A Definitive List of Names Within the Art of Juggling Cards
Introduction to Cardistry
Cardistry is the art of juggling arts. It is the most exciting, innovative, and growing skill arts in the world today. You would see people just tossing it around and catches them, shuffling them in such a fancy way, or perhaps just spin them with swift fingers. These skill arts commonly compared with yo-yoing and playing Kendama. Tracing its roots from card magic, cardistry begins to slowly separated from magic and be on its own standing genre. With the ever-growing community of cardistry, so as with many brands are established for this performance arts. This guide will list every cardistry brands exist in the community, along with its brief information about each brand and list some of their decks (if you like to see a full list, refer to “Buyer’s Guide” threads).
History of Cardistry
The term “cardistry” comes from the words of “card” and “artistry” – simply meaning doing arts with cards. People who are doing these skill arts are called “cardists”. Before it is called cardistry, it is known as “card flourishes”. Card flourishes were incorporated as part of a magician’s card performance routine, in which the magicians perform these classic flourishes such as card fanning, card spring, and riffle shuffle. Harry Houdini, a famous magician of all time, showcased these card flourishes in his magic act in the late 19th century – as shown on his poster “Houdini’s King of Cards”. Perhaps, you might be familiar with the jolly performance of Richard Valentine Pitchford, also known as Cardini, whose vaudeville act featuring spectacular displays of card artistry.
It wasn’t until 1990s that cardistry started to break away from magic. It was started with the publications beginning in 1982 from Bill Kalush [Magic Manuscript – “Kalush Cut”] through 1992 by Chris Kenner [Totally Out of Control – “The Five Faces of Sybil”]. These inspired some magicians to begin thinking of the potential of card flourishes outside of magical routine. Joey Burton, Alexander Popov, and Jerry Cestkowski were among the first to expand upon this idea and introduces the concept of card juggling in the 1990s.
Around the turn of the millennium, publications that were focused entirely on the art of card flourishing started to rise and grow. First, Brian Tudor published his cardistry tutorial volumes called “Showoff” in 1997. Later, it is followed by Dan and Dave Buck, twins who were fascinated with Sybil, released “Pasteboard Animations” in 2001, which showcased tutorials on explaining advanced cuts and flourishes. In 2002, Jerry Cestkowski published the bible of card flourishes titled “Encyclopedia of Card Flourishes”. The hardcover book contains a lot of moves on a single source, complete with step-by-step photos with explanation. The foreword in the book further cements the separate distinction between magic and cardistry:
At first, cardistry is more of an extreme sport rather than a performance art. That is because there was a people’s movement that popularized the term “XCM”, short of “Extreme Card Manipulation”. In XCM, cardists performed almost impossible moves with cards, like doing it blindfolded, juggling with cards on fire, anything that simply takes months of practices to be able to perform them. Through releases of videos by Dan and Dave (called “Spring Jam”) and a few of card flourishes competitions, people believed that cardistry should be more focused more on creativity, artistry, and flow rather than practicing and perfecting extremely or almost impossible moves like in XCM. In 2004, Dan and Dave (with the help of Chris Kenner) released cardistry tutorial “The Dan and Dave System”, and four years later they released “The Trilogy”. Both of these instructional videos are the widely known tutorials in the cardistry community, and people started their journey from these. Dan and Dave Buck later known as the founding father of modern cardistry.“A card flourish is a fancy stunt… A card trick is a magical effect; a flourish is not.”
Starting from 2010, the growth of cardistry is booming thanks to the trending social media in the era of developing technology of internet and world wide web. Cardists would focus of doing recording and editing of performance videos and they would share their creations on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. They would also release several tutorials for newbies to learn and start their journey in the cardistry community. There were online forums created for sharing and learning these skill arts, and one of them is this very forum: United Cardists [UC]. In 2014, Dan and Dave held up the first ever convention dedicated to cardistry called “Cardistry Con”. There, people simply doing activities all related to cardistry with sales of playing cards dedicated to cardistry and it is held every year in different cities – the convention also has its own deck of playing cards for the attendees.
In 2012 onwards, there are multiple brands that were formed exclusively by and for cardists within the cardistry community. Once these cardists had established their names within the community, they begin building their brands for cardistry. Each brand has their own unique signature design on the playing cards as well as their apparels. Eventually, their cards continue to produce many designs throughout the years to come. Playing card printers are then to developed card stock and finish that are suitable for card flourishes. With all of these, cardistry become a mainstream topic in social media, and they can be found through pop culture references in media and entertainment as well as advertisements.
Cardistry Brands
Exclusively built by and for cardists, these brands are born to plague the world of card flourishing in the playing card community. Each has their own distinct art style as well as the journey behind the brand. Here is the showcase of those brands:
NOTE: The list will be updated every time there is a new entry. Not all of decks in a brand will be listed here. Do check “Buyer’s Guide” for some brands’ checklists.]
Dan and Dave
Founders: Daniel Buck and David Buck
Established Since: 2008
Origin: San Diego, California, United States
About
Daniel and David Buck (shortened "Dan and Dave"), also known as the Buck Twins, are known to be the founding father of modern cardistry. They formed their brand by establishing their own deck of playing cards called "Smoke and Mirror". A classic and minimalistic deck designed by Si Scotts, the Smoke and Mirror series becomes the most well-known creation by them both. The Buck Twins are also the founder of playing cards production house as well as selling merchandises such as decorations and puzzles - called Art of Play, established in 2013. They are also the founder of Cardistry Con, convention hosting anything cardistry.
Decks:
- "Smoke and Mirror" series
- V1 - V7
- Private Reserve
- V8 and V9 [COLLABORATION with Card Mafia]
- COLLABORATION with other cardistry brands: Anyone Worldwide - Dealersgrip - LotusinHand
- "The Antlers" series
- Hi My Name is Mark
- If An Octopus Could Palm
- "DAMN GOOD CARDS" volumes
- Decks released under "Art of Play"
Virtuoso
Founder: Huron Low and [Kevin Ho]
Members: Daren Yeow, Joshua Tan, Jeremy Tan, Joyce Lee, Roland Tim
Established Since: 2009
Origin: Singapore, Singapore
About:
What begins as a hobby at first, Huron Low formed this cardistry team with Kevin Ho in Singapore. After its creation, they are recruiting more team members like Daren Yeow, Joshua Tan, and Jeremy Tan, as well as Joyce Lee and Roland Tim. Their cardistry performance went viral when they got featured in Discovery Channel documentary, and they keep doing excellent works every time. But what makes this brand/group shine is the creation of deck of cards specially made for cardistry. From the adaptive aesthetics design to the cardistry-specs cards production, it created a trend to build up even more cardistry decks. Their cards are known for their vortex like design with its color variations.
Decks:
- Launch edition = Red - Black
- Spring Summer '14 = Blue - Orange
- Spring Summer '15 = Red - Light Blue
- Spring Summer '16 = Yellow - Black
- Fall Winter '17 = Green - Black
- Perspective P1 = OG and Foundations Red
Orbit
Founder: Chris "Orbit" Brown
Members: Sean Oulashin (cardist), Daniel Schneider (designer)
Established Since: 2012
Origin: Fremont, California, United States
About:
It all begin with a magical passion from Chris "Orbit" Brown. He established the first Kickstarter campaign to release his own deck of playing cards. Since then, the card community build a fond towards this brand that released the iconic decks with great designs. The decks are known for their circular shape on the middle, the number 23, and the Arrco design on the faces. The brand is well-loved for their friendly engagement with the card community. He did a charity deck to plant trees for every sale made.
Decks:
- V1 - V8
- PARALLEL Edition
- CHRISTMAS Edition
- MINI Edition
- COLLABORATION = Aesop Rock - Mac Lethal - Tally-Ho
Organic Playing Cards (OPC)
Founder: Cameron "Cam" Toner
Members: David Koehler (magician), Kaitlyn Chen (cardist), Alexis Grant (designer), Joe Feldpausch (cardist), Luis Wollenschneider (cardist and Discord community manager), Kevin Yu (distributor - Riffle Shuffle)
Established Since: 2018
Origin: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
About:
It all started with a passion in magic, cardistry, and custom cards when Cam was in his college days. What began as custom deck releases just as hobby comes true, it slowly grown into a brand with a community. Eventually, it becomes a cardistry brand on its own and the team expanded their members. The decks are well-known for their fruits on both sides with comical design on the courts. There are sub-series created within the brand based on the themes. Sometimes, they created a nice packaging design for either the deck or the brick box or both.
Decks:
- "Peelers" series
- "Squeezers" series
- "Snackers" series
- "Slicers"
- "Carvers"
- "Exotic"
- Cardsicles - Roasters - Shuckers - Coco Palms - Twisters, etc.
Jaspas/New Deck Order (NDO)
Founders: Justin Ye and Loretta Sze
Established Since: 2013
Origin: Singapore, Singapore
About:
Justin Ye, also known as Jaspas, was involved in the world of cardistry when he was 15 years old. He created the New Deck Order as a dedicated group for cardistry with a website that aimed to be a hub to help bring cardistry fans from around the world together. He also created a YouTube channel to teaches people about the art of card flourishes. With the brand established, also a series of decks are made for the arts of it. Jaspas is also known for his card reviews as well as commentaries on cardistry performance videos.
Decks:
- "Broken Borders" series
- "Jaspas Deck" series
- "School of Cardistry" volumes
Fontaine
Founder: Zach Mueller
Members: Carter Macdiarmid (cardist), Kyle Tran (cardist), James Chesmore (cardist), Lewis Caldwell (cardist), Syd (customer support)
Established Since: 2013
Origin: Los Angeles, California, United States
About:
Zach Mueller was a teenager boy who had a passion in magic. He used to provide magic tutorials for Theory 11 and created several tutorials posted on his YouTube channel. Inspired by Dan and Dave's performances, Zach slowly made his transition towards cardistry. The start of his 'basking into the limelight' moment began when he created a prototype of his custom deck, and used it on his tutorial titled "Marbles". Ever since, people were demanding for the deck, ergo the deck and the brand itself is created. The deck is named after his previous tutorial titled "Fontaine", also uses the same font as the title.
Decks:
- "COLOR" series = Just solid color
- Red
- Blue
- Black
- Summer = Raspberry - Horchata - Pineapple - Aquaberry
- Fall = Grey - Pumpkin - Broccoli - Cranberry
- Neon = Slime - Cotton Candy - Seafoam - Safety
- "FOILS" series = Hot foiled stamed w/ shiny finish
- Holographic = Solid - Spiral - Black - Rainbow
- Metallic = Gold Holo - Kyanite - Ruby - Amethyst - Emerald
- "MYSTERY PACK" series = Blind packs event, "Collect them All!"
- Futures
- Fever Dream
- Fantasies
- 5000s
- COLLABORATION
- Fashion Brands = RipnDip - Chinatown Market - Carrots - FTP - Babylon - Good Co. - GUESS
- Artists = Kogan Cult - Dabsmyla - Matt McCormick
- Magician = Calen Morelli
- Entertainment = Halloween - Nickelodeon - Army of Darkness - Sesame Street
Mano Santa
Founders: Edgar Isaac and Luis Mecalco
Members: [???] and [???]
Established Since: 2018
Origin: Mexico City, Mexico
About:
Cardistry takes the internet by the storm within the playing card community. Eventually, so many people start practicing the art of card flourishes, especially amongst the young teenager audiences. A cardistry community was formed in Mexico, and they established a local brand named “Mano Santa”. Their first deck release was on 2018, and new decks are released every year. This brand becomes a prominent cardistry brand in the local cardistry con: CCMX [Cardistry Con Mexico].
Decks:
- 45s
- Alphabet
- CCMX Deck
- Tic Tac Toe
Dealersgrip
Founder: Oliver Sogard and [Tobias Levin]
Member: Dennis Jin (web designer)
Established Since: 2014
Origin: Copenhagen, Denmark
About:
Oliver is known to be a great cardist in the European cardistry community. He and Tobias [who later left for Anyone] had the idea to create custom playing cards for cardistry based on artistic impression with philosophical meaning. Through artistic experimentation and by examining the overlapping elements of playing cards, cardistry and existence, he seeks to challenge conventions and build meaningful products. "Put your thoughts on paper" - that is his mantra. He also had the fascination with the '52!', the number of combinations on how to arrange a deck of playing cards. The cards are known for their thick border and the rotated single pip on every 'Seven of Spades' card. Every deck is a piece of abstract art with philosophical meaning. Recently, Oliver is hosting a small cardistry convention in Copenhagen called "Card Club".
Decks:
- GLISK
- HAVOC
- SEPAL
- ERROR
- AMBIENT
- 52 MOUNT
- COLLABORATION = Dan and Dave
- SMOKE
- MIRROR
- GARDEN
Anyone Worldwide
Founder: Tobias Levin, [Noel Heath and Nikolaj Pedersen]
Member: Dennis Jin (web designer)
Established Since: 2017
Origin: Copenhagen, Denmark
About:
Two former cardists from Dealersgrip, Tobias Levin and Nikolaj Pedersen, joined up with legendary cardist Noel Heath in 2017 to formed up this brand. Because the three of them are great and well-known cardists, they quickly had a huge following from the start. The decks are well known for the very simplistic design: applying simple geometric patterns or patch up a flag or simply place a word across. Later, Noel exited the brand to create his own cardistry brand. Recently, Nikolaj exited the brand, leaving Tobias to run the brand all by himself. Anyone Worldwide had a store established in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Decks:
- "DOT" series
- "CAP LOGO" series
- "CHECKS" series
- "HOUNDSTOOTH" series
- "6006 (Sushi)" series
- "SOUVENIR" series
- COLLABORATION
- B. Thom Stevenson = Headlong into Eternity - Runaway World
- AS IS NYC = Bombs
- Face Oka = Kind Time
- Dan and Dave = Smoke - Mirror - v4 Green - v5 Blue - v6 Red
- Tim Lahan = Defenceless - Last Laugh
LotusinHand
Founders: Daniel Lin, Kurtis Lin, and Harry Kuo
Members: Allan (camera and video), Daniel's wife (promotion), Bailiang Huang (designer)
Established Since: 2018
Origin: Taiwan, China
About:
Cardistry in Asia gives out the spotlight to the amazing skills done by really talented cardists. Three cardists from Taiwan: Daniel Lin, Kurtis Lin, and Harry Kuo formed their brand called LotusinHand. Their decks design is breaking the standard design of playing cards yet they are enhancing card flourishes in many ways. They worked closely with the local printing company called Dex Playing Cards. LotusinHand published "Cardisty Bootcamp" on YouTube that provides levels of learning cardistry - from the basics to advanced. The brand's motto is "Think outside of the box from what's inside the box" and "GET GOOD". Although some of their decks have odd number of print runs and very limited release window - very hard to get, as if they are just showing the decks and only their VIPs use them.
Decks:
- "Ventus" series
- "Echo" series
- "Gradient" series
- "Duo" series
- "Normal Cards" series
- "Solid" series
- "Lotus" series
- COLLABORATION = Art of Play - Dan and Dave
Joker and the Thief
Founder: James Milaras
Member: Pedro Oyarbide (designer)
Established Since: 2015
Origin: Sydney, Australia
About:
James thought about creating an exclusive brand of cardistry lifestyle. The brand produces playing cards specially built for cardistry ever since his successful campaign back in 2015. Since then, Joker and the Thief had produced tens of cards. Their in-house designer, Pedro Oyarbide, is the man behind counts of great playing cards design for the brand. James visioned that his brand would turn playing cards from ordinary to something wonderful. Because of the intricacy of the artworks, their decks are often be collectible artwork playing cards, admiring the great works by Pedro.
Decks:
- "Joker and the Thief" series
- Seafarers
- Wayfarers
- Psychonauts
- 597
- Dystopia
- Victory
Luke Wadey
Founder: Luke Wadey
Established Since: 2017
Origin: London, United Kingdom
About:
Luke Wadey is a working graphic designer from United Kingdom. By day, he works in an agency doing everything from branding to advertising, logos to brochures, animation to editing. Outside from his day job, he has a passion in playing cards. Following the principles of Swiss Design methods including, but not limited to, typographic layouts and pattern work, Luke created playing cards design like any other. His decks are crystal-clear one-way design laden with texts and symbols. It might look chaotic, yet it creates great decks for cardistry.
Decks:
- "GRID" series
- "MONO" series
- "ARW" series
- COVID-19
- AvH Typography
- "Patreon Exclusives" decks
- "Bespoke" decks
- COLLABORATION
- Elemental Playing Cards = Carbon Graphite
- Kier Gomes = Generation ONE
Bloc
Founders: Adam Kerchman and Frank Sung
Established Since: 2017
Origin: Queens, New York, United States
About:
Two cardists partnered up to create cardistry decks based on interior natural material patterns. It can be a range of wood texture, a fur pattern, to the luxurious marble. They both turned the ordinary deck of playing cards into an edge-to-edge one way pattern that creates excellent card fanning visuals.
Decks:
- American Pine
- Rosewood
- Marble
- Black Marble
- Plush
MISSING
Founder: Leo Flores and Nathan Stichter
Established Since: 2020
Origin: New York, United States
About:
Simply a cardist from New York who is starting his own cardistry brand. Details on the brand is “MISSING” (sorry for the pun). The deck concept is incorporating a missing element along with urban stuffs. While their releases are not frequent, they care for quality over quantity. MISSING invites to embark on a journey to explore the "missing" elements of traditional playing cards.
Decks:
- COLLAGE
- INK
- THERMAL
- DATABEND series
- ARTICLE
- GESTURE (COLLABORATION with Adam Phong)
- ANALOG (COLLABORATION with COLORSHIFT)
- PIGMENT
Cardistry Touch/Zalem
Founders: Ladislas Toubart, Dimitri Arleri, and Alex Matencio
Established Since: 2017
Origin: Paris, France
About:
Two cardist from France partnered up to build a cardistry brand together. They both come from an artistic background, and their goal is to keep exploring and developing creative ideas on their cardistry cards. Initially, they’ve started producing their decks with Cartamundi using their special cardistry stocks, but then switched up to USPCC. Cardistry Touch is well-known for their “Swivel Box”, which is a box that has a lid that opened sideways and draw out the cards, like opening a Zippo lighter. Recently, they take in a cardist with his own brand to grow the grow that brand alongside with this brand – called “Zalem Industries”
Decks:
- Origin
- "Derive" series
- "ESCP_THIS" series
- "Pulse"
- "Offset"
- STAIRS
- MONODAWN
- SELFLESSHANDS
Gemini
Founder: [???]
Members: [???]
Established Since: 2016
Origin: United States
About:
Gemini is established since 2016. They produced playing cards with minimalistic designs. While the cards are heavily directed towards cardisty, the cards can also be used for magic. Some of the cards will have their gilded variants.
Decks:
- "Gemini Casino" series
- "SUPERFLY" series
- "ULTRA" series
- "MAKO" series
- "GOBLIN" series
- GAME OVER
Komorebi
Founders: Linus Schmidt and Jacob Miller
Established Since: 2021
Origin: New York, Unites States
About:
Komorebi creates playing cards for cardistry as well as apparels for wear. Combining them altogether and you have a set of cardistry lifestyle from New York. The brand is known for the Japanese Kanji for “sun”.
Decks:
- Awful Louisiana
- AFSM "Nancy"
- Awful Frank
- Louisiana
- Hallmark
- Sonhos Insight
Best Cardist Alive (BCA)
Founder: Patrick Varnavas
Established Since: 2015
Origin: [???]
About:
Best Cardist Alive, shortened as BCA, is simply a platform to collect exceptional cardistry performance ever. The moves are none like you ever seen before! While the platform is simply a media for reposting some of crazy killer moves done by legends, they do have their own decks. BCA is founded by Patrick Varnavas following his experience at the Con in Brooklyn.
Decks:
- BCA Standard Red
- BCA Standard Green
- BCA Halos
- BCA Superstars
X-Decks
Founder: Nathan "Nate" Lex
Established Since: 2018
Origin: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
About:
Nate Lex created his own brand of playing cards retailer called “X-Decks”. The retailer sells a variety of playing cards coming from many brands in cardistry, magic, and designers. In the span of two years, the brand produced their own decks.
Decks:
- Kisetsu
- LoFi Mix Vol.1
Momentum Cards
Founder: Kevin Ho
Established Since: 2019
Origin: United States
About:
The previous founder of the Virtuoso cardistry brand, Kevin Ho sadly had to leave Singapore and resides in the United States. There, he builds up his own brand: Momentum Cards. The very first deck produced is an idea which Kevin had been exploring – arrows on playing cards. He created a minimalistic deck that explores the direction in card flourishes.
Decks:
- "ArrowDynamix" series
- Venn
Feel the Universe
Founder: Sergio Roca
Established Since: 2016
Origin: Valencia, Spain
About:
Sergio Roca is a magician and cardist from Spain. He has been in the art of magic and card flourishes for a decade. In 2016, he created his first Kickstarter campaign to produce his own deck of playing cards – the Odyssey Playing Cards. The deck is received positively by the community, and countless of editions come after for years to come. The standard deck also comes in gilded and collector variants for playing card collectors.
Decks:
- OG Odyssey Limited
- Odyssey Boreal
- Odyssey Aether
- Odyssey Nova
- Odyssey Elite
- Odyssey Exodus
- Odyssey Karma
- Odyssey Genesys
- Odyssey Anthem
- Odyssey KHAOS
Handlordz LLC/XCM
Founder: De’vo vom Schatternreich
Established Since: 2003
Origin: Dallas, Texas, United States
About:
De’vo is a world-renowned playing card expert, artist, a celebrity performer, a 2007 Guinness World Record Holder, and an Emmy Recognized cinematographer. De'vo has created more than 90 of the world's finest decks of playing cards, 10 instructional DVDs, published 2 books, and wrote his own column in 4 different magazines. He also has his own line of extremely limited-edition playing card products such as specialized playing card boxes and holders. His cards marked the beginning of the early days of cardisty: XCM [Extreme Card Manipulation], where cardistry were extreme and only professional experts can do them. He has a deck series where his cards formed comic pages: “Magicians Must Die”. De’vo works closely with professional card thrower, magician and Guinness World Record holder Rick Smith Jr., in which he designed decks specifically for card throwing.
Decks:
- “Magicians Must Die” comic playing cards series
- WTF Blades
- “Falcon” series
- Chrome Kings
- Grandmasters
- “Card Masters” series
Diamon Playing Cards
Founders: Casper (cardist) and Jannieke (designer)
Members: Matt (magician and photographer), Tom (magician)
Established Since: 2017
Origin: Amsterdam, Netherlands
About:
Dutch Card House is a playing cards company in Netherlands. The company produces several series of playing cards. In the magic line-up, there is Paisley Playing Cards, marked decks based on the paisley natural patterns. In the thematic line-up, there is the Shooters Playing Cards (camera), “Tulip” and “Leaves” series (plants), and “Secret Tales” series (fairytales). In the cardistry line-up, there is Diamon Playing Cards, embracing the graphical patterns of colorful diamonds.
Decks:
- Diamon No. 2 - Summer Season
- Diamon No. 5 - Winter Warmth
- Diamon No. 8 - Bright Summer Day
- Diamon No. 10 - Black & White
- Diamon No. 12 - Sunset Edition
- Diamon No. 14 - Purple Star
- Diamon No. 17 - Royal Victory
- Diamon No. 22 - Celebration
REFERENCE
Ivan Choe from Kardify had created a link tree page that will direct you to every cardistry webstore sites.
https://list.kardify.com/cardistry-bran ... MjczMjkuMA
LotusinHand created a Cardistry Bootcamp on their Youtube Channel. Phase 2 of the Camp talks about the brief history of cardistry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QHh2LYeKXc
Dan and Dave have their own website where they sell their branded playing cards as well as talking about their history and blogs filled with interesting articles. This article talks briefly about cardistry.
https://dananddave.com/blogs/news/what-is-cardistry
