Deck Protectors?

[chosen_one]

What card sleeves do you use? Right now, I'm using Ultra Pro Raven Black.

[proGaming]

Player 's Choice and SuperOrange

[AIcOPed]

I am in the process of trying out a proxied keeper deck, so I went w/ the thin see through sleeves.

[rvs]

Gunmetals. Well... when TnT ships them anyway. (I've ran out ).

[mongrel12]

Its generally accepted that Yanoman Gunmetal Sleeves are the best. They are several mm longer than the average ultra pro card sleeve, providing for better protection. They are also MUCH more consistantly made--I used to use ultra pro sleeves, until i recieved a match loss for marked sleeves (over 20% of the sleeves are miscut). The Yanoman sleeves are amazing and dont pick up crud or wear off as much as ultra pro.
If you cannot obtain Yanoman, then imo Dragon Shields are a fairly acceptable alternative, although those are miscut much more often.
A word on toploaders--they are crazy to play in, and make nice clicking sounds when you put cards on the table, however they are just a pain to shuffle and carry around, as well as to manipulate--if you are using fetches (which i hope you are) dont use toploaders.
In conclusion, Yanoman sleeves are amazing, and definately worth ordering wherever you are. I found a dealer carrying them in my area(chicago), so i can assume that in any area where a fair amount of magic is played they are not hard to find.

[johnstown713]

First there is a huge thread on this already in another forum if you want more opinions.  Second, I love Dragon Shields.  They are easy to play with, shuffle, and tend not to wear.

[OPColby]

Playing in toploaders is hilarious.

Even more hilarious:  Buy 75 of those large see-through glassish things that you put expensive baseball cards in to show off to your friends and whatnot, put your cards in ultrapro or yanoman or dragon shield sleeves, and then put them in the huge see-through glassish things.  You'll have to stand up to draw a card from your library.  Come on.  Nothing more hilarious than that.

[ProZachar]

I would give a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct for that.  I'd also probably have to give out warnings for insufficient randomization and/or failure to shuffle within the time limit.  If it happened the next time I judged a tournament, I'd give a game loss.  You're there to play cards, not dick around with card protectors.

[MarkPharaoh]

I would give a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct for that.  I'd also probably have to give out warnings for insufficient randomization and/or failure to shuffle within the time limit.  If it happened the next time I judged a tournament, I'd give a game loss.  You're there to play cards, not dick around with card protectors.

Well said.  People using Toploaders just to be funny is annoying, don't do it, it's only really funny in your head.  Some try to use the excuse "i'm afraid to damage my cards" which is crap, this is a card game, you afraid of damage then proxy the cards you want to keep safe and put it them the side and before each match show your people them and tell him/her that you proxied them in your deck.  I've seen people play all NM Keeper decks with all Beta Duals, Beta Power, etc etc (ex. Eric Wilkinson) with just sleeves so don't be a pussy

With that said, take SuperOrange for a whirl.  Both me and Kerz have fallen in love with them (Aaron, I got them today, sleeved my T1 and Ext decks and love how they shuffle)

[Kerz]

Super Orange and Gunmetal are the best 2, no doubt.

[MirariKnight]

Playing in toploaders is hilarious.

Even more hilarious:  Buy 75 of those large see-through glassish things that you put expensive baseball cards in to show off to your friends and whatnot, put your cards in ultrapro or yanoman or dragon shield sleeves, and then put them in the huge see-through glassish things.  You'll have to stand up to draw a card from your library.  Come on.  Nothing more hilarious than that.

Except playing a Battle of Wits Deck in those.

[Kowal]

I like to sleeve Battle of Wits in top quality Gunmetal Sleeves.  There's just nothing better.

Also, if you happen to see rook boxes that come with sleeves in them, STAY AWAY.  They're quite possibly worse than the unnecessary 'pretty' ultrapros.  They break in sets of ten and come in sets of 80.

[Green Knight]

I have been using Players Choice (green for the record) for the last 2 months now and have only just broken 1 sleeve, small seperation on the top corner. They are resilient and very comparable to Dragon Shield.
Also you get more sleeve's as they are 60 for $3.99 vs. 100 for $7.99 for Dragon Sheild.
I haven't even heard of Super Orange or Gunmetal nor have I seen any around here in Colo.

[Razvan]

OPColby wrote:   
Playing in toploaders is hilarious.

Even more hilarious: Buy 75 of those large see-through glassish things that you put expensive baseball cards in to show off to your friends and whatnot, put your cards in ultrapro or yanoman or dragon shield sleeves, and then put them in the huge see-through glassish things. You'll have to stand up to draw a card from your library. Come on. Nothing more hilarious than that.   

Except playing a Battle of Wits Deck in those.

This is pure genius. You need a wheelbarrow to move your deck... and shuffling?

At least you probably might not deck-checked.

How much do those things cost?

[CCClark]

Ultra Pro Pearl for me


I saw a guy play a 200 card deck in toploaders for laughs one day.   I soooooo sided a Soldier of fortune for fun also.  Too funny

[Law]

Ultra pro gold. I have black and white (the red covers I have are starting to where out after 4-5 years of use).

I use the Capsule/Rook steel storage for my main deck and a card bord box for my other decks (you know the common good white card bord box you can buy for like $ .25 and so in the gaming store).

I carry it all in a backpack as I dont have a carrying case at all.

[D0rk]

You have sleeves that lasted 4-5 years? Don't they get extremely dirty, or do you clean them?

[gashole]

I used to use Gunmetal, then I switched over to Super Black. I may switch back. I find that with the Japanese sleeves, after a bit of play they get stuck to each other, and they don't "glide" against each other smoothly.

Also, they don't fit in Rook capsules. At least not the one I bought. Blarg.

Some new brand called "MAX" has shown up in my local shop. Has anyone tried those out yet?

[Law]

You have sleeves that lasted 4-5 years? Don't they get extremely dirty, or do you clean them?

Yes they got dirty and all scrached up. I did not clean them, and now they are starting to fall apart alot more now.

They also seam to be gettering hard to shuffel since of all the scraches thats why they might be poping at the seams more as well.


One good word dont play on cement with card sleavs after about a mounth they will start to get scratched and fuzzy so the card under them start to get hard to read.

[rogueplayer11]

You guys should try out Dragon Shields.  They have worked great for me and shuffle very well.  
  I love them so much; I must have almost every color.  They also don't stick together or get worn down for a long time.

[chosen_one]

Anyone tried the new Ultra Pro Gallery sleeves with the dragon art?

Dragon 1

Dragon 2

Havent't tried them because they're quite expensive but they're quite big unlike the old Ultra Pros.

We don't have Gunmetal and Player's Choice sleeves in our country so I'm still using the awesome new Ultra Pro Raven Black sleeves and the like. It has long sleeves and the textured back for easy shuffling. But I'm curious if these new Ultra Pros are as good as Gunmetal and Player's Choice.

Anyone tried these? Any reviews?

Ultra Pro Satin

Ultra Pro Fantasy

[brturn]

I use UltraPro Blue.  Like Law, I've had decks sleved in them for 4+ years now, and they're still growing strong.  I've lost about 10 sleves out of 1000+ in the last 2 years.  I think that's a pretty good record.  Only the very oldest ones need replacing now (6+ years old).

My only complaint would be the grime that collects on them, but a quick scrape clears it off nicely.  I've noticed a slight disparity in their cut length over the years, but this has never caused problems - also I play with the top of the sleves facing me, so I doubt my opponents would ever notice it.

Dragon Shield is very inconsistent in their coloring.  I've got 400+ sleves from them and every box was slightly different in color (enough so that I could mark my deck with them).  They are completely unusable in my opinion.   For the record, these are the gold and silver Dragon Shields.

--Bryan

[Klep]

I used to use Dragon Shields.  I picked up some Japanese sleeves (Super _____) at Origins though, and they're wonderful.  I have no intentions of looking back.

[xzero]

In non tournament play, no sleeves is the way to go.  Raw dawg power on the table.

Says the man with beaten power.

[Kowal]

Whetever.  Play five-color.  

When I use sleeves, said sleeves are almost always gunmetal.  I make excuses for japanese super purple, as long as I'm only using them for one day.  They get really skanky, really fast.

[Mith]

I learned the "double-sleeve" technique...putting a penny sleeve backwards over a super black sleeve. Not only does this protect the card from both ends from anything, it also prevents that dirt that collects at the top of a card with normal sleeving. Sure it makes your deck slightly more bulky, but the cards are 100% safe from any drink that might happen to spill on them

And best of all, the penny sleeves keep the super blacks breand-new, so I only have to drop $1 to resleeve my deck when needed.

If this confuses anyone, I'll try and explain it better  

[MarkPharaoh]

That sounds interesting, i'll give it a try.

[nataz]

i heard that they stoped making gunmetal

[rozetta]

Anyone got any decent URLs of places where one can buy sleeves online (preferrably in Europe)? I have about 500 of those Japanese red sleeves and they're all getting quite manky and I'd like to change the lot. The problem is, I would like to buy, let's say 5 or 6 100-packs of decent sleeves for less than 10 EUR per pack.

Edit:
Just in case you were wondering, I keep all my cards sleeved so I can put decks together easily, but it requires that I expand my sleeve collection every once in a while, and I'd prefer sleeves which don't show wear very easily, since cards I use a lot (like power, FoW, etc) tend to have more shot sleeves than other cards, so I keep having to recyle.

[AngryPheldagrif]

Anyone got any decent URLs of places where one can buy sleeves online (preferrably in Europe)? I have about 500 of those Japanese red sleeves and they're all getting quite manky and I'd like to change the lot. The problem is, I would like to buy, let's say 5 or 6 100-packs of decent sleeves for less than 10 EUR per pack.

Edit:
Just in case you were wondering, I keep all my cards sleeved so I can put decks together easily, but it requires that I expand my sleeve collection every once in a while, and I'd prefer sleeves which don't show wear very easily, since cards I use a lot (like power, FoW, etc) tend to have more shot sleeves than other cards, so I keep having to recyle.

You should be able to find something decent here. And they're fairly cheap, too.