Shipping took around a week, which is pretty average for international shipping. It came packaged in a cool plastic case thing, and arrived in perfect condition. 10/10
First impressions of this deck, whilst I hate to be so negative from the start, I really knew this deck wasn't perfect from the start. The shaping of the deck (not the mold) looked off, quite a bit. However it had nice looking holes, and a cool bottom ply, so it wasn't all bad. 8/10
Craftsmanship of this deck is a mixed bag. On one side, its nicely pressed, and has perfect holes that made setup really easy. The shape is consistent throughout, and quite nicely defined for a 5 ply deck. Slightly thick lacquer, but I'll get onto that later. The main issue really is that the kicks aren't shaped right, the tail is way too small to use properly I found, and whilst noses should maybe be a bit bigger than the tail, the difference here is a little silly. The sides of the deck don't seem 100% parallel either, and the kicks aren't symmetrical in their rounding. Shame either, as it was great craftsmanship in every other area. 7/10
Performance of this deck is as you might imagine, slightly brought down by the lack of a proper sized tail. The deck has good (not mindblowing, but good) pop, and even for a mellow deck performs pretty nicely. The tail makes it too hard to use though, it doesn't ever feel like you've got the space to put your finger on and control the board. This makes anything popping from the nose almost impossible, there's so little tail to catch the flick off from that nollie tricks were really hard. Nonetheless if you use the board for regular tricks I found I got everything down quite easily on it, and managed to get some nice catches once I got used to it. The lacquer I mentioned earlier is thick, but not too thick - and something I've not seen from lacquer this thick before - it doesn't die! Obviously it would eventually, as would any lacquer, but I cant see a single proper mark on it from all my time seshing. 7.5/10
Overall this deck has a lot of potential. Perfect holes and some nice pop make it a great deck to use - it the issue of the deck shaping could be sorted these would certainly be a contender on the budget deck market. They offer two shapes also, so those who don't like mellow decks can pick up a more defined deck. Nonetheless in their current state I cant help thinking there are much better decks out there for the price. With improvements I'd definitely put these up there with the current budget bargains such as Temple, Pure, and Zonawood - and those improvements aren't that much out of reach - they just definitely need to be done. Still, as it is, an overall 7.9/10
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