UltraPro Non-Glare Pro-Matte

I usually buy Dragon Shield sleeves or KMC Tournament sleeves for my decks and I plan to continue in doing so. When I want something cheap and quick I get Ultra Pro Standard Deck Protector sleeves. These sleeves though are not of a good quality. Corners bend fast, any dirt and sand scratches the surface. During one tournament I was asked to change my sleeves due to this (the sleeves were new). Also the sleeves are transparent and you can see the back of the card. That wouldn't matter much pre-innistrad but I have 4x Huntmaster in my deck and I don't really like using checklists. Also my experience is that the cards are not really protected. After one tournament and not using perfect sizes the cards usually scratched and show wear. That's not good.

At a new game store that emerged in Prague lately I bought two packs of UP None-Glare Pro Matte sleeves though as they were of the same price as the Standard ones. I did not expect much from the sleeves. Anyway the first time I took one of the sleeves in my hand I realized that they are really matte (and the surface is different). Not that I would care about that, I don't care if I see my cards clearly or not (already having cards in perfect sizes makes them less 'clear'). The second revelation was that the sleeves are even smaller than the Standard ones. Both packs I got were smaller compared to the Standard ones that are supposed to be the same size so I expect all the sleeves are of this size. Since that moment I knew that sleeving my cards would be a challenge as all of them are in KMC perfect sizes. It was tough but the cards are sleeved now. Shuffling is much better, the sleeves don't stick much but they are still pretty fragile. But in overall they are much better than the standard ones and feel way better in hand. I also tried using the UP Pro-Fit sleeves and tried to put such sleeved cards in the pro-matte sleeves but it was really difficult even using the same method I use with Perfect Sizes. The Pro-Fits are slightly bigger and thicker than perfect sizes and also differently 'put' together....well simply NO to these sleeves.

I know that the photos don't say nor show much and could be easily forged. But seriously the Pro-Matte sleeves are fully opaque! And they are really smaller...sad story. (for this reason I have fifth huntmaster and third garruk extra so I can use that one as the flipped card. I'm not going to be using checklists and I'm not going to be getting the cards out of these sleeves... - too much of an effort is needed for that)

So this time I have to say that Ultra Pro has done something right.