Awesome Playing Cards

These magnificent playing cards from Art of Play and designed by Dan and Dave feature patterns inspired by traditional Japanese woodworking. Intricate Yosegi marquetry designs appear across each card back, the face cards and the eye-catching blue and beige letterpress tuck box. Also available as an uncut sheet, suitable for framing.

It’s hard enough to stand dominoes in a row without accidentally knocking them over, but playing cards present a greater challenge. Even with a slight curve to each card, a light breeze or a sneeze could knock them all over. To show how impervious their doors and windows are to wind, SUNHOHI sponsored a team stand up 51,725 cards before toppling them all.

These playing cards reimagine the classic deck through the lens of designer Paula Scher and Pentagram. Edition 1 bursts with bold, oversized typography as abstract art, while Edition 2 distills mid-century minimalism into clever, single-character designs. These high-quality decks are as collectible as they are playable. Also available as an uncut sheet.

Solve the mystery of who-will-win with this set of 52 oversized playing cards that pay homage to Agatha Christie’s novels, characters (Poirot and Marple among them), and plot thickeners from murder weapons to stolen gems. Decorating each card is a clue, treasure, murder, or detective, categorized by hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.

These dramatic playing cards incorporate heat-sensitive inks for a unique color-changing effect. The Rebirth deck features a holographic red foiled Phoenix with copper embossing, while the Ashes deck has black cards with cold-foiled silver and carbon black tuck box with an embossed phoenix and lenticular fire effect.

Stockholm 17 makes unique and artful playing card decks. Among their wares are these cards featuring images of a frog who likes to gamble a whole lot. The 56-card deck has easy-to-read 4-corner indices. Its special cards include three Joker cards illustrated with the dapper amphibian and a 17 of spades gaff card. Printed on high-quality stock by WJPCC.

Balatro is one of the best and most addictive games of the year. Developer LocalThunk teamed up with Fangamer and artist Tony Kuchar to produce an IRL deck of playing cards based on the ones in the game. Each card has pixelated graphics on the front and back, and the deck includes four of the game’s jokers. Now we need a set with all 150 jokers.

These playful playing cards from Kings Wild Project feature a design inspired by kids’ alphabet blocks. The square cards have a woodgrain background with large numbers and colorful faces. They come with red, yellow, blue, green, or black backs as well as a gilded edition with gold edges. Collect them all!

This artfully-illustrated deck of playing cards from Art of Play pays tribute to the work of prolific 20th-century artist Alexander Calder. The designs are inspired by the artist’s colorful paintings from the latter part of his career, including his lighthearted Card Players series. Each letter and number is derived from Calder’s handwriting.

Fans of the musical Wicked, the folks at Theory11 have released a gravity-defying deck of playing cards just for you. The deck comes packed in a fancy emerald green and gold foil box. The card backs are embellished with imagery of the Emerald City, with face cards inspired by Glinda, Elphaba, Madame Morrible, The Wizard of Oz, and more.

This unique deck of see-through playing cards is printed with images of the human anatomy. When stacked in the proper order, the slices form a complete body. The Body Deck comes from the mind of Vsauce creator Michael Stevens. It’s available exclusively as part of his Fall 2024 Curiosity Box, which comes packed with fun stuff for learning about science.

Art of Play’s fanciful playing cards celebrate a classic sideshow pastime – the flea circus. The miniature cards feature illustrations by artist Jeff Trish, with 54 fleas showing off their unique talents under a pint-sized big top. Acts include a snake charmer flea, a cannonball flea, and a light bulb-eating flea. The teensy cards measure 2.75″ x 1.75″.

Paris-based design house BLVCK teamed up with Mattel to create this special edition of UNO with a unique look. Instead of the traditional white cards, this version of the game has matte black cards with glossy accents and BLVCK’s monogram pattern on the back. The colors really pop against the dark background.

Renowned artist William Stout and Art of Play follow up on their awesome Dinosaur playing cards with a deck inspired by the fantasy genre. All 54 cards in the box feature an imaginative, original illustration loaded with color and detail. While dealing out the cards, you’ll find a variety of dragons, bats, wizards, faeries, and other wondrous creatures.

The Man of Steel gets a wonderful deck of cards from Theory11. The cards and box are loaded with colorful illustrations inspired by classic DC Comics. You’ll find images of Clark Kent/Superman, Lois Lane, Supergirl, Jor-El, Lara Lor-Van, and Jimmy Olsen, along with villains Lex Luthor, Darkseid, General Zod, Brainiac, and the tricky imp, Mr. Mxyzptlk.

These playful playing cards from Kings Wild Project feature a design inspired by a box of crayons. Their packaging looks like a vintage Crayola box, while the face cards and suit markers appear to have been colored in with crayons. The deck also includes a photorealistic card that looks like seven crayons to stack at the top of your deck.