Gear up: Dragon Shield x Flesh and Blood Matte Art Sleeves

A while ago, I wrote about my Road to KGI. In that post, I wrote quite a bit about my gear: deckboxes, sleeves, binders and what not. It was fun to write, and hopefully to read.

I want to continue a series about my gear, particularly when I change them or when I try out new accessories. I feel like I have a decent baseline to compare new accessories, as most of my gear are The Professor's top picks (if you don't know who The Professor is, go check out Tolarian Community College on youtube, amazing content creator).

These posts won't be 'reviews' of these TCG accessories. After all, we already have The Professor for that. They'll just just be a quick thought on my personal experience with using them.

On with the sleeves! I will be talking about my experience of using Dragon Shield x Flesh and Blood Matte Art Sleeves. The baseline for sleeves will be Dragon Shield Matte sleeves. I also double sleeve and use KMC perfect fit sleeves.

At a glance

These sleeves are twice the price of the good ol' Dragon Shield Matte, about £15 at my LGS compared to £8. The higher price tag means these new sleeves likely won't become my new go-to. But, the question is, what do we get for the doubling in price?

The most attractive thing about these sleeves are, obviously, the hero on the artwork! For those players who play these heroes (Oldhim, Lexi, Chane and Prism), they get to bling out their deck. For me, personally, this was reason enough to shell out the cash to get at least one pack of sleeves for the heroes I play.

The reusable deck boxes that the sleeves came in are also hella nice, just thought it was worth mentioning. The front and back is the hero art. The top is the usual label fiels that Dragon Shield Sleeve deck boxes have, but with some artwork of the hero as well. All the other sides of the box sports a warm wooden colour and pattern you would find on some of the original FaB products like Welcome to Rathe, though it is a bit darker.

There is one bit about these sleeves that sparks more conversations than others, the white interior. It's quite a timely conversation as well, since we recently saw the release of History Packs, which featured white border cards. Some black border fans do not find white border cards in History packs their cup of tea, myself included. However, we do find some intrigue in the idea of white border on white interior.

After seeing them side by side, I'm still not sure I'm a fan of white border cards at all 😂. But, I am finding black border cards on white interior sleeves somewhat acceptable.

Sleeving

Looks might not be enough to convince some to buy these sleeves. So, how about function?

I unsleeved my Lexi deck from their old Dragon Shield Matte and sleeved them up in these new sleeves. One thing I noticed straight away is the change in sleeving experience.

Usually, when double sleeving, I have to use a chaff card to insert the card into the outer sleeves.

The reason for doing this is to prevent the perfect fit sleeves from sliding out of the card in the process. However, I managed to get all my cards, that was already sleeved with perfect fits, into the new sleeves without even using a chaff card! I found the reason for this to be the material that is used for the back of sleeves. The material seems to be more 'paper-like' than normal Dragon Shield Mattes, which are definitively more plastic. This creates less friction when in contact with the perfect fit sleeves,  they don't get 'caught' and doesn't slide out. A shame I won't be buying these sleeves too often because they provide a much nicer sleeving experience.

Shuffling

I'm sure everyone has their own preference when it comes to shuffle feel. With the more 'paper-like' feel of the material, the shuffling of these FaB Matte Art sleeves feels, well, more 'paper-like'. I wouldn't say its objectively less smooth. But, the texture of the back of the sleeves against the front, and the louder sound it makes compared to normal Dragon Shield Mattes, certainly does make it feel subjectively less smooth. It might need some breaking in though. Overall, it still feels pretty ok and somewhat unique even.

Gear Up?

So, will the new Dragon Shield x FaB Matte Art Sleeves be part of my TCG gear?

The amazing hero art makes it a very attractive product, and the nicer sleeving experience is also a plus! I'll very likely still go for these once in a while, if they have the hero on the artwork is one I play extensively. I am looking forward to the Iyslander sleeves, as I am to playing Iyslander.

However, I won't always be getting these over my current Dragon Shield Mattes. The much higher price point is a big turn-off. I also would have liked a black interior, like Dragon Shield does with their newer Dual Matte sleeves (which I have yet to try). The shuffle feel is also not entirely to my liking. I think £15 is the most premium price point for commercial sleeves I've seen. Granted, it is a collaboration, so a higher price point is expected. However, I would have been personally much happier if these premium sleeves were black interior, full art and no border on the back of the sleeves, with shuffle feel similar to Dragon Shield's Brushed Art sleeves. But, that's just my personal preference, I'm sure other prefer different things for the premium price point.