Alright, I bought some KMC Hyper Mattes and Perfect Fits and double sleeved my deck.
However, I had a lot of issues getting some of the cards into the sleeves; the inner sleeve would start to come off of the outer sleeve. I had to hold my finger along the back of the card to get it to move in there with the sleeve in tact, but then I had issues with air pockets. I ended up squeezing my deck to flatten it out, which helped, and started shuffling the deck to try and break the sleeves in.
When I shuffled the deck, I had a few cards that started to push their way out of the outer sleeve. It was noticeable enough that, when looking at the deck top down, I could instantly pick out which ones were sliding.
Do Hyper Mattes have a sort of "break in" period to them? Is this expected? Everything I've seen online suggests that Hyper Mattes + Perfect Fits should largely be no hassle, so I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if I just need to be patient.
Never had any kind of issue like this. KMC really seems to be going downhill lately.
I talked to live support over at Potomac Distribution about the quality of the KMC hyper mattes and he said that they have heard rumors but have had no returns on them and he also said that they sell hundreds of packs a week and have only had 2 or so complaints in the past year about them.
I get they are a distributioner but if they were just trying to sell the product then he wouldnt have mentioned there being rumors about it.
I've been having problems lately with KMC hyper matte and hyper matte premium. The sleeves would split/tear on the bottom part at the middle and eventually the whole bottom would split. I would say I have about 5-10 split with every pack. It's really disappointing because I've been using KMC for years and never had this problem before. Now I think I'm going to switch to dragon shield matte.
Best sleeves overall? I currently use Dragon Shield Mattes and KMC Perfect Fits for my modern decks but with my legacy nearing completion I want to have the best protection for my cards.
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Standard: GR Pummeler
Modern: Mono-Red Control, Lantern Control, Eldrazi Taxes, Skred Infect
Pauper: Affinity
EDH: Gaddock Teeg Kithkin Tribal, Meren
Legacy: 8 Rack, Omnitell (Both in progress)
I honestly want to give it a try. Considering I can buy an impulse sealer for 15-17 dollars on ebay. Ebay Impulse Sealer
I ordered the impulse sealer. I really just wanted to try it out. I'll post some pictures at the end of the week/weekend when it gets here. Any other ideas on what I could do with it make my own sleeves?
If it does not work well I am not sure what to with the impulse sealer. Use to seal bags in the my kitchen? However, I am not sure if I would use much for that since I eat my food quickly.
Do you have any edh decks, double sleeved? If so, what kinda deck box do you store them in. I want to get satin towers but worried they wont fit
You don't need to worry about a double-sleeved EDH deck fitting into a satin tower, I have 5 double-sleeved EDH decks (KMC hyper-mattes and perfect-fits) in satin towers now and I could easily include a few extra cards if I wanted (one of the towers is actually holding 101 double-sleeved cards now).
I'm toying with the idea of double-sleeving my EDH collection, but to be honest I don't think I will. My collection is pretty large (~5500 cards, all in black dragon shield glossies), and although the sleeves get a little grimy I haven't had any noticeable issues with damaging the cards themselves. And obviously double-sleeving wouldn't improve the griminess situation for the outer sleeves.
The cost of double sleeving that many cards is not insignificant - even at 4 cents per sleeve, that's still ~$220, plus a ton of my time. The value of the collection is pretty high - somewhere in the low-mid 20K range - but I've basically never damaged a card significantly in years of playing with them, so I have a hard time believing it'd be worth the money. I'm careful with drinks and ensure that others are too - even if I'm double sleeved, that's no guarantee that others will be.
I think the biggest issue I have with double sleeving is deck size. Seems fine for a 60-card deck, but for a 100 card commander deck, that's a lot more annoying to shuffle. My hands are pretty huge and hold a single-sleeved deck just fine, but using my mate's double sleeved decks they're much more difficult. Compounded with the fact that I'll usually be shuffling a lot with all my fetches and general love of tutor effects. Plus the storage space - 5500 sleeved cards is not a small collection, adding extra width might force me to rearrange my boxes a bit.
Probably worth adding I actively avoid foil cards. I have a few in cases where they're cheaper or I couldn't be arsed to replace them (imperial recruiter and diabolic intent for example). I understand a lot of people double sleeve to protect foils, but that's not a major concern for me.
Thoughts on this? I know some people will think I'm crazy for single-sleeving tabernacle, workshop, imperial seal, etc but it doesn't seem worth it to me.
I'm toying with the idea of double-sleeving my EDH collection, but to be honest I don't think I will. My collection is pretty large (~5500 cards, all in black dragon shield glossies), and although the sleeves get a little grimy I haven't had any noticeable issues with damaging the cards themselves. And obviously double-sleeving wouldn't improve the griminess situation for the outer sleeves.
The cost of double sleeving that many cards is not insignificant - even at 4 cents per sleeve, that's still ~$220, plus a ton of my time. The value of the collection is pretty high - somewhere in the low-mid 20K range - but I've basically never damaged a card significantly in years of playing with them, so I have a hard time believing it'd be worth the money. I'm careful with drinks and ensure that others are too - even if I'm double sleeved, that's no guarantee that others will be.
I think the biggest issue I have with double sleeving is deck size. Seems fine for a 60-card deck, but for a 100 card commander deck, that's a lot more annoying to shuffle. My hands are pretty huge and hold a single-sleeved deck just fine, but using my mate's double sleeved decks they're much more difficult. Compounded with the fact that I'll usually be shuffling a lot with all my fetches and general love of tutor effects. Plus the storage space - 5500 sleeved cards is not a small collection, adding extra width might force me to rearrange my boxes a bit.
Probably worth adding I actively avoid foil cards. I have a few in cases where they're cheaper or I couldn't be arsed to replace them (imperial recruiter and diabolic intent for example). I understand a lot of people double sleeve to protect foils, but that's not a major concern for me.
Thoughts on this? I know some people will think I'm crazy for single-sleeving tabernacle, workshop, imperial seal, etc but it doesn't seem worth it to me.
It may not seem like it, but small amounts of dust and dirt over time will wear your cards. I've seen many foils and other cards I've wanted to trade for with clouding on the top of the card because of no double sleeves. It's totally worth it. You can buy packs of perfect fits in bulk for like $3 a pack. Cost is almost no excuse.
You could also just double sleeve any cards with significant value. It's not like you're going to get called out for cheating in an EDH game... will you?
I totally recommend any double sleeves, though. They're worth it.
I'm toying with the idea of double-sleeving my EDH collection, but to be honest I don't think I will. My collection is pretty large (~5500 cards, all in black dragon shield glossies), and although the sleeves get a little grimy I haven't had any noticeable issues with damaging the cards themselves. And obviously double-sleeving wouldn't improve the griminess situation for the outer sleeves.
The cost of double sleeving that many cards is not insignificant - even at 4 cents per sleeve, that's still ~$220, plus a ton of my time. The value of the collection is pretty high - somewhere in the low-mid 20K range - but I've basically never damaged a card significantly in years of playing with them, so I have a hard time believing it'd be worth the money. I'm careful with drinks and ensure that others are too - even if I'm double sleeved, that's no guarantee that others will be.
I think the biggest issue I have with double sleeving is deck size. Seems fine for a 60-card deck, but for a 100 card commander deck, that's a lot more annoying to shuffle. My hands are pretty huge and hold a single-sleeved deck just fine, but using my mate's double sleeved decks they're much more difficult. Compounded with the fact that I'll usually be shuffling a lot with all my fetches and general love of tutor effects. Plus the storage space - 5500 sleeved cards is not a small collection, adding extra width might force me to rearrange my boxes a bit.
Probably worth adding I actively avoid foil cards. I have a few in cases where they're cheaper or I couldn't be arsed to replace them (imperial recruiter and diabolic intent for example). I understand a lot of people double sleeve to protect foils, but that's not a major concern for me.
Thoughts on this? I know some people will think I'm crazy for single-sleeving tabernacle, workshop, imperial seal, etc but it doesn't seem worth it to me.
It may not seem like it, but small amounts of dust and dirt over time will wear your cards. I've seen many foils and other cards I've wanted to trade for with clouding on the top of the card because of no double sleeves. It's totally worth it. You can buy packs of perfect fits in bulk for like $3 a pack. Cost is almost no excuse.
You could also just double sleeve any cards with significant value. It's not like you're going to get called out for cheating in an EDH game... will you?
I totally recommend any double sleeves, though. They're worth it.
Double sleeving just a few cards has more appeal to me, especially in the case of my $300+ cards. I might get some to test if I can feel the difference. Even if I don't mean to cheat, once knowledge is gained it's sort of hard to ignore. I honestly run my $300+ cards very rarely. The most valuable cards I use often are pretty easily my duals, which as white-boarder cards in mostly not-amazing condition I don't think are quite as important to maintain.
I just took a look at my sol ring, mana crypt, and fetches - cards I use in the vast majority of my decks. Honestly I can't tell any difference from the bottom to the top, condition-wise. I've been playing with all 3 for at least 5 years or so - just how long am I supposed to wait before this supposed damage becomes noticeable?
I don't REEEAAALLLLY mind the cost, although I think it's important to compare how much I actually expect to lose in condition with inner sleeves vs without. Losing $200 is quite a bit to lose over condition. And if the dollar savings doesn't pan out, then it seems pretty stupid to go to the hassle of double sleeving. I could even argue that my time to double sleeve my whole collection is probably worth a few hundred dollars too. Maybe more, idk how long it's going to take but I suspect a good while.
But mostly it's the shuffling. Maybe I should try one of my friend's decks again to confirm how I feel about it (unfortunately I know at least one of his decks has outer sleeves instead of inner sleeves, and I HATE shuffling the outer sleeves, they're pokey as a porcupine and massively wide). I think if I didn't mind the shuffling I'd consider it more seriously.
they're your cards, so do as you please. But going from a NM Tabernacle to LP would account for your $200 cost savings and that's just 1 card. Regular use will have an impact on the cards, and single sleeving will increase that impact.
It really comes down to your motives. How interested in protecting your $20-$25k investment are you? A 1% loss in overall value would cover your costs.
Finally, trading NM cards are far easier than trading LP cards. There are a lot of people who really care about the condition of the card.
they're your cards, so do as you please. But going from a NM Tabernacle to LP would account for your $200 cost savings and that's just 1 card. Regular use will have an impact on the cards, and single sleeving will increase that impact.
It really comes down to your motives. How interested in protecting your $20-$25k investment are you? A 1% loss in overall value would cover your costs.
Finally, trading NM cards are far easier than trading LP cards. There are a lot of people who really care about the condition of the card.
I guess if I was breaking down my reasoning, I'd say there were 2 main reasons I don't think I'll do it:
1) I don't think it actually provides any benefit. As I said, looking at cards I've played in every deck for years, I see zero signs of fading, zero signs of wear, and a few flecks of dirt if any (which are easily wiped away), and I suspect that's mostly because I keep forgetting to use a playmat. If I thought my cards would actually go from NM to LP I'd double sleeve in a heartbeat, but so far I don't see any evidence of that. I've also never split one of my sleeves, so that risk seems pretty minimal too. I feel like, from experience, by far the biggest threat to my cards is bending, which double sleeves don't have much effect on.
2) As to "well, why not just be safe anyway?" the main reason would be shuffling. For 60 card decks it doesn't seem so bad, but for 100 cards it goes from pretty easily shuffleable (for me) to pretty difficult. Considering I shuffle probably 7 times per game on average, if not higher, that's a pretty big downside for me.
As far as tabernacle specifically goes, as cool as it is to own as the crown jewel of my collection, I've only used it in a few of my decks: my glissa deck (where tbh I wasn't hugely impressed), Zedruu (where it was decent but not great) and my "60 most expensive cards + 40 most expensive lands" deck (which doesn't really say anything good about it except that it's expensive). It's certainly powerful in the right circumstance, but that circumstance is basically playing an all-in stax deck, and I rarely find myself in metas competitive enough to justify playing that sort of thing. So it's not really getting a ton of wear. And most of my other valuable cards aren't nearly so minty-fresh since I tend to value practicality over anything else, and most of them are LP already, so I'm a lot less worried about them.
And it's not like this is a single 23K deck. My current deck is probably worth, what, maybe 1K at the outside, and most of that is in duals. Most of the value of my collection rarely sees the light of day. So it's not like I'm shuffling up 23K worth of cards on a regular basis.
So I just finished up really putting my foil pauper cube together and I want to sleeve it up. I need 600 sleeves including basics but I don't have experience buying sleeves in large quantities and most of the discussion I have seen online seems to be pretty old. Looking for some up to date information on best brand of sleeves as far as durability and being evenly cut and also some suggestions on where to find the cheapest sleeves.
So I just finished up really putting my foil pauper cube together and I want to sleeve it up. I need 600 sleeves including basics but I don't have experience buying sleeves in large quantities and most of the discussion I have seen online seems to be pretty old. Looking for some up to date information on best brand of sleeves as far as durability and being evenly cut and also some suggestions on where to find the cheapest sleeves.
I would recommend picking up matte Dragon Shields, they are basically the tank armor of card sleeves and are sold in packs of 100. The only real downside is they can be a bit tricky to double-sleeve, and they are not cheap ($12 or so per pack), but it is essentially a one-time investment as they are VERY unlikely to split (also there are usually a couple of extra sleeves in each 100-count pack as well so you'll have a few spares in case they ever do). KMC still makes probably the best inner sleeves on the market, but the hyper mattes have gone down in quality lately and they sell them in packs of 80, so I wouldn't recommend getting those.
The thing to watch for is that there are two versions of the Dragon Shield mattes floating around out there and you'll want the new ones over the original version, especially if you plan to double sleeve (which you should) - if the packaging has the color listed above the style in a downward pointing triangle, those are the ones you want (if you see something like "matte red" in a rectangle, those are version 1, which are much harder to double sleeve with).
Thanks for the response! Have you had any issues with miscuts? I have a pack of dragon shields that are about a year old, went to sleeve up a modern deck with them the other day and noticed a few of the sleeves were taller than the others.
What style of Dragon Shields was that pack? I'm given to understand miscuts were an issue that used to crop up with the OG style Dragon Shields that they've solved in newer production runs and styles. I certainly haven't seen that issue with the mattes since I started using them (gone through about 700 so far as part of my re-sleeving project).
These were non matte turquoise ones, I've had them for awhile so can't say for sure how old they are.
I've always used dragon shields but the research I did online seemed to point toward Kmc sleeves being more consistent batch to batch.
I really like the dragon shield matte sleeves so glad to hear you've had a positive experience with them. Have you used them to sleeve something like a cube where you have to use 4-5 packs as opposed to just one pack per deck?
These were non matte turquoise ones, I've had them for awhile so can't say for sure how old they are.
I've always used dragon shields but the research I did online seemed to point toward Kmc sleeves being more consistent batch to batch.
I really like the dragon shield matte sleeves so glad to hear you've had a positive experience with them. Have you used them to sleeve something like a cube where you have to use 4-5 packs as opposed to just one pack per deck?
My DS mattes hold up amazing. I've had KMCs regular, matte, and super but they just don't last as long to me. Maybe it's the way I shuffle or handle my collection but the DS matte blues and matte reds have lasted well over a year with little warping, splitting, grime collection compared to anything else I have purchased.
I use KMC perfect fits. I used to have issues but the newer print runs making double sleeving the two brands pretty easy now.
These were non matte turquoise ones, I've had them for awhile so can't say for sure how old they are.
Dragon Shield started making that style in early 2014, they were made with a different process than the original versions (the Copper style also uses that process), whatever they changed made them not quite as tough as the original version but did get them to lay flat out of the box (OG Dragon Shields had a strong curve initially). They still get grimy like nobody's business though (a problem the matte versions have pretty much solved).
I haven't sleeved a cube specifically, but one of the decks I have did wind up using sleeves from a couple of boxes, and in terms of the sleeve back itself and the cut, they were indistinguishable. Looking at the deck side on though you can notice a slight difference in coloration of the edges, but that's in no way something unique to Dragon Shields: the first deck I sleeved in KMC Hyper-mattes had the exact same issue where I could tell that there were two distinct batches of sleeves in the pile (since it was an EDH deck, I had to use two packages since they only come in 80-count). I think no matter what brand of sleeves you end up using you're probably going to get the same results to an extent.
Shuffling the sleeves from different boxes together before you start sleeving up the cube would render the minute differences from batch to batch pretty much meaningless anyways.
I' ve been searching to purchase some DS mattes after a long time of using Ultra pro sleeves. My LGS is out of all the nice colors and only has matte clear, apple green, ivory and white. I'm thinking of going with the Ivory matte ones, has anyone ever tried this color?
I' ve been searching to purchase some DS mattes after a long time of using Ultra pro sleeves. My LGS is out of all the nice colors and only has matte clear, apple green, ivory and white. I'm thinking of going with the Ivory matte ones, has anyone ever tried this color?
A friend has a deck sleeved in them, the off-white nature is a bit distracting to me personally but they seem 100% functional.
I' ve been searching to purchase some DS mattes after a long time of using Ultra pro sleeves. My LGS is out of all the nice colors and only has matte clear, apple green, ivory and white. I'm thinking of going with the Ivory matte ones, has anyone ever tried this color?
Dragon Shield Mattes are some of the best sleeves out there. I personally haven't experimented with them enough to determine if I like them more or less than original Dragon Shields, but I still would definitely suggest them.
For the dragon shields if you plan to double sleeve, get the KMC perfect fits and get a token card to slide them into the sleeve as you wont have any other way to get the inner sleeved card into the dragonshield. I switched to KMC completely to make double sleeving faster and haven't really regretted it. Also, the Ultra Pros are good bulk sleeves for something like quickly sleeving up a standard deck to use for a season, but they tend to break a bit more easily than other sleeves and they become "loose" with time even without playing with the cards. I've been sleeving my singles whenever I receive an order and have noticed the degradation of the Ultra-pros over the course of 2 years even if the cards are just sitting around. My conclusion has been that Ultra-pros can be used for archival protection long term, but if you take them out to play you'll have to resleeve as dust may get into the sleeve otherwise.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
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Never had any kind of issue like this. KMC really seems to be going downhill lately.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
I get they are a distributioner but if they were just trying to sell the product then he wouldnt have mentioned there being rumors about it.
Modern: Mono-Red Control, Lantern Control, Eldrazi Taxes, Skred Infect
Pauper: Affinity
EDH: Gaddock Teeg Kithkin Tribal, Meren
Legacy: 8 Rack, Omnitell (Both in progress)
The work and have not shown any signs of damage.
I honestly want to give it a try. Considering I can buy an impulse sealer for 15-17 dollars on ebay.
Ebay Impulse Sealer
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
I ordered the impulse sealer. I really just wanted to try it out. I'll post some pictures at the end of the week/weekend when it gets here. Any other ideas on what I could do with it make my own sleeves?
If it does not work well I am not sure what to with the impulse sealer. Use to seal bags in the my kitchen? However, I am not sure if I would use much for that since I eat my food quickly.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
The cost of double sleeving that many cards is not insignificant - even at 4 cents per sleeve, that's still ~$220, plus a ton of my time. The value of the collection is pretty high - somewhere in the low-mid 20K range - but I've basically never damaged a card significantly in years of playing with them, so I have a hard time believing it'd be worth the money. I'm careful with drinks and ensure that others are too - even if I'm double sleeved, that's no guarantee that others will be.
I think the biggest issue I have with double sleeving is deck size. Seems fine for a 60-card deck, but for a 100 card commander deck, that's a lot more annoying to shuffle. My hands are pretty huge and hold a single-sleeved deck just fine, but using my mate's double sleeved decks they're much more difficult. Compounded with the fact that I'll usually be shuffling a lot with all my fetches and general love of tutor effects. Plus the storage space - 5500 sleeved cards is not a small collection, adding extra width might force me to rearrange my boxes a bit.
Probably worth adding I actively avoid foil cards. I have a few in cases where they're cheaper or I couldn't be arsed to replace them (imperial recruiter and diabolic intent for example). I understand a lot of people double sleeve to protect foils, but that's not a major concern for me.
Thoughts on this? I know some people will think I'm crazy for single-sleeving tabernacle, workshop, imperial seal, etc but it doesn't seem worth it to me.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
It may not seem like it, but small amounts of dust and dirt over time will wear your cards. I've seen many foils and other cards I've wanted to trade for with clouding on the top of the card because of no double sleeves. It's totally worth it. You can buy packs of perfect fits in bulk for like $3 a pack. Cost is almost no excuse.
You could also just double sleeve any cards with significant value. It's not like you're going to get called out for cheating in an EDH game... will you?
I totally recommend any double sleeves, though. They're worth it.
WGURBLands!WGURB
WGUInfectWGU
Legacy Lands Primer
Top 8 SCG Oakland 2014
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My Cube on CubeTutor
I just took a look at my sol ring, mana crypt, and fetches - cards I use in the vast majority of my decks. Honestly I can't tell any difference from the bottom to the top, condition-wise. I've been playing with all 3 for at least 5 years or so - just how long am I supposed to wait before this supposed damage becomes noticeable?
I don't REEEAAALLLLY mind the cost, although I think it's important to compare how much I actually expect to lose in condition with inner sleeves vs without. Losing $200 is quite a bit to lose over condition. And if the dollar savings doesn't pan out, then it seems pretty stupid to go to the hassle of double sleeving. I could even argue that my time to double sleeve my whole collection is probably worth a few hundred dollars too. Maybe more, idk how long it's going to take but I suspect a good while.
But mostly it's the shuffling. Maybe I should try one of my friend's decks again to confirm how I feel about it (unfortunately I know at least one of his decks has outer sleeves instead of inner sleeves, and I HATE shuffling the outer sleeves, they're pokey as a porcupine and massively wide). I think if I didn't mind the shuffling I'd consider it more seriously.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
they're your cards, so do as you please. But going from a NM Tabernacle to LP would account for your $200 cost savings and that's just 1 card. Regular use will have an impact on the cards, and single sleeving will increase that impact.
It really comes down to your motives. How interested in protecting your $20-$25k investment are you? A 1% loss in overall value would cover your costs.
Finally, trading NM cards are far easier than trading LP cards. There are a lot of people who really care about the condition of the card.
1) I don't think it actually provides any benefit. As I said, looking at cards I've played in every deck for years, I see zero signs of fading, zero signs of wear, and a few flecks of dirt if any (which are easily wiped away), and I suspect that's mostly because I keep forgetting to use a playmat. If I thought my cards would actually go from NM to LP I'd double sleeve in a heartbeat, but so far I don't see any evidence of that. I've also never split one of my sleeves, so that risk seems pretty minimal too. I feel like, from experience, by far the biggest threat to my cards is bending, which double sleeves don't have much effect on.
2) As to "well, why not just be safe anyway?" the main reason would be shuffling. For 60 card decks it doesn't seem so bad, but for 100 cards it goes from pretty easily shuffleable (for me) to pretty difficult. Considering I shuffle probably 7 times per game on average, if not higher, that's a pretty big downside for me.
As far as tabernacle specifically goes, as cool as it is to own as the crown jewel of my collection, I've only used it in a few of my decks: my glissa deck (where tbh I wasn't hugely impressed), Zedruu (where it was decent but not great) and my "60 most expensive cards + 40 most expensive lands" deck (which doesn't really say anything good about it except that it's expensive). It's certainly powerful in the right circumstance, but that circumstance is basically playing an all-in stax deck, and I rarely find myself in metas competitive enough to justify playing that sort of thing. So it's not really getting a ton of wear. And most of my other valuable cards aren't nearly so minty-fresh since I tend to value practicality over anything else, and most of them are LP already, so I'm a lot less worried about them.
And it's not like this is a single 23K deck. My current deck is probably worth, what, maybe 1K at the outside, and most of that is in duals. Most of the value of my collection rarely sees the light of day. So it's not like I'm shuffling up 23K worth of cards on a regular basis.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
The thing to watch for is that there are two versions of the Dragon Shield mattes floating around out there and you'll want the new ones over the original version, especially if you plan to double sleeve (which you should) - if the packaging has the color listed above the style in a downward pointing triangle, those are the ones you want (if you see something like "matte red" in a rectangle, those are version 1, which are much harder to double sleeve with).
I've always used dragon shields but the research I did online seemed to point toward Kmc sleeves being more consistent batch to batch.
I really like the dragon shield matte sleeves so glad to hear you've had a positive experience with them. Have you used them to sleeve something like a cube where you have to use 4-5 packs as opposed to just one pack per deck?
My DS mattes hold up amazing. I've had KMCs regular, matte, and super but they just don't last as long to me. Maybe it's the way I shuffle or handle my collection but the DS matte blues and matte reds have lasted well over a year with little warping, splitting, grime collection compared to anything else I have purchased.
I use KMC perfect fits. I used to have issues but the newer print runs making double sleeving the two brands pretty easy now.
I haven't sleeved a cube specifically, but one of the decks I have did wind up using sleeves from a couple of boxes, and in terms of the sleeve back itself and the cut, they were indistinguishable. Looking at the deck side on though you can notice a slight difference in coloration of the edges, but that's in no way something unique to Dragon Shields: the first deck I sleeved in KMC Hyper-mattes had the exact same issue where I could tell that there were two distinct batches of sleeves in the pile (since it was an EDH deck, I had to use two packages since they only come in 80-count). I think no matter what brand of sleeves you end up using you're probably going to get the same results to an extent.
Shuffling the sleeves from different boxes together before you start sleeving up the cube would render the minute differences from batch to batch pretty much meaningless anyways.
UW Azorius Control
Modern
UW Azorius Control
A friend has a deck sleeved in them, the off-white nature is a bit distracting to me personally but they seem 100% functional.
Dragon Shield Mattes are some of the best sleeves out there. I personally haven't experimented with them enough to determine if I like them more or less than original Dragon Shields, but I still would definitely suggest them.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!