Considering Unsleeving

I go unsleeved for two reason. Number one the size. Number two it would actually cost slightly more to sleeve the cards than I've spent on the game and every promo and expansion. I can replace the game for about the same cost as buying sleeves for everything. Though I do plan on sleeving all the hero and villain character cards just because it will set them apare from the deck as a whole.

I think going bareback is the way to go.  Sleeved cards take too much space and slide around too much when you try to shuffle or stack them.  I think you should unsleeve them, man.

I think everyone should unsleeve their cards to cut down on the QQ we get from people who want to wrap their cards in yards of plastic then complain that, after they've done that, the cards no longer fit in a box designed to fit unsleeved cards.  ;)

I don't particularly like sleeved cards either.  In fact, I'm seriously considering printing labels (using the Zebra labeler I have at work) and label the changes made to my original set cards rather than sleeve and set a cutout of the changes.  The label method seemed to work well with this playtesting set I just printed over last week.

The only reason I don't want to sleeve my cards is so they can all fit in the box. But, I play my game at game bars, kitchen tables, and palces that tend to be dirty. Also, some of my friends have surprosingly dirty/greasy fingers. I don't want my cards to get damaged. 

I'm choosing function over fashion here. 

I've always kept my cards unsleeved, with the exception of the promo cards (especially Young Legacy). I just want to make sure those are preserved. However, all the other cards are unsleeved. I think it's going to be important to have unsleeved cards soon. As stated in today's Kickstarter update, yes, all the cards fit in the box, but I tested it myself to see if it would all fit (put a villain and evironment deck together, =40 cards) and with three new hero decks, they will just BARELY fit in the box. They're really squeezed on that side. I think I might have to use the ST box to keep the core ST decks, because it was really difficult to wiggle out the decks when there are 18 hero decks. So having those cards sleeved would certainly cause a space issue. Though I'm sure once Vengeance is out, we'll only need the core box and the Vengeance box to hold everything.

I find this thread very enlightening and uplifting.  I play with my cards unsleeved and the abundance of "Best Sleeves" threads here and an on BGG made me feel like I was doing something dumb.  I'm happy to see so many other community members have made the same decision.

I played M:tG back in Revised and never sleeved my cards with the exception of one brief foray which was quickly reversed.  Some of the cards I shuffled back then were worth more than all of the SotM cards combined and I didn't think twice about bringing down the value.  I debated sleeving SotM until a friend I used to play Magic with reminded me that SotM is not a collectible game and the cards will function fine even if they get dinged up a little.

I am a real stickler for clean hands and not snacking while playing.  My friends are used to my OCD behavior by now, so we should be able to maintain the set for a long time.  For anyone that's still on the fence, I recall a post from Christopher (possibly on BGG) where he stated that the >G demo set is unsleeved and looks practically brand new after hundreds of plays.

I've played more than a hundred games, with cards unsleeved, and they don't show much damage. One or two have scratches, one is a little bent, that's all. They seem to have a natural damage reduction of one. So unless you play in dangerous environments (kitchen, bar, Pike laboratories), they should be fine !

Yeah, you definately don't want to play unsleeved in the Pike Industrial Laboratories.  Those Checmical Explosions really destroy cards.

On the other hand, if you get some acid lodged inside a sleeve, it's going to end up as just a little packet of dissolved goop. Better put each card in a sealed ziploc bag to be safe.

The best investment I have made in protecting my cards is a tablecloth sized piece of black felt. Since i dont own or have room for a card table, it helps to make the cards easier to pick up thus preventing those nasty tears and wear marks on the border from peoples finger nails. It also prevents scratching by giving you a clean surface to play on and stops the sliding that happens on glass and other super smooth sufaces. The color, in addition to looking bad ass, helps you identify any grit that the cloth might have picked up. And the best part it only cost me $3 with a coupon at my local fabric and craft store.

I am with UXM. I really like my sleeved cards and think they shuffle nicely. I can deal if they don't all fit in the box as long as the cards look great and my OCD is satisfied. 

I generally prefer sleeved cards, but I'm super picky about sleeves. Got burned by some really crappy batches of Mayday sleeves that stuck together, and nicer sleeves are way too thick and expensive to sleeve up this many cards at once.

At least you're not shuffling every other turn so the wear is less than a game like Thunderstone or Dominion.

Given everything I know now I'm not sure I would make the same decision -- to not only sleeve but use premium sleeves. I love the game and really enjoy having the premium sleeves in terms of their feel and the ability to, er, side shuffle. 

The inability to fit in the original box is an anoyance. There was not such an awesome box when I originally decided to sleeve ...

My briefcase solution works well enough now, but it won't be able to accommodate all of the cards (not sure it will even contain all of Vengeance, much less the two sets after that).

I've heard a rumor that there might eventually be an ultimate storage solution available. I wonder, if such a thing were to be created, if it would accommodate sleeved cards.

Out of curiosity, for those planning to fit all 3 expansions.
How do you plan to transport the tokens?

Currently unsleeved and still with the foam I am able to carry all the tokens and cards. (mInus mini-expansions)

Personally I was thinking of placing Shattered Timelines into Vengeance since Vengeance won't fit in the main box anyways. (Mainly cause I saved on shipping by combining my Vengance and ST shipment) 

I put the tokens, dice (for tracking large HP amounts), rulebooks, and oversized villain cards in the IR box and just carry around two boxes.

I will probably continue sleeving, but I have to saythat I met the >G guys at conventions, their cards are NOT sleeved and they look perfect. That copy must have had more games than I will ever do!

I just finished sleeving Rook City and Infernal Relics.  I sleeved my first edition cards as they were showing significant wear and to slip in the EE inserts. I decided that I liked them well enough, or valued uniformity enough, to do the rest.  The cost for the sleeves was about $12.00 (Pro Deck penny sleeves) and I consider it worthwhile.  Since I had the tiny box version of the game, I bought a metal case that has significant remaining capacity.  Off hand, I think I can hold one normal-sized expansion after Shattered Timelines before I need to add a third row.

My decision my be influenced on the fact that we tend to play at a local brew-pub.  I know my play is influened by the products of the brew-pub.

I don't know if I would have gone this route again, as Case+ sleeves +$10.00 = Cost of Expanded Edition, but the decisions made sense at the time.

I have my cards sleeved, and I think I'm going to keep them that way.  I'm pretty good about expecting clean hands and no food when we play the game, but sometimes I'm not so crazy about it and I would really hate if that was the day some of my cards bit the dust.  I know I can get replacements if something goes wrong, but I love this game and I want to keep it in as nice a condition as I can.  I can wait for Vengeance to store my Shattered Timelines stuff.

Also, I store my counters in two of those plastic ziplocs that my sleeves came in (one for the HP tokens, and one for the status tokens) that are kept in a Crown Royal bag.  I already use dice to keep track of hit points anyway, so carrying around an extra dice/game bag wasn't too much of a problem.  I transport the whole game in a large messenger bag (along with the print-and-play of War/Devastation of Indines, and Project Tungsten), so I'm used to carrying quite a bit of game swag!  If a dicebag isn't ideal for any of your gaming experiences, then I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help!

Nothing says "gamer" like a dicebag, though. Can't beat the classics!

Thanks for the feedback.

Since I am still deciding whether to sleeve my cards. For people that have them sleeved, do tokens currently fit with them?

I am currently debating I might keep Environment and Villans unsleeved and just sleeve the Heroes as they tend to be played more and shuffled more depending on the powers. Also due to some people's player affiliation to always choose the same hero.

Tokens do NOT fit if you have all sleeved, but you are not fitting the rules or the oversized villains either. I carry them in a small zip box

As for sleeving, my general reasoning is to sleeve what is heavily used (like heroes), but not cards that are barely touched (villains or environments are only shuffled early game, but that's it). It seems silly to only partially sleeve a game...but I may do that for a while

Personally, I have the Original Edition, and Rook City (with Infernal Relics on its way once I get my next paycheck!), and I've used Ultra-Pro penny sleeves for everything so far. While I appreciate how well they keep things clean, I have noticed a tendency to stick to each other, which leads me to believe my play group doesn't have the cleanest hands. An idea I thought of to rectify that problem, as well as the thought that I would like to have the cards take up less space, is to laminate the whole bloody lot of 'em. I'm planning on testing it out on some extra Magic cards I have, seeing how easy it is, and going from there.

I sleeve all my cards with Fantasy Flight sleeves, which makes them take up significantly more room, so I had to find an alternative storage solution.  Nothing really worked too well until I came across this wooden artist case from Hobby Lobby (pic attached), which I modified slightly to handle the game.  It fits everything now and should handle Shattered Timelines and Vengeance fine (even with the extra decks I use for the promo cards).  Once the fourth row is filled with cards I will attach some kind of pouch to the lid to hold the tokens, oversized cards and other miscellaneous items I use with the game.

Jagarciao, that box is great - never thought to look someplace like Hobby Lobby for a box. Thanks for the idea!

Wow! You arelady have TL Tachyon's separator? where did you get it? Also, 2 decks for Alternate Wrath, Legacy, Fanatic and Ra? What will you do with the third Warth? :p

I made the separators for the promo decks.  Just printed them on photo paper and glued two copies of them back to back.

When I first got the game I ended up with an extra copy, so I have extra decks to use for the promo heroes.  I don't think I'll be getting a third deck for Wraith though... but if they keep making alternates for her I may have a whole box dedicated to the Wraith someday.

What did you have to modify?

It was very minor. I removed a lid attachment that held a palette and took out the inner the tray and dividers it came with (those weren't attached). I also made dividers out of bass wood sheets to create the rows.

Here's a link to it in the Hobby Lobby website.  You can see what it looks like there.

http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/wooden-artist-case-125005/

I store my oversized villain cards in toploaders separate from the game, so I don't know if they would fit otherwise, but you can't fit the rules?  All of my cards are sleeved and the rule books from the core, Rook City, and Infernal Relics fit perfectly.

I have sleeved all of the hero decks since they're used and shuffled often. But I didn't bother sleeving villain decks or environments. Everything but the environments fit in the EE box. Environments fit in the IR box. And the tokens are in ziploc bags with the oversized villain cards in the Rook City box with the plastic insert pulled out. 

That doesn't sounds so hard!

That sounds like it might be.

Not at all.  I got sheets that were 1/16 of an inch think from my local art store.  They are very easy to cut with a ruler and an exacto knife. and I didn't even attach them to the box since I wanted to  keep the layout more versatile (the fourth row is a little wider now to fit the oversized villain cards, but in the future it will be the same size as the other rows when it's filled with cards from the expansions.

Thanks. If they aren't attached, why don't they fall over?

The cards hold them in place. There's never really a time when you take all the cards out anyway. 

Would you mind posting your custom dividers up somewhere? I would love to print them myself

Yeah, that wouldn't be a problem at all, but the file is a bit large, so let me work on breaking it up or hosting it somewhere that people can access if they want to use them.

For what it is worth, we don't sleeve the demo copies of the games that we use at conventions, and they are still in decent shape after probably thousands of games with hundreds of different hands.

I managed to get them into two PDF files of less than 500K but I'm still getting an error message when trying to upload them here. 

PM me your email address and I'll just get them to you that way. 

If the dividers are placed vertically the space on top is drastically reduced....you CAN fit the rules inside the box, but I feel it forces a bit the box. It looks like it is going to break, so I would rather store them somewhere else. I barely look at them either, so it is fine for me ;)

I put one together tonight per your instructions and it was incredibly easy and looks great. Whole project cost under $20 too!  What size sleeves are you using for your oversized villian cards? I see that those are sleeved as well. 

I used Ultra Pro 4" x 6" soft sleeves. They come on a pack of 100 for about $7 or $8 and that should probably be enough to get you and a friend through the entire Sentinels run with all expansions.