Geographical east, not political East though, Bavaria very heavily uses the German deck. You don’t play Bavarian Schafkopf with a french deck. That’s just weird. I personally also find it weird to play mau mau or Schnautz (Schwimmen) with a French Deck. Doesn’t mean though, that we don’t use the French deck. You don’t play poker or rummy or cribbage for example with German cards. That’s equally as weird.

Huh? The German deck is also known as bavarian cards and they are very common in most of the German South. I'm from swabia and here you use different cards for different games.

Can you even play Schafskopf with the French deck??

Not just any colours but the ones of the German deck: Diamonds are orange because bells are orange, and spades are green because leaves are green. Also spades and leaves look almost identical anyway. Hearts are the same, and acorns become clubs.

And just to be pedantic: It's not the "tournament deck", it's specifically the tournament deck for Skat, adopted when the East and German leagues reunified to avoid confusion. You'll be hard-pressed to get your hands on a 6 or below in those colours because Skat uses 32 cards.

I do think it's a good idea in general, though.

Schafkopf rules.

So, you would play Rommy or Canasta with the German cards?