Decknique, one of the biggest and most active communities about card flourishing and manipulation EVER, says goodbye.

It’s sad but it’s true, and it’s happening in two weeks time.

Here is Richard’s post:

” Hey all, personal message here… It’s long I know.

I wanted to announce today that I’m planning on closing Decknique. It’s been over 3 years, and it’s been stablished as the most popular cardistry-only community there is. But, as should be obvious by now, I’m spending my time on other things these days and do not have enough to do everything.

I don’t like how DN has been going around for so long with an active leader at the top of it all. If DN were to stay open, I would want to be spending more time on it and actively developing it rather than popping in most recently just once or twice a week.

I have been tossing around the idea of closing down DN for a while now, but since there have always been 200+ *registered* members visiting each day I didn’t want to just cut it off. Now I’ve also thought — DN has been getting by without myself being active, thanks in great part to Erik, Vinnie, C3rb3rus, and harapanong for moderating consistently and through difficult situations. But even though people are still active on DN I can’t bring myself to keep DN around in the stagnant shape that it’s in as a website. There is way more that could be done, but I don’t have time to do it.

The other option would be to pass DN to be led by somebody else. But as something that’s been under my name since mid-2005 (when the first DN video was pushed out), I wouldn’t want to hand it off to just anybody.

I will keep the DN page registered, but it will change to be just a set of static pages that give information about cardistry, give a bit of detail about Decknique, and provide some highlight videos/topics that can form a basis for other endeavors and so that the progress made with Decknique is not lost.

I also hope that “closing” Decknique will offer me more time to get the other things I want done instead. This doesn’t mean that I’m leaving the cardistry or magic community, I plan on still staying. But I hope to take on a more individual contributor role rather than managing this website for now. I mention magic because I’ve been working with somebody on developing a couple of magic ideas, although my main focus in cards is still on cardistry. But like I’v always said, it’s good to keep the doors open to everything around you, because the influence and inspiration is awesome. On top of which, the magic ideas are very cool and they’re fun to work on. I hope they will come to fruition soon.

I hope that I will also be given more time to practice cardistry myself instead of spending all my time having to squash arguments and fix troubles on the website. I also hope to spend more time with video editing, social life, and whatever else.

Who’s idea was it?
Purely my own. I’ve thought about it for a while (I even drafted this message over 2 weeks ago), but then realized I’ve been only checking DN VERY briefly about once every week for the past few months.

Why?
I’m spending my time on other things these days. I’ve got a full time job, I’ve been working on some side projects, I’m taking some night classes/activities to learn more things and meet interesting people, and then social life too.

Something will stay
As I mentioned earlier, I want to leave some static pages on Decknique so as to leave a footprint and not just vanish to be forgotten. I’m going to work over this until DN eventually closes, which leads up to the question…

When will it close?
Currently I plan on about 2 weeks out from now.

Will DN ever open back again?
There are currently no plans to open a forum up on DN again. If I get laid off, maybe I’ll reconsider I don’t think I’d plan on making a personal site out of this. “Decknique” to me is too engrained as a community website for me to feel right re-serving it as a personal website.

What will happen to the old posts?
Some of the old posts will be archived. There’s no sense in keeping it all here though, so it’d be nice to try and just highlight some of the best posts for reference.

Will there be an information site?
I do plan on keeping a brief FAQ on cardistry and also a bit of brief history, so that people have something to go off of.

Can I takeover/buy Decknique?
I’m currently not accepting any offers for Decknique, because whatever might actually sway me more than likely wouldn’t be worth your while.

What about theory11?
I’ll be straight. theory11′s a company, and they sell stuff. They have mostly magic, but that’s where the majority of their audience and money is. But I madly appreciate what they do. But honestly, after working with them for about 2 years, I think they are great. They are SO active, they come up with contests every single week, and 1-on-1s almost as often. And they have some great 1-on-1′s there. For those who say cardistry isn’t their top priority, that might be true for some people, but Andrei works for them now. He is planning to give more push for cardistry community in theory11, and I hope he starts soon. theory11 has amazing resources and and talented people who work full time on the website. I will continue doing work for them as well.

Lastly, I want to thank each and every one of you for making Decknique successful. It wouldn’t've lasted a week had it not been for people like you joining and contributing. I GREATLY hope that whatever you do next will help serve a few things:

- CONTRIBUTE to the community
- strive for EXELLENCE and EVOLUTION
- HELP one other instead of bashing each other. everybody starts off a newbie — trying to best each other at bashing people is not the right way
- do GOOD in the world”

-Richard Z

What now? Do you have an idea or solution? Post a comment.

—

Save 20% On Custom Playing Card Packs

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The judges’ choices were unanimous. The top three winners are listed below, from third place to first. Some of our judges’ notes on each are included as well:

THIRD PLACE :: 48dumplings by Adam & Steve

Dave Buck: I loved this video, but then I started to really hate it. Why? I felt like it was lengthy. You guys have mad skills, no doubt. However, I believe videos like these, since they don’t create emotion like film, should at least leave you wishing for more. You guys did a great job, but you handed us the full experience, 100%, which became boring and wonderless. There are some really amazing, one of a kind, moments in this video, in fact, pieces of this video were so good, that I guarantee if it were recut to under two minutes, it would be first place with a rating way above any other. It’s like David Williamson always says, “only give them 40%”, and I doubt he’s just talking about magic.

RichardZ: I loved the feel to the video at the beginning. Some very great moves in here too, and loved that they made it into downtown New York. A lot of great moves in the beginning, and I liked how they got other people out on the streets to come talk to them as well. What really set this video apart was the great collaboration moves they had together. Of course not everybody was lucky enough to have an opportunity to do this, so I’m glad they took advantage of this. However, like Dave said, I think the video went way too long, unfortunately and could have stopped way earlier, making it an even better video.

daniel+Madison: A lot of creativity and fun with a lot of personality, it was very entertaining. Very nice work.

SECOND PLACE :: Battle – Bowen vs. Jaspas

Dave Buck: This video showed good use of a solid concept, which by-the-way, if far more entertaining then just a montage, which I’m sure we can all agree too. The subway provided a style and appeal that enhanced the quality of the video but not so much to distract the important aspect of the flourish “Battle”. I also enjoyed the crescendo of music, rhythm, and complexity of each flourish as the video neared the end. Good work.

RichardZ: Another great build up to this video, and got to love Jaspas in a cowboy hat. However like in 48 Dumplings, I think they built up a story (with great build up fitted to the music) that didn’t really ever happen. That is, I didn’t get much of a sense of a battle once they discovered each other, which was too bad. Still some great moves, and I love the moment where Jaspas flicked the angel and the girl freaked. Also I was hoping they would’ve noticed the guy in the middle of the shot just staring towards the camera. It was a bit freaky. Overall great job, and obviously they entertained whoever was on the train. Great work.

daniel+Madison: An energizing and upbeat display of skill and style. I loved the moves, the interactivity, and the choice of location (subway).

FIRST PLACE :: F501

Dave Buck: Great video! I know you guys planned this out, and it shows. Great use of the location, awesome compositions, kick ass material, and well produced. You guys rock. Keep up the awesome work.

daniel+Madison: Amazing, charismatic and cool, perfect cinematography and editing with flawlessly articulated flourishing… Great teamwork; a very entertaining show.

RichardZ: This video had it all. Some form of story, snazzy clothes, great camera work, a Fiat, great setting, unique moves to boot too. Was a great video in general. The one thing I was hoping to see more of was people together. At one point you saw somebody sitting in a car while another person was doing their cardistry, but aside from that I think they could have made their great video even better if they had people doing their moves at the same time. I was also expecting they were going to do more with their story with such the great set-up. I also wasn’t sure what F 501 meant… I’m guessing it was a F 500 but then… why the 1, when there were 3 of them? Is this a sequel to another video they made?

===============================

Congratulations to everyone that submitted a video – great work all around. To all of you that won, prizes will be sent out midweek : custom engineered steel plaques created by Jamie Schoolcraft especially for this contest. Once again, amazing work, and congratulations to our winners.
__________________
// j.bayme
: ceo / theory11

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I’ve just got an email from JB regarding the Cardistry Collaboration Contest 2008.

All video submissions will go up today– bunch of amazing vids. Very exciting. Richard, Dan and Dave, and I went through the majority of them last night to begin the formal judging process.

Be sure to check out the Media section later today to see the full list of vids; they will be in a special section (category) for all to see.

-J.Bayme

Btw, did only me realized that CCC seems pretty much like The3C ?

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I was looking around http://Vixy.net and noticed that they have something called “YouTube Podcaster” which allows you to create a podcast feed. So the feed will automatically update you on the videos through RSS or Itunes. You can see a demo of what i am talking about here:

so after you see the video you will get what I’m about to describe to you … go to the Youtube account that you want (for this example I”m using Richard’s) and click on the videos on that account to see the list of all that person has posted.

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=richkzad

Now you copy the link above and post it on http://vixy.net/podcaster/ .. and click “Make a Feed” which will give you 2 options an Itunes feed and an RSS feed. Open up Itunes and then drag and drop the Itunes feed into the Podcast section of Itunes. Now all of the videos that are uploaded by Richard will be automatically downloaded into Itunes for you in .mp4 format so that you can have them on your ipod in the future.

-C3rb3rus at Decknique

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The HL x-files, Allan Hagen’s video, Sick and Twisted Wings of the Mockingbird Tutorial by Kevin ho and some other things that i want you to discover by watching the video.

What does the name of this episode mean? You’ll see.

Here is the download in mp4 for your ipod / iphone / mp4 player TheCuso’s Podcast: Episode 2 – Pussy and make sure you subscribe with itunes using this feed.

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This cards can be purchased at theory11′s playing card section for 4,95$ a deck and some discounts if you buy them in bulk plus shipping.
“On the design front, theory11 teamed up with WA007 – one of the most respected, avant-garde design studios in the nation – and worked side by side tirelessly for weeks. Hundreds of hours were spent tweaking and polishing the design from the ground up. Over 17 rough draft concepts and prototypes were produced. The final result is a mix of modern core structure, contemporary style, and a touch of theory11 signature grunge.”

There is, and there will always be, another way of getting these cards and it is eBay. For those of you addicted to auctions just like me you can find these cards slightly cheaper sometimes, for example, as part of a collectors lot.

My favourite way, if im not going to order any of the other T11′s products, would be using Aceking’s eBay Store.
He is not only selling them at a great price but he has a flat 14$ shipping cost for orders under 14 decks to anywhere in the world shipping at lightning speed, not to mention the 10 percent discount for my readers. So if you want to combine your order with other rare cards like wynns or texan palmettos (he has awesome cheap prices for these decks too) this is your way to go:
1 Deck Bicycle 909 Centurions Playing Cards Poker

Here is a buy it now auction for two decks with low shipping cost but quite expensive price from another eBay store:
2 Decks Bicycle 909 Centurions Playing Cards

Of course, if you plan to buy some magic dvds at Theory11 you should definetly buy your deck supplies from them because they are a great company with a friendly and effective help support.

So, thank you Theory11 for these cards and keep it up.

Alejandro.

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