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Just received this email from Theory11.

"A few months ago, we released MailChimp playing cards in Red and Black. They’re awesome, fun, colorful cards - and they help support an amazing cause. This month, we made a special, limited edition just for MailChimp -- not for public sale. We were able to obtain a limited quantity just for you guys, and Elite Members are being given the ONLY chance to get them.

MailChimp Summer Edition playing cards are limited to one deck per Elite Member. We’re making our small stock available to you, and these WILL sell out fast. First come, first served. One deck maximum per Elite Member, and only 100 decks are available today."

So if you want it, act fast. It's very pink and orange and different.

Does Ellusionist ever do anything like this for members? Not a chance, and they only charge you about $150 a year for it.

I'm an Elite member but didn't get the email. I do see in the code on their web page what the URL should be, but it's a dead link for me.

Sent you the link from the email. Also make sure you are signed in.

How does one become an elite member?

You have to accumulate 10,000 points.

I have over 10,000 lifetime points but only 7,000 current/available points. I wonder if you need 10,000 current points to get the promotion...

Definitely not as I barely have any points.

Just FYI, Lyle got my issue sorted out quickly (and after hours, I might add) and I was able to get a deck. I'm a happy camper.

PrincessTrouble wrote:Just FYI, Lyle got my issue sorted out quickly (and after hours, I might add) and I was able to get a deck. I'm a happy camper.

So these are not available for standard members?

If any Elite member can but don't want this deck. Please let me know and we can work something out!

Looks pretty neat, especially if it's as neon as the pics. Alas, I'm no elite nor intend to be. Congrats to the ones who get one!

4.of.Clubs wrote:

PrincessTrouble wrote:Just FYI, Lyle got my issue sorted out quickly (and after hours, I might add) and I was able to get a deck. I'm a happy camper.

So these are not available for standard members?

No only for Elite members

Oh, the hype! "Only 100 available now"? It's printed by USPCC. Where did the other 2650 go?

Loving the summer edition brick box!

Mike,

I assume the bulk of the cards went to MailChimp. The email said they are not for public sale, but T11 obtained a limited quantity of decks.

jerichoholic wrote: "...MailChimp Summer Edition playing cards are limited to one deck per Elite Member. We’re making our small stock available to you, and these WILL sell out fast. First come, first served. One deck maximum per Elite Member, and only 100 decks are available today."

Tomorrow? Who knows?

Sold out.

Mike Ratledge wrote:Oh, the hype! "Only 100 available now"? It's printed by USPCC. Where did the other 2650 go?

Considering theory11's longstanding relationship with USPCC there's a possibility that the print run was lower than the 2500 minimum. They've stated they only got a very small amount (the print was made exclusively for Mailchimp just like the original deck), so I wouldn't expect to see many more than the 100 released now. Perhaps they had a gross or a little more than that.

Fingers crossed Mike can figure out a way for us poor souls to get our hands on these...

Sure glad T11 cares about members, E doesn't give a crap.

And how would it sound if you hadn't gotten your hands on one of these, Vic?

Marcus wrote:And how would it sound if you hadn't gotten your hands on one of these, Vic?

This sucks ass sweat with a straw.

Some of us (assuming I'm not the only one) are avid collectors who have bought EVERYTHING available at T11 since they started collecting and have less than 10k points. Some people with 10k points (assuming here again) are buying for resale.

They made 100 people happy. But how pissed off did they make the rest? It should have been open to everyone who has bought within the last X days or something, or people who supported the MailChimp project. I'm not going to make an absurd ultimatum, but I'm going to think about this (IMHO) crappy move every time I consider adding something to my cart there.

So yeah. Pretty pissed.

This is typical marketing hype/BS from T11 done with the sole purpose of making them more money. Does anyone really think T11 is concerned about the collector's well-being, or trying to be "fair"? I'm going to respectfully disagree with Marcus here, but I believe the bottom line is that T11 printed at least 2500 decks, possibly much more than that, and kept an undisclosed amount of decks for themselves. They're purposefully being vague about the numbers, as usual, in order create artificial rareness without getting called out on what the real numbers are. The verbiage in their hype suggests this undisclosed amount is very "limited", but unless they give full disclosure about the actual number (and they won't, of course, as is their right), I will believe it is a much higher number than what they want us to believe.

T11 is trickling these decks out in 100 deck windows to incentivize gullible deck collectors to try to become Elite members (which means spending enough $$$ on their site to get to 10K points from whatever their current point total is). For those who missed out on the first 100 deck release window, or aren't Elite members, don't fret. There will be more windows where they will release many more decks from their undisclosed cache of MailChimp Summer decks. Plus, don't forget about the various promotions/hype that T11 does throughout the year, culminating in their year-end Christmas promotion. If you really want one of these decks, don't worry, there's probably plenty available, and there will be many more chances to get your hands on one from T11 later on.

I have to agree with sinjin here. I am sure they did print at least 2500 which will be trickling out over the next few years. So not in a hurry to get one. If over the years i spend enough to be come an elite member then we shall see . But that won't occur until another $500 is spent

I get where you're coming from, but consider these things (and please do correct me if I'm wrong, I might've missed something here) :

Theory11 has only sent out an e-mail about these decks to Elite members. In other words they didn't actively try to convince people to become Elite members (although one could argue that they wanted the info to spread, but then one can also argue that there is no way for them to do this for their Elite members without it spreading either.)

They have yet to post about these decks on Facebook (where they have about a bazillion followers), even after they have sold out.

The only official mention of these decks beforehand was during a live broadcast of Exposé which I'd estimate around 1-200 people attended. During this broadcast they said it was produced for MailChimp, and that they only have a very limited amount of the print-run. I would assume that MailChimp have not ordered a huge print-run for a deck that they wanted for their employees (and possibly for promo material, but that was never mentioned). So if Theory11 aren't lying about having only a very limited amount (and I don't believe they'd lie), then we're left with a quite small amount of decks from a quite small print-run.

My point being that it doesn't really feel like there has been any real attempts to hype this.

With this said, I'm sure there'll be a few more released somehow. Most likely some that you can pick up when you reach X amount of Elite points, and a few for contests. But I would be surprised if it were to be many more releases windows, and I highly doubt we'll see even half of the decks in a potential 2.5k run.

Either I'm right, or I get a better chance to get hold of one of those decks. Win/win.

(Edit: And one last point I forgot at first. And I do feel like a broken record at times saying this, but the main customers for t11 isn't pure collectors. They have people who purchase many of their dvds, and decks by the brick because they want to use them. Those are the main customers. Pure collectors who buy 2 of each isn't ever going to be the main target because that percentage won't ever be able to keep them in business.)

Marcus wrote: My point being that it doesn't really feel like there has been any real attempts to hype this.

I completely disagree with this part. This is the biggest form of hype IMO- give away a small amount of something that will be sold later. But they're creating their own supply and demand by limiting the give-aways . It's a "people want what they can't have" scenario and I can't recall anything now but I know this scheme has been used before to create... HYPE.

vasta41 wrote:

Marcus wrote: My point being that it doesn't really feel like there has been any real attempts to hype this.

I completely disagree with this part. This is the biggest form of hype IMO- give away a small amount of something that will be sold later. But they're creating their own supply and demand by limiting the give-aways . It's a "people want what they can't have" scenario and I can't recall anything now but I know this scheme has been used before to create... HYPE.

Ok, but let's assume that they have in fact just gotten their hands on a gross or so of these decks and want to give their most loyal customers (the ones who spend the most = the ones who have become Elite members) a chance to get these. How on earth are they supposed to do that without it being called hype if even them doing this is called hype? They sent out an e-mail going only to the ones this was directed to, the Elite members, asked them not to share the link, didn't post about it themselves, didn't make it visible on the website at all until it was simply added to their selection of decks along with all current and previous decks. They made it strictly limited to one per customer so nobody would grab more than their one deck.

How else could they have gone about this? If they had made a big deal about this deck beforehand that would certainly be hyping it up. If they had sent the decks out to a random number of Elite members without mentioning it it would still spread just like it did now. It seems that no matter how they would've approached this they would still be accused of hyping this up by the looks of it here. I'm genuinely curious about what other solutions I'm not seeing here. Maybe it's just my brain being all clogged up from working too many hours lately, but I'm stumped.

I don't feel like it was hyped either. It was barely publicized by T11. And with what they did say about it, they didn't make it sound like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, unlike what E does with Madison crap, which I consider hype (ala the SWE deck that they don't "sell" but "let us buy" because it's so great, what a crock). T11 created exclusivity (at least for now) but not so much hype with this deck. Of course, to each his own. I enjoy reading the different opinions on this issue.

If this was about T11 making money they would have promoted it and they would have charged more money for them. 100 decks at $9.95 each isn't much.

Marcus wrote:

vasta41 wrote:

Marcus wrote: My point being that it doesn't really feel like there has been any real attempts to hype this.

I completely disagree with this part. This is the biggest form of hype IMO- give away a small amount of something that will be sold later. But they're creating their own supply and demand by limiting the give-aways . It's a "people want what they can't have" scenario and I can't recall anything now but I know this scheme has been used before to create... HYPE.

Ok, but let's assume that they have in fact just gotten their hands on a gross or so of these decks and want to give their most loyal customers (the ones who spend the most = the ones who have become Elite members) a chance to get these. How on earth are they supposed to do that without it being called hype if even them doing this is called hype? They sent out an e-mail going only to the ones this was directed to, the Elite members, asked them not to share the link, didn't post about it themselves, didn't make it visible on the website at all until it was simply added to their selection of decks along with all current and previous decks. They made it strictly limited to one per customer so nobody would grab more than their one deck.

How else could they have gone about this? If they had made a big deal about this deck beforehand that would certainly be hyping it up. If they had sent the decks out to a random number of Elite members without mentioning it it would still spread just like it did now. It seems that no matter how they would've approached this they would still be accused of hyping this up by the looks of it here. I'm genuinely curious about what other solutions I'm not seeing here. Maybe it's just my brain being all clogged up from working too many hours lately, but I'm stumped.

For the record I have no issue with the way T11 did this. In fact other companies should take note ::cough:: E! ::cough:: All I'm saying is that they also created some really nice buzz about the deck, limited the numbers (which either indicates rarity or creates the illusion of rarity) and now have a perfect setup for later releases due to the hype they created. Again, I have no problem with this. It's a cool deck, too!

It's possible we can get this deck next year, just like what happened with the red & blue deck. Meanwhile I'll look toward the Winter Edition.