I guess the tepid response to this card implies the answer to my question, but I'll ask anyway: Does the -10 let you 'go infinite' by activating a planeswalker's loyalty abilities arbitrarily often? It doesn't say "once per walker per turn" specifically.
I don't have money for Swords etc, but for those who are able to run an artifact-heavy build -- have you tried Shrapnel Blast?
Five damage for two CMC or less is probably a little too alluring for me but responding to artifact hate by cannibalizing the sword seems promising.
Also curious about splashing black for Tyrant's Choice, which is basically four damage to target player for 1B. Just grab everything that deals four damage, and max out burn?
In the landfall-heavy builds, has anyone tried From the Ashes? I feel like it's a solid way to ramp Lynx/Geopede, trigger Zektar, etc while destroying the manabase of any three-color deck that runs few basics.
Blowing up Flagstones with Ashes makes for a glorious Lynx blowout on turn 4. (For me, it was that or Spark Trooper. I like splashy, surprising, decisive turn four moves a lot more than I like maximizing tier.)
I like that there is a "theme of fives" gradually developing for extra-turn cards (Time Sieve, Azor's Elocutors, Search the City, Ral Zarek, and now Sage of Hours). I don't think it's deliberate in any conscious sense, but I think development has figured out that five is 'the right number' for something massive to happen.
Sage of Hours is going to be huge in Simic EDH (with practically any commander) and will be astronomical, maybe even an auto-include, in The Mimeoplasm EDH.
Ajani is going to be great fun (You get a counter! And YOU get a counter! And YOU get a counter!) and pairs well with Sun's Champ. I doubt Ajani will make a huge splash in any Top 8 competitive formats, but I'm looking forward to sleeving up some sort of Bant Ajani with Fathom Mage, Gyre Sage, and Simic Manipulator for FNM.
I find it hard to believe in a multiverse in which Sway of the Stars and Biorhythm are banned in EDH, but Worldfire is not. Setting everyone's life total to a low amount is a pretty big no-no.
I guess I could understand if Biorhythm was banned, but Sway and Worldfire were legal, since Biorhythm can kill rather than just maim. There would be some logic to that. But given that Sway is soundly banned, probably Worldfire will be too. Sway is easier to combo into Tendrils, sure, but it also gives every opponent seven chances to answer.
The obvious combo with Worldfire would be Worldgorger Dragon, or maybe Vela the Night-Clad in some kind of RBU shell. Any number of "leaves the battlefield" triggered effects would work.
But really, all you would need to do is run plenty of burn in mono-red. Burn/Sligh would basically always win the game, if everyone started with 1 life and an empty hand. Not to mention the post-Worldfire game is guaranteed to be boring and wearisome. That's why I think Worldfire will be banned in EDH by the end of 2013. (Of course, I'm hardly one to rely on; for awhile I thought Karn Liberated might get banned.)
I wish I could go through and "like" everyone's responses, as on Facebook. Thanks! And thanks also to folks sending me links and stuff to follow up with. I've accumulated quite a lot of information and will try to update the OP with it as time and energy permit (I'm suffering from information overload at the moment...).
There is an official thread for this that might have some more ideas: Official storage thread
Thanks, I've updated the OP to include a link. (Your other ideas are great too.)
Man, I would never have thought of silica gel packets, but it's seems so obvious in retrospect. I wasn't even aware you could buy 'em retail, I've only seen them in medicine bottles, luckily it seems ebay/google shopping/etc has whole packs of them for really cheap
May I ask, those who recommend "double sleeving" -- is it possible to be more specific? Do you mean two very soft penny sleeves, one facing up and one facing down? Or do you use two different kinds of sleeves?
...I feel like a stupid idiot asking that, but it's not working terribly well on this end. Testing various combinations on a basic land, I can't a second penny sleeve to fit without some fairly serious wrinkling (in the case of penny sleeves) or some edge-splitting that wrecks the outer sleeve (in the case of these Ultra Pro clear sleeves I have, the ones with the little holographic circle in the corner). When I finally did get my poor swamp double-penny-sleeved, it had trouble sliding nicely into a binder slot, putting strain on the welding.
The KMC perfect fit sleeves are expensive, and if a specific type of sleeve is not important to the double-sleeve setup, then I'm tempted to skip the perfect fit things. And if you use different interior/exterior sleeves, surely there are other brands that make good interior sleeves? Suggestions welcome.
How bad is the risk of damage from putting cards in an upright 3 ring binder? I currently have a huge chunk of my cards in one at home sitting upright. It worries me since this binder is pretty packed and I can't access it for a while.
You're almost certainly ok. I didn't mean for this thread to freak anybody out.
Only suggestion is, be careful to not press down hard on the pages (like my palms or wrists do while I'm inserting a new card, I dunno about other people but I seem to lean on the binder pages when putting new cards in).
When you get a chance, check if your binder pages are wrinkling. If not, my guess is you're ok. I live in a part of the country where it's impossible to maintain peak temperature and humidity year-round (running max AC in the summer is too costly).
Double-sleeving is probably a must-do, but using two of the same kind of sleeve results in weird stretch effects, so...
Skipping other stuff I've tried for the moment, what I'm currently considering are KMC Perfect Fit sleeves for the interior sleeve. I've never used these before and have no idea if they're any good, but the pack of KMC deck sleeves I got are pretty great, so I'm hopeful. I can't tell if they're archival quality, though. Here's their website, in case anyone wants it.
For the outer sleeve... god, I have no idea what to use. UltraPro is awful (their edges split), Dragon Shield sleeves curl in the corners in a matter of weeks, DekProt sleeves seem flimsy. I guess I could buy a boatload of the deck sleeves I like all in one color, and use the same color sleeves for every deck. Is that what people usually do?
And as for the binder ideas... I'm growing to hate binders. I haven't found any loose 3-ring pages that don't fog and/or wrinkle and/or cloud up and/or tear out their welding after hardly any use. For the better binders with fixed 8-slot or 9-slot pages, I end up having to move a tremendous number of cards each time my collection changes to keep everything alphabetized. (I guess I could just skip alphabetizing/sorting for the top tier stuff. It's more of a problem for my general rares collection.)
Are binders definitely better than top-loading hard cases? I figured the hard cases don't put as much pressure on the card faces... and for stupid reasons my brain associates the solid hard plastic with good protection, like plate mail armor or something. But if a high-quality binder is better than the top loaders, I can get a nice binder for the super expensive rares and not bother with re-alphabetizing them when adding a new card.
I'm looking into what makes something "archival grade" and the results are pretty interesting (I didn't know some ordinary plastic sleeves are literally acidic...).
ITT: Everything related to the storage and protection of expensive or irreplaceable cards. Good experiences, bad experiences, horror stories, whatever ya got.
Two questions specifically for professionals and store owners:
How do you store very expensive cards, to protect them from damage?
How do you protect very expensive cards, if you'll need to play them in a deck occasionally?
I'll collect details and edit them into this post, so anyone who stumbles across it can click the various "Spoiler" buttons and see a summary of suggestions and information.
First things first. For a general discussion of card storage solutions and ideas -- including ways to store, sort, and organize your inexpensive trade rares and commons -- there is an official thread: CLICK HERE for the general card storage thread.
Here's my motivation for creating a thread here, specifically devoted to storage of expensive cards. (For those who care.)
The internet's inability to provide answers to my questions above is just ridiculous. Google/Bing is worthless, it gets confused and thinks you want 'protection from' when you say protect. Yahoo Answers in particular is a dank cesspool of awfulness -- FFS, it's like folks there think you've never seen a 3-ring binder or shoebox before.
So far as I can tell, the internet is currently lacking a resource that would help a new player know how to best store their most precious cards--especially important if they get lucky and pull a super expensive Jace TMS/Tarmogoyf/Sorin LoI/whatever from a pack, worth treating with care.
My personal goal is to keep a couple hundred high-priced $50-$300 cards in indisputably mint condition, avoiding any minor defects that would downgrade them to 'NM near mint' or 'EX excellent' status... while retaining the ability to take the card out of storage and play it in a Legacy deck a few times a year. I'd also like to not spend a fortune on storage, though I'm willing to spend some money. (This means "get the PSA to grade it and leave the card in their sealed container" is not a good option for me.)
Surely lots of other players and collectors share this type of goal -- lots of us have expensive or irreplaceable unique cards. MTG Salvation has an awesome group of professional collectors, altered-art artists, store owners, etc. -- I've lurked here since forever, and I trust you guys & gals to have some great ideas.
Here's a list of possible damage problems I want to avoid. (Suggestions for other kinds of damage are welcome.)
To keep things simple, let's say I'm not worried about theft. I can list precisely what I do want protection from:
Bent corners or edges. This happens when storing poorly sleeved cards in BCW cardboard boxes.
Damage from heat and humidity. This puts weird bends in the card, so that it's not perfectly flat; in bad cases the card's too wavy to be playable in a deck. This problem is actually made worse by penny sleeves, which develop wavy crinkles, together with a tight binder page. More importantly, it's a *huge* problem with cheap awful binders/binder-pages -- the worst example is BCW 9-pocket pages, which actually tear out the weld in between each card slot.
Nicks along the edge or in the corner. Avoiding this requires a *lot* more caution than I thought it would when I started collecting stuff.
Indentation spots. This can happen with loose penny sleeves on cards in binders or unsealed top hard-cases -- a speck of dust or whatever slips in, and then you close the binder tightly, and the fleck gets pressed into the card. The problem's much worse when reusing old sleeves.
Edge-ridges. When you store too many cards in a single sleeve, you get this, because the sleeve isn't designed for width--it has to stretch around the card, which causes the left and right edges of the outermost cards to curl and get ridgy. This is the problem with penny sleeves -- too few cards and the sleeve is loose, too many cards and you get ridges.
Fading (and other light damage). Ever wonder why some of your Uzra-block blue cards look deeper and richer than others? The ink of some cards is especially susceptible to fading. Much of this is beyond your control -- depends on the print run -- but the fading can be exacerbated by exposure to sunlight.
Yellowing. If you've ever looked at the side of an old card and noticed it looks dingy, yellow, and grimy, you've seen this phenomenon in action. If you haven't seen this before, go ask to see your game store's collection of basic lands, dig out a pile of the oldest Unlimited/Revised ones, stack 'em and look at the side. This eventually causes edge damage and bending.
Foxing. A foxed card has spots of blotchy discoloration, sometimes caused by exposure to humidity and acid (did you know many cheaper card sleeves are acidic?). In 200-year-old documents, this is pervasive. In 20-year-old Magic cards, it shouldn't be.
Fingerprint smudges (maybe?). I've never experienced this, but it comes up in a handful of unanswered storage/protection questions elsewhere. Oils do damage cards. I'm curious if there's a washing/safe handling procedure that professionals use to avoid oil exposure, but probably, "never remove a card from its interior sleeve" is enough.
Water/liquid damage (maybe?). The obvious solution is "never put your cup of coffee next to the rare binder you're sorting when your puppy's in the room." Still, it's a problem worth discussing -- after my @#$& coffee spill, I was surprised to find some sleeves managed to protect their card from the spill perfectly, and other sleeves let the card get soaked or stuck to the card. Permeability varies by type and brand of sleeves; thicker sleeves are less permeable.
Now for some Q&A summary: Known Stuff. A good card storage solution will involve individual card sleeves, some sturdy exterior packaging (binders/boxes/etc), and environmental protection from heat and humidity and such. I've collected a ton of information for this, so I'll update over the course of a few days, piece by piece.
Q. What are the best card sleeves?
Here are some considerations to bear in mind when shopping for sleeves.
For tournament use: A judge can disallow your sleeves if they are not completely opaque. It must be impossible to see any features of the card through the sleeve's back. Test this by putting a card in backwards, or by putting a transform card in. It's surprising how many light-colored sleeves fail this, especially white and pink sleeves. This is much more important nowadays, and much more thoroughly checked, because of Innistrad -- especially if you play with any transform cards in sleeves, rather than using the checklist proxies.
For tournament use: A judge can disallow your sleeves if they are too reflective. To test this, sleeve up a deck, and gently lift the bottom of the top card up -- if you see any reflection of the top card, your sleeves are too reflective. A surprising number of sleeves fail this test. Matte finish card sleeves are non-reflective, and feel a bit rough to the tough. When there are equivalent choices between matte and non-matte sleeves, the matte sleeves tend to be more highly recommended. Many folks say they're easier to shuffle. The matte property is irrelevant for storage.
For storage: Using archival quality sleeves is essential. Sleeves should be acid-free and PVC-free at the very least. I'm still seeking more information about the "archival quality" designation. It means more than PVC-free and acid-free.
For storage: The sleeve size matters when double-sleeving, which is widely recommended. It matters even more if you're storing the card long-term; wrinkles that cause some bending may worsen over time, especially if interior and exterior sleeves have different heat tolerance thresholds (so one shrinks or stretches while the other...).
I'll mention sleeve sizes in mm for those I know. The size of an unsleeved Magic card is 63.5mm x 88mm, with a mean thickness of 0.288 mm (2590/9 microns) when pressed flat. Variance among properly cut cards (not 'misprints') is less than 0.25mm x 0.25mm. I can't determine variance in thickness experimentally, but all cards are well within the 0.28-0.30 range.
The following brands of sleeves are widely considered bad or mediocre.
The term "penny sleeve" describes a transparent soft sleeve. Penny sleeves by any knock-off brand are probably bad. If the package doesn't say what brand the sleeves are, be wary.
Ultra Pro makes two categories of "penny" budget sleeves, which are so-so. These say Card Sleeves or Premium Card Sleeves in big red letters. These are storage sleeves only; they're too 'floppy' for shuffling. The cheaper regular sleeves are super-soft and hold 4 or 5 cards securely, and the Premium are slightly more rigid and hold 2 or 3 cards securely.
Any knock-off brand 50-card pack with 100% English-language packaging and a novelty image on the card back (anime, etc) is probably bad quality, or mediocre at best. They might not be acid-free or PVC-free.
Max Protection sleeves get plenty of criticism, and almost zero praise. They're a lot like the novelty image packs, intended for causal play, not archival/storage.
Ultra Pro is licensed to sell card sleeves with M:TG art on them. These usually come in 80-card packs, at a midrange price. They might hold up better than a 50-card novelty pack, but they're not intended for long-term use or long-term storage. They are sometimes too wide to comfortably fit in binders.
The following are frequently praised and recommended for interior sleeves when double-sleeving.
KMC Perfect Fit sleeves (64mm x 89mm) get more recommendations than any other specific brand and sleeve type. They are a specialty product, designed to fit inside a normal-sized deck sleeve so that you can "double sleeve" expensive cards. However, it can take some effort to get them to fit well inside some brands of deck sleeves -- on Youtube you can find videos of people showing you how to make them fit nicely when it's a tight squeeze. You might also check card sleeve sizes, as this person did.
Ultra Pro PRO-FIT sleeves (64mm x 89mm) get recommended by people who use Ultra Pro PRO-MATTE sleeves. These are allegedly slightly smaller than the Perfect Fit sleeves, and no one discussing them seems to disagree, but official company information says they're the same 64x89 size.
Mayday standard green sleeves (63.5mm x 88mm). Make sure to get the "standard" rather than "premium" for this purpose -- the premium sleeves are 90 microns thick, too thick for interior sleeves; the standard sleeves are 40 microns thick. This is the only interior-sleeve product other than KMC PFs for which I found positive reviews and praise.
The following are frequently praised and recommended for exterior sleeves when double-sleeving.
KMC Matte finish sleeves, sold in 80-count packs, in a variety of colors. These 80-count packs in print are less well-liked than the old 100-count packs were, but these sleeves still receive lots of accolades.
I own Matte black and Matte dark blue. I sleeve my Vintage deck in them for tournaments. The old 100-count Matte black sleeves did feel more sturdy and reliable to me.
Player's Choice sleeves, the US version of KMC. There seem to be many contentious internet debates about whether they're basically the same product as KMC, or different/lower quality. Seriously, people take side-by-side photographs and stuff. The arguments are intense.
Arcane Tinmen's Dragon Shield sleeves. These are sold in 100-count boxes, in ten shiny colors: WUBRG, Gold/Silver/Brown, Pink/Purple, Clear. Many players mention finding 102 or 103 sleeves in their box. Unboxed 50-card packs are also available. At somewhere between 100 and 110 microns, they might be the thickest sleeves on the market.
I own the white and the black sleeves. I sleeve my Commander decks in them. They are potentially too reflective for tournament play. Check with the head judge before using, the same way you would for customized altered art cards.
Ultra Pro PRO-MATTE sleeves. These are sold in 50-card packs that say PRO-MATTE in giant red letters. Five available colors: WUBRG.
I own the white and I'm personally considering getting more of these for expensive card storage, due to their relative thinness. They are potentially too transparent for post-Innistrad tournament play. Check with the head judge before using, the same way you would for customized altered art cards -- many judges will allow it if you're not sleeving transform cards or cards with heavy damage.
The only place I know that sells these kinds of sleeves in bulk is Potomac Distribution. Mayday apparently sells directly to customers, but KMC/Arcane Tinmen/Ultra Pro do not. I'd welcome information about other sellers, but for small numbers of sleeves, just check eBay or whatever.
The following brands get recommended, but with various caveats.
Mayday Ultimate MTG sleeves. These are literally too new to judge for long-term purposes -- as in, May 2012 new. It might be all hype, but the people recommending them seem excited, and mention a lot of technical details. This company's smaller-sized interior sleeves are well-praised, though not nearly as much as the KMC Perfect Fits. Apparently Mayday is a well-known and well-respected name among board game collectors for making awesome card sleeves... for board games. I'd never heard of 'em before today.
KMC Super sleeves (80 count packs). These are more shiny than the Matte. Lots of people recommend "anything KMC" but few recommend the Supers more than the Matte. People who are asked about them say they like them just fine, but they show scratch marks more easily.
Personal experience: I have a couple packs of these. I keep decks I'm currently testing in them. They're durable enough to withstand lots of sleeving and unsleeving, but I agree with the other folks who say they show scratch marks -- too many scratch-marked backs for tournament play. That's why I'm only using them for test decks now. They seem fine for storage.
A variety of companies, including Ultra Pro, also sell novelty image sleeves in Japan, in 50-card packs. These sleeves have a combination of English-language and Japanese, and are allegedly of much higher quality than the sleeves with only English-language packaging. These might not be PVC-free, especially if they feel unusually firm.
Mayday premium green sleeves. These aren't even available at the moment, the company's website says they're experiencing some kind of distribution problem. They are almost as thick as the Dragon Shields, but not wide/tall enough to accommodate an interior sleeve.
The following brands are hard to find or out of print, but are connoisseurs' favorites. For these, the quality might depend on the print run, or on whatever else card sleeve connoisseurs pay attention to.
Yanoman Gunmetal
Japanese Green Ultra Pro
Hardest Sleeves, whatever those are.
KMC Matte sleeves in 100-count packs. Many fans of KMC sleeves allege that a rise in oil prices caused KMC to create lower-quality cards and lower the number of cards per pack.
A few types of "A class" brand sleeves. Some budget packs made by A class are easy to find on eBay/Amazon/etc, but the folks who recommend this brand often have very specific sets of sleeves in mind. They seem to be like Ultra Pro in offering various quality sleeves at various price ranges. I'm still looking for more information, since the company gets praised by connoisseurs.
Armor Shield sleeves. I can't find any company-produced evidence of their existence, so I have no link for you, but they're mentioned by name in a handful of old 2001-era threads, and Wikipedia. Apparently whatever they are, they are completely unrelated to "Deck Armor" deck boxes by Max Protection. I'm still looking for more information.
Q. What are the options for storing the sleeved cards? What's recommended?
First, a list of options.
Topload hard cases (63.5mm x 88.9mm interior, 3" x 4" exterior). These are made of a thin layer of hard plastic. Unlike sleeves, these actually have 3d walls, for thickness. When buying these, the thickness matters. For example, Ultra Pro's Premium Toploaders are large enough to fit one double-sleeved card comfortably, but can barely hold four unsleeved cards without bending. You can see the other thickness options here on Ultra Pro's toploader webpage. I'm still looking into options and alternatives for these types of cases.
Screwdown hard cases (63.5 mm x 88.9 mm interior, exterior varies wildly). These are thick plastic cases, for the truly expensive cards you want to protect without locking them into a vault. You can get them vaccuum airtight, or just clamped comfortably. Several options can be found on Ultra Pro's screwdown webpage. For alternatives, look into baseball card storage -- in fact, quite a lot of my information for this summary came from looking up baseball trading card practices, as advised by manaman22 downthread.
tl;dr is "how to protect and store expensive cards"
Salient it's funny that you mention Elesh Norm because right now I run a GBW nic fit variant with DoTH and my targets include Wurm, Troll, Elesh, and 3 Titans. In my version since I run Orchards the Wurm + Troll is still silly but it actually wins games :). Also the thing you mentioned about Emrakul, A) you didn't really specify the rest of the deck so if you are running wastelands you should be just fine versus karakas, and B) running something like Doomsday or Show and Tell can get you there as well :), so making a deck around Emrakul is not a bad way to go.
True, Emrakul's about as good as creatures come. Of course, I was mostly excited about noticing a way to get around the new Tyrant's restrictions. Board wipe is the one thing DotH ~can't~ do at the moment, and for a short while there it seemed like the solution had arrived.
But they get the lands back before the Tyrant's ability resolves, meaning that they won't automatically sacrifice everything else since the lands will be in play with all other permanents.
Five damage for two CMC or less is probably a little too alluring for me but responding to artifact hate by cannibalizing the sword seems promising.
Also curious about splashing black for Tyrant's Choice, which is basically four damage to target player for 1B. Just grab everything that deals four damage, and max out burn?
Blowing up Flagstones with Ashes makes for a glorious Lynx blowout on turn 4. (For me, it was that or Spark Trooper. I like splashy, surprising, decisive turn four moves a lot more than I like maximizing tier.)
"Wowzers! Let's get some reactions from the audience!"
"You're looking pretty stunned, like you've just discovered a long-lost cousin. Who is a sword."
Meddling Mage*:
"Say, you've been rummaging around - did you see they announced the new--"
Angel of Serenity:
"Wow! For the universe's representation of serenity, you sure do have a temper!"
"Say... who's that slinking off back there? Can I get a comment from you?"
Misthollow Griffin
"I feel ya, buddy. This hit you hardest of all."
...
"Well, there you have it. We'll be right back with more Preview Season, right after these messages!"
*For the record I deeply resent having had to type "gaping banana" in order to make that work. Those words should never be adjacent
Sage of Hours is going to be huge in Simic EDH (with practically any commander) and will be astronomical, maybe even an auto-include, in The Mimeoplasm EDH.
Ajani is going to be great fun (You get a counter! And YOU get a counter! And YOU get a counter!) and pairs well with Sun's Champ. I doubt Ajani will make a huge splash in any Top 8 competitive formats, but I'm looking forward to sleeving up some sort of Bant Ajani with Fathom Mage, Gyre Sage, and Simic Manipulator for FNM.
T2 Sylvan Caryatid into T3 Fathom Mage into T4 Ajani, Mentor to Heroes is pretty sick, actually.
...and I'm over here with The Mimeoplasm and Consuming Aberration and, I dunno, Tree of Redemption? just waitin' to cackle.
UB-variety fans are (understandably) saying "gah not more mill" and a swathe of mill fans are saying "THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING I DO."
Hedron Crab is one small, small step closer to being OP, and B.F.M. can one-shot a player who's sitting pretty behind Blazing Archon and Empyrial Angel. Today is a good day.
I guess I could understand if Biorhythm was banned, but Sway and Worldfire were legal, since Biorhythm can kill rather than just maim. There would be some logic to that. But given that Sway is soundly banned, probably Worldfire will be too. Sway is easier to combo into Tendrils, sure, but it also gives every opponent seven chances to answer.
The obvious combo with Worldfire would be Worldgorger Dragon, or maybe Vela the Night-Clad in some kind of RBU shell. Any number of "leaves the battlefield" triggered effects would work.
But really, all you would need to do is run plenty of burn in mono-red. Burn/Sligh would basically always win the game, if everyone started with 1 life and an empty hand. Not to mention the post-Worldfire game is guaranteed to be boring and wearisome. That's why I think Worldfire will be banned in EDH by the end of 2013. (Of course, I'm hardly one to rely on; for awhile I thought Karn Liberated might get banned.)
Thanks, I've updated the OP to include a link. (Your other ideas are great too.)
Man, I would never have thought of silica gel packets, but it's seems so obvious in retrospect. I wasn't even aware you could buy 'em retail, I've only seen them in medicine bottles, luckily it seems ebay/google shopping/etc has whole packs of them for really cheap
...I feel like a stupid idiot asking that, but it's not working terribly well on this end. Testing various combinations on a basic land, I can't a second penny sleeve to fit without some fairly serious wrinkling (in the case of penny sleeves) or some edge-splitting that wrecks the outer sleeve (in the case of these Ultra Pro clear sleeves I have, the ones with the little holographic circle in the corner). When I finally did get my poor swamp double-penny-sleeved, it had trouble sliding nicely into a binder slot, putting strain on the welding.
The KMC perfect fit sleeves are expensive, and if a specific type of sleeve is not important to the double-sleeve setup, then I'm tempted to skip the perfect fit things. And if you use different interior/exterior sleeves, surely there are other brands that make good interior sleeves? Suggestions welcome.
You're almost certainly ok. I didn't mean for this thread to freak anybody out.
Only suggestion is, be careful to not press down hard on the pages (like my palms or wrists do while I'm inserting a new card, I dunno about other people but I seem to lean on the binder pages when putting new cards in).
When you get a chance, check if your binder pages are wrinkling. If not, my guess is you're ok. I live in a part of the country where it's impossible to maintain peak temperature and humidity year-round (running max AC in the summer is too costly).
Skipping other stuff I've tried for the moment, what I'm currently considering are KMC Perfect Fit sleeves for the interior sleeve. I've never used these before and have no idea if they're any good, but the pack of KMC deck sleeves I got are pretty great, so I'm hopeful. I can't tell if they're archival quality, though. Here's their website, in case anyone wants it.
For the outer sleeve... god, I have no idea what to use. UltraPro is awful (their edges split), Dragon Shield sleeves curl in the corners in a matter of weeks, DekProt sleeves seem flimsy. I guess I could buy a boatload of the deck sleeves I like all in one color, and use the same color sleeves for every deck. Is that what people usually do?
And as for the binder ideas... I'm growing to hate binders. I haven't found any loose 3-ring pages that don't fog and/or wrinkle and/or cloud up and/or tear out their welding after hardly any use. For the better binders with fixed 8-slot or 9-slot pages, I end up having to move a tremendous number of cards each time my collection changes to keep everything alphabetized. (I guess I could just skip alphabetizing/sorting for the top tier stuff. It's more of a problem for my general rares collection.)
Are binders definitely better than top-loading hard cases? I figured the hard cases don't put as much pressure on the card faces... and for stupid reasons my brain associates the solid hard plastic with good protection, like plate mail armor or something. But if a high-quality binder is better than the top loaders, I can get a nice binder for the super expensive rares and not bother with re-alphabetizing them when adding a new card.
I'm looking into what makes something "archival grade" and the results are pretty interesting (I didn't know some ordinary plastic sleeves are literally acidic...).
Thanks to all suggestions so far!
Two questions specifically for professionals and store owners:
- How do you store very expensive cards, to protect them from damage?
- How do you protect very expensive cards, if you'll need to play them in a deck occasionally?
I'll collect details and edit them into this post, so anyone who stumbles across it can click the various "Spoiler" buttons and see a summary of suggestions and information.First things first. For a general discussion of card storage solutions and ideas -- including ways to store, sort, and organize your inexpensive trade rares and commons -- there is an official thread: CLICK HERE for the general card storage thread.
Here's my motivation for creating a thread here, specifically devoted to storage of expensive cards. (For those who care.)
So far as I can tell, the internet is currently lacking a resource that would help a new player know how to best store their most precious cards--especially important if they get lucky and pull a super expensive Jace TMS/Tarmogoyf/Sorin LoI/whatever from a pack, worth treating with care.
My personal goal is to keep a couple hundred high-priced $50-$300 cards in indisputably mint condition, avoiding any minor defects that would downgrade them to 'NM near mint' or 'EX excellent' status... while retaining the ability to take the card out of storage and play it in a Legacy deck a few times a year. I'd also like to not spend a fortune on storage, though I'm willing to spend some money. (This means "get the PSA to grade it and leave the card in their sealed container" is not a good option for me.)
Surely lots of other players and collectors share this type of goal -- lots of us have expensive or irreplaceable unique cards. MTG Salvation has an awesome group of professional collectors, altered-art artists, store owners, etc. -- I've lurked here since forever, and I trust you guys & gals to have some great ideas.
Here's a list of possible damage problems I want to avoid. (Suggestions for other kinds of damage are welcome.)
To keep things simple, let's say I'm not worried about theft. I can list precisely what I do want protection from:
Now for some Q&A summary: Known Stuff. A good card storage solution will involve individual card sleeves, some sturdy exterior packaging (binders/boxes/etc), and environmental protection from heat and humidity and such. I've collected a ton of information for this, so I'll update over the course of a few days, piece by piece.
Q. What are the best card sleeves?
Here are some considerations to bear in mind when shopping for sleeves.
The following brands of sleeves are widely considered bad or mediocre.
The following are frequently praised and recommended for interior sleeves when double-sleeving.
The following are frequently praised and recommended for exterior sleeves when double-sleeving.
The only place I know that sells these kinds of sleeves in bulk is Potomac Distribution. Mayday apparently sells directly to customers, but KMC/Arcane Tinmen/Ultra Pro do not. I'd welcome information about other sellers, but for small numbers of sleeves, just check eBay or whatever.
The following brands get recommended, but with various caveats.
The following brands are hard to find or out of print, but are connoisseurs' favorites. For these, the quality might depend on the print run, or on whatever else card sleeve connoisseurs pay attention to.
Q. What are the options for storing the sleeved cards? What's recommended?
First, a list of options.
tl;dr is "how to protect and store expensive cards"
True, Emrakul's about as good as creatures come. Of course, I was mostly excited about noticing a way to get around the new Tyrant's restrictions. Board wipe is the one thing DotH ~can't~ do at the moment, and for a short while there it seemed like the solution had arrived.
Ohhhhhh. Crud. Right.