I collect the cards but haven't played with them in years; normally I play OCTGN. However, my kids are getting curious about LotR LCG, so I've re-opened the core set, sorted the cards I had already opened, and am currently trying to find the best a way to keep the cards organised. I like the idea of the 3x3 "pocket pages", which is how I used to store my old MECCG cards. However, with MECCG I only ever stored 1 of each card that way (for display purposes) while for LotR LCG I'd like to store 3 copies of each card in each slot.

What I'm wondering is:

1) How many 3x3 sheets do we need in order to fit *all* of the cards that have been released so far? (I own all of the sets except the Nightmare sets).

2) Approximately how many binders do we need to have to keep the cards neatly organised?

3) Are certain types/brands of sheets better at storing 3 copies of each card, or will they all do?

Thanks!

So I added all cards listed at "Hall of Beorn" up. There should be 2470 DIFFERENT cards (=Player, quest and encounter cards. This includes boon, burdens etc.), excluding nightmare . Only a few exceptions have more than 3 copies, e.g. Gandlaf. I counted cards that apear in different quests, but are completly the same (e.g. Arwen in the 2 first Dwarrowdelf quests) only once.

2470/9 = 274,4 so you will probably need at least 275 pages. If you can use the front and back of the same page you obviously only need half of them. Note that quite some cards (mainly the quests) have a printed backsides, so you might want them to be visible, what would up the number of pages need again.

I think you should be able to fit at least 20 pages into a binder (but I don't store my cards this way so take everything I say here with caution). 275/20 = 13,75 So 14 pages should be realistic. Again if you use the front and back of a page only half the amount will be needed.

If someone is curious: The TOTAL amount of cards, excluding nightmare, should be 5123. Of these "only" 1696 are player cards (=33,1%). Of the 2470 unqiue cards, 660 are player cards (=26,7%).

Including nightmare we have a TOTAL of 6563 cards. Lowering the amount of player cards to 25,8%. The amount of unique cards rises to 3075 with a player card percentage of 21,5%.
(Note that the freshly released NM decks for the second half of the dreamchaser cycle weren't listed at Hall of Beorn and, as I don't own them myself, I was unable to include them in the unique card calculation. I did however assume 20 cards per quest as I did with every other NM quest, this way they are already included in the total cards sum.)

Checking my numbers is appreciated, as a mistake could have slipped in very well

1) How many of the cards are player cards? The rest (quest, encounter) could be considered "spoilers" so could be kept in boxes. Hopefully the number of player cards is relatively small compared to the others!

2) I have some old card-holding sheets from the MECCG days and each sheet has 9 slots total, each slot wide enough to fit one card facing each way. So, if it's only for display, you can fit 18 cards total (9 on the front and 9 on the back). You can also fit a third card in each slot, but definitely not 6. So, that type of sheet would fit 9 unique cards total, with up to 3 copies of each card in each slot. Are there other types of sheets that either fit more cards per slot, or have separate slots for the front and back sides of each sheet?

3 hours ago, tripecac said:

Are there other types of sheets that either fit more cards per slot, or have separate slots for the front and back sides of each sheet?

Yes. Try asking at your local game store.

My town doesn't have a game store. The nearest game-related store is an hour away and its focus is mostly video games. Next time I am there I will see if they have card holders but I won't get my hopes up!

Until then I need to shop online.

What are some other common terms for card sheets / pocket pages? Also, is "double sided" the best way to describe sheets which have separate slots on the front and back?

For example, is this the sort of sheet we need to fit 18 cards (3 copies of each):

https://www.amazon.com/BCW-Supplies-Double-Sided-9-Pocket-10-Pack/dp/B00V0EY556

4 hours ago, tripecac said:

1) How many of the cards are player cards? The rest (quest, encounter) could be considered "spoilers" so could be kept in boxes. Hopefully the number of player cards is relatively small compared to the others!

I counted 660 unique Player cards (Heroes, Allies etc.). This results in 1696 cards total.

So with the pages you have it would take about 74 pages (assuming one slot for the 1-3 copies of each different card).

2 hours ago, tripecac said:

My town doesn't have a game store. The nearest game-related store is an hour away and its focus is mostly video games. Next time I am there I will see if they have card holders but I won't get my hopes up!

Until then I need to shop online.

What are some other common terms for card sheets / pocket pages? Also, is "double sided" the best way to describe sheets which have separate slots on the front and back?

For example, is this the sort of sheet we need to fit 18 cards (3 copies of each):

https://www.amazon.com/BCW-Supplies-Double-Sided-9-Pocket-10-Pack/dp/B00V0EY556

I use those pages and they're very good. I even sleeve my cards in FFG clear sleeves and they fit in these pages (FFG sleeves tend to be a bit taller than other sleeves). You can easily fit 2 copies of a card in each slot without much worry (maybe 3 in each if unsleeved?). I also use this binder: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C6TH16S/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

With that binder I have 40 pages, and can fit another 10 more, but it's already quite heavy with just 40 haha.

Thanks for the info!

I ended up ordering 4 of these (a different colour for each sphere):

https://www.amazon.com/Pro-Folio-9-Pocket-LX-Album-Blue/dp/B00MVCRYTA/

Hopefully that will be enough space!

That's what I use, although I have a fifth one for the Neutral cards and quest cards, too. I'm not out of space yet, but I'm getting close to reaching the back of the binders (1-2 pages left) with my current organization scheme.

I use 3x3 for all the player cards (excluding heroes) and so far everything is fitting in two (large) binders. I put multiple copies of the cards in the same pocket, my cards are unsleeved so 3 copies fits easily in a pocket. I might move to five (smaller) binders down the road.

I use a three by three from Ultra Pro to store my player cards. So far, I can fit them all in one binder! I think one of those would hold player cards up to Black Riders. I keep the encounter and quest cards in custom deck boxes from BGG, but they only go up to Ringmaker, so down the road I'll need to find a different solution. Any ideas?

I dont have numbers to hand, but i store my player cards in 3x3 pages, one card to a slot, not double sided, and with everything release so far, im up to two and a half ultra pro binders.

You need currently about 90 pages for player cards if you put into one pocket up to 6 cards

So, I think I'll have the player cards sorted.

How about the encounter cards? What is the best way to keep those organised?

To me, it seems to make sense to keep the scenario-specific encounter cards in their own boxes... But what about the encounter cards which are shared between multiple scenarios?

27 minutes ago, tripecac said:

So, I think I'll have the player cards sorted.

How about the encounter cards? What is the best way to keep those organised?

To me, it seems to make sense to keep the scenario-specific encounter cards in their own boxes... But what about the encounter cards which are shared between multiple scenarios?

I keep all the encounter cards from a cycle inside the deluxe box associated with that cycle, sorted by encounter set. Every set is held together by elastic bands (which some may view as blasphemous).

Same, encounters in their deluxe sorted by quest, in sandwich bags

I've got my encounter cards in binders as well, sorted by cycle. I have the generic sets from the deluxe/core set first, followed by each quest specific set. When I reach the end of a cycle, I add a new sheet in and start from there, did that no sheet has cards from 2 cycles in it - makes it wait to find what I'm looking for

We keep our encounter cards in Core Set boxes using Broken Token box inserts to divide them by cycle. We separate each encounter set (in other words, each individual icon) with little slips of cardstock.

3 of the old-style Core boxes are big enough for the whole game (including Nightmare) with plenty of room to grow.

I received the Pro Folio folders and they are great! They can easily fit 3 cards in each slot (18 slots per sheet) and even up to 6 cards per slot. Amazing!

What I am wondering now is the best way to organise the player cards within those folders.

I'm using one folder for each sphere (red folders for tactics, blue for spirit, etc.) So far within each folder, I have the cards organised by category (Allies, Attachments, and Events), with blank pages between each category to make room for expansions.

At the moment I'm sorting cards numerically within each category. Maybe later I will switch to alphabetical, perhaps leaving space between each letter? I don't know if that will be more pain than it's worth though!

What do you think? What's the best way to sort cards within each category?

I prefer sorting cards within the type by cost, but I've seen multiple people say they sort allies by tribe. What scheme works best for you depends on how you build decks. If you build primarily tribal decks, putting all the Rohan cards together may be most useful. If you build decks more piecemeal, then seeing all the 2-cost allies together may be most useful. If you build your decks online and then just find the cards you already know you want in your binder, alphabetical may be most useful. If you play "progression style", putting cards in order of release would be most useful. What style do you use most?

What Dale said is very helpful. If you choose to sort alphabetically, it will be more trouble than its worth to space them with empty pages.

I use binders as well (Ultra Pro, similar to the BCW ones you've chosen). I sort in strict chronological order of release, except heroes that I separate off into a small 2x2 binder. This is mainly because I never want to have to rearrange what's already been organized—while I love the look and feel of bindering, the pain of rearrangement is a disadvantage compared to boxes, especially at the size of card pool we now have. The fact that we almost always have 9 non-hero player cards per AP works really nicely with 3x3 pocket pages.

In retrospect, I think that organizing by sphere, then chronologically within that, would be a nice compromise between my aversion to rearranging and utility for deck construction. But @dalestephenson speaks wisely: it's all about what you personally think you'll find most pleasing and/or useful.

@sappidus You could get away with using one binder for each sphere (plus one to store heroes, neutral cards, and saga player cards) and still sort chronologically.

That is probably his advice. And what he would do now, but he don't want to rearrange everything ^^

Hi just checking. Are such pockets able to fit sleeved cards?