Been folliwng her work on Facebook, and the art captures some of the characters just as I envisage them. I think these will go down well with the fans.

whats this? perrin gets to be king, and mat, the seanchan emporer, gets relegated to joker?

well . . . mat IS the joker of the series.

and if i had to pick a card to be on, the joker is far more cool than any other card

@ash the finn called him "the trickster" "the gambler" "son of battles"... so it kind of fits... but still, i dont even think rand has a higher political seat of authority than mat... mat is the seanchan emperor... id expect him to be on one of the kings cards...

im not against perrin being there... but even he has admitted that he's subject to elaynes throne... he's clearly not a king...

*hopes for a #2 card of liandrin*

I also met Ariel at JordonCon4. She is an amazingly talented artist. Her sense of color and contrast is eye-catching. I think her art is the finest Wheel Of Time art I have ever seen! I think she really understands the look and feel of the characters. Bravo!!

These look beautiful! I'd buy a pack or two!

The Joker is an important card. Mat is clearly a Joker!

The art is wonderful. I love the pics so far. They should do a whole deck of Mat cards in different parts of the book. He is the gambler!

Just checked some of the pics again. Aviendha's was one of the best, if not the best. And that has nothing to do with her being one of my favorite characters. It is just that the picture was a "Wow!"

Wait..doesn't that mean there will only be 2 Mat cards in a pack?!! D: Oh well, I love the art so it's all good :)

@mark.

you are wrong about mat,he is not an emperor,he is a prince concort,a member of the nobility,not royalty.

prince concort is just a formal title nothing more.

politically speaking he outranks perrin,who is a minor lord and a subject to andor throne.(like you said)

now regarding rand,he outranks both of them easily,he is royalty by blood

not merriage(from is mother's side tigraine mantear) not to mention of him

being lews therin thelamon incarnate.....etc etc etc.

Mat is not the emperor of seanchan just by being married to Fortuona.

We don't know if he has a higher title now than prince of ravens but he's not emperor.

It's mentioned earlier by Suroth I think when she wonders if Galgan is gona declare himself the first emperor in XXX years so being married to the empress does not make you the emperor.

While it does fit for Mat to be the joker, it is a card that's not used in a lot of card games which I feel is a bit unfair towards mat since he's one of the 3 main characters.

I also wonder if each type of card will have a different character. Queen of spades being Aviendha and Queen of hearts being Elayne etc.

Else it makes no sense to have Perrin as king. If Mat is the joker Perrin shouldn't even be featured if all the cards will be the same.

@saitan mat was the prince of ravens, until tuon became the empress, he is the emperor, but he doesnt have the command that we would normally expect of an emperor... but it seems clear to me that he has absolute command over the seanchan army at will... whether or not he does... id think the only one he doesnt outrank in the senchan heirarchy, is tuon...

and yea, jokers are rarely used in card games, which is kind of my point... perrin got a card thats used in nearly every game... and mat(my favorite) is pretty useless... it fits his character(to a point), but it just doesnt seem fair :(

if anything, id put the current image of mat, onto a king or a jack or somesuch, and make a boyhood character of mat, and put that on the joker... he was always a troublemaker in his youth ;-)

I'd put the wildcards - Fain - as the jokers myself. :p

good call myfwnwy :D fain is the real wildcard in the story... not what id call a "joker" tho... still, the most unique character, that doesnt fit into any other slot...

anyone else notice the irony of the colours? the whole series has manymany references to red and black :D