card sleeving... what's okay? what's not?

D

Dark Star

New Member
What (if any, in these interesting times we are currently living in...) are the official rules for sleeving decks?

I'll hazard that "your deck must be all in matching sleeves" because this seems like a no-brainer to me (though not to everyone -- this is actually an issue, would you believe... -- our oh-so-unofficial group is actually going to have to write some rules...). But after that?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Basically, we follow the all-the-same-sleeve for the deck; other sleeves are fine for Side and Extra Deck. No double-sleeving. Preferably YuGiOh! sized and no gallery patterns to aide in spotting cheaters, but that is really up to the Head Judge and/or Tournament Organizer as to what they wish to enforce.

Normally, the decision would be that of the HJ, but some circumstances that are governed by the TO may moot the HJ's decision, like the (non)availability of replacement sleeves by vendors.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The TOs that accept printed sleeves will always say they're okay as long as they are all turned the same way in the deck.

In addition, all sleeves should be in good condition, so no folds and nicks can be construed as marking.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I've never understood the no double sleeving rule myself. I double sleeve my cards and no one has ever had a problem with it. Of course, I typically only go to unofficial tournaments and the occasional hobby league.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Dimensionruler said:
I've never understood the no double sleeving rule myself. I double sleeve my cards and no one has ever had a problem with it. Of course, I typically only go to unofficial tournaments and the occasional hobby league.
Click to expand...

As a deck checker, I can tell you, you get the feel for what single sleeves are like. If there are variations, it is easier to feel. Double sleeving throws that off. Makes it easier to cheat. I know of several ways to cheat using double sleeves. If cheating wasn't a concern, I would prefer double to protect the cards.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Sorry to bump this up again, but we just had a couple new people wander in today and card sleeves came up -- they said shiny metallic and picture or patterned sleeves were never allowed at a tournament, but seemed to think larger ones were okay. However, if I understand your posts from earlier, this actually depends on the tournament's judges and organizers -- it's their call, and there is nothing official one way or another come down from on high from Konami.

Obviously plain is preferable and smaller is preferable, I understand that. But the only official requirement is sleeved to match, in sleeves in good shape, side deck can be in different sleeves, extra deck can be in still different sleeves. After that anything stricter is up to the head judge and can vary tournament to tournament and judge to judge, and tends to be somewhat dependent on the availability of supplies? And larger sleeves can be just as much as a problem as patterned ones? Or am I misinterpreting something....?

What about official Konami sleeves? They are putting out packs of sleeves in the Ancient Fairy Dragon and Power Tool Dragon Tins -- they are sort of silver or copper colored and have the Yugioh 5Ds logo on them and I think Konami TM....
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
At GenCon 09 both gallery patterns and non-YuGiOh! sized sleeves were allowed. obviously, shiny-backed sleeves that allow a player to see the card above and sleeves with those diamond patterns that obscure the face are still discouraged.

BTW, did you know that in Japan NO markings at all are allowed on the card faces? Apparently, signed, colored-in, written upon, "artistically enhanced" cards are not allowed! With our recent trend toward doing things the way they do in Japan, don't be too surprised if you wake up one day and find that we begin to do the same here.

....I'm just saying.....
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
DarkLogicianOfCaos said:
... and sleeves with those diamond patterns that obscure the face are still discouraged.
Click to expand...

:?: Diamond patterns? That obscure the face? You mean something that has a pattern on the front, on the clear part, where the card shows? I've never even seen anything like that... Various weird holographic patterns on the back, but not on the front. Or am I missing something here....?

DarkLogicianOfCaos said:
BTW, did you know that in Japan NO markings at all are allowed on the card faces? Apparently, signed, colored-in, written upon, "artistically enhanced" cards are not allowed! ...
Click to expand...

:?: Again, huh? You can't write on your card, you can't draw on your card, is that what you mean? Well, that makes sense -- but why would you want to? Or am I missing something else?

Okay, if I could get K. Takahashi to autograph a card, I probably would, but I wouldn't play with it afterwords, I'd put it away carefully forever instead -- heck, I might get the thing framed!

(Now I feel like I'm living in a total backwater -- things that just wouldn't have ever occurred to us to do... Artistically enhance your cards, never mind what you just did to the collecting value, let's just scribble all over them because the original art just wasn't good enough I guess. Hmmmmmm..... Actually I'm assuming people are getting autographs from, say, the national champs or something, but the artistic enhancement really does puzzle me.)

Back to being serious --

What we are dealing with locally is generally plain Ultra-Pro sleeves, MAX Protection sleeves with dragons, elves, etc. on the back, and soon the new 5Ds sleeves (like these: http://www.toywiz.com/yugiohkonamicopper5ds.html) because they are in one of the new tins that just went on sale. They are rather metallic, but not shiny, more of a pebbly matte finish and come in silverish, and in copperish. I've seen blue on the internet, but I don't think they're in the tins...

Finding sleeves that are actually sized for smaller cards is a real struggle in town lately. (grumble.)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I hear you. It should suffice to say that if Konami sent them out with the tins they should be allowed. We had problems with allowing official YGO stuff to be used when we were with UDE, but Konami seems to be a little more slack. Like I said, at the SJC GenCon, we allowed both Standard sleeves and gallery patterns.

As for the other things you mentioned...I've got five or six of the top duelists in my area and, yes, autographs abound. Signed mats, signed cards, signed shirts and hats. It's bizarre. Once one of my newer judges picked up the results slip at a regionals to give a penalty and asked "Your name?". The player looked up at him with incredulity and said, "Seriously?? You don't know who I am??" My judge looked down at the slip and saw a name he recognized and said, "It would be safe to assume, then that you are _______?" Not all of them are like that, but it does baffle the mind, rather. When Joe Superstar wins and holds up his Monster Reborn as the card that sealed the deal, you better believe 20 players will dig out their Monster Reborns for him to sign. I've even autographed a few mats and cards in my time and I just Head Judge the events.

Some players think their Kuriboh, Cloudian Puff Ball, or Trap Hole, could just use a little pizazz. Or they decide that Counselor Lily would look a lot more like Julia if she had a Judge shirt drawn on her. Normally, you don't draw on collectibles, but I had a dear friend who lent out his Crush Card Virus and the person he lent it to got it signed by the (Nationally famous) winner of the event. Needless to say my friend was vexed!! I know a lady who took something like 10 All-Seeing Tiger cards, cut out various parts and glued them together to make the most beautiful 3-D image. Popped it in a plastic case and had it on sale for. like, $15.00. Just incredible how the Tiger's head and front paw stuck out ahead of the rest, with the moon hanging behind, yet on its own, before the night sky in the backdrop. I wish I had a picture to show you.....
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well, I can see getting an autograph -- I just don't see playing with the card afterwords...

Either you are going to beat up the card -- or you are going to beat up the autograph... Either way it's worth less. Call us old fashioned, but autographed things went into the family bible when I was I was growing up. (I think I have Wolfman Jack's in there somewhere...) You know, to keep them safe....
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You let the Midnight Special ride....<ahem> sorry.

I think what he was referring to with the hologram on the cover is the little hologram in the top or bottom corner with the product logo. Of course, if you ban that, then you ban them altogether, as they all have logos on the front. Kinda the point.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
So the little round Ultra-Pro dot and the like would be no-nos? Good grief....

We actually have some sleeves without markings on the front, but heaven alone knows who manufactured them, because they came bundled with booster packs in blister packages at Target or Walmart or somewhere about three years ago. You only got forty, which meant if you wanted more cards in your deck, or if you had a sleeve blow out, you were just plain out of luck.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You almost always have to buy two packs for it to be worth the expense.

I would worry about the sleeve thing too much. As long as they can't use the cards to "mark" cards in their deck, then it's mostly up to the Head Judge what can and can't be used. Most of the time they allow printed cards as long as they're all the same and the images are all turned the same way. If it's too much of a hassle, then just insist on solid sleeves, as they're common and inexpensive enough. Maybe even give them out as a gift for signing up for an event before hand.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I don't remember a point in time when patterned sleeves were not allowed either under UD, UDE, or Konami. Having been deck check lead at a great many SJCs & Nationals I have a pretty good idea what the company is allowing.

The only restrictions I've ever been aware of are those that have already been mentioned...

1. No double sleeving
2. All sleeves must be identical (with cards in them they need to be identical that is)
3. Sleeves must not be so refective as to be able to tell the card or card type (Spell, trap, monster) from the adjancent card.

Personally I'm going to be making a case to only allow YGO sized sleeves. I've seen instances of players trying to cheat by virtue of using over sized sleeves as of late.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Digital Jedi said:
You almost always have to buy two packs for it to be worth the expense.

If it's too much of a hassle, then just insist on solid sleeves, as they're common and inexpensive enough. Maybe even give them out as a gift for signing up for an event before hand.
Click to expand...

That's the thing -- they aren't common around here at the moment, at least not in Yugioh size -- you flat out have to order them off the internet. One store got some smaller sleeves in at our request, but he chose to get the ones with dragons and elves and things on the backs -- I suppose they sell better. We actually had a couple guys in from one of the small towns around here a week ago who'd never even seen narrower sleeves before -- they were amazed.

The ones I mentioned before as plain backs and fronts were luck of the draw -- you bought a blister pack with something you wanted in it, and you might get black in one set and blue in a different one, and red in still another. I think I even saw some that gave you twenty of one color behind one booster and twenty of the a different color behind the other booster -- that was pretty useless, huh? Ah, the joys of being at the mercy of the big box store distributers....

Good grief -- how do you cheat with oversized sleeves? :?: (No, I really don't want to know, I'm being facetious.) There's one in every crowd, isn't there?

We just find oversized a pain in the butt to try to shuffle! Keep dropping half of our decks, which is annoying... The amazing, exploding deck!

Sometimes I think this whole try-to-start-a-league thing is an excuse to convince one of the local hobby shops to give us more product support again. The place that just dumped all it's Yugioh and most of it's Pokemon in order to put in more MTG used to be the best place to shop in town.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Cheating with oversized sleeves is really quite easy. If you need to know for judging purposes PM me. I don't like to relay such information in public as it only spreads the practice.

That's just the problem with catching cheating though I've learned. It often takes a thief to catch a theif, or else someone who, like me, is naive but through the years has kept their ears open enough when people who do cheat or knows people who cheat have loose lips and by listening to judges who have spotted methods and are less niave than I.

I've learned over the years just an asstounding amount of ways that players cheat. Some of the ways just make you shake your head in amazement that someone would go to such lengths to gain an advantage in a CARD GAME....my gosh, this isn't your mortgage or first born!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Dark Star said:
:?: Diamond patterns? That obscure the face? You mean something that has a pattern on the front, on the clear part, where the card shows? I've never even seen anything like that... Various weird holographic patterns on the back, but not on the front. Or am I missing something here....?
Click to expand...

These are the Players Choice sleeves. Some people swear by them. I have had some for over 3 years. They are still in excellent shape, with the exception of the prismatic front. They do fade and become clear over time.

As for the sleeves in the tins, I find those to be some of the cheapest things ever made. They are extremely thin. I dontated mine to my local tournament for those kids that cant afford any.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
We discovered this last weekend that the silvery ones are opaque, the copper ones ... aren't..... You can see the card backs through them -- which means if you are sleeving your deck because the cards are too beat up to pass a deck inspection, they won't work.

Drat. Because at least they fit. Grrrrrr.:blue:

Oh, well, back to the drawing board.....

(Haven't seen any Player's Choice for sale ever in town anywhere, so the best I could do is Google search and look at store images, and they don't really show the pattern I'm afraid....)
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top