Three Card Decks Compared

So Its been a while since I talked about Malifaux and I recently got the Puppet Wars and Fan created deck so I thought I would compare them.

First off the classic deck at $7.

The card art is very cool with this deck. Damage dealt (weak, moderate and severe) on the non-joker cards are clearly marked on the upper right of the cards. Minuses are that it is thin paper stock and not plasticized. This leads to slight tearing after frequent use.

Next is the Puppet Wars deck for $11.

The card art is puppet versions of the various masters in the factions with the Viktorias as the jokers. The cards are plasticized and feel quite sturdy. The bad part is that there is no indication of damage done on the card itself so you would need a cheat sheet (which you need anyways for going through the game mechanics anyways so not a huge bad).[EDIT: A friend pointed out to me in a recent game that there is an indication of mild, moderate and severe damage. This is seen in the pic below with the spotches by the number on the card. Low dot for mild, mid for moderate and high for severe. My bad. I still stand on the last deck, the fan made one. Its easier to see the symbols on the cards too.]

Last but not least is the fan created deck that Malifaux recently started producing, at $12.

The deck itself is gorgeous with a subtle aged look. The face cards and jokers have a classic playing card look and the numbered cards are basic, so not like either of the two previous decks. The damage done is cleverly shown as marks in the upper right of the cards. Seen on the red joker is four marks. 

On the other cards is either one, two or three marks for damage dealt.

So if you want card art, go with decks one or two but if you are a gamer who could spend a couple extra bucks, go with the fan done deck.