Review: Bicycle Raider White Playing Cards

The Bicycle Raider Playing Cards are from the now defunct Magic Network. Created in two colors, black and white, this review will focus primarily on the white deck.



The Specs: 

Name: Bicycle Raider White Playing Cards
Company: Magic Network (Defunct)
Release Date: 2010
Stock: Standard
Finish:  Air Cushion
Colors: Black and White, grayish blue, red, blue
Face: Standard
Size: Poker

The overall theme of the design centers around pirates or "raiders" with subtle nautical design elements found throughout the deck. The tuck case is not overly detailed. In fact, the front of the tuck case only features the custom Ace Of Spades design, which loses certain design elements in the heavily black inked spade. If you look closely you will be able to pick out certain elements but nothing is blatantly apparent. This can be good or bad with playing cards but in this case it is bad because the design is not intentionally hiding anything. It is a lot of abstract nothing. However, the simple can be good for magicians as it does not look suspicious like a lot of custom card decks do.



The most interesting thing about this deck are the Jokers. The Joker designs are not your typical joker designs. They feature graphite or charcoal type drawings of a skull-faced pirate. The artwork is incredible as it is not something you would normally expect on a Joker. One of the Jokers features a Seven of Diamonds reveal that is great for magicians.



Although this deck is the white version to the original black edition, the back design worked much better for the black version as it pulls out more detail in the design. With the white edition the elements tend to get washed out. This is especially apparent with the nautical star used for the centerpiece as you can see in the comparison below.

Bicycle Raider White Back, Magic Network (Defunct) Ad Card

Bicycle Raider Black Back 

The court cards are recolored standards. The grayish blue color change/addition looks like it is glow-in-the-dark or some sort of UV ink in the daylight but in the dark it is clearly not the case.  The recolors add to the custom aspect to this deck. A nice addition but not the best executed recolor job since this deck is mainly black and white.The grayish blue seems out of place.



The durability of this deck is exactly what you would expect from a Bicycle standard deck. Nothing less, nothing more. It fans great and springs off the hands with ease as any card flourisher would love.

Notes on the Bicycle Raider White Playing Cards:

• The deck was produced by Magic Network, who is no longer in business.


• The black version was the original playing card deck in this series and the better one.


• The white deck just forces the a design that was originally intended for an all black design.

Final Assessment: The Bicycle Raider White playing cards are not all that glorious. In fact, there isn't much too them. While the Joker design is quite unique and unlike most Joker designs, the rest of the deck is just uninteresting and uninspiring. There are decks that are much more appealing with a black and white design such as the Bicycle Archangels playing cards. If you must have this deck, they will work great for magic given the Joker reveal and won't stand out as a fixed or special deck to a crowd of spectators.  Your friends may like them too if you pull them out for a game of poker. But for any serious card collector, the Bicycle Raider playing cards are just another deck in the box.

Score: 8/10