Card Protectors

No eBay APP ID défined in Kunena configurationbeing able to physically see the texture of the sleeves is the easiest read of how slippery they are, but most new sleeves have that "air hockey table" effect until you shuffles all the air out of them. the best sleeves i've ever had were flat black max pro sleeves that came in a box of either 80 or 100 and have the strongest seams of any sleeves i've used. they've lasted years, and are some of the only sleeves i've bothered cleaning, since they haven't shuffled apart. but i can't seem to find them anywhere anymore. sleeve quality in ultra pro and dragon shield used to be very high, but i've had issues with both shuffling apart at the seems after minimal use recently. i had looked for quite awhile to find a double pack of textured back green ultra pro sleeves, and when i'd found them @ origins last year i used them for a googly moogly deck, and have had to replace roughly 4 sleeves from them breaking at the seams. has anyone else had issues like this?

EDIT: found 'em:

some players also use cheap transparent sleeves where they insert their own custom deckbackers. I only do this for my crypt cards, but it looks very dashing.

Adonai wrote:

Tea tins don't have to come with tea in them.

For boxes, I'd check a trading card (baseball card) shop first, I think you'll get a better price and there will be more varieties. Game shops will push fancier boxes and jack up the price more. The mark-up your typical game store will charge on basic supplies like card boxes is just insane.

I stock the Ultra Pro deck protectors in my eBay store, one of the lowest prices on eBay, see the link in my signature. In the US the shipping won't be above $6 or so unless you're buying more than 10 packs.

The basic Ultra Pro sleeves now fit VtES cards very well (the standard size they were selling up until last year was a little large, but their "new standard" size sleeve is much better). Shuffling is much easier than it used to be.

When you first sleeve a deck, the sleeves will be a little slippery and an 80+ card library may fall over when bumped. After you break them in with a couple of games, this problem goes away.

The backs of the basic Ultra Pro sleeves are lightly textured these days (they didn't use to be), which for me took a little getting used to, but now I like it better. Mostly because they're easier to hold on to and slide around less on the table.

Another brand to consider is KMC, I like these a lot, but I find they are too expensive for most people and so I don't carry them in my store. The KMC sleeves are nice because they don't have stupid holographic dots on the transparent side, they come in a wider variety of colors, and they shuffle much more easily.

Pascal wrote:

The major drawback, of course, is that they come full of tea.

Heresy!
Tea = nectar of the gods.
That is to say it most certainly isn't a drawback, let alone a major one to have the tin full of tea when you purchase it.

prunesquallor wrote:

Game shops will push fancier boxes and jack up the price more. The mark-up your typical game store will charge on basic supplies like card boxes is just insane.

I doubt it is the stores that have jacked up the prices, but the manufacturers. Stores usually tend to use SRP for normal margins.

Rook Steel Storage used to make Deluxe Capsules that ere exactly the same size as the 10th Anniversary Tins in like, 4-5 different basic colors. Unfortunately they seem to have gone tits up...


I've tended to use the cheapest possible sleeves for playing but occasionally I've been purchasing sleeves with opaque backs. When I saw RTFC sleeves tehy just HAD to be mine.

Just today I bought some Max Protection's "I Want Your Brains" sleeves that i'd imagine would downright fit a Shambler deck...

Lönkka wrote:

Pascal wrote:

The major drawback, of course, is that they come full of tea.

Heresy!
Tea = nectar of the gods.
That is to say it most certainly isn't a drawback, let alone a major one to have the tin full of tea when you purchase it.

Well, I've been trying to teach my card sleeves to drink tea for about 3 years now, and all it tells me is that they're aquaproof.
They won't eat tea neither, which means I have to drink the tea (I'm actually quite happy with that, actually. But it does represent quite some amount of tea)