 Hey everybody, welcome back to Magic Orthodoxy. My name is David and this is a deck review. Hey, today we're going to look at the Divine Art playing cards from Guru Playing Cards. All right, so what is the Guru Playing Cards deck? Of course, this was a Kickstarter project. You might remember I did a review for the prototype a little while back and I'll stick the link for that in the description below. Guru Playing Cards and this deck were designed by Sunise Chiba and if you would like to learn more about this, you can visit their website at guruplayingcards.com. Of course, this deck is fully custom illustrated cards based on Hindu mythology. The basis of the Indian worldview is of cosmic unity underlying the physical diversity of the world through which man transcends himself and sends almost every Indian folk art form is based on Hindu mythology. For all the court cards, Kings, Queens and Jacks and the suits, the various gods and goddesses are all the inspiration for the artwork. Millions of people worship these deities daily in India and abroad and so I think this deck certainly has a large audience. The tuck case is done in a black matte paper stock and it's all wrapped beautifully in gold foil. The gold foil tuck box is on a 300 GSM cardboard paper with matte finish and has a custom numbered stamp and seal. The front of the tuck case has the pips from the various suits and it looks like I would say these are peacocks surrounding the corners but I could be wrong. It says divine art playing cards inspired by Hindu mythology limited edition on the front. Both sides, the left and right, say divine art playing cards inspired by Hindu mythology and the bottom has some ad copy about guru playing cards. The top has the custom numbered stamp and seal and the back design of course is the back design of the cards. The tongue flap has a beautiful like mandala looking coin symbol there and that is pretty much it for the tuck case. Let's take a look at these cards. With this deck you get 54 poker sized cards made in China with a gold gilded edge. This deck was a limited edition run of 500 decks only and the cards are made from a 330 GSM German black core card stock and they only have the linen embossed. They only have the linen finish on the faces okay. So what does that mean? That means it doesn't have a finish on the back. This is smooth so that means that because of the gold foiling on the back they didn't want to then imprint the linen finish on this to ruin the back which means they're going to glide much easier across the face than they will across the back. So think of it like if it was a bicycle deck it only has we'll say air cushion. It only has air cushion on one side and not the other. A lot of people always ask me how these cards feel and handle. Best thing I can do is measure them with a caliper just to give you an idea of how thick they are. Obviously the gold foiling on the backs and the sides is going to add to the thickness of the cards and make them feel bulky. This deck when measured 10 cards comes to 3.11. 3.11 is very thick. This is beyond casino stock okay. This is a very thick deck of cards. The back design is all done in blacks and golds and the gold of course is metallic ink. It is a hot stamped gold foil and it does have a medium-sized poker border. You'll see that the black carries all the way to the edges but of course the faces of the cards are white so that'll make reverse cards easy to spot. And the back design is really simply just those four exotic birds and some fauna there in the middle. Now because this was a Kickstarter one of the nice things about this deck is it comes with a little booklet that tells you a little bit more about the deck and you're able to go through that and read some of the interesting features. For instance with this deck you'll get two original jokers one depicting the divine messenger and one depicting the enchantress. Going through your suits and your court cards, the spade courts, the king represents Vishnu, the queen is Lakshmi and the jack is Garuda. Looking at the clubs and looking at these court cards the king is Brahma, the queen is Sarwati and the jack is the swan. With the heart court cards the king is Krishna, the queen is Radha, and the jack is Sarabi. And the diamond courts the king is Shiva, the queen is Parvati and the jack is Nandi. With this deck you're going to get four very big very beautiful aces. The ace of spades is the most prominent, thus a divine art guru playing card company down at the bottom. The aces, the four aces also have unique symbology. The ace of spades is the forehead adornment of Vishnu. The ace of diamonds is the trident weapon of Shiva. The club is a symbol of the lotus and the heart is the symbol of Krishna. The pips and indices are all completely unique and original to this deck as well and you'll notice that within suit to suit the backing is pretty much the same. It's almost like there's a shadow marking for where the pips should go and the only pips that are lit or colored in are the ones that match the numeric in the corner. Alright so that is my review for the divine art cards from guru playing cards. I'd like to thank guru playing cards for allowing me to have this deck so that I could do the review for you and if you would like to purchase this for yourself I would recommend that you head on down to guruplayingcards.com. Thanks, bye.