What sleeves/protection to use for cards and how to shuffle deck properly?

[HAL_9OOO]

Hey guys,

Again I am trying to get into lotr tcg and got quite a good collection for playing now but am wondering how to protect my cards as my friends and I will be making lots of decks/shuffling cards around for informal play. I have ordered some BCW 2 and 5/8 by 3 and 5/8 clear sleeves as they were the cheapest i could find and almost fit a lotr card size but was wondering if anyone else had any suggestions. I am also confused on terms such as top loader (im new to the whole ccg business).

Also, since we will be playing with sleeves on its pretty hard to shuffle the cards. Are there any techniques you guys recommend since a normal poker shuffle is hard to do, especially since there is some slack between the cards and sleeves. (on a side note sadly I just can't find sleeves that are a lotr cards dimension)

[Abbott465]

Ket_the_Jet is right that Ultra pro sleeves are very nice for the price you pay though after a while they do wear out. But my fave sleeves are called Dragon Shield http://www.chaosmailorder.com/catalog/Dragon Shield Deck Protectors-70-1.html These sleeves are amazing they are VERY heavy duty and never wear out. Im still using a set of them I bought over 6 years ago. They also fit Lotr or Magic cards very snuggly and are not a hassle to shuffle with. It is worth the few extra dollars to buy them!

[Elessar's Socks]

I've heard Player's Choice/KMC sleeves are of good quality; those might be worth checking out.

As far as cheaper sleeves go, I've searched everywhere for ones 3 3/4" in length (instead of the prevalent 3 5/8"), worried that cards might be nicked at the top if they're too close to the edge. The only ones I've found were the Classic brand, but the cards slide a bit inside, so I can't really recommend them.

Top loaders are similar to sleeves, but made of rigid plastic (generally the card inside would be placed in a soft sleeve). They provide good protection in trades, though I'd imagine they'd be a pain to shuffle with, not to mention your deck would be stacked sky high.

[Faelach]

Top loaders are similar to sleeves, but made of rigid plastic (generally the card inside would be placed in a soft sleeve). They provide good protection in trades, though I'd imagine they'd be a pain to shuffle with, not to mention your deck would be stacked sky high.

   It's true too!  I've tried it.  My deck looked high enough for Gandalf and the Balrog to duke it out on... it was disastrous to shuffle as well.

[HAL_9OOO]

Yeah, well these BCW sleeves seem good enough I guess. Won't hold up for tournament play but just playing with friends anyway. Can't shuffle with them at all though. I think this 7-10 card shuffle that this guy talks about in this video is pretty good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qch8kwWRHSI . That with some block shuffles.

[Marcoliboar]

as for shuffeling, i always shuffel my deck like this ;

separete the deck on shadow and freepeoples, and then take 1 shadow card and put it aside, and on top of that 1 shadow card 1 fello card, repeat this untill you run of cards.

and then shuffle a bit the regular way.

some might call this cheating ,coz if you shuffle it that way on your draw you get 4 shadow and 4 free cards.

[Kralik]

Yeah... that's not exactly how it ought to be.

[HAL_9OOO]

It's not cheating if no one finds out .

[Faelach]

Integrity, man! Integrity!

.... I must admit I did that a few times myself, but only because I saw my friend do the same thing (he thought he was getting away with it).

[Marcoliboar]

hehehe


btw i shuffle my deck like this on GCCG

[MuadDib85]

Found this thread:

http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,3579.0.html

I cringe at the thought of shuffling cards, especially if there are one or two nice foils in the deck, even with heavy duty sleeves accidental bending is still always a possibility.

The way I usually shuffle is to first divide shadow and free peoples into two piles (face down). I then randomly take card from the top of those two piles and put them into six or eight smaller piles. I then take those six piles and randomly shuffle them into one another forming one deck again. Always let your opponent cut your deck (and cut their's), which should avoid both cheating and suspicion. Most importantly be careful, don't damage your nice shiny cards.

[Witchkingx5]

I actually shuffle the "tournament shuffle", as we call it, and it works like this:

You take the top card of the Deck and put it on the table face-down. This is stack 1, then. After that, you take the second card and put it beside stack 1, also face-down.
Repeat this until you have 6 stacks. Then keep on putting cards on those stacks until your whole Deck is empty, when you had, as example, 60 cards (like in MtG!) you have 6 stacks à 10 cards then. I found out this is really the best way to shuffle.

As sleeves, I use Ultra Pro. Some of my Sleeves are about 8 years old but look still great!

[HAL_9OOO]

Yeah, only reason I am using penny sleeves is because the others are just way too expensive to sleeve all my cards up now. Probably won't be sticking with one deck for too long, so its inefficient to move the cards in pennysleeves to ultra pro sleeves before we play. Hmm

[HAL_9OOO]

Hmmmm well as I have said before I have been using the BCW penny sleeves 2 5/8 x 3 5/8 but the cards always seem to slide around just a little. Today I got an ebay order and some of these guys cards were sleeved up perfectly in what looked like penny sleeves, they were less wide and fit lotr cards perfectly. Does anyone know what brand this sleeve might be?

On the subject of quality sleeves, I would spend the money to get a few of those but since I have lots of cards and my friends and I will probably be dismantling and making new decks all the time it doesn't really seem effective to take cards out of penny sleeves and put them in real sleeves to play.

Which is why I want penny sleeves that fit snugly . BCW is ok but.... its too wide and tall.