The S.W.E. deck was inspired by the mysterious author of the classic sleight-of-hand book The Expert at the Card Table: The Classic Treatise on Card Manipulation, allegedly named S.W. Erdnase. It is suggested that his real name was E.S. Andrews, while the pseudonym S.W. Erdnase was just his name backwards. 

Creating a deck in this mysterious legend's name was a challenge for Ellusionist: it needed to convey the enigmatic and classic feeling associated with Erdnase while still being versatile enough to be applicable for a plethora of sleight-of-hand techniques. The final result has, however, succeeded in all these objectives, in our opinion.