Sleeve up with form AND function?

[scipio]

First off, sorry if this question has been debated already.

I've been having some trouble trying to find an ideal sleeve to serve multiple decks.  I want to avoid switching sleeves on my precious dual lands and other Vintage staples, and be able to switch out key cards quickly from deck to deck.

The KMC Japanese sleeves come highly recommended for quality.  I've read good and bad about the Ultra-Pro, and while the MAX pro have some nifty artwork, I've seen nothing about quality.  If you're an art fan, is there a best choice amongst these?  If you could pick one type of sleeve for your entire collection, what would it be?

Thanks in advance for responses (or links if this has been hashed out elsewhere).

[rvs]

the Japanese. There really is not choice, trust me.

[SyntheticAngel]

If you can get your hands on some purple dragon shields the quality is superb. I would actually recommend any color of dragon shields purple just seems the best for some reason.

Brennen

[scipio]

Thanks for the replies.

Are most sleeves with artwork illegal in tournaments?  It would see logical that they are, since marked sleeves would be harder to spot in the midst of a complex picture.

[Apollyon]

In general, sleeves with artwork or a shiny back aren't legal.

I got a bunch of black Japanese sleeves for cheap. They've served me well so far.

[Kowal]

Avoid DragonShield like the plague.  They are without a doubt the worst sleeves I've ever used, and that beats out even MaxPro on the scale of horribleness.

They're very thick, so your deck is quite tall and can be difficult to shuffle.  They are also prone to catching and breaking, and are produced with so little slack that the cards develop a pretty severe curvature just by being in a DragonShield.  They also tend to slowly push the cards up towards the opening, which of course means that not only are you risking damaging the top border of the cards in question, but you're risking getting called on marked sleeves for having only a few cards poking out to the line.

Japanese sleeves are fine, but they don't last very long.  Two or three tournaments, at the very most.  Usually just the one.  If you want longtime durability, go with the slightly textured, vinyl-like ultrapros.  Raven Black was a pretty solid sleeve in its day, but the alternative options from UltraPro are actually not bad.  Over the course of a single event I'd rather have the japanese stuff, but if I don't feel like changing my sleeves frequently I'll stick with UP.

Naturally, if you can find a dealer willing to special order Yanoman Gunmetals though, pick them up.  They shuffle well, never break, don't pick up dirt, and last pretty much forever.

[scipio]

Naturally, if you can find a dealer willing to special order Yanoman Gunmetals though, pick them up.  They shuffle well, never break, don't pick up dirt, and last pretty much forever.

I've seen mention that the 100 ct Gunmetal sleeves were indestructible, but that the newer 75 ct are of lesser quality.  Are the 75's still better than the rest of the field?

http://www.trollandtoad.com/p118521.html

[Matt]

I've been using the same Dragonshields for like three years, and they've never once broken on me. I also haven't had any trouble shuffling them. I really have no experiences to match with Kowal's. They're the best I've used, though I haven't ever had gunmetals or KMCs so I can't give a direct comparison.

[Anusien]

I agree with Matt.  Non-white colored Dragonshields (white just looks horrible if it ever picks up dirt) work like a dream.
I have a bunch of the 100 ct Yanomens and find they pick up indentations and scratches way too easily.

[LotusHead]

Avoid DragonShield like the plague.  They are without a doubt the worst sleeves I've ever used, and that beats out even MaxPro on the scale of horribleness.

Nonsence.  I loved my Dragon Shields.  The first 10 or so sets of 100 sleeves I bought were great, durrable, shiffleable, nigh-unbreakable and emotinally fullfilling sleeves.

Then I bought some bad batches.  Miscut. Wastes of $10. Made me lose faith in Dragonsheilds. Plus, buying 2 sets of say, Black Dragonshields didn't guarrantee that those two sets had the same Hight-Cut. (ie, you can't buy 3 sets and have them all be interchangable).



I'm still interested in hearing honest criticism/praise of other sleeves.

[breed]

Hey,

I'm also searching for non reflexive black sleeves to protect all my playable stuff, I tested Ultra Pro and Max but I was disappointed by both. Are Yanoman better than KMC?

 

[Zherbus]

I always play with Black sleeves because it looks better with black borders. That said, I'll use Dragon Shields and be happy for a few events. They do have a tendancy to split after some usage. I just pretty much buy Japanese sleeves and have never been disappointed.

There's one kind that really blow. I wish I knew the name of the manufacterer. Basically, at a Waterbury Carl Winter gathered a bunch of sets of purple sleeves for Meandeck. Easily, a third of the sleeves were too narrow to fit cards into, and they were of all varying lengths.

[Apollyon]

Were they Rook? The last time that I bought Rook for an event, I couldn't use them in the event, they were that bad.

[Zherbus]

Not quite sure. Might have been. Were they the most inconsistant size and shapes of any sleeve ever?

[Apollyon]

There were sleeves of different length in the same package. Some much too long, some barely over the card.

[Zherbus]

How about some being so narrow that cards cannot physically fit in?

[Myriad Games]

There are batch issues with every type of sleeve, so personal anecdotes will often vary widely for the same manufacturers. We carry KMC (Japanese), Ultra Pro (including the newest Official Magic sleeves), Dragon Shields, and Max Protection. Different folks have different preferences based on their experiences, so we try to make sure everyone has those options. I've used all those types with varying degrees of durability. The Rook Metallix sleeves often peeled. The size issues you described happed with some Ultra Pro batches and Max Pro batches in the last couple of years.

[Klep]

My favorites, and the ones I pamper my Vintage deck with, are Japanese sleeves.  That said, I have a standard deck sleeved up in the new official Magic sleeves, and those are actually pretty good so far.  I haven't been able to give them a real workout, but there weren't any batch issues with my package, the sleeves hold the card nicely, and they're easy to shuffle.  If you can't get your hands on Japanese, the official sleeves are probably a good second.  I use Dragon Shields for my Type 4 stack, and they work fine for that purpose.

[pyr0ma5ta]

I actually must defend the Ultra Pro mottled-back Raven Blacks.  They're very good, and the backs are mottled so they don't get scratched and marked.  I bought 20 packs of 50 2 years ago, sleeved up everything I ever wanted to play with, and interchange them freely.  I've never had a problem, not a single sleeve has split, and I've never needed to replace a single one.  I've probably played these sleeves in the equivalent of 30 tournaments now, and they're still pretty much in mint condition.  I was so impressed I ordered another 10 packs a year ago and I'm going to order a metric buttload more for my new Cube draft stack.

Edit: oh, and they're cheapish too.

[Yare]

I am a very strong advocate of Ultra Pro black sleeves.  In my experience, they are very durable (YEARS for practice decks).  They're also cheap.  If you can find them, go with that.

[scipio]

These comments are certainly in line with what I've seen.

The best sleeves I have are a type of Ultra-Pro, metallic blue with a non-sticky back.  Not sure, but I think they are the Satin type, which are a bit hard to find.  I think I'll experiment with a few - fun Medusa sleeves for my favorite casual deck (most expensive card is Gaea's Cradle), some KMC's and/or Dragon's for my Standard Faeries (ghastly prices to build this deck, but I've gotten lucky on a few staples), and some of the above mentioned Ultra-Pro's for my 3 proxied Vintage Decks.  Not too much interchange between these decks so the lack of standardization shouldn't hurt too much while I find the best fit.

Thanks for the info on batch differences everyone and experiences.  More personal experience and comments from store owners would be great to hear before the thread winds down.

[goobafish]

actually must defend the Ultra Pro mottled-back Raven Blacks.

How do you know which ones have mottled-backs when ordering them online?

Are these them?

URL edited into the message - Godder

[TRb]

Yes. And I use them too. They work great. After a while they lose their shinyness so I would recommend buying 50, use them in a draft. If you like them as much as I do, then buy a couple hundred and use them about the same. Then the wear should be about the same. I swear by them tho. The 100 packs seem to be less faulty than the 50s are.

[Matt]

These legendary Japanese sleeves - can someone post a picture of the packaging so I know what they look like?

[Polynomial P]

Ill also back the Ultra-pro with the textured back. They shuffle incredibly well, never get sticky, and last forever. When buying multiple packs, ask for them all to come from the same box since there are some variations between boxes (cut slightly different, etc). While their quality control is poor, the Ultra pro sleeves will last for a very very long time.

[TopSecret]

I know this may make things too complicated when considering your options,
but I think it depends on your shuffle style...etc.
Different sleeves can catch in different places.
I've actually had the same white ultra-pro sleeves since Apocalypse, and only a few have actually broken.
I haven't shuffled them up in a bit, so it's not quite as impressive as it sounds.
I had some Dragonshield, and they were fine, but the ones I had all had the same catch point,
which I typically shuffled into, so too many ended up breaking. I have some black Japanese ones, and they're very nice.

I'd suggest the black Japanese,
but please take that with a grain of salt, though, since I've had them the least amount of time,
and that could be part of the reason not many have broken yet.

[scipio]

There are 2 brands of Japanese sleeves: KMC and Yanoman.  Just look up sleeves and those names on E-Bay for plenty of pictures.  Though gunmetal is the classic Yanoman sleeve that people cite, some have claimed that the new 75 ct packs are inferior to the older 100 ct packs (I haven't been able to find these, though).

For the textured back Ultra-Pro fans, I'd assumed those were the satin sleeves.  It's hard to tell from the E-Bay link above what those Raven Blacks actually look like.  How do you identify textured sleeves?

[goobafish]

There are 2 brands of Japanese sleeves: KMC and Yanoman.  Just look up sleeves and those names on E-Bay for plenty of pictures.  Though gunmetal is the classic Yanoman sleeve that people cite, some have claimed that the new 75 ct packs are inferior to the older 100 ct packs (I haven't been able to find these, though).

I have all 3 of these. The KMC Jap Matte Black, The 100 count Yanoman Gunmetals, the 75 counts Yanoman Gunmetals. The 100 count are better than the 75, but I have only been able to get my hands on 2 packs of the 100 count, one of which I gave to my friend who loves them, people refuse to sell these even for as high as $25. The Japanese KMCs are nice but mark easily. None of the 3 tear, but I do not like the way the front of them wear, even through the back wears perfectly equally on all of them. All of them are good sleeves, but if you can get your hands on the 100cts, do so.

[pyr0ma5ta]

actually must defend the Ultra Pro mottled-back Raven Blacks.

How do you know which ones have mottled-backs when ordering them online?

Are these them?

URL edited into the message - Godder

Looks about right to me.