Continuing the Legends tradition of constant experimentation and innovation, ULTRA BLACK™ is an all-new dyed black paper for playing cards.
The edges of this deck are not white or light grey, like you have seen on nearly every high-quality deck of playing cards up to this point. Unlike black gilding or spraying each deck's edges with black paint, which chip and fade easily, ULTRA BLACK™ does not chip, and the deck will look and feel new for much longer. We wish we could have printed with this technology on the game-changing Ellusionist Black Tigers all those years ago!
We use an ultra-thin mylar, or full foil, and laminate it to the black core paper before they are printed on or cut (we can produce these in other solid colors as well). This forms a strong bond to the paper that and makes them water resistant. Because black paper is difficult to print on and inks will be absorbed into the paper, the full foil layer allows for a smooth, nearly opaque, and reliable substrate to print the artwork (which in this case is also mostly black, but can be any color). Blank parts in the artwork are where you can see the shiny effect of the full foil under the printed inks.
The cards feel soft and supple, they aren't thick or bulky like other full-full foil decks. They are similar in thickness to a Classic Finish deck. The black ink does make them a bit more rough out of the box, but after a little breaking in they handle very smoothly.
The colored inks are printed on the full foil with a 2-ton sheet-fed offset UV printing press, and cured with UV light, not an infrared heat tunnel. This yields a different feel to to the cards than our standard Classic Finish.
The card faces have no expense spared, with silver full foil, each space man / astronaut / cosmonaut feature shiny visors and accents.
By purchasing this deck you are helping support future development in playing card technology. We thank each and every one of you for your contributions and hope you follow us for more upcoming releases!
