I ran matte blacks for about 3 years (changing twice), but hypermats are just better. Matte blacks get sticky and look really old after a while, while hypermats retain their smooth shuffling and new feeling even after extended use.
@calibretto: I don't think it's close. The hypermats are what I've been searching for years. Although I can understand significant investment has been spent on the mattes.
The grains on the back of Hypermats are a gift from the heavens. Those Japanese... I can't given enough credit...
For a long time, I've used a long wooden box from Designcraft Industries (Etsy) to store my cube. Lately, I've been worried about protecting the cube from accidents (like a fire, say), so last night I moved my cube to one of these - a Sentry Safe fire chest. (In fact, the model I have is a bit older, and despite that it has the same model number as the one I just linked, it actually looks more like this one.) It holds my double-sleeved 385 cube in three rows with plenty of room to spare for lands and tokens. The one immediate problem is there are no dividers, so if this has the right feel for me, I might try to craft some myself with thin crafting wood. Has anyone else used a grab-and-go fire / flood proof box for their cubes?
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Who uses KMCs to sleeve? Have you liked the quality? Do you prefer smooth or matte?
I'm running KMC Matte Blacks, and they have been faultless. I lost my first sleeve a few weeks back, and it took 2.5 years.
I certainly won't be switching from KMC, but I'll certainly be looking at the Hypermattes when it comes time to resleeve - what others say above about the sleeves getting a little tacky to touch over time is true. But it's not like I'm busting them or anything... it might be a while before I have to indulge that fantasy.
But yeah, matte over smooth. Much easier to shuffle and get a grip on.
I recently resleeved my cube with KMC hypermatts. Previously I was using Dragonshields. I think the Hypermatts are the superior sleeve however I have one major problem in that the cut of the sleeves is not the same from pack to pack and it is very noticeable when the cube is stored. I had zero issues with the cut of the Dragonshields. I am very surprised because everything I have read or been told would suggest the opposite would have happened.
I am looking to resleeve my entire cube as my outer sleeves are getting pretty worn out, and man they're becoming filthy from all the play.
At the beginning of my cube, we played with Ultra-pro, as they are cheap and popular in my group. We busted on average 2-3 sleeves per 8-12 person draft. When moving over to perfect sleeves, we double-sleeved with KMC perfect inner-sleeves and black dragon shields outside. Over the following 2.5 years, I think we have busted under 10 sleeves total, so I am _very_ happy with the durability of the dragon shields.
At my last GP apperance, my friends were talking a lot about how hypermats have a superior feel to them for playing, and I do like the rugged backs. I bought a pack of 80 hyper-mats for a side-event sealed I played at that tourney and in that sealed alone I busted 8 hypermat sleeves. I figured the sleeves were just incompatible with my shuffling style and gave the other pack of hypermats I bought (different color) to a friend, he threw them away as he busted 5 sleeves the first time he played with them. Another friend bought a pack from a different vendor at that GP, and they also went bust realy quick. I don't get why our experience with the hypermats were so horrible compared to their overall reputation.
Anywho, after our bad run with hypermats so far, and the difficulty of getting them here in Norway, I think I will just resleeve the entire cube with black dragon shields. Biggest problem with dragon shields are the cuts are very different for different runs.
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I go with KMC Super Silver for all of my cards. I've never "busted" a single sleeve, and the cuts are consistent across batches as far as I can tell. The worst I can say about them is that, after almost 4 years worth of play, some of my more-played cards (things like Fetchlands and Skullclamp that end up in almost any EDH deck I put together as well as being played ever draft), the back layer has started to peel on some of my sleeves, maybe a dozen in total so far.
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We had KMC Super Silver sleeves on the cube a while back and the peeling back layer was a huge problem after a couple years of playing with them. When we moved to KMC Black, I'd guess about 80% of the sleeves, including basic lands, had peeling backs on them. Now we have the KMC Black sleeves on the Peasant Cube and the KMC Matte Blacks on the Rare Cube. Neither have them have done this at all. The matte sleeves have been on for about two years now. The worst thing about the matte black KMCs is they are prone to bust along the bottom, but that's far less noticeable than a sleeve that's busted down the side.
The quality control on Dragon Shields has gone WAY up in recent years. I never used them either because of those issues, but once I switched to them a couple years ago I will never go back to anything else.
DragonShields are vastly inferior to hypermats in my opinion. I have had extensive experience with all the sleeves and I would rank the sleeves hypermats > kmc matte > dragonshields > kmc supers in terms of longevity, ease of shuffling, and general feel.
Has anyone else noticed that hypermats are shorter than the normal KMC Matte Sleeves. I think they feel much better but I can't deal with how short they are. Because of that the tops always seem to be open when double sleeved.
KMC Mattes are gross; the backs get VERY easily marked every time you shuffle. I bought a pack once for a PTQ and never want to use them again. For that reason, I have zero interest in anything matte.
My dragonshields seldom if ever break, and usually they only do that after years of Cube play.
KMC Mattes are gross; the backs get VERY easily marked every time you shuffle. I bought a pack once for a PTQ and never want to use them again. For that reason, I have zero interest in anything matte.
My dragonshields seldom if ever break, and usually they only do that after years of Cube play.
-AA
I find it so strange that everyone has different experiences with the same products. The KMC Mattes have been way less "gross" than the KMC Supers (both gray and black) were. I've found that the mattes show far less dirt and grime than their shinier counterparts (which include other non matte brands as well). The gray sleeves were especially bad at showing dirt.
I really only have two negative things to say about my KMC Mattes. The first is that if a card has any imperfections at all, the matte sleeves will conform those imperfections and make it easy to tell the difference between that card and others. Second is that, although they don't bust often, they are prone to bust across the bottom of the sleeve.
I like Dragon Shields too, but I haven't had experience with them in well over ten years. The last pack I bought were quite a bit taller than other sleeves and they seemed to be more prone to warping or concaving, so to speak, so that the corners of the sleeve were drawn inward toward the middle. Another issue I had with those sleeves was inconsistencies with sizes. But I guess that's something that's been worked on over the past ten years.
Well to me Dragonshield and Supers feel fairly similar in texture and feel (their backs). Anyone buying hypermattes for the first time can immediately spot the difference. It's like comparing a WW1 tank and the Abrams tank.
@ magicmerfolk: I don't disagree there. They are a few millimetres shorter on average, if you add the perfect sleeve. But I don't see a huge issue. It's often flushed and not popping out. A gentle vertical "thump" on the table will do the trick. Well almost everyone thumps their decks anyway to keeps the cards in.
For a long time, I've used a long wooden box from Designcraft Industries (Etsy) to store my cube. Lately, I've been worried about protecting the cube from accidents (like a fire, say), so last night I moved my cube to one of these - a Sentry Safe fire chest. (In fact, the model I have is a bit older, and despite that it has the same model number as the one I just linked, it actually looks more like this one.) It holds my double-sleeved 385 cube in three rows with plenty of room to spare for lands and tokens. The one immediate problem is there are no dividers, so if this has the right feel for me, I might try to craft some myself with thin crafting wood. Has anyone else used a grab-and-go fire / flood proof box for their cubes?
This weekend, I completely moved my cube to the Sentry Fire chest and am very happy with the result. Only a little work was needed to hold the cube. I purchased some crafting mahogany -- two 2 foot boards, 1/8 inch think. I cut and sanded two 7 1/4 inch strips to divide the interior space into three columns, then cut three card-size dividers to fit into each column. (The long strips needed to have the corners cut off the top rear because the safe's hinge is large and needs room to close.) I added some Styrofoam spacers at the ends of each column for extra protection. The cube -- 385, double sleeved -- fits comfortably along with about 200 lands, tokens/emblems (in the plastic case), and spare sleeves.
EDIT: Note that newer models of the safe might have different internal dimensions.
That's pretty sweet, but seems like it'd be quite heavy.
It is. (The link claims the chest weighs 14 lbs unloaded; I can weigh it tonight to be precise.) I don't take the cube to conventions though; we play at my house almost all the time. I'd trade off convenience for added protection.
I'd love to take that safe to con, and when about ready to Cube, drop it onto the table.
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I should totally weigh mine sometime, as this is exactly what mine does. THUD. CUBE TIME. Yay custom-made hardwood boxes!
You know, not that I want to get into a manly size-comparison contest or anything... that thing looks incredible, Palanthas!
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The grains on the back of Hypermats are a gift from the heavens. Those Japanese... I can't given enough credit...
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
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I'm running KMC Matte Blacks, and they have been faultless. I lost my first sleeve a few weeks back, and it took 2.5 years.
I certainly won't be switching from KMC, but I'll certainly be looking at the Hypermattes when it comes time to resleeve - what others say above about the sleeves getting a little tacky to touch over time is true. But it's not like I'm busting them or anything... it might be a while before I have to indulge that fantasy.
But yeah, matte over smooth. Much easier to shuffle and get a grip on.
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At the beginning of my cube, we played with Ultra-pro, as they are cheap and popular in my group. We busted on average 2-3 sleeves per 8-12 person draft. When moving over to perfect sleeves, we double-sleeved with KMC perfect inner-sleeves and black dragon shields outside. Over the following 2.5 years, I think we have busted under 10 sleeves total, so I am _very_ happy with the durability of the dragon shields.
At my last GP apperance, my friends were talking a lot about how hypermats have a superior feel to them for playing, and I do like the rugged backs. I bought a pack of 80 hyper-mats for a side-event sealed I played at that tourney and in that sealed alone I busted 8 hypermat sleeves. I figured the sleeves were just incompatible with my shuffling style and gave the other pack of hypermats I bought (different color) to a friend, he threw them away as he busted 5 sleeves the first time he played with them. Another friend bought a pack from a different vendor at that GP, and they also went bust realy quick. I don't get why our experience with the hypermats were so horrible compared to their overall reputation.
Anywho, after our bad run with hypermats so far, and the difficulty of getting them here in Norway, I think I will just resleeve the entire cube with black dragon shields. Biggest problem with dragon shields are the cuts are very different for different runs.
Yea, Dragonshield has worse cuts than hypermats for sure.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
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My dragonshields seldom if ever break, and usually they only do that after years of Cube play.
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I find it so strange that everyone has different experiences with the same products. The KMC Mattes have been way less "gross" than the KMC Supers (both gray and black) were. I've found that the mattes show far less dirt and grime than their shinier counterparts (which include other non matte brands as well). The gray sleeves were especially bad at showing dirt.
I really only have two negative things to say about my KMC Mattes. The first is that if a card has any imperfections at all, the matte sleeves will conform those imperfections and make it easy to tell the difference between that card and others. Second is that, although they don't bust often, they are prone to bust across the bottom of the sleeve.
I like Dragon Shields too, but I haven't had experience with them in well over ten years. The last pack I bought were quite a bit taller than other sleeves and they seemed to be more prone to warping or concaving, so to speak, so that the corners of the sleeve were drawn inward toward the middle. Another issue I had with those sleeves was inconsistencies with sizes. But I guess that's something that's been worked on over the past ten years.
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@ magicmerfolk: I don't disagree there. They are a few millimetres shorter on average, if you add the perfect sleeve. But I don't see a huge issue. It's often flushed and not popping out. A gentle vertical "thump" on the table will do the trick. Well almost everyone thumps their decks anyway to keeps the cards in.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
EDIT: Note that newer models of the safe might have different internal dimensions.
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It is. (The link claims the chest weighs 14 lbs unloaded; I can weigh it tonight to be precise.) I don't take the cube to conventions though; we play at my house almost all the time. I'd trade off convenience for added protection.
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WHO'S READY TO GAME?!?
-AA
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I should totally weigh mine sometime, as this is exactly what mine does. THUD. CUBE TIME. Yay custom-made hardwood boxes!
You know, not that I want to get into a manly size-comparison contest or anything... that thing looks incredible, Palanthas!
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