I don't remember if we talked about it before. How do you shuffle your huge Talisman + Reaper + Dungeon (+ Frostmarch) decks?

After a game you always have cards in particular order: clusters of Followers/Objects from each Character possessions, piles of Enemies that have been killed, bunches of Stranger/Place cards that layed on the board for a long time. Not to mention the Bags of Gold! You can't put them all together and just shuffle the Adventure Deck before starting a new game. You need to shuffle cards for a long time and you still have clusters; you may also deal damage to non-sleeved cards. Which are your shuffling strategies to obtain balanced decks?

It takes me about 15 minutes to prepare the Adventure Deck. I separe following categories: Enemies, Enemy Spirits, Objects, Bags of Gold, Followers, positive Events/Strangers/Places, negative or potentially dangerous Events/Strangers/Places.

Then I place cards on columns of 8: 1 column of Enemies, 1 of Enemy Spirits, 1 of negative or potentially dangerous Events/Strangers/Places. Strength Enemies are in larger number and have more columns than the others. When I prepared this "bed" of cards I start putting Objects, Bags of Gold, Followers and positive Events/Strangers/Places in diagonal lines. After that I start from the bottom right corner and take all the small piles from the right to the left and assemble the deck.

With Dungeon it's more or less the same, except for the high number of Enemies and Enemy Spirits. I only use Enemies and negative or potentially dangerous Events/Strangers/Places for the "bed" and put the rest of the cards above them in diagonal.

Spell Deck has become large after Dungeon so I decided to shuffle it the same way, except that the only thing I care for is not to have 2 identical Spell cards very close to each other.

Does anyone indulge in such things before starting a game of Talisman? Don't you care if you see the same Objects/Followers of the previous game or draw clusters of Gold/Enemies?

Spell and Dungeon decks get shuffled normally, they aren't that big so just shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, then cut.

Adventure deck I split in two even-sized stacks. The deck is as it was as the previous game ended. Next I shuffle each stack several times and cut. Next, I take a stack in each hand and dribble a few cards from the bottom of each stack into on single stack. Sometimes only a couple of cards drop, sometimes a lump, no biggie. Finally, after there is again 1 Adventure deck, take that deck and shuffle, shuffle, shuffle until I feel satisfied it's shuffled enough, then cut (I try to cut from a different spot in two games, if in the first one I cut at say 1/4 from the top, next game at midway or 1/3 from the bottom). Start rolling dice.

I shuffle normally everytime we play a game.

If you have play some games, then the adventure cards are better seperated from each other( same type i mean)

So i have no problems with it.

I can shuffle with some difficulty ( not fast) all the 206 cards in one hand, but it's actually pointless.

You can better cut the deck, shuffle it many times, and put the stacks together, shuffle it, shuffle it and done !

But i have seen how it look like if you put them in sleeves.

It has to be said..( i don't like it so much..

If they are in sleeves, then the deck will become huge, and you can't put them anymore on one big stack.

I have play some days ago with somebody else, who has also the same format sleeves as FFG, and we have cut the deck in two halves !

TBH, I would like the sleeve my Talisman (and Arkham Horror and Middle-Earth Quest small cards), but sleeves for big cards are 1.50€ for 100 sleeves, FFG's are 2.90€ for 50 sleeves. Talisman alone has umm, almost 200 Adventure cards, 70 Spell cards, 128 Dungeon cards. That's 400 sleeves needed right off the bat. Arkham Horror has probably twice that many small cards. MEQ would "only" need 250 sleeves. Another manufacturer has mini sleeves for 2.90€ for 100 sleeves, but still kinda iffy on the total expenditure. So far, Talisman cards show no wear and closing in on 50 games. Arkham has a little wear after 96 games. MEQ might be my first option as the small card decks in that game see multiple shuffles each game.

It's astonishing you have no problems with monster clusters and Object clusters. Do you like to have some parts of the game with few Enemies and just Objects/Bags of Gold/Followers? I tried it sometimes and was annoying, because it advantaged some Characters (many Enemies: good for Assassin, Troll, Warrior, Monk; less Enemies: good for Sorceress, Thief, Priest, Wizard, Ghoul, just to mention the more basic and one-sided Characters).

I always pay attention to deck shuffling. My games are fairly balanced since I've done this. There's no Enemy shortage and Events, Gold, Objects, everything comes out from the deck at a good pace and with food variety. I'm surprised that no other player had the same sensation that just shuffling the deck from the previous game isn't enough.

Regardless of what manner you use, unless you manually place the cards in a certain order and don't shuffle, clusters can/will happen, it's inevitable. And I don't think anybody is suggesting no shuffling the Adventure deck.

I am considering getting the official FF sleeves for the game.

Does anyone know of a supplier (or 2 to compare prices) in the UK...?

Thanks...x

I am still waiting for the sleeves..

I hope that my game shop will get it soon..

i just lay the cards out in a row face down kinda like you are setting up a solitaire game. i go down the line and put the cards face down till im out of cards then pick the little piles up in a different order. this way you dont bend the cards trying to shuffle them.

Msrushing said:

This is a simplified (and faster) practice which resembles mine. But at least I'm glad to read that someone else tries to dissipate Object/Enemy/Gold clusters from the deck.

I've played Magic the Gathering when I was a boy and learned how to shuffle a deck to avoid troublesome card concentrations... and I can't accept this in Talisman.

Have you ever seen a Black Jack dealer shuffle six decks together? Cut your stack into four piles (or some number such that each pile is small enough to shuffle). Shuffle each pile - maybe the riffles, a cut, and three more riffles. Then break each pile in four and make four new piles made from one quarter of each of the original piles. Repeat.

The method does not have to exactly as above, but the point to combine local shuffling (riffling the piles) with global shuffling (mixes the piles together to make new piles.

When you're riffling game cards, be very gentle. Your thumbs should contact only the very corners of the deck (not the edges), and you should drop the cards gently without really bending them.

If you shuffle the deck thoroughly, it will not matter how you mix or stack it first. The definition of a thorough shuffle is that each card has the same probability of landing in any given space (in the deck) as any other space. I wouldn't bother prestacking the deck if your shuffle is good.