Dragon Shield Card Sleeves accessory review

If you’re looking to protect your trading cards, Dragon Shield’s colourful range of sleeves are up towards the more costlier end of the scale at around 7p per sleeve – but, as is often the way, you get what you pay for.

We took a look at two of the company’s 100-card standard size sleeve packs: the Petrol Matte blue variant and the Crimson Classic in red. Both are £6.95 here in the UK.

The backs of both sleeve types are opaque and coloured in their respective vivid hues, which pop beautifully. The Classic sleeves are glossy and smooth, and a tiny bit more transparent on the reverse than the textured Matte sleeves, the blue of which is a slightly deeper shade. Both sleeves seal nicely around standard-sized cards (such as those used in Magic: The Gathering) with a tiny bit of wiggle room inside the sleeves – Dragon Shield products have long been a notoriously tight fit when double-sleeved, for better and worse.

Both sleeves are comfortable to pick up and shuffle, with the Matte gaining an obvious advantage when it comes to grip – just watch for collected finger grime in years to come. Meanwhile, the shiny Classic backs are more prone to dinks and scratches, but that shouldn’t be a problem when treated with the right amount of care. We also put both sleeves through their paces when it comes to splitting, giving them a strenuous amount of testing to simulate longer-term use and abuse; we’re happy to say that both remained secure with no sign of the dreaded separation.

The overall premium quality of the sleeves is even reflected in their boxes, constructed from sturdy thick card and illustrated on the front with fantastic illustrations of dragons, whose biographies (‘Abigan the Morose’ and ‘Arteris the Passion’) are written out on the back. The tops of the boxes have blank lines for you to write labels and use the packaging as extra deck storage, which is a nice touch.

MATT JARVIS

Buy your copy here.

This review originally appeared in the February issue of Tabletop Gaming. Pick up the latest issue of the UK's fastest-growing gaming magazine in print or digital here – or subscribe to make sure you never miss another issue.

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