– Intro / Brief Overview
What’s up everybody welcome to Magic For Beginners, my name is Keith and in today’s video we’re going to be doing a playing card review and this one is for Wes Barker’s 2nd to None Censored deck of playing cards. This is his second playing card release so far, but if you’ve never heard of Wes before, here’s my mate Morgan to tell you a bit more about him…
Once upon a time, there was a little boy called Wesley Barker who was born. Over time, he became the greatest magician in the world and his magic is second to none. Which is why his newest playing card release is still second to none despite it being censored. He’s been on Ellen, AGT and he’s fooled Penn & Teller, is there anything this man can’t do? Well, I bet he can’t stab a phone book with a sword… oh wait, never mind.
Is there anything that this man can’t do? He’s definitely got some big trick energy about him. So yeah, here are the V2 edition of the 2nd to None playing cards which is called the Censored Deck. This is another deck which was printed by USPCC and is printed on crushed stock with a magic finish, whatever finish that is.
Buy yours here: https://wesbarker.shop/products/the-censored-deck
– How Much Are They?
How much are they? On the 2nd to None web site, these are priced up at £10, but I got these from James at The Card Inn for £14, as Wes’ shop currently doesn’t allow shipping to the UK so I had to get mine through The Card Inn. I think they’re sold out over at The Card Inn, but you may be able to pick them up at other places such as eBay and other web sites, unless you live somewhere other than the UK then you may be able to order your deck direct from Wes.
– Tuck Case
The tuck case for the deck is one which is a mixture of being plain but there’s actually so much going on despite it being plain. The front and back of the tuck box features the censored design which has the 2nd logo hidden in plain sight within the black and yellow lines. The sides and top is the same as the front and back and on the bottom there’s the 2nd to none writing and the usual USPCC promo stuff too. The tuck flap features Wes’ logo and 2nd to none written on the inside of the tuck along with a hidden message on the inside of the card box which is a Steve Martin quote saying “Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent”.
– Backs Of Cards
The backs of the cards is a white bordered card design which has the thick black and yellow censored style stripes which also has the hidden 2nd to none logo repeated all through the coloured stripes and pops out nice while also being quite hidden. I like that the stripes are designed and shown in a way that you can use the card either way too.
– Additional Cards?
What additional cards do you get in the deck? Firstly you get 2 blank cards and as it’s a deck by Wes you know that he’s going to be doing a F U card trick using it, just like I will be doing too. I don’t use that trick often but when you’re in the right company it’s fantastic. You also get a duplicate joker which features Wes being his naked self and donning a beer barrel which is a nod to his podcast called Bottom Of The Barrel. The tap that he’s pouring a drink from is placed at a specific place that looks like the liquid could be coming from somewhere else. I love the drawing design style for the jokers too, it’s really nice.
– Looking Through The Deck
Let’s look through the deck and the faces are standard USPCC style with custom courts and a custom ace of spades too. The ace has a large spade in the middle and it’s coated with a double censored tape and the 2nd logo across it too. The court cards all have black bars across their mouth and has censored wrote on it too. The colours for the court cards are made up of a grey, yellow-y gold colour and black. They’re a nice change to the usual standard court cards which is nice. The deck comes in a very unusual stack too and comes with all of the certain numbers grouped together and then in no particular order for those too. It’s a very interesting way of doing it and I believe Wes said about it before that it was just done because he could and no rhyme or reason behind it.
– How Do They Handle?
Let’s talk about handling and as they’re USPCC cards, they always handle fantastic too and you can do a great amount of shuffles, sleights and whatever else you need. These seemed to be a big rougher along the edges compared to a standard deck for some reason, but a quick rub down your leg and that gets rid of that and you’re good to go. They’re printed on crushed stock and have that elusive magic finish too.
– Conclusions
My deck only has the one blank card in it now which I’ve wrote up to be my F U card trick card and the other one has gone into a vial and added to my collection of 1st and 2nd decks, along with the Peter McKinnon piracy deck and one of my favourite decks of all time the white Artisans deck.
This is a great deck to be used on video and will definitely be using this as a deck to grab when I want to shoot some card tricks for socials and things as the black and yellow lines pop out on video as you can see in this video.
This is a completely different radical design for the deck compared to the previous 2nd to none deck and it’s a great change. I’m very interested to see what’s going to be brought out next for the V3 deck if and when it happens. Maybe it’ll have a barrel design or even a nod to his wife and have an air hostess style theme, who knows?
Hope you enjoyed the review of this deck and if you want to check out the previous deck that Wes released you can find it on the channel and check out the fantastic V1 deck and until next time, see ya!
