Anyway, great article. I really like this "Off Topic" column. It touches on a side of Magic that isn't often discussed - much less wrote about - but is still very much present.
I've been pretty upset with art backed sleeves. When 30 of the 100 sleeves you just bought have a large line down the back of them, it is very irritating. Luckily I play EDH with some cool, cool guys, but in other groups they would be completely useless. Arg!
And now if I can only scrape together some money to buy that Slave of Bolas platmat...
Very well written article you done for us. I like your idea of using a dry erase marker to keep track of counters. I might have to start using this technique in the future. Thanks for a great read.
Great article. Really got me thinking about my own gear in terms of "can I do better?" I think I'm doing pretty well on everything but deck boxes... damn generic, spartan Ultra Pro deckboxes...
Sleeves: I've stopped buying sleeves with any foil or art component to them. It just seems to me that they start peeling apart way faster than solid-color sleeves. I have solid-backed matte sleeves I picked up around the launch of Ravnica block that are still perfectly fine, but the foil-backed sleeves with art by Brom on them I napped half a year ago became utterly useless after only a month of moderate play.
Carrying Case: I used to carry my whole collection with me in an old tackle bag (in boxes, of course), but that grew to the point of impracticality rather fast. I now keep my trade binder in my messenger bag along with whatever else I have with me (normally writing implements, paper, and my laptop). My decks and dice I keep in a .50 cal ammo can. It's just wide enough for three deckboxes side-by-side and high enough for two boxes to rest on their side. It's also wide enough for a card tin of the variety sold by Cheese Weasel Logistics to line up its long edge with the short edge of the ammo can, and the height is such that I can rest one right-side-up and one side-ways-up on top of it. Currently in the ammo can: Seven decks (four in Ultra Pro deckboxes, two in tins - one Cheese Weasel tin and one Call of Cthulhu CCG tin - and one in this velvet-lined thing built like a footlocker I got from a friend that is PERFECT for EDH decks) and two bags of dice (totaling at least 200 dice). I do get a bit of guff for using an ammo can, but dammit the thing is perfect for what I need in a carrying case (though it is a bit small).
Deck Boxes: I love the Cheese Weasel format tins. In one box you can have a full deck with sideboard, tokens, counters, life counter, and a die for determining play order or whatever else you might want to stick in there. I keep an EDH deck in one along with all of its tokens. In the other I keep my Master Transmuter/Sharuum/Mindslaver deck along with its sideboard, spare matching sleeves, life counter, and operates as a staging area for rares I've just traded for but have yet to stick into my binder. Still, I'd love to see more options out there for deck boxes.
Playmat: Windwright Mage playmat. Love the thing, but I find it gets a bit crowded for EDH games. I'd love it a heck of a lot more if it were about six inches wider, but in the meantime I'll make do with its awesomeness. Heck, the thing is half the reason I'm standardizing on purple card sleeves. They just look GOOD on that backdrop.
I liked your article it was interesting even though I didn't really learn anything that I didn't already know.
But I do have a problem with something you said. You were talking about deck sleeves that stick together and you threatening an opponent that he needs to get new sleeves or your going to have to "riffle" shuffle his deck in a way that may damage his cards. I'm not sure if you know this but willingly and knowingly causing damage to an opponents cards is an infractionable offence that can get you disqualified from an event and if the damage is of a serious monetary extent you can be banned from DCI events. You can always choose to pile shuffle his cards in 6-8 stacks and then carefully shuffle the stacks together. This takes about 45 seconds for someone who is moderately experienced in shuffling and handling cards and won't cause your match time much damage.
I liked your article it was interesting even though I didn't really learn anything that I didn't already know.
But I do have a problem with something you said. You were talking about deck sleeves that stick together and you threatening an opponent that he needs to get new sleeves or your going to have to "riffle" shuffle his deck in a way that may damage his cards. I'm not sure if you know this but willingly and knowingly causing damage to an opponents cards is an infractionable offence that can get you disqualified from an event and if the damage is of a serious monetary extent you can be banned from DCI events. You can always choose to pile shuffle his cards in 6-8 stacks and then carefully shuffle the stacks together. This takes about 45 seconds for someone who is moderately experienced in shuffling and handling cards and won't cause your match time much damage.
Lol, it's usually a littl more tongue in cheek. Wink, wink, grin, grin.
I think I know what those holographic sleeves you were talking about are...KMC Super Holography? I think starcitygames had a 99cent sale per box of sleeves about 2.5 years ago.
I wasn't around then, but I recently managed to pick up a similar deal on ebay, and while they might be useless to tournament players, they are great for dedicated casual players. I have 40+ decks and there was no way I was going to buy those expensive Dragonshield sleeves for $6 each... in the end I was very pleased with my holographic sleeves.
That being said, I think the picture you show is an unfair representation of a holographic sleeve. You would only get that picture through a camera...and it seems to be taken at the worst lighting angle...not that I know much about cameras...but still.
Anyway, if there are any casual players looking for cheap sleeves or more info, check out the Official Card Sleeves and Protectors thread at the Magic General section.
I too have used markers on the front of my sleeves, but I like using a small mark to differentiate my sideboard cards from my maindeck cards. It just helps make it easier to check my deck before I start a match.
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Currently playing
Standard: UBR Grixis Control WUB Time Sieve WUBEsper Artifacts
Ah those times!
Really, when ultra pro started to make penny sleeves magic wasn't a niche game anymore, so i do believe the business was hot.
Moreover, wizard initially prohibited the use of sleeves in tournaments! They changed their mind quickly
As for me, since i started before ultra pro went in business with magic, i used to buy low cost 9 card holder sheets, cut the central column and use the external 6 holder as sleeves. That caused all sort of problems as scratches on the hands, different sized sleeves, sleeves too nig to handle, etc.
Then i found some moderately priced credit card holders that suited the cards. Then Ultra-pro made penny sleeves and the pioneering was over. I Actually use only a certain dragon brand, cause i feel ultra pro's are too hard.
As for pimping, i only pimp cards in demential unspectacular way
the only problem i have with the article was the comment about penny sleeves falling out of favor because they're uncool.
thats not true at all.
back when the thicker ultra pro sleeves first came out, almost all of us made the switch because it was cheaper in the long run. penny sleeves break. they break a lot. they break easily. while it might only be a dollar or two for a few hundred, you end up having to buy a new package of them every few weeks. almost every time they're shuffled one splits. they're already thin and cheap, once they start splitting you also end up with damaged cards. we all figured out pretty quickly that it was cheaper to buy a 5 dollar box of ultra pro sleeves then to shell out a buck or two every few weeks for penny sleeves, especially when the thicker sleeves were protecting our rares better.
penny sleeves are also incredibly slippery, making it hard to shuffle them when compared to slightly thicker sleeves.
i still see a lot of guys using penny sleeves for their draft decks, or new players using them on their decks because they're cheap, but eventually they come to the same conclusions and shell out the few extra dollars.
I don't have any hard numbers on this, but I'm targeted more often than a black guy driving a beat-up sedan with a broken tail-light and no license plate, and Cy's well aware of that.
keep writing these articles Meyou! there a joy to read!
on the topic: penny sleeves are still the greatest in my opinion. th eonly reason i swtiched was that in a large deck box, multiple colors is easier to distinguish and cheaper than buying lots of seperators.
oh and i was totally a rubber band man too!:facepalm:
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Commander(EDH): To be built
Casual:WG Exalted BR Feeding Vampires B Vampire Beatdown BR Cinders BG Shadowmoor Golgari R Goblin Raidmother Burn BU Zombies(Under construction)
As someone heavily involved in the sports card market before Magic was out, I do recall that "penny sleeves" were around well before then and were used to protect sports cards. Magic players started using them, and I would guess that Ultra-Pro saw the increased demand for sleeves and came out with their own line.
I'm glad we're past the old days where your opponent could force you to de-sleeve just because he wanted to be a jerk. It used to be a standard tactic at type 1 tournaments, make your opponent de-sleeve in hopes that he'd just concede rather than risk you damaging his cards on the shuffle. Saw (and participated in) a few threats of bodily harm towards such jerks back in the day.
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L1 MtG judge (L2 coming soon) and Dominion tournament coordinator serving Flint MI and its surrounding cities.
I'd always heard of (but never witnessed or caught anyone at) using 'art' sleeves to cheat. The rumor of how it was done was to take 'art' sleeves that had lots of detail, then use an ultra-fine point pen to change the color of a pixel (or other small area) in the art. Since the cheater knows where to look in the art, they would gain advantage from having a marked sleeve (all the marked sleeves on land, or on their removal, or some other such cheat). However, an opponent looking at the same sleeve (or a judge) would have no idea where to look--dragon's third toe? Scabbard on the babe riding the dragon? Left side of the background mountain on the right? Etc.
For that reason, the vast majority of head judges I've encountered will not allow 'art' sleeves.
The frustrating holographic sleeves are nice to distinguish EDH generals from the rest of the cards in your deck. I always use a different sleeve for the EDH general - a holographic sleeve may be really nice for that.
O, and I always try to have my sleeves match the deck I'm playing. Burn decks get red sleeves, artifact deck gets colorless sleeves, faerie deck gets pink sleeves.
This may be technically off-topic, but I find a lot of "good" players at PTQs or other tournaments don't bring ANY counters. Is it too uncool? It gripes me to no end. One kid I played brought a Planeswalker deck to FNM. Turn 4 he's asking to borrow from my bag of counters because he brought none. I turned him down, figuratively. My bag of counters just sat on the table in front of him, silently taunting, as he yelled out an open request for any counters.
There was a kid who played a Saproling/spore counters sealed deck at a PTQ during Ravnica block. He had zero counters on him and asked to borrow mine. You've got to be kidding me. I let him borrow since it was Sealed and he used nearly my whole bag (of counters, I mean). I said something like, "Didn't you know you were going to be playing Magic today?"
I called a judge on a kid. I swung in with my creatures into his defenseless battlefield and he blocked with a white scrap of paper smaller than my pinkie-nail, on a white tablecloth (this was a PTQ). I said to the judge, "He says he's blocking but he doesn't have a creature." The judge couldn't see it either. So my opp had to demonstrate what effect made the token, etc., etc. I just wanted to torment my opp, but the judge made him use coins.
Thanks for letting me get all this off my chest.
Incidentally, I like Goody Ouchless Thin Elastics (Ponytail Holders) to contain my decks. I used to use rubber bands, but they mark the sleeves permanently, and can ruin an unsleeved card.
As far as artwork "bedecked" sleeves, I find that there is wide variance in the quality of said sleeves. I have solid sleeves that I've payed as much as $7.99 U.S. for that started to peel almost immediately. On the other hand, I have artwork sleeves featuring Akroma, Sigil Tracer, and a Flamekin that I have used for various decks for over a year that are all still in great condition. I haven't tried the other arty sleeves, but I see plenty of them at our local shop. I still find that the very best sleeves, in the long run, are the old faithful, solid color Ultra-Pro talked about in the article.
I have an old carrying case that I absolutely love, but after 13 years it's gotten a bit beat up. Unfortunately, it's also been discontinued by the manufacturer. I tried starting a thread here to get information on it, but it wasn't exactly successful (other than more people seeing them and deciding they wanted one).
Interesting article, though some of the origin information seems more speculative than true. A lot of Ultra-Pro's products were simple adaptations from sports card lines. Sleeves were originally merely meant to protect your cards, it was a while before opaque-backed sleeves came out. And then, as Henry Ford said, you could get any color, so long as it was black. I would be interested to see how much Ultra-Pro makes off TCG related products, compared to simple trading cards. Good deal for them--the TCG industry came out of nowhere, and suddenly their market expanded a bunch.
I am well known in my playgroup for being the King of Accessories. I love sleeves, the baoxes, the caes, all of that. We do kindof have a running competition as to who wins as far as sleeves go. I have over 140 sleeved and boxed decks (more than the author, which is scary) and a few cardborad containers filled with organized sleeves which are the 40 left over from the 100 pack of sleeves for a 60 card deck, or from two 50 card sleeve sets.
Heres what I have found:
Carrying Cases:
I use a metal case that you can get when you buy expensive alchohol, in this case, Remy Martin I think it was. The little asian bodega around the corner from me had 10 of them (without the booze, which was sold to bars I'm sure) and they were 12$ a pop. I bought a bunch for my friends and they were perfect. They have a place for play mats, extra cards, dice, whatever. Everything just fits. You can by these cheap metal cases all over the place. I should post a picture.
Boxes:
Deck Ace had very cheap, 1.50$ plastic deck boxes, but they went out of business. I have no problem with the cheap plastic ones with the circular velcro parts to keep the case closed, but for more valuable or more often used decks I do use the more expensive ones.
Sleeves:
I have too many. If anyone has awhole bunch of 40-sleeve remnants they want to sell, let me know. I need more since I'm always making casual decks. The thing about the logevity is HOW YOU SHUFFLE, and riffle shuffles are much more damaging than a light side shuffle. My standard way to shuffle is that when I am done with EVERY game, I take all the cards on my board and drop them one by one into some random spot in the decks before I put them back in the box. Then the next time I play, I side shuffle and I dont have to worry so much about land clumps. I have very few sleeves that have been ruined due to my style of shuffling. But I don't play in many tournaments.
Counters:
Little glass counters work fine, but we try to out Dice each other with rediculous dice you get at gaming conventions. The best counters by far are the Homies action figures.
Oops, wrong site.
Anyway, great article. I really like this "Off Topic" column. It touches on a side of Magic that isn't often discussed - much less wrote about - but is still very much present.
I've been pretty upset with art backed sleeves. When 30 of the 100 sleeves you just bought have a large line down the back of them, it is very irritating. Luckily I play EDH with some cool, cool guys, but in other groups they would be completely useless. Arg!
And now if I can only scrape together some money to buy that Slave of Bolas platmat...
Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc
The Family
Sleeves: I've stopped buying sleeves with any foil or art component to them. It just seems to me that they start peeling apart way faster than solid-color sleeves. I have solid-backed matte sleeves I picked up around the launch of Ravnica block that are still perfectly fine, but the foil-backed sleeves with art by Brom on them I napped half a year ago became utterly useless after only a month of moderate play.
Carrying Case: I used to carry my whole collection with me in an old tackle bag (in boxes, of course), but that grew to the point of impracticality rather fast. I now keep my trade binder in my messenger bag along with whatever else I have with me (normally writing implements, paper, and my laptop). My decks and dice I keep in a .50 cal ammo can. It's just wide enough for three deckboxes side-by-side and high enough for two boxes to rest on their side. It's also wide enough for a card tin of the variety sold by Cheese Weasel Logistics to line up its long edge with the short edge of the ammo can, and the height is such that I can rest one right-side-up and one side-ways-up on top of it. Currently in the ammo can: Seven decks (four in Ultra Pro deckboxes, two in tins - one Cheese Weasel tin and one Call of Cthulhu CCG tin - and one in this velvet-lined thing built like a footlocker I got from a friend that is PERFECT for EDH decks) and two bags of dice (totaling at least 200 dice). I do get a bit of guff for using an ammo can, but dammit the thing is perfect for what I need in a carrying case (though it is a bit small).
Deck Boxes: I love the Cheese Weasel format tins. In one box you can have a full deck with sideboard, tokens, counters, life counter, and a die for determining play order or whatever else you might want to stick in there. I keep an EDH deck in one along with all of its tokens. In the other I keep my Master Transmuter/Sharuum/Mindslaver deck along with its sideboard, spare matching sleeves, life counter, and operates as a staging area for rares I've just traded for but have yet to stick into my binder. Still, I'd love to see more options out there for deck boxes.
Playmat: Windwright Mage playmat. Love the thing, but I find it gets a bit crowded for EDH games. I'd love it a heck of a lot more if it were about six inches wider, but in the meantime I'll make do with its awesomeness. Heck, the thing is half the reason I'm standardizing on purple card sleeves. They just look GOOD on that backdrop.
But I do have a problem with something you said. You were talking about deck sleeves that stick together and you threatening an opponent that he needs to get new sleeves or your going to have to "riffle" shuffle his deck in a way that may damage his cards. I'm not sure if you know this but willingly and knowingly causing damage to an opponents cards is an infractionable offence that can get you disqualified from an event and if the damage is of a serious monetary extent you can be banned from DCI events. You can always choose to pile shuffle his cards in 6-8 stacks and then carefully shuffle the stacks together. This takes about 45 seconds for someone who is moderately experienced in shuffling and handling cards and won't cause your match time much damage.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=5401186#post5401186
Lol, it's usually a littl more tongue in cheek. Wink, wink, grin, grin.
I wasn't around then, but I recently managed to pick up a similar deal on ebay, and while they might be useless to tournament players, they are great for dedicated casual players. I have 40+ decks and there was no way I was going to buy those expensive Dragonshield sleeves for $6 each... in the end I was very pleased with my holographic sleeves.
That being said, I think the picture you show is an unfair representation of a holographic sleeve. You would only get that picture through a camera...and it seems to be taken at the worst lighting angle...not that I know much about cameras...but still.
Anyway, if there are any casual players looking for cheap sleeves or more info, check out the Official Card Sleeves and Protectors thread at the Magic General section.
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus
I too have used markers on the front of my sleeves, but I like using a small mark to differentiate my sideboard cards from my maindeck cards. It just helps make it easier to check my deck before I start a match.
Standard:
UBR Grixis Control
WUB Time Sieve
WUB Esper Artifacts
Really, when ultra pro started to make penny sleeves magic wasn't a niche game anymore, so i do believe the business was hot.
Moreover, wizard initially prohibited the use of sleeves in tournaments! They changed their mind quickly
As for me, since i started before ultra pro went in business with magic, i used to buy low cost 9 card holder sheets, cut the central column and use the external 6 holder as sleeves. That caused all sort of problems as scratches on the hands, different sized sleeves, sleeves too nig to handle, etc.
Then i found some moderately priced credit card holders that suited the cards. Then Ultra-pro made penny sleeves and the pioneering was over. I Actually use only a certain dragon brand, cause i feel ultra pro's are too hard.
As for pimping, i only pimp cards in demential unspectacular way
Magic eternal scrub
thats not true at all.
back when the thicker ultra pro sleeves first came out, almost all of us made the switch because it was cheaper in the long run. penny sleeves break. they break a lot. they break easily. while it might only be a dollar or two for a few hundred, you end up having to buy a new package of them every few weeks. almost every time they're shuffled one splits. they're already thin and cheap, once they start splitting you also end up with damaged cards. we all figured out pretty quickly that it was cheaper to buy a 5 dollar box of ultra pro sleeves then to shell out a buck or two every few weeks for penny sleeves, especially when the thicker sleeves were protecting our rares better.
penny sleeves are also incredibly slippery, making it hard to shuffle them when compared to slightly thicker sleeves.
i still see a lot of guys using penny sleeves for their draft decks, or new players using them on their decks because they're cheap, but eventually they come to the same conclusions and shell out the few extra dollars.
Seconded. That's bloody brilliant. I'm definitely going to be using that trick from now on.
UUU Azami, Lady of Scrolls
RRR Diaochan, Artful Beauty
UR(U/R) Tibor, Lumia, & Melek (WIP)
Mafia Stats
on the topic: penny sleeves are still the greatest in my opinion. th eonly reason i swtiched was that in a large deck box, multiple colors is easier to distinguish and cheaper than buying lots of seperators.
oh and i was totally a rubber band man too!:facepalm:
Casual:WG Exalted
BR Feeding Vampires
B Vampire Beatdown
BR Cinders
BG Shadowmoor Golgari
R Goblin Raidmother Burn
BU Zombies(Under construction)
I'm glad we're past the old days where your opponent could force you to de-sleeve just because he wanted to be a jerk. It used to be a standard tactic at type 1 tournaments, make your opponent de-sleeve in hopes that he'd just concede rather than risk you damaging his cards on the shuffle. Saw (and participated in) a few threats of bodily harm towards such jerks back in the day.
http://quazen.com/games/card-games/how-i-followed-my-guts-and-got-an-invite-to-worlds-bolivian-nationals-report-2nd/
also featured at the Starkinton Post
http://www.thestarkingtonpost.com/articles/-/Bolivia_Nationals_2nd
For that reason, the vast majority of head judges I've encountered will not allow 'art' sleeves.
O, and I always try to have my sleeves match the deck I'm playing. Burn decks get red sleeves, artifact deck gets colorless sleeves, faerie deck gets pink sleeves.
There was a kid who played a Saproling/spore counters sealed deck at a PTQ during Ravnica block. He had zero counters on him and asked to borrow mine. You've got to be kidding me. I let him borrow since it was Sealed and he used nearly my whole bag (of counters, I mean). I said something like, "Didn't you know you were going to be playing Magic today?"
I called a judge on a kid. I swung in with my creatures into his defenseless battlefield and he blocked with a white scrap of paper smaller than my pinkie-nail, on a white tablecloth (this was a PTQ). I said to the judge, "He says he's blocking but he doesn't have a creature." The judge couldn't see it either. So my opp had to demonstrate what effect made the token, etc., etc. I just wanted to torment my opp, but the judge made him use coins.
Thanks for letting me get all this off my chest.
Incidentally, I like Goody Ouchless Thin Elastics (Ponytail Holders) to contain my decks. I used to use rubber bands, but they mark the sleeves permanently, and can ruin an unsleeved card.
J
Courtesy is contagious. Go out and catch some.
<Sigh> My quest for intelligent life on the internet continues.
Yeah... What?
What's a mall player? And how do they get out of having tokens?
J
Interesting article, though some of the origin information seems more speculative than true. A lot of Ultra-Pro's products were simple adaptations from sports card lines. Sleeves were originally merely meant to protect your cards, it was a while before opaque-backed sleeves came out. And then, as Henry Ford said, you could get any color, so long as it was black. I would be interested to see how much Ultra-Pro makes off TCG related products, compared to simple trading cards. Good deal for them--the TCG industry came out of nowhere, and suddenly their market expanded a bunch.
Trades
Articles
Winner of SSC 1 & ">3 & 6
Heres what I have found:
Carrying Cases:
I use a metal case that you can get when you buy expensive alchohol, in this case, Remy Martin I think it was. The little asian bodega around the corner from me had 10 of them (without the booze, which was sold to bars I'm sure) and they were 12$ a pop. I bought a bunch for my friends and they were perfect. They have a place for play mats, extra cards, dice, whatever. Everything just fits. You can by these cheap metal cases all over the place. I should post a picture.
Boxes:
Deck Ace had very cheap, 1.50$ plastic deck boxes, but they went out of business. I have no problem with the cheap plastic ones with the circular velcro parts to keep the case closed, but for more valuable or more often used decks I do use the more expensive ones.
Sleeves:
I have too many. If anyone has awhole bunch of 40-sleeve remnants they want to sell, let me know. I need more since I'm always making casual decks. The thing about the logevity is HOW YOU SHUFFLE, and riffle shuffles are much more damaging than a light side shuffle. My standard way to shuffle is that when I am done with EVERY game, I take all the cards on my board and drop them one by one into some random spot in the decks before I put them back in the box. Then the next time I play, I side shuffle and I dont have to worry so much about land clumps. I have very few sleeves that have been ruined due to my style of shuffling. But I don't play in many tournaments.
Counters:
Little glass counters work fine, but we try to out Dice each other with rediculous dice you get at gaming conventions. The best counters by far are the Homies action figures.
Currently working on
B// =34 (Legacy)
R// AggroLoam (Legacy)
B/ Elder dragon highlander, General: Savra, Queen of the Golgari
Team Sexy Decks
Serrephile, US, Mal'ganis, Horde, <zZq>