The MetalLuxe Dilemma

I wrote USPCC today to figure out how I should mark MTLX objects in my files.

Turns out I just need to place all MTLX objects on a separate layer - great. But I'm not able to print my Hotel deck like I've imagined it with MTLX - not so great...

USPCC can't line up the thin border to the teal background perfectly. Something I should have known, but for some reason it never came into my mind that this could be a problem.

For me, a USPCC deck with MetalLuxe is the ultimate combination. 3-4 years ago MTLX seemed so far away from reality to me. Now I'm able to print it but I can't because of the design. It's a joke and as you can imagine, I'm really upset right now.

There is only one good alternative printing company - Hanson Chien in Taiwan and they have two different options. Hot foil printing and cold foil printing. But with these two option there are two new problems again. It simply doesn't stop...

Back in 2017 I designed a deck for my friend Farid - the King of Hearts with the nail gun in most of my decks. Before you ask, nope it's impossible to get your hands on this deck.

We printed his deck with Hanson. The deck has gold foil on the back. The gold looks great but there is one big problem with the hot foiling method. You see the foiled parts embossed on the faces. Really on every card. Shin Lim's first deck Regalia with Cartamundi has the same problem.

That's why the second option with the cold foiling method is probably the better option. But the problem with this option is that I need to get a printed sample first. The silver foil will definitely look different with cold foil and I need to know if it's good enough or not. Why is this a problem? A sample with cold foil cost me $750...

And as if that wouldn't be enough - my goal is it to print at least 3500 decks. If Hanson would print 3500 decks it would cost $3250 only to get them from Hanson to Murphy's Magic in the US. Hanson could do the fulfillment as well but since I have also other items in every Kickstarter campaign, I don't really want to split everything.

As you can see, too many things to consider and nothing that I can decide today. What a great day...