A Review of Outer Sleeves for Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon (KMC Character Guard, Broccoli) 

Thanks Prof, even 4 years of its release this is still helpful, i'm getting the KMC CSG for my starry night dragon shield brushed sleeves :D

Inner sleeves, sleeves and now outer sleeves? Yo dawg, I heard you liked protection so we got you protection for your protection protectors so you can protect your protection while you protect your protection protection...

Gotta triple sleeve a deck, put that in a deck box, in a box for deck boxes, with a mat in a tube to hold tubes for mats, with a box for tokens and a bag for dice in a dice and tokens box, put all of this in a book bag, and still they will make more products to protect my mtg cards and the things that protect my mtg cards.

triple sleeving the new meta?

BTW for anyone asking about what kind of deckbox hold cards sleeved in these, an Ultra Pro Satin Tower can hold 60 triple-sleeved cards with no problems. I do hope this video gets an update at some point tho. There are a huge variety of Outer Sleeves out there fulfilling tons of different needs.

KMC should make hot dogs, I'm sure they'd make them in packs of 7. KMC perfect size = 100 KMC Hyper Mat = 80 KMC Mat&Clear = 60 KMC Perfect Hard = 50

so that means i can triple sleeve? hell yeah!!

Yes! Prof, I have been waiting for the KMC character guard, thank you!

Finally I can use character sleeves with my Weiss Schwarz Decks while still maintaining the awesome shuffle feel of Hyper Mats

Great to see for the Digimon TCG and it’s plethora of art sleeves. I’m personally more of a gold and silver border player. Shame that they haven’t done any other borders. That would be fun.

Wow, never thought about this before, but a quick shout out to prof. I'm too lazy to even desleeve a deck after a draft, and homeboy sleeves and desleeves over and over for each video. respect.

Itd be nice to see an updated version of this video in the near future.

Great video Professor! If you don't mind some suggestions, I have another set of Over-sleeves I would like to suggest reviewing: 1. Overguard Zs 2. Bushiroad Over-sleeves 3. Strong hard 4. KMC Perfect Hard Thank you very much for the review. Loved your channel since the first deckbox review! :)

I love the style of all your videos!

I watched one of your videos a while ago about Cubes. I was thrown into another video of yours today and I have to say, you know how to make any MTG content interesting. I really end up envying you and your quality. After hours of binge watching your videos, I feel like a much better Magic player (even though I have been playing for a couple years). Long story short, your videos are extremely helpful to anyone who plays the game, no matter the experience (not saying I have a lot of anyway). Keep up everything you are doing, Professor!

Thanks for pointing me towards the right sleeves, did not know these existed and they're exactly what I've been looking for =)

Sweet. I am pleased these were reviewed. I can say I spent over 18months using some KMC Silver Character Guard sleeves over Legion illustrated sleeves on my infect deck. Highly recommended.

Thank you Professor! Ive been trying to look around to find matte over sleeves for my illustrated card sleeves for quite a while now. Plus as always I appreciate your honest reviews! Keep up the great work!

what's next? sleeves for your sleeves for your art sleeves for your perfect fits for your 50 cent card?

I like the framed gold and silver ones.

I went to comic con and found some sleeves that were so hard to find... because they keep clipping on the edges are the worst to shuffle... FINALLY AN ANSWER!! THANK YOU!

Love the background music in this video. As if Magic wasn't calming enough haha the music is very good in this one, Professor. Great video! (Extra Credit???)

prof I know you are having a rough time with your videos. I want to right this to tell you i have watched every single video and I want to thank you for everything. I have been taking your advise and am going to be a patreon soon. Again thank you for all you have given to magic players like myself.

Perfect timing! Thanks for reviewing the kmc mat+clear - I'll use them for the eldritch moon dual sided cards.

I didn't even know these existed. This is great, because I love my Mario sleeves on my pauper Orzhov deck, but they are so fragile. Not for long! Kudos Prof!

Thanks for the great review, just ordered my outer sleeves.

Thanks professor, this is definitely a video I need. Now I just need to find a place to order KMC Mat Outer sleeves.

One thing I wanted to point out about Broccoli is their durability, which matches KMC's hyper mattes and far surpasses KMC's own sleeve protectors. I've had a set on a deck for 5 years and while dirt becomes a natural problem at that point I've only had one of them split on me, and not a very big split at that. The double gloss ones also shuffle pretty well and I prefer those over the matte ones.

I guess the Bushiroad Oversleeves are for another oversleeve video? Also for those wondering why the oversleeves are in packs of 60 it is because most of the card games in Japan are 50 card decks with no sideboard so the 10 extra are for when a sleeve gets damaged.

For a future video, I would like it if you could show how a deck sleeved in character guards fits in various commander deck boxes. Sometimes the boxes allow very little wiggle room and a visual aid would be helpful.

Personally I feel a textured side is a must to stop the sleeves sticking after some shuffling which is what I don't like about designed sleeves as they're so smooth. I've used the KMC Mat & Clear sleeves and they're great. Some of the other sleeves I've used and rate highly are: Epoch Outer Sleeves Clear Embossed Bushiroad BSLC-002 An issue I had with the Broccoli sleeves was the 68.5x93 size, they were a bit tight for some designed standard size sleeves as sizes can vary, Broccoli sleeves are actually slightly larger than others so it confuses me why they made their outer sleeves slightly smaller than standard. 69x64 is a perfect size. Other sleeves that I know of but haven't tried (as they don't have a textured side) and you could review in the future are: Bushiroad BSLC-004 R Line 1 Series (2 sizes of 69x95 and 70x95) Card Accessory Collection TCG Sleeve Guard (Both hard type and soft type) Card Protector Over Guard Z (I heard a lot about these when I was researching) Moe Sleeve hard protector RSS Card Protector Ultimate Guard Over Sleeves (These are a very new range) Ultra Pro sleeve covers (These are apparently terrible)

The next new product is going to be a sleeve for your playmat. I'm calling it here!

Protect your sleeves with sleeves so that your protective sleeves are protected?

Glad I found this. I have some rare and valuable pokemon sleeves I want to use for MTG but I just know that after one night of shuffling a third of them would be ruined.

I use the gold and silver bordered character sleeves for my commanders. it allows me to use the same sleeve for my commander as the rest of the deck without it easily being shuffled in, but also it means i can shuffle my commander into my deck should i choose to, for some reason, simply by removing it from the sleeve. And the styled border adds the kind of aesthetic prowess a commander deserves.

Professor whenever Planechase Anthology comes out could you potentially do a video on oversized sleeves meant for the Plane Cards, Scheme Cards from Archenemy, and the Oversized Commanders?

Just the video I was looking for, definitely getting some gold border ones for my Liliana M19 art sleeves I'm going to be purchasing! Amazing review~

thank you for this. I had just decided to triple sleeve my cube to protect some out-of-print sleeves I use and was looking for a decent review. I went with the silver scroll KMC.

8:23 think you might have messed up on the con text there mate...

will pass the knowledge sir. thank you.

will definetly be getting the a- one for simple protection of my dearest cards thanks so much!

I wonder how long it would be before handmade sleeves become a thing

Just got some of the CSG Mat & Clear for my New Japan/LIJ/Bullet Club sleeves and so far I love them! They shuffle well. As the professor said, they make your deck thicker (thicker than traditional inner sleeving/regular sleeving, but it’s a small price to have good shuffling and protection for your art sleeves (that you probably paid too much for, like me lol)

Hey professor I know this is kind of lengthy but it's not a troll rant or anything like that. At any rate here is my piece. Perhaps this has something with the way that I shuffle but I noticed that on the KMC Hyper Matt outer sleeves the top corners of the sleeves get nicked and split open quite commonly. I've found that the non-opaque ultra pro sleeve holds up longer in that regard compared to the KMC Hyper Matt and is less prone to splitting and tearing in that regard. The Hyper Matt is better for double sleeving in the sense that it allows for more room but In my my experience I found that the ultra pro, although they are a slightly tighter fit, still holds up for double sleeving just as much as the KMC Hyper Matt. In regard to the way I shuffle my cards I usually crunch shuffle about 8-10 times on average. I do it just like you do at 4:03 only I put the bottom halves together first. You would think the bottom corners would get nicked and split open more than the top because they get more physical contact with one another compared to the top edges of the sleeves but this is not true in my experience. Personally as a consumer I'm thinking about switching to ultra pro for mainly this reason. It's kind of a deal breaker for me. Every time I use my decks that have KMC Hyper Matts I split a sleeve or nick another corner and it almost never happens to me with Ultra Pro. Have you ever had similar experiences like the ones I have mentioned? If you ever did a future review on KMC and Ultra pro outer sleeves would you be willing to think about or mention this? That is if in fact you and others share this opinion and experience of course. I apologize for any atrocious mistakes that I may have made in my grammar. I hope I didn't make you cringe too much.

I use KMC character guard sleeves for my commander decks and for some legacy decks. If you're looking for a deck box that will fit commander decks that are triple sleeved I use Ultra-pro Pro Dual 180 boxes. For 75 card decks I use the WOTC supplied league cardboard deck boxes with Liliana art on them. I forget which set it was for but it was between amonkhet and core 2019. Check your LGS to see if they have any.

glad to know illustrated are now a thing in double sleeve in kmc

Thank you for this video. I was unaware such a product existed.

Soo hyped for Kaladesh prerelease!!

great vid, finally i can do something about my 2014 Commander illustrated glossy sleaves

wouldn't have known about the thumbnails without you Prof

I believe the artwork sleeve should be inserted upside-down into the outer sleeve for professor-approved protection...

I love the kmc gold character sleeves. I actually just triple sleeved my azami deck. Using the gold border on the front.

I actually specifically use the gold bordered character sleeves for games like Force of Will where the Rulers are double-sided, or for double-sided cards in MTG (using deck checklist cards for the deck itself). They've been good to me so far, and I agree with the ratings here.

The plastic to protect the plastic that is protecting your cards

so have we finally achieved Triple Sleeving?

We need an update on outer sleeves... There are now gamegenic and dragon shield options...

Professor, I was wondering, do you know Alpha Investments channel?

Hello! Could you make video about KMC "perfect hard" inner sleeves? That would be pretty interesting.

Does anyone know if these KMCs dropped in quality like the Hyper Mats did?

first, love you Prof you're awesome. second, are we really now protecting our plastic that protects our plastic that protects are cardboard now? well...i must admit if i was in to sleeves with art i would be doing exactly that. happy to be a ultra-pro pro-matte single color fanboy today. although i did just pick up some kmc hyper matte and pro fit', still on the fence if i am going to go all out on double sleeving.

Professor is cheating shuffling like that, the first card always stay on top! Oh noes!

Going from Yugioh to Magic, there's a rule where your Extra Deck and Main Deck must have different designs from each other. So as a Commander player it feels wrong to not put something different on my Commander so i love using a single character boarder over sleeve on it while the other 99 are plain :>

I personally prefer sleeves that shuffle like the csp-05. My cards shouldn't slip around like a greased pig on ice. I love the shuffle feel of these and the matte Legion sleeves. I know it's very subjective, so I've learned to just pay a little more attention to that in your videos.

Sleeves...for your sleeves. This is like some kind of SNL parody.

Glad I can read Japanese writing in this case. I brought myself a pack of outersleeves from Japan, but don't know the brand anymore. They have fancy green plantstuff on the back and adorn my Legacy deck. I hope I never get a split sleeve as I only have one pack of sixty...

Still useful in 2023! Cheers

Oh c'mon now you're teasing us, let us 'ave that KMC Perfect Hard review >_

With the 2 sizes broccoli sleeves I should be able quadruple sleeve

Finally now I can triple sleeve my all island casual deck.

cards sleeved in normal sleeves and oversleeves are thicker than a normal double sleeved deck I can tell, I oversleeved my Saskia the Unyielding EDH deck and it didn't fit in my Ultra pro Satin Tower.. I'd stil recommend oversleeving an EDH deck over Double sleeving with tight fits... because you'd be protecting not only your cards but your sleeves as well, and buying oversleeves is in some, if not most cases, cheaper than replacing all of your normal sleeves.

Professor, where did you gt those "Vendilion Clique"sleeves? I'm hoping to build a Faerie deck for EDH, and those would be a perfect accessory for it. Thanks.

Thank you very much for this video, I appreciate it.

character guard sleeves are perfect for the Commanders ;)

1:15/2:15 I actually use the one pack of (thematically fitting) KMC Character Sleeve Guard Silver I have with the border design as a frame for the face side of that one deck's cards. 2:50 FYI Broccoli's primarily pink ones (e.g. M = CSP-03) are called "Character Sleeve Matt Protector Ver.2" and their primarily white ones (e.g. M = CSP-05) "Character Sleeve Protector Matt & Clear". 5:50 What kind of silly question is that? As if the color of the plastic had anything to do with the texture. Not to mention that there have been clear Hyper Mats for what feels like forever.

I've been using the KMC mat&clears for a little over a year and a half now. I do agree that they're the best over sleeve on the market right now but the sleeves don't last as long as regular sleeves do. Unfortunately since they're more loose the opening where you insert the card/sleeve into gets wavy a lot quicker as you shuffle. I found myself replacing a set of these in my decks every half a year vs ever year with HyperMat/Dragon Shields. This is with a modern deck that I play with every other week due to the rotation of standard and Modern at my store.

I never even knew this were a thing. This is fantastic as I have many sleeves I like but cant play with because of the tearing..

Question, do outer sleeves prevent decks from fitting into satin towers or aaron cain boxes? Also, if I have perfect sleeves already, would that thicken my EDH deck too much? Thanks these vids have saved me hundreds of dollars already

Should review Yanoman Z-layer as well. It's what us players in Asia use to protect our card sleeves (some limited edition ones can go up to $50-100 :v)

inner sleeve plus art plus outer plus penny sleeve plus toploaders = new meta

You might want to take a look at the Channel Fireball sleeves again. The ones I've got feel nowhere near the "quality" of ultrapro and are very easy to rip apart (unlike the ones you covered).

Would love to see review of Milestone sleeves Prof.

Now you have to update all your deckboxes ratings according as if they accomodate triple sleeved decks or not :P

Professor, I would like to add my experience with the character guard (gold). They are good, but they build up gunk rather easily to me. After around 5-6 months, the shuffle feel is very degraded and the cards start to stick to each other. These go on two very sentimental desks, and therefor are triple sleeved. A commander deck is very difficult to shuffle, where I have to mass shuffle with the bottoms on the table and shuffle on the table. With that said, it is difficult to shuffle sideways, and so I see the last card in the deck. My playgroup know this and so each person cuts it before we start. They are good for my particular use, and the gold accent on top of "Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage"is very nice, but replacement seems too frequent for my taste. I would give it a B for my niche, but outside that would see a C in my book.

Does this mean triple sleeving? Holy cow. It's like the ridiculousness of shaving marketing.

I've been waiting for this one. I miss the KMC stronghards, when I do find them they are insanely expensive.

I would suggest you to use Ultra Pro penny sleeves (Or ultimate guard, but they are SLIGHTLY smaller so they might not fit) as they are cheaper.

I'm guessing a triple sleeved deck using the KMC mat and clear sleeves plus Ultra Pro illustrated sleeves plus perfect fits will NOT fit into an Ultimate guard deck box?

Couldn't help but notice at 8:22 it may have the wrong CON shown in the video

Hi there prof (professor? I don't know how you like to be addressed). Since this review deals with KMC could you possibly do a re-visit for newly produced hyper mats? Just that it seems like there's been a reduced quality to them lately.

Anyone recommend a deck box for edh with 100 of these sleeves ? My edh deck + bushi road anime sleeves + these outers dont fit in my ultra pro satin towers :(

This video needs an update, there are now many other options on the market, ultra pro cover sleeves comes to my mind.

You'd think that Lieutenant Barclay would have been able to come up with better sleeves than those.

What deck boxes can the KMC mats fit in? Really curious about the sidewinder I want to buy them for my black lotus sleeves but I've fallen in love with the sidewinder ultimate guard deck boxes and don't know if they fit

I dont think you can use the argument "may not be accepted for play by all players" when this video is made for outer sleeve guys, if that makes any sense xD

But seriously, Prof, assuming we don't want to go to the redundancy of triple sleeving, how are each of these at providing water resistance?

Just for fun, put perfect hards, hyper mats and then character sleeve guard

I wish I had these when Origins came out, I bought an awesome set of sleeves for my Thopter deck (thematic ones of course,) and now I have about 10 left that aren't pealing or split.

Great review Professor!

There is a mistake in the Cons section for the KMC Hyper Mat Outer Sleeves

10k subs congrats