Normally, I wouldn’t spend a ton of time on this, because I haven’t been a person who has sleeved cards for a board game before, but I think there is a reason to sleeve at times. I also don’t believe that you always need to sleeve your cards for games. Let us dive into why you might or might not and the cases that I would or do sleeve.

Why To Not Sleeve

Cost, sleeves aren’t cheap for your cards. Especially for a massive game like Marvel Champions that is always coming out with more content, or a deck builder like Dominion which has a ton of expansions and is all cards. For Dominion, the cheapest that I found on SleeveYourGames.com is about $100. And those are cheap sleeves that a lot of people wouldn’t consider using.

It also makes it trickier to shuffle. I am a big person, 6’4″ so I can shuffle a large deck of cards. Sleeves add so much size to the cards. So not only is it trickier to shuffle, but it’s trickier to store. A sleeve doubles the size, maybe more of the cards. Boxes with inserts might no longer fit the cards. That leads to more cost as you need a new box to store everything which can be a fairly cheap cardboard card box or an expensive wooden box.

Why To Sleeve

It keeps the cards nicer. And it allows you to smash shuffle if you want versus other shuffles. But think about all the fingers that get on the cards. Especially for a collectible card game (or trading card game as they go by now), you can have cards that are worth large amounts of money. So getting a sleeve for a $100 card, that can help protect your investment.

But what about regular games, why would you sleeve. Some it could still be money wise, the game is out of print. But games like Dominion, Marvel Champions, Sushi Go Party, or others where you are handling the cards often can last longer sleeved.

When Do I Sleeve

Honestly, I don’t sleeve much, but when I do sleeve I look for a few things. First, with collectible card games, I tend to sleeve those. Not because I am so worried about the resale value of my cards, but because when I’ve gotten good cards, expensive cards for Magic decks, I don’t get them in mint condition. Without them being sleeved I could then tell, or anyone could, when those cards were showing up.

Next is the quality of the cards or how much the cards are handled. Right now I am sleeving Marvel United. The card stock on those cards is thinner and while I have 85 or something different characters to use, I want to make sure that the cards stay in good shape. They won’t get shuffled much, but the characters who are played will get handled a fair amount, so the thinner card stock will benefit from a cheap sleeve.

I also consider how much the cards are handled. There are two games that I need to sleeve because of how much they are handled. The first is Love Letter. The card quality isn’t super high, there are very few cards, and they are handled all of the time. The same goes for Sushi Go Party, some cards, the nigiri, are handled all the time in every game. That means that those cards will show more wear and tear faster. I could also see that happening in Point Salad as well.

Should You or Shouldn’t You?

Personally, I don’t get sleeving every game. That is a lot of money to keep a board game nicer. In the case of something like Dominion, there are a ton of cards total with all the expansions. And if you want expensive sleeves for the base game and all the expansions, it would cost a lot. Plus any new expansions you need to match-up the sleeve type. So there is a tipping point, when would it be easier to replace the game versus sleeve it. Sushi Go Party is on that edge as well. I maybe can get a new copy cheaper than I can sleeve it all.

So I do not believe you need to sleeve all of your games. If that makes you feel better about it, go for it, but some games, definitely don’t need them. Even something like Gloomhaven that has a ton of cards, I played the full game and the few cards that are shuffled often were still fine at the end of the game. So consider how often you use and shuffle each card in the game, the more often you do, the more likely sleeving it is something you could consider.

Let me know if you sleeve your games? Do you do it for board games or just TCG’s (trading card games)? What are your preferred sleeves?

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