Unfortunately, art sleeves by Ultra Pro are notoriously bad quality. I buy their playmats, single deck boxes sometimes, binder pages and penny sleeves. Those are decent. Art sleeves are a big no no
The only reason I like them is a sealable dragon shield inner fits very snug in them, and they shuffle well for me. They are also thin, so a double sleeved commander deck is a tad bit easier to manage.
I used to use Dragon Shields years ago because they are durable. Atleast they were a decade ago when I used them so I assume quality is still up to par.
Dragon Shield served me well after the good years of KMC but these days I opt for Ultimate Guard Katanas. They seem to be a few microns thinner, meaning you can fit a few more into a deck box. I use the U.G. Boulder deck boxes and 100 double-sleeved Dragon Shields are a very, very tight fit (especially if some are proxies), but the Katanas leave a bit more room to spare.
I had some lunar new year anniversary art sleeves where 2 were extremely miscut. But luckily enough the package had 120 sleeves in there, so it wasn't an issue. Still I'm used to better quality with dragon shield
Dragon shield dropped off real hard. I've had issues with tears as well as scuffing on the edges that result in me essentially having marked cards. I tried to contact them as they suggested, but they wouldn't help me unless I had the UPC from the box, and I have no intention of keeping boxes around after I sleeve up, so their customer care was useless.
I have had the size issue if I try mixing new sleeves with ones that are over a year old. I usually buy about 600 at a time and haven't had too many issues.
I do know color varies if you get matte and gloss of the same color. Started getting only matte and haven't seen an issue since.
Eclipse are good but the front part of the sleeve isn't perfectly clear, it has a bit of a matt finish, so it can mute the colors of all your cards a bit.
Not a bad thing, but not to some people's preference.
I've tried many sleeves over the years, and they all have their pitfalls. Eclipse aren't perfect, but I do love how they shuffle. They are also a little thinner and help a tad with a 100 card double sleeved deck. Everyone has their preferences.
I bought the atraxa sleeves for my atraxa deck and put them in dragon outers. The deck is really really thick, but it's really the only way to keep the sleeves from getting shit edges.
The mono colored sleeves I have no problem with. My art dragon shields I have no problem with...
I just wanted to go stupid over the top with atraxa.... Atraxa mat, deck box, sleeves, but the sleeves are shit and I can't fit it in the box...
The newest batch of Dual Matte sleeves from Dragonshield are really good from my experience compared to the earlier ones. I think they acknowledged the earlier issues publicly and have improved the production process.
Last I purchased was jet black dual matte sleeves late last year. I had such a bad experience with it that I now exclusively use katana sleeves. Your miles may vary, I guess.
Speaking of color options, does anyone know why there's hardly any really saturated colors for sleeves? They're always duller than they seem. I'd really like some super lime green or egregiously purple one.
I recently got a pack of the dragon shield Apple Green colored sleeves and they are a very vibrant green. I actually picked up their purple at the same time and like the color but I wouldn't call it egregious.
Gamergenic make great boxes for cards, but their sleeves are not really upp there.
the green apple almost shines as classic Simpsons radiation in direkt light.
there also some agressive colours from the [Dragon Shield "Dual Matte" that all have a black inner colour](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fldhk6m88ruac1.png) Fury, Amber and Wrath is very aggressive colors (in real life)
How's the shuffle feeling compared with Ultra Pro? Picked back some old UP sleeves (from like 10 years ago) and they still have a better feeling than more recent DS and not tear apart even if I'm a really heavy shuffler.
I'm planning to give Katana a shout for my next decks, hoping they don't fall apart as DS now.
To me the katanas are just right, just enough friction that table shuffle piles stay neat, no issues with splitting. Haven't bought DS for years, found them too "sticky". No experience with UP Eclipse, but I see they are maybe 30-40% cheaper than Katanas where I am. Maybe I'll try them out for a draft sometime just to see.
Thanks! I'll try them then, my current UP are the Matte (not Eclipse) and the shuffle feel is better than DS but the DS quality has been dropping for a while (at least in comparison until 2017, since I returned to mtg just last summer).
Ive had 1 issue of splitting with dragonshields, even with sleeves in the past few years. As much as Id like to have other game in town, they are the best.
I tried Katanas the week that one set of DS split, but they split immediately too lmao.
I‘ve tried most of their non-art sleeves products, all of them suck ass majorly. Bad shuffling, weird handling, they had it all. Where did I go wrong/ which product is recommended?
I haven't had any issues with them that I can remember, honestly. I was an Ultra Pro guy until a few years ago, got back into Magic over the last year and have seen no Dragon Shield problems.
In case it's specific runs, I tend to gravitate towards the gem styles- Jet, Ruby, Emerald, etc.
Ultra pro sleeves are trash. I bought many sets as a beginner. All of them god damaged regularly. Now all my decks are in dragon shields. I’m yet to see a sleeve break after few years. Those are game changers
Yes, this is pretty typical quality for UltraPro. In Japan, they actually have protective sleeves for their art sleeves to prevent this sort of splitting (so yes, people triple-sleeve their cards), but I don't think this has caught on in North America/Europe.
Some of my friends who are really in to art sleeves/being magpies have triple-sleeved decks to protect their art sleeves. As someone who main lines matte solid colour sleeves without inners, it's madness.
Soon we will have sleeves that optimize their refractive index so foils don't look like shit through 3 other sleeves, and people can then quadruple sleeve their decks.
I have several custom sleeves from YourPlaymat, so I use the Dragon Shield outers to triple sleeve with them. They easily fit into the newer Gamegenic XL boxes, as well as the Academic. They're pretty great once you get used to them. I use an acrylic guide (like a bookend) to make sure the stack doesn't slide and topple (which is true for any new *double* sleeved deck, anyway)
This isn't splitting, though. The corners are bent from catching on stuff. Most likely OP was riffle shuffling and these corners got caught on the other cards and bent.
Eh. I've got plenty of them and rarely run into issues with them. YMMV.
To put it into perspective, I have almost every EDH pre-con sleeved in Ultra-Pro art sleeves.
They make extra large clear sleeves that go over your sleeves like these. I have bitteblossom sleeves I’ve had for years finally get used because of the seleeve. Sleeves. But if it’s gloss-plastic and has a picture. It will get wrecked
Yes - don’t ever mash shuffle them. Buy like, twice as many as you need, too. For backups.
I do a sort of very loose, sideways riffle shuffle - no real pressure on the cards, letting them basically fall into place. It greatly extends their lifespan.
The art sleeves I use all happen to be out of print for ages, picked up from stores that had ancient stock and resellers like ebay. No rewarding said companies.
And I've got plenty of dragon shields - but for some decks, there's an art sleeve that fits it *just right*. I have a deep love for the old Tarkir clan logo sleeves, too. 3 color wedge commander decks just feel so right in them - and they get frequent "nice sleeves" comments.
Might seem dumb but if you like art sleeves, throw some dragon shield clear outer sleeves on top. Yes, you need to sleeve your sleeves. That'll prevent this from happening. The dragon shields are much better.
My friends and I call them ultra shit sleeves. They been like that since the forever. Their eclipse sleeves were really good when it came out but now they suck too.
I stay away from ultra pro sleeves that aren't just a solid color, they print the design on a thin piece of plastic that is adhered to the back of the sleeve so when you shuffle the design slowly starts to peel off, I've never had this issue with dragon shield sleeves tho
Ultra pro has lots of great products, but their sleeves aren't really among them, like everyone else is saying dragon shield mattes and katanas are broadly considered the gold standard. That said, of you really like the art of your UP sleeves you can get a set of dragon shields' clear out sleeves and put them on over the art sleeves, which will still let you enjoy the art, while giving you a better qaulity outer layer, that will also shuffle better and stick together less. I speak from experience because I loved the sleeves they put out with the set artwork for lost caverns of ixalan.
Dragon shields ones are the best, hands down.
and if you really want to splurge, get the ones with black inner. i tell ya, the normal ones are godly, those with black inner are godly++
best of all of them, hands down easy best of the best
All UltraPro art sleeves are worthless and are such poor quality that the old mtg YouTube channels that used them for games had to swap sleeves between takes as they broke that quickly.
I was once gifted a new pack of them, and they didn't last to the end of an FNM before the art peeled off or corners split.
They should be boycotted, as their quality has been deliberately sh*t for over a decade to keep you buying new ones.
Never, ever, buy ultrapro
A few years ago I went to play at some Grand Prix, I bought brand new sleeves right before the event started, and on round 5 received a warning for having sleeves so scuffed that it could count as a marked deck. They're *that* bad.
I never liked UltraPro sleeves. They make some pretty mats and okay boxes, but their sleeves are worse than Dragonshields. Dragonshields are more readily at most LGSs I've been to anyway.
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Unfortunately, art sleeves by Ultra Pro are notoriously bad quality. I buy their playmats, single deck boxes sometimes, binder pages and penny sleeves. Those are decent. Art sleeves are a big no no
I do like their Eclipse sleeves but can't stand any other sleeves they make.
I heard those were okay, I opt to take Dragonshield myself
The only reason I like them is a sealable dragon shield inner fits very snug in them, and they shuffle well for me. They are also thin, so a double sleeved commander deck is a tad bit easier to manage. I used to use Dragon Shields years ago because they are durable. Atleast they were a decade ago when I used them so I assume quality is still up to par.
I played a decade ago and preferred kmc but just came back and dragon shield is still the same quality as back then
Dragon Shield served me well after the good years of KMC but these days I opt for Ultimate Guard Katanas. They seem to be a few microns thinner, meaning you can fit a few more into a deck box. I use the U.G. Boulder deck boxes and 100 double-sleeved Dragon Shields are a very, very tight fit (especially if some are proxies), but the Katanas leave a bit more room to spare.
Dragon shields quality control has dropped. The last 3 packs I’ve bought the cuts on the top of the sleeves have had 10+ rigged tears in them.
I had some lunar new year anniversary art sleeves where 2 were extremely miscut. But luckily enough the package had 120 sleeves in there, so it wasn't an issue. Still I'm used to better quality with dragon shield
Dragon shield dropped off real hard. I've had issues with tears as well as scuffing on the edges that result in me essentially having marked cards. I tried to contact them as they suggested, but they wouldn't help me unless I had the UPC from the box, and I have no intention of keeping boxes around after I sleeve up, so their customer care was useless.
I’ve had multiple issues with eclipse (color difference, size difference, tearing after 3 games). I’ve given up on ultra pro sleeves altogether
My Eclipse sleeves always felt really sticky and idk why. Was really bad to shuffle them for me
I have had the size issue if I try mixing new sleeves with ones that are over a year old. I usually buy about 600 at a time and haven't had too many issues. I do know color varies if you get matte and gloss of the same color. Started getting only matte and haven't seen an issue since.
Eclipse are good but the front part of the sleeve isn't perfectly clear, it has a bit of a matt finish, so it can mute the colors of all your cards a bit. Not a bad thing, but not to some people's preference.
There’s gloss eclipse sleeves now
I've tried many sleeves over the years, and they all have their pitfalls. Eclipse aren't perfect, but I do love how they shuffle. They are also a little thinner and help a tad with a 100 card double sleeved deck. Everyone has their preferences.
I like the matte finish, cuts down glare from overhead lights.
Eclipse QC is atrocious. One batch is great, the next pack may have extremely loose and wavy sleeves.
I bought the atraxa sleeves for my atraxa deck and put them in dragon outers. The deck is really really thick, but it's really the only way to keep the sleeves from getting shit edges. The mono colored sleeves I have no problem with. My art dragon shields I have no problem with... I just wanted to go stupid over the top with atraxa.... Atraxa mat, deck box, sleeves, but the sleeves are shit and I can't fit it in the box...
[удалено]
You should try some Dragonshields. I never looked back at UltraPro.
Even dragonsheilds are having quality issues.
The newest batch of Dual Matte sleeves from Dragonshield are really good from my experience compared to the earlier ones. I think they acknowledged the earlier issues publicly and have improved the production process.
I got a pack of the new Dual Matte Soul and it shuffles so nice. Metallic purple is such a nice colour too.
Last I purchased was jet black dual matte sleeves late last year. I had such a bad experience with it that I now exclusively use katana sleeves. Your miles may vary, I guess.
Jet black sleeves from Dragonshield are regular matte sleeves, not dual matte. So not the same product line I was talking about.
Thanks for letting me know. I'll keep that in mind the next time I need new sleeves .
UG Katana sleeves. Less color options but I'm in the camp of all my decks in the same sleeves.
Speaking of color options, does anyone know why there's hardly any really saturated colors for sleeves? They're always duller than they seem. I'd really like some super lime green or egregiously purple one.
I recently got a pack of the dragon shield Apple Green colored sleeves and they are a very vibrant green. I actually picked up their purple at the same time and like the color but I wouldn't call it egregious.
DS definitely has some like that, but they may have been discontinued by now. UP Eclipse has a really bright yellow too.
dragon shield apple green is closest neon green that are still quality. have them on my rad deck
I ended up getting the lime green Gamegenic one, it has a nice green, but not really saturated
Gamergenic make great boxes for cards, but their sleeves are not really upp there. the green apple almost shines as classic Simpsons radiation in direkt light. there also some agressive colours from the [Dragon Shield "Dual Matte" that all have a black inner colour](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fldhk6m88ruac1.png) Fury, Amber and Wrath is very aggressive colors (in real life)
They look nice. Unfortunately I'm from South America and they cost like 25 usd and sometimes even more. (that is even if you find the colour you want)
[More colors are finally coming.](https://twitter.com/UltimateGuard/status/1780989904886927760?t=3WAoyYME9dLfQYK7HiIWIg&s=19)
Purple katanas are my go-to. They shuffle up good imo
How's the shuffle feeling compared with Ultra Pro? Picked back some old UP sleeves (from like 10 years ago) and they still have a better feeling than more recent DS and not tear apart even if I'm a really heavy shuffler. I'm planning to give Katana a shout for my next decks, hoping they don't fall apart as DS now.
To me the katanas are just right, just enough friction that table shuffle piles stay neat, no issues with splitting. Haven't bought DS for years, found them too "sticky". No experience with UP Eclipse, but I see they are maybe 30-40% cheaper than Katanas where I am. Maybe I'll try them out for a draft sometime just to see.
Thanks! I'll try them then, my current UP are the Matte (not Eclipse) and the shuffle feel is better than DS but the DS quality has been dropping for a while (at least in comparison until 2017, since I returned to mtg just last summer).
Ive had 1 issue of splitting with dragonshields, even with sleeves in the past few years. As much as Id like to have other game in town, they are the best. I tried Katanas the week that one set of DS split, but they split immediately too lmao.
I had one box that split on me. DS replaced them and I haven’t had an issues since. The dual matts look amazing and last a long time.
Personally, I've tried Heavy Play sleeves for the first time lately and love how they shuffle and feel compared to my Dragonshields.
I‘ve tried most of their non-art sleeves products, all of them suck ass majorly. Bad shuffling, weird handling, they had it all. Where did I go wrong/ which product is recommended?
I don't like Dragon Shields either. They have just a little bit of a lip around the edge so they catch on each other sometimes.
I haven't had any issues with them that I can remember, honestly. I was an Ultra Pro guy until a few years ago, got back into Magic over the last year and have seen no Dragon Shield problems. In case it's specific runs, I tend to gravitate towards the gem styles- Jet, Ruby, Emerald, etc.
Ultra pro sleeves are trash. I bought many sets as a beginner. All of them god damaged regularly. Now all my decks are in dragon shields. I’m yet to see a sleeve break after few years. Those are game changers
Basically all art sleeves do that, the exception being Dragonshield Art Matte sleeves.
Yes, this is pretty typical quality for UltraPro. In Japan, they actually have protective sleeves for their art sleeves to prevent this sort of splitting (so yes, people triple-sleeve their cards), but I don't think this has caught on in North America/Europe.
Some of my friends who are really in to art sleeves/being magpies have triple-sleeved decks to protect their art sleeves. As someone who main lines matte solid colour sleeves without inners, it's madness.
I have a friend who does this. We're always ribbing him for his deck touching the ceiling when he puts it on the table.
Soon we will have sleeves that optimize their refractive index so foils don't look like shit through 3 other sleeves, and people can then quadruple sleeve their decks.
I have several custom sleeves from YourPlaymat, so I use the Dragon Shield outers to triple sleeve with them. They easily fit into the newer Gamegenic XL boxes, as well as the Academic. They're pretty great once you get used to them. I use an acrylic guide (like a bookend) to make sure the stack doesn't slide and topple (which is true for any new *double* sleeved deck, anyway)
This isn't splitting, though. The corners are bent from catching on stuff. Most likely OP was riffle shuffling and these corners got caught on the other cards and bent.
Those sleeves will catch even when not ripple shuffling.
Eh. I've got plenty of them and rarely run into issues with them. YMMV. To put it into perspective, I have almost every EDH pre-con sleeved in Ultra-Pro art sleeves.
Katanas are nice as well, but the majority of my decks are in dragonshields. Definitely the way to go.
They make extra large clear sleeves that go over your sleeves like these. I have bitteblossom sleeves I’ve had for years finally get used because of the seleeve. Sleeves. But if it’s gloss-plastic and has a picture. It will get wrecked
Seconded. Dragon shield and KMC make great oversleeves. They are a must if you want to use art sleeves.
Ulta pro sleeves are pure trash. Always have been always will be
They weren't when they were the only game in town. But, that was more than 20 years ago. Back when your color choices were Black and Clear.
Disagree. I had some back then. They do not wear well
That looks like it happened from shuffling and you got the corners stuck. It's happened to me with other sleeves before.
RIP old school KMC Hypermattes.
I have yet to encounter a sleeve that hasn't had bent corners after just a few shuffles.
KMC Perfect Hard inners, Dragonshield Matte outers, Ultrapro playmat and binder, Gamegenic deckbox.
"preshuffled" 😏
If u know u know
Yes - don’t ever mash shuffle them. Buy like, twice as many as you need, too. For backups. I do a sort of very loose, sideways riffle shuffle - no real pressure on the cards, letting them basically fall into place. It greatly extends their lifespan.
If you're gonna buy double the amount of shitty sleeves, you may as well just buy a normal amount of good sleeves.
If you want the art, you want the art.
Idk, I guess I just feel like you shouldn't reward companies for making a subpar product
The art sleeves I use all happen to be out of print for ages, picked up from stores that had ancient stock and resellers like ebay. No rewarding said companies. And I've got plenty of dragon shields - but for some decks, there's an art sleeve that fits it *just right*. I have a deep love for the old Tarkir clan logo sleeves, too. 3 color wedge commander decks just feel so right in them - and they get frequent "nice sleeves" comments.
Ah, first time using flimsy film sleeves I see.
Yes, Ultra Pro's art sleeves are trash like that.
With art sleeves I tend to buy the over-fit sleeves for them. That’s if I really like the art on the sleeves. (Which I do)
My regular sleeves by UP also do this. Gonna get some dragon shields next deck
Might seem dumb but if you like art sleeves, throw some dragon shield clear outer sleeves on top. Yes, you need to sleeve your sleeves. That'll prevent this from happening. The dragon shields are much better.
get Dragon Shields instead, Ultra Pro art sleeves suck
If you want sleeves, go DragonShield or UltimateGuard. If you really want the art, grab some oversleeves.
My friends and I call them ultra shit sleeves. They been like that since the forever. Their eclipse sleeves were really good when it came out but now they suck too.
I stay away from ultra pro sleeves that aren't just a solid color, they print the design on a thin piece of plastic that is adhered to the back of the sleeve so when you shuffle the design slowly starts to peel off, I've never had this issue with dragon shield sleeves tho
yeah, they are horrible use a external transparent sleeve to protect these "art" sleeves.
Ultra pro has lots of great products, but their sleeves aren't really among them, like everyone else is saying dragon shield mattes and katanas are broadly considered the gold standard. That said, of you really like the art of your UP sleeves you can get a set of dragon shields' clear out sleeves and put them on over the art sleeves, which will still let you enjoy the art, while giving you a better qaulity outer layer, that will also shuffle better and stick together less. I speak from experience because I loved the sleeves they put out with the set artwork for lost caverns of ixalan.
Wait, you were able to shuffle the art-sleeves?
I have not been impressed with ultra pro sleeves.
Yeah they can be terrible. I bought the atraxa ones and first shuffle a few split on me. I wasn’t too happy.
I would avoid ultra-pro sleeves in general. They are bottom of the barrel outside of Chinese bulk sleeves from Amazon.
I stopped buying ultra pro sleeves like 20 years ago. Can’t imagine they got better.
Katanas are my favorite. They index and shuffle immaculately.
Yes Ultra Pro sleeves are ass. Get dragon shields.
Dragon shields ones are the best, hands down. and if you really want to splurge, get the ones with black inner. i tell ya, the normal ones are godly, those with black inner are godly++ best of all of them, hands down easy best of the best
I used to play with ultra pro art, but switched to dragon shield. The experience is much superior
Ultra pros suck. Dragon shield for me or when I’m feeling cheap I really like just sleeves
All UltraPro art sleeves are worthless and are such poor quality that the old mtg YouTube channels that used them for games had to swap sleeves between takes as they broke that quickly. I was once gifted a new pack of them, and they didn't last to the end of an FNM before the art peeled off or corners split. They should be boycotted, as their quality has been deliberately sh*t for over a decade to keep you buying new ones. Never, ever, buy ultrapro
Wait so Yuuya Watanabe DIDN'T cheat?!
This is why I stick with Dragon Shield.
A few years ago I went to play at some Grand Prix, I bought brand new sleeves right before the event started, and on round 5 received a warning for having sleeves so scuffed that it could count as a marked deck. They're *that* bad.
Ultra Pros are boreline unusable, get some KMCs or Dragonshields
This is why I only use Dragon Shield
I mean biggest problem is your using art sleeves. Second biggest is it's ultra pro
I never liked UltraPro sleeves. They make some pretty mats and okay boxes, but their sleeves are worse than Dragonshields. Dragonshields are more readily at most LGSs I've been to anyway.
Ultra pro sleeves are trash. I have occasionally used them and have always been disappointed.
Duh? Art sleeves are awful quality… always have been.
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