time and effort has been put into them.Of course, however, I will always see this kind of price for a deck of cards as too high (hence the four stars for value) but I'm willing to pay a premium for the great quality these cards offer.Definitely worth a purchase!Don’t get me wrong - these are nice quality cards. But the price is too high for what you get. Effort has gone into the packaging design but the cards are fairly standard in terms of design. The manufacturing quality is high. I just would have liked to see more creativity in the design for a pack of cards costing around £10. Keep in mind you can buy a standard pack of cards for £2.99 anywhere.I bought these for a friend, and we both used them and I loved the cards. The designs on it were crisp and beautiful, and handling the cards were smooth, it comes with its premium cards. It was fully sealed and unopened, and when we were opening it, it was very satisfying.Pros:Basically everythingCrisp and beautiful designsPremium cardsSmooth handlingCons:NoneThe packaging is very good, it looks and feels great. The cards themselves are also very high quality and not easy to bend, the only problem I have with these cards is that they were quite slow coming but overall they are very good.