GameGenic Matt 53x53 Square Sleeves review. (Patreon)

In recent times I had the opportunity to try out GameGenic sleeves for our Arkham Horror and Marvel Champions decks and after using them I decided to get a few of them and see how good a fit the 53x53mm square sleeves are for gear cards.

Kingdom Death gear cards are 51x51mm, which is an aesthetically pleasing size, but there are limited options out there. The most notable other ones however are Paladin, Docsmagic and KDM's own sleeves – I can look at a fuller comparison of each type if there is more interest, but for now we're just going to review my preferred choice.

These sleeves come in packs of 50 for around €3 (~$3), the pack is double sealed, in that it has an external packaging; as you can see here.

But then when you open that packet there is a second packet inside which holds the sleeves snugly. I'm pretty against plastic being double packed inside two other layers of plastic. It really doesn't need the internal pocket – the outside packaging should be sufficient to hold all the sleeves already.

Once opened you'll have this pocket:

An individual sleeve looks like this.

The sleeves are all high quality acid free plastic with no PVC elements and a matt finish which very, very slightly 'fogs' the card from certain angles because it is reducing glare both on the card and the sleeve itself. It looks like this when a card is sleeved:

This picture is taken with three lights aimed at it and you can't see any reflections of the lights on the card at all. The fit itself is snug but after sleeving a few hundred cards at no point did I find that the cards required any effort to push inside the sleeve, sometimes sleeves can be a smidge too tight and you risk bending the card when sliding it in. There was no occurrence of that here at all; every single card went in with minimal friction and no troublesome resistance. In fact the only hard part of sleeving was finding which edge was the open one because to the naked eye they look very similar. If you look at the individual sleeve picture above you can see that the top edge is slightly less white than the other three, that's where there is no sealing of the plastic.

Once slid in, there is some air to deal with, but this is common with new sleeves, in the next image you can see a side by side comparison of everything that sits in my Flower Knight section of the gear tray. 

The air trapped inside pushes the stack twice as high as before, but that's something which will deflate with time in storage/play. For a more accurate look here is the original unsleeved stack adjacent to a compressed stack – with thanks to APG for the quantum pencil that is neither up nor down for providing the pressure to flatten it down. 

It adds about 10 to 15% more height to the stack, which can impact some storage solutions. However, my 4x of every card, 8x of all paired cards and multiples of some of the promotional gear will fit everything quite well inside the LaserOx insert I use (and recommend, no sponsorship for either products, I just really like them).

So how about durability and the tactile experience? How long are these going to last and are they nice to handle. I have the larger standard playing card size matt sleeves in both full transparent and coloured backs for my Arkham Horror, a game which has a relatively decent amount of shuffling involved (usually 2-4 times per session, more when I play with Patrice) and they've held up really well without attracting dirt and they still feel absolutely sensational to shuffle. I absolutely love the feeling of them in the hand and they are satisfying when they slide against each other – my partner commented very positively on GameGenic sleeves when we switched to using them, the lower glare and the pleasant tactile feedback from holding them were both huge positives.

As gear cards are not shuffled; I feel that these sleeves will last for pretty much my lifetime with the game and probably outlast me. In fact I like them so much that I'm entertaining investing in these sleeves for the normal American/Bridge sized cards that are used elsewhere, but what is holding me back is I already have them in the old Fantasy Flight Games “Green” sleeves, which I picked up at a discount when they were discontinued. However, I am absolutely certain that I'll be sleeving my Gambler's Chest in GameGenic once it finally ships in 2023(?)

So these sleeves are not a cheap investment, but for a game as expensive as Kingdom Death, investing in good sleeves that have no acid, no PVC and are durable with glare reduction is an investment I consider worthwhile. I cannot say they are the best sleeves out there with certainty, but I can say that I like them so much that I'm going to stick with GameGenic for as long as they're available. So consider that my personal endorsement.