Trash & Burn BLU
The Trash & Burn BLU deck by Howlin' Jacks, wow! It's the sequel to the Trash & Burn Red deck that sold out immediately after the Kickstarter campaign, but this one's directly available on Howlin' Jacks' website. If you couldn't guess by the name, it's blue.
They say that this deck is built for practice, but I thought they just meant they wanted people to actually use it and not slap it in a display case. It's a deck for cardistry, for magic, and for back pockets. It's affordable, and also well designed. What's not to like?!
The tuck is nice. It's blue, minimal-ish, and cartoony. And, the flap opening is not center-aligned! I'm assuming this is so it doesn't mess up the design. Others design around the tuck, Howlin'Jack says "screw it, we'll tuck around the design!" Speaking of though, it was hard to open the tuck without damaging it. It felt... tight. That, along with the tagline that the deck is built for practice, should have been clues to what came next.
The cards came out of the box and wow they're thick! My first thought was "these are thicker than bikes!". The Kickstarter campaign (for the red deck) says they're thin-crushed with an air cushion finish, but I don't believe it. I compared them to another thin-crushed deck and they were a solid 6-cards thicker! I counted to make sure, both decks were full at 56 cards. That's a big difference...
They handle really well though, so the thickness doesn't seem to matter. Plus, if you're one to remove the jokers and extra cards, they are then pretty much a standard thickness of Bicycles.
Skipping past that though, the faces are completely custom! The pips are all designed and the courts are just "wow". This deck really makes me question why I have to pay so much for other custom decks. Howlin' Jacks, what's your secret?!
All-in-all, it's hard to beat this deck's quality-to-price. I need to hop over and stock up on a few more so I have a great stash of practice, and performance, decks before they're sold out. I recommend you grab at least one or two yourself!
Where to buy?
I checked for Trash & Burn BLU recently and it was out of stock. You can still check out the product page at Howlin' Jacks to make sure though.