nisaba
Well, it's just fabulous (I opened it about ten minutes ago).
The copy on the ebay photos looked as if the box in particular was quite battered - I was a little apprehensive that I was being sold used-as-new, as a result of the pic. But I quickly found out on receiving it, that the box is merely badly designed, and extremely hard to open. Careful though I was, I left claw-marks on the tongue of the box. (one point against).
The next impression I formed on my perfectly new and in fact shrink-wrapped copy was that I loved the faux-foxing around the margins of the cards. Every card has the strong teal-coloured backgrounds, and a "white" border that has been well-foxed. At first, thumbing through, you get the disappointed feeling that the foxing is identical on every card: closer examination reveals that it is very, very similar but slightly different from each card to the next, in sequence. I thoroughly approve. (three points for).
The titles are in Cyrillic only (presumably Russian rather than other related languages), a big point for, as having incomprehensible titles on foreign decks gives me a sense of the sacred and a sense of The Mysteries Through Mystery, that I just don't get with foreign decks in French, Italian, Spanish, German and other European languages where there are commonalities of root-words with English. The fact that the alphabet itself combines sounds I know (which are probably differently pronounced) with symbols that make no sound-associations at all in the same words, makes the titles more mysterious and thus more delightful than no titles at all. (about two hundred and twenty-three points for)
Okay, I'm gonna stop keeping count of fors and againsts now - no badness on the part of the deck can recover from such a positive characteristic.
That being said, the LWB was also entirely in Cyrillic script, without any translations, making it fit only for the recycling bin for many of us. Two points against, one point for (based on recycling instead of landfill).
There is no Major arcana, it is a 56-card minors-only deck, so huge kudos for the creator, single-handedly trying to balance out all those 22-card Majors-only decks! <breaks into rousing cheers and applause>.
Without language, the Court Cards are hard to pick. I'm assuming they're the ones with the stonkin'-huge single snakes in the centre of the designs. I'm choosing to read them on colour and reptilian body-language, something I know a bit about. There's even a Gay Card or Diversity Card - a Rainbow Snake, nothing like the Rainbow Serpent of this continent in feel.
We have a pentacles suit featuring pentacles, red ribbons and snakes (and, strangely, an oak-tree on one card), a Cups/bowls/goblets/chamber-pots suit, featuring Hollow Things, display cabinets, red ribbons and snakes, a Wands suit featuring snakes, red ribbons and Wands tipped with things like penis glans, hands, walking-stick-handles, bells, mace-balls, leaf-buds etc, and a Knives (Swords) suit featuring red ribbons, snakes, and lots of hand-held knives like cooking knives, stilettoes, hunting knives, daggers and the very occasional sword just for good measure (hmmm ... that last suit sounds like my living-room).
None of the cards are scenic, and none of the cards have what you might recognise as characters on them, although every single snake is different. Yet they will turn out to be compellingly easy to read! Every card is atmospheric, conveying emotions very well indeed. Reading with it is going to be a matter of reading intuitively instead of relying on the presence of images. I particularly recommend it to all intuitive readers and anyone who reads by scrying into the cards.
It's not heavily laminated (at first touch it doesn't feel laminated at all, but as you shuffle it slides too well to be unlaminated and has a low-level sheen), and it has no printer's odour at all, nice or nasty. The cards are sized to rest well in stubby little hands, but are *not* small cards, they are more taller/thinner and require the 90-degree overhand shuffling I do or the <gasp> riffling I absolutely refuse to do. The teal backgrounds that dominate every card are going to be eye-catching on a working-table, in fact, I think I'll break it in with its first real clients this coming Friday - it's Tuesday afternoon now, so it missed its chance to go to work with me today.
I just adore it. And not only because it isn't mainstream or because I like the colouration, but because it is *loaded* with character, and is just delightful.
You asked for my opinion, you got it. Now, get out there and buy it. Before we have a chance to scratch ourselves it'll be OOP, and you'll really regret not getting it right now.
