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This one pretty much speaks for itself I think. When I first had the idea for The Metal Deck, shortly after Lemmy's passing, the ace of spades became the very first card which was dedicated to a certain band. I know loyalty to the scene would be an important aspect. Giving this card to any other band, would completely destroy the credibility of the whole deck and make it quite worthless. From there we started building and dedicating certain cards to certain bands, or genres.
Some people have asked me 'why is Anthrax in this deck, aren't there bands that deserve it better. How about Machine Head or Pantera'? Well, in a way, they might be right. Anthrax isn't the biggest thrash metal band on earth. However, they're here for two reasons. One, they belong to 'The Big Four' and I wanted to be historically correct. Second, if it weren't for Anthrax, I might have never discovered many other bands. They were one of the bands that truly got me into metal. I think their place on The Metal Deck is legit.
There had to be queens of metal, and of course they would have to be dedicated to the hard working and talented women in the scene. When I discovered Doro, it must have been in my mid-teens, I immediately had a crush on her. In fact, she made me realize that it would indeed be possible to date a girl with decent musical taste. So dedicating the queen of hearts to Doro was quickly decided. She deserves it just as much as Motorhead deserved the ace of spades.
Nu-metal hasn't always been the most popular genre in the metal scene, certainly if you count bands like Linkin Park & Limp Bizkit. Yet, over time, the four bands we entered in the nu-metal quartet proved to be worthy of the term 'metal' and eventually got accepted by the metal community. Personally, I saw a whole new generation of metal fans for whom Korn, System Of A Down, Slipknot and Coal Chamber were so-called 'gateway' bands. These kids now also listen to the classics in the genre and seem to respect where the whole thing comes from.
The gothic-metal quartet was the toughest one to do because the visions on that particular subgenre constantly seem to alter and change. But again, I wanted to be historically correct. So when I searched for bands with the tag 'gothic metal' I realized that I had to include Paradise Lost in there. From there, we tried to find a balance between the different sounds of gothic metal and an overview of how widespread the genre really is.