It's that time of the year again, time for Art of Play's Mystery Deck drop!
If you're not familiar with the "mystery deck" concept, it's kind of how the name implies. Art of Play will take a large assortment of decks and then wrap them so that not even they can see what's inside. Then, when you place an order, they'll send them your way! Art of Play pre-mixes their decks after they're wrapped (some companies don't), so the possibility of duplicates is there.
There are a lot of sites that offer mystery decks, sometimes only around Black Friday and other times at intervals throughout the year. Every year though, in my opinion, Art of Play puts out the best offering. For $12 (plus shipping) you get a deck from a large assortment. The list of decks available has been different each year, and the wrapping is too!
Typically, as far as I can remember, the mystery deck sale lasts for December and January, but it could be a shorter window. I actually don't pay too much attention to how long it's running once I've purchased my own lot. But, order early as a gift to yourself, or for someone else!
Keep reading below for the list of decks available!
Teasing the List
Art of Play normally pre-shares the list of decks in the assortment, but they didn't this year. Instead, on Instagram (@artofplay), they have only dropped a minimal number of teasers! A picture of a tuck, or the back design of a card.
Not including anything shared in their story, they started teasing their mystery decks with the Yosegi Playing Cards:
The tuck looks great, but the post's caption gives an even bigger teaser:
One of nearly a dozen original designs featured in this years Mystery Deck collection.
Other teased cards have been the black & white edition of Overlook Playing Cards, a cube styled deck (no name), a limited edition version of the Fulton Street Playing Cards by Fultons Playing Cards and Dan & Dave, Peau Doux, Deco Black edition, and the Grimmlore Tartan deck.
Mystery Deck List
This year's assortment is a random mix of over 70 decks, more than 15 of which are exclusive to the Mystery Deck lot (i.e., they can't be purchased directly and are specifically made for this list, they're out-of-print, or they're early releases). Here's the list, as shared by Art of Play:
- Yosegi Playing Cards
- Grimmlore Tartan, Black Edition
- Peau Doux, Deco Back
- Peau Doux, Deer Back
- Peau Doux, Silver Edition
- Peau Doux, Turquoise Edition
- Overlook, Carpet Back
- Overlook, Maze Back
- Braniff Playing Cards
- Damn Good Cards, No. 8
- Fulton Street, Black Edition
- Curious Wonders
- Eames "Starburst" (Random Mix of Colors)
- Ramen Heads
- DKNG Playing Cards (Random Mix of Colors)
- Imperial Hotel
- Smokey Bear (Random Mix of Colors)
- Dreyfus
- Cybernetic
- Messymod, V2
- Cabinetarium
- James Coffee, Green Edition
- Standards (Random Mix of Colors, including Gold)
- Just Type, Edition 1 and Edition 2
- Flying Dog, Edition 1 and Edition 2
- Toms Town
- Gaslamp
- The Lepidopterist, Patina Edition
- Tempo
- Dinosaur
- Lady Moon
- Iron Spades
- Henry & Sally
- HMNIM, Gray
- Vertigo
- If an Octopus could Palm
The decks in bold above are the exclusive decks!
In addition to the above list, we're offering a vast collection of decks pulled from Dan and Dave's personal collection featuring everything from old D&D exclusives to other brands from Theory11 to Fontaine.
Have you ordered your mystery deck yet?