Product Review: BCW Inner Sleeves
We're continuing our series on Supplies and Accessories Reviews today with a review of some BCW Inner Sleeves. What are inner sleeves you ask? They're used to double sleeve your cards; that is, you sleeve your card in a tightly fitting clear sleeve which you then put into regular card sleeves to provide extra protection to your cards. The correct technique is to put your card into the inner sleeve so that the opening is facing the bottom of the card, and then place the sleeved card into a regular sleeve. This ensures all edges of your card are properly protected.
Why Double Sleeve?
I double sleeve all my expensive, "permanent" decks. This includes my Modern and Legacy decks, and if I were to play Commander, my Commander deck as well. There are many benefits to double sleeving.
Water Damage
The extra sleeve helps protect against water damage. If you spill a drink over your cards, water may seep into the first sleeve, but will have a much harder time getting through the second sleeve. I've heard stories of people spilling Coke on their double-sleeved Legacy decks and having their cards escaping any damage.
Wear and Tear
Depending on your regular sleeves, sometimes the cards ride up and the top edge of the card touches or pops out of the top of the sleeve. The top of your card is then subject to general wear and tear from shuffling. Double sleeves help protect against this.
Inexpensive Insurance
If you're spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on cards, can't you spend a few bucks for some extra protection? If you save a $1 card with double sleeving, your investment has already paid off. Like I said before, I would never consider playing my Legacy deck without double sleeves.
Shuffling
This one is personal preference, but I find that shuffling in double sleeves much easier. My theory is the double sleeve adds a little bulget to the middle area of a sleeved-card, making mash shuffling much smoother and easier. However, people with small hands may find it harder to shuffle since the width of the deck is increased.
Reasons to Not Double Sleeve
I don't double sleeve everything; for example, I never double sleeve my limited decks. Here are some reasons to not double sleeve.
Time Consuming
This is probably the only legitimate reason. Resleeving a deck takes forever with double sleeves. Since the inner sleeve is tight, it's harder to put in and remove cards. As such, I would never consider double sleeving a Limited deck (maybe Modern Masters 2015 if I open a foil Goyf!). What I do is keep all my Legacy staples in inner-sleeves and never remove them, only shuffling aroudn the outersleeves when reconfiguring/building new decks. The cards stay in the inner sleeves and sit in storage boxes or trade binders.
Shuffling
As mentioned before, even though I generally like shuffling with double sleeves, those with small hands may find it difficult to shuffle. However, I think I would still bite the bullet on this one and just train myself if I had small hands if I were to play with a Black Lotus or a foil Tarmogoyf. Inner sleeves are so cheap that it's just not worth taking the risk.
BCW Inner Sleeves
Inner sleeves are pretty simple with the only things to evaluate are fit and clarity. The BCW Inner Sleeves fit Magic: the Gathering cards snuggly without any issues. They're also 100% transparent so they don't affect the readability of a card. The BCW Inner Sleeves double sleeve perfectly with common deck sleeves; I tried some out with my Dragonshields and the whole setup was perfect. The majority of my experience with double sleeved cards are with KMC Perfect Fits and Dragonshield Sleeves, and I saw no discernable difference between the KMC Perfect Fits and the BCW Inner Sleeves. Inner sleeves are a pretty simple product and the BCW Inner Sleeves performed their role perfectly. The only major decision here is price point; the BCW Inner Sleeves have an MSRP of $1.00 for a pack of 100, which is super cheap (compared to $4.50 for 100 for KMC Perfect Fits on Amazon). So I would definitely grab these if you're in the market for inner sleeves for double sleeving.
