Article: Card Sleeves: The Rant

I'm going to start this blog with the ancient mystery of sleeving cards.  Lots of different types of games use cards these days.  That includes CCGs and LCGs (That stands for Collectible and Living Card Games, so, duh, they have cards) as well as board games.  If you want to protect your cards, you need to sleeve them in something.  In fact, many CCG/LCG tournaments require you to sleeve your cards to prevent marking of cards, etc.

So what kind of card sleeves should you get.  Well, first thing, you need to know the size of the card you're sleeving.  European and American board games have different standard sizes.  Standard European Board Games size is 59 x 92 mm and American is 66.3 x 88.  It's whatever, really, I mean you know how to do a little research, right?  If you're looking for sleeves for Arkham Horror spells, etc, well, I don't know what the hell to tell you.  5 x 10 mm maybe?  Ask the Ancient One.

Check out the midget ... card, midget card needs a midget sleeve ...

Anyway, the real first question you should ask yourself is, what can I afford?  If you can only afford Penny Sleeves, well, that's that, right?  But that doesn't make for a very interesting discussion.  The better question is 'what is the economics of the sleeves I'm buying vs. the cards I'm sleeving'?  Cost isn't the only factor.  Certain types of sleeves are better for certain things.

If the answer is, I can afford any sleeves I want, then you move to step 2.  What am I sleeving?  Am I sleeving a board game with 500 cards (Like Legendary) or am I sleeving an LCG (Like Game of Thrones)?  Now, as a general rule that's not 100% true all the time, LCGs/CCGs will require more handling, shuffling, and general handling of cards.  There's also going to be less of them to sleeve unless you sleeve your ENTIRE COLLECTION.  I use 9 Page Pocket Protectors in 3 Ring Binders (Note: DO NOT use binders that are simply circular rings.  NO NO NO.  This will potentially cause damage to your cards.  Use ones where one side is flat.)

I currently have 5 different sleeves that I use for 'standard cards' (This does not count European sized board game sleeves.  These are same as the Fantasy Flight Game Clear sleeves, only they're a different size).  Here are what they look like sleeving L5R cards (Which are very thick, seems like).

The five sleeves are, in order T-B, L-R: Dragon Shield, Ultra-Pro Penny Sleeves, Fantasy Flight Games Standard Card Game Sleeves (Grays), Ultra Pro Standard Sleeves, and Fantasy Flight Games Art Sleeves.  First off, the Fantasy Flight Games sleeves are exactly the same, except the Asshai / Stannis sleeve being completely badass.  I'll only reference FFG sleeves from here on out.

The price points on all these are all VERY different.  I'll base everything off Amazon.com.

Dragon Shield = 10.19 w/Deck Box, 100 Count
Ultra Pro Penny = 9.06 w/ No Deck Box, 1000 Count (Yes, 1000)
FFG Standard = 9.92 w/ No Deck Box, 100 Count (Only sold in 50 count, multiplied for ease of comparison)
Ultra Pro Standard = 5.04 w/ Deck Box, 100 Count

Let's just not consider the deck boxes, really.  They are certainly a value add.  I actually like the Ultra Pro deck box better than the Dragon Shield.  They're made of some sort of plastic, whereas the Dragon Shields are made out of cardboard/paper.

We can easily see the best value and the worst value as far as it relates to how much you get for the money.  You're getting those Penny Sleeves for just under 1 penny per sleeve.  Wow, right?  Yes, wow.  So what are the differences?  Why would I pick one of the other?

The FFG and Dragon Shield sleeves are the exact same size: 63.55 x 88 MM.

So what the hell is the size of the other ones?  Why are they different?  I have no idea.  I can speculate on the Penny Sleeves, but, no clue for the Ultra Pro Standards.  The Ultra Pro Standards are actually shorter, but the same width.  The card is in there with very little room to spare.  That's not a bad thing really.  They fit snug with almost no overlap.  I can't find the exact measurements for the Ultra Pro Standards, I saw something that said 63.5x91 MM which is a bunch of shit.  If I had to guess I'd say something like 63.55 x 86 MM.  The Penny Sleeves are the big difference.  They are 66.675 x 92.075.  They are bigger, and they are looser.  There is overhang at the top on at the sides.  It does not make for a great fit.

Ultra-Pro Penny Sleeves - That's like throwing a hotdog through a hula hoop!

FFG Standards - Tight is right, girlfriend.

So our Penny Sleeve is big and loose.  What a ho.  What do girls do?  Sleeve lots of guys (cards).  That's right.  Besides the size and fit, Penny Sleeves /can/ tend to stick.  These Ultra Pros don't, from my experiences, but I have seen Penny Sleeves that do.  It is a major PITA.  You're holding one card only to have an unexpected 5-stage clinger on the underside.  Not acceptable.  It can actually cause problems in game play, and that's never okay.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's travel to the days of yore in this post when I was talking about economics of sleeving.  Let's take Legendary for example again.  It is a game that costs 48.54 on Amazon at the writing of this.  If you take out the board and box part of the price, it essentially is just less than 1 cent a card.  Sounds familiar, right?  In fact, by the narrowest of margins, the Penny Sleeves are worth MORE than the cards, particularly if you factor in whatever value you want to give the board.  So how much would it cost me to sleeve 500 cards in our Penny Sleeves?  4.53.  That's not bad.  That's a little over 9% of the game's cost.  What if we think these cards BLOW and we want to sleeve it with something else.  Because we aren't Bill Gates, let's just take the Ultra Pro Standards.  These guys are a little over 5 cents a sleeve which means if you sleeve 500 cards it will cast you freakin' 25 bucks just to sleeve the damn game.  Just by eyeballing it, and having higher than imbecile math skills, the Dragon Shields are going to be double that!  That's more than the game is worth.  WTF are you doing using those sleeves?

Okay, Tet, you've convinced me that the Penny Sleeves are the way to go, I'll just sleeve everything in them and save lots of cash I can use on loose sleeves that sleeve lots of cards ... ???

No, hold your horses.  Penny Sleeves aren't for everything, bud.  Look, board games where you don't shuffle a lot, or where mostly your cards just sit in piles is fine for Penny Sleeves.  Plus we've already talking about the bulk aspect on cost effectiveness.  I sleeved Legendary, as you can imagine, with my Penny Sleeves.  But what about Game of Thrones, L5R, etc?  First off, a LCG requires you to handle your cards a lot more.  Plus, you're sleeving a lot less.  In GoT, for example, you are probably going to have 68 cards sleeved.  There's situations where you'll have more, but having much more is unlikely if you ever want to win.

We know that the non-Penny sleeves are snugger and nicer and betterer.  But what's the economics of sleeving these guys?  I'm a cheap bastard <not really>.  How much are your LCGs worth?  Let's take Game of Thrones for example.  Retail a chapter pack runs 15 bucks, but we can get it for 13 on Amazon usually.  There are 60 cards per chapter pack.  My handy calculator says they are 21 cents per card.  Holy crap!  These things are gold encrusted compared to Legendary!  If we use the cost of Dragon Shields, we know they are just over 10 cents per sleeve, so to sleeve 60 cards you're going to spend 6 dollars.  That's about 50% of the value of the card, plus they play WAY better than Penny Sleeves.

Sheew!  What a diatribe all to just say, generally, Penny Sleeves = Board Games, Standard Sleeves = Card Games.

So which is the best?  FFG vs. Dragon Shield vs. Ultra Pro Standard.

I find the FFG and Dragon Shields almost identical.  I've never had a problem with either.  The only thing is that the Dragon Shields come with a Deck Box for a couple more bucks, plus they're sold in 100s instead of 50s, and there's a wide array of colors.  Dragon Shield has the advantage for things that really aren't really about the quality of the sleeve.  You pay a little extra, you get a little extra.  Either would work great of a LCG/CCG.

What about the Ultra Pro Standards, they're cheaper bro!  Come at me!

Look at this piece of shit!  I don't think it is supposed to do that!  I have about 10 sleeves that ripped at the top corner.  Maybe it was the batch, maybe not, but a 10% failure rate is no good.  You get what you pay for.

Get your Dragon Shields or FFG Sleeves if you want to pimp some LCGs, guys.  Don't get your sleeves from Target like this unfortunate fool.