Hi all,

Not technically a deck building question, but on a related theme so I thought I'd post here.

I just wondered what people find to be the most effective way to catalogue their cards? For instance, do you keep each set/chapter together and sort within those groups, or lump it all together and sort by house first?

Do you sort characters primarily by strength, cost, challenge icon or crest? Or simply alphabetical or numerical order? Do you keep Shadows characters separate?

I have three ring binders.

In the first one are House cards, Agendas (by set, first Deluxe Expansions, then CPs), Plots (by Income, then by set), Events (first House-specific, then general). Then Multi-House cards (first Characters, then Locations, then Attachments; sorted by Cost, then by set). Then Neutrals.

In the other two binders are House-specific cards other than events. Stark - Lanni - Bara and Targ - GJ - Martell. Each house is sorted the same way Multi-House and Neutral cards are in the first binder. Shadow cards are always in the end of their respective category.

Yea i keep them in binders the same way Ratatoskr does, but i keep all the neutral themes together, so all the brotherhood cards ( characters, attachments, events, locations )are together and all the Maesters, Nights Watch, Wildlings and Kingsguard.

I have all the LCG cards and most the CCC cards from the last 4 sets so I have quite a large collection.

I have 9 binders

6 of them are house specific and get all house cards, characters, then locations, then attachments, then house specific Events for each house (by this I mean "Stark Only" evebts or "boost one of your stark characters"events).

1 is neutral cards (character, locations, attachments) and multi house cards

1 is all other events

1 is Plots and Agendas.

Characters are ordered by unique then non unique. I keep traited characters togtehr where possible (but often it is not as some have more than one) but it does allow me to put Martell Sand Snakes together, or Baratheon Asshai, or Stark Tulleys for example. I do this as I like to build my decks by theme/traits.

Same for neutrals - I group all the Brotherhood, or Arryn's, or Kingsguard togther

Locations and attachments just go by unique then non-unique and I tend to group resource cards togther (gold income or cost reducers)

Plots go by trait - so City plots together for example. The rest are by claim (one vs more than one) and all 1 claims are sorted by gold.

Events are the most random. They go by trait (Small Council for example) and the rest are randmo. Would appreciate adviseon a system that works for sorting these!

I think I'm more inclined to go with the first couple of replies. The reason being it is easy enough to find cards with the properties you want (using online deck builders and such like), but then actually tracking the cards down in your collection is tricky unless they're filed in a certain way. Also, as you've identified, some cards have more than one trait so it's difficult to know where they fit best if you sort by theme.

Thanks

I have what is probably a very idiosyncratic way to sort and store my cards: I use baggies.

All of my cards are in two Core Set boxes. My decks, extra sleeves, cards that get switched out in multiple decks, and extra plots all go in one CS box. The sleeves are stored in some boxes, but everything else is in a pleated, non-Ziplock baggie. It's pretty much the perfect size for a sleeved deck.

The rest of my cards are in the other CS box, and they are all stored in various groupings in small Ziplock bags, which are a little tall but are pretty much a great width. I sort my cards out by House, type, and theme. So all the plots are together, and alphabetized; I think they're split in two bags right now. Then I'd have, say, my Bara cards. I have one bag for most of my Bara characters, one for all my Bara locations, attachments, and events, and another bag that has the characters, locations, related to Asshai and Shadows. Neutral's got more categories: Neutral characters; Neutral locations; Neutral events and attachments; Night's Watch/Wildling cards; Brotherhood cards; Maesters cards. If a category gets too big, it gets two bags. Plots are like that now, I believe Maesters needed two bags too.

It works for me, though I can see why it wouldn't be presentable to others. What I like is that I pretty much have nothing extra to buy. I had all the baggies already in my kitchen, and it puts my second CS box to use.

Marshal Lambert said:

this. except my neutral events are in my neutral binder.

I pile mine in a heap on the floor, and just sort of root around in it for the cards I need. I figure that cards from newer CPs are probably on top, and really really crappy cards that never get used end up on the bottom eventually (I assume so anyway; I haven't seen my War Host of the North in months). If I can't find a card that I need, I just print out a pic from one of the online databases; it really helps you to stack your deck when some of the "cards" are thinner than others.
But really, binders for Plots, Agendas and all Neutral and Dual-House cards, the rest go into standard card boxes, sorted by House and card type with most of the uniques seperated. Similar to what Marshal Lambert said, except I don't like binders for the whole collection b/c they take up way too much space for me and its a lot easier to have the cards in boxes.

At the moment I've got mine in separate boxes - all the house specific cards in each deluxe expansion, and the neutrals (plus Lannister for a few more weeks) in a core set box.

Within each box, they're divided up into attachments, Locations, Events, Unique Characters, and non-uniques, each in alphabetical order with an elastic band to hold them together.

All other cards (titles, agendas, multi-house characters, plots) are in the core set box.

At a tourney last week, the shop owner thought i was mad when i said i sleeved all my cards- various people suggested the binder systems people have mentioned here.

My query with those, is how do you keep them in order - every time a new pack comes out, do you have to shift cards along 1 place to fit a new one in? it seems very time-consuming and fiddly. On the plus side, if I can figure out a way around that, it does seem like it'd be a lot easier for browsing, which is why I'm considering it.

Kinda new to the game, but so far between my friend and I we've collected 2 Cores, 1 each of the Stark, Baratheon and Targareyn expansions, and almost 2 complete chapter sets. I wanted to store them together and come up with a way to readily identify the collection from which a card came and its House. Once we agree on which collections we are building our decks from, it would be easy to identify the House we wanted to play within the permitted cards.

In the beginning, we only had a single 900 card box so we ultimately decided on sleeving all the cards with a specific color for each House, then using dividers to indicate the beginning and end of each collection. Within each House, the cards are organized into characters, locations, etc... and then numerically - which facilitates returning the cards to the correct place when it comes time to deconstruct your deck.

As our collection has grown, we've bought separate (500 count) boxes for each family. These are organized, starting with the Core, then the Expansion, and then the chapter packs. Although technically unnecessary, we continue to sleeve the cards based on House. I think this helps during the construction process to readily see out-of-house or neutral cards, Since I also sleeve my current deck in a separate color, it allows me a visually means to see just how much I've modified my deck between revisions (all the cards being added to the deck will still have their House colors until I've resleeved them) - I kinda like that.

As far as the sleeving, we go a bit beyond the house affiliation per the crest in the corner or "House X only". If it is obvious that only a particular House will use an event card, it gets that House's color sleeve, i.e. A Lannister Pays His Debts. The thought being that, although technically neutral, the benefit of putting the card in a deck for any other house would be nil without some major "Search your deck" mechanics. Everything else gets a neutral sleeve and goes in a single box (currently). Since there are neutral cards in absolutely every set, this box is organized a bit different than the others - Core, EACH expansion, then the chapter packs.

It also makes it pretty easy from a sharing perspective, and extremely portable since we simply take home the House box we want to play and then at some point each have access to the neutral box to finalize our builds.

So does everyone sleeve their cards then?

baldy51 said:

I never play with unsleeved cards.

sabrefox said:

So if I may follow this to it's logical conclusion...you sleeve you neutral cards in a neutral sleeve color, then when you want to add it to a deck you take it out of the neutral sleeve and put it into a 'this deck' sleeve?

dh098017 said:

Correct. The color scheme we use is red for Targareyn, green for Baratheon, black for Stark, blue for Greyjoy, orange for Martell, pink/purple for Lanisster, and white for neutral. Once I"ve created my deck, I resleeve them into my deck color (I'm jonesing for those Melisandre Art Sleeves coming soon...). It might seem a bit cumbersome, but it only takes a few minutes to do, its mindless and you can do it watching your favorite TV show. I only get to play maybe once a week so I typically play with a deck for quite a while, making slight tweeks to it over time to hone it to a fine edge.

My system works well for my friend and I right now because we are the only ones we know who play (although I just got a lead on another player the other day). Rather than me trying to have a deck that can beat any random player I come across, we prefer to limit ourselves to certain cards (at this point we're focusingon the expansions - have only dabbled into the first chapter pack) so we can gather experience using the cards as we go. If it didn't matter to me what collection a particular card came from, I'm sure I'd have organized them differently, perhaps focusing on the traits or grouping cards with similar mechanics together.

Im ordering my cards in the following manner,

im using the ultra-pro premium binders (with has exactly enough slots for cards for each chapter cycles.
im also storing the inhouse deluxe expansions in them like so
1. Stark - Baratheon
2. Targaryen - Martell
3. Lannister - Greyjoy

then 1 of those binders for each chapter cycle, following the chapter packs i sort them by card number but once the entire cycle is complete
i sort them by House: character / attachment / locations / events and at the end the neutral cards of that cycle. i havent done so
but i plan on making a seperate binder for all the plots.

what i also LOVE to do is sleeving my cards before putting them in the binder and i use the house specific colors for them
stark = white sleeves
lannister = yellow sleeves
Greyjoy = blue sleeves
targaryen = red sleeves
martell = orange sleeves
baratheon = green sleeves
neutral = black sleeves (when i use them in a deck i switch them to the specific color)
plots = purple sleeves.

in the links below i have some pictures of this.

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im very happy with the result

(do note that those picture was made before i started using the ultra pro premium binders)

Voidy said:

Something I noticed looking at those pics, but which I find crops up as a problem with any system for organising cards.

You've got Deadly Khalasar sleeved in black- as a non-house-specific event. Obviously, that's technically true. On the other hand, the card only targets 'dothraki' and all the Dothraki are Tragaryen cards - so is this really a neutral event, or is it a Targaryen one?

too many headaches of that kind when trying to locate cards.

this is true. and has been fixed these where kinda old pictures all the specific event like (stark chars or direwolves or dragons whatever) are now sleeved in there faction color

I go with the binders, nothing new there, but I like my way of organizing since I can find any given card in my collection on a whim.

I have a neutral binder which includes the titles, kingsmoot, plots, agendas, multi-house, and neutral cards, and 3 more binders that include 2 houses each.

Characters, Attachments, and Locations are easy to determine where they belong based on their banner. My strict rule for events is if it is house only it goes with that house, if it is two houses such as Direct Assault, then it goes in the multi-house section, anything else goes in the neutral. The reason is that if I decide to splash a dragon into my Stark creature feature, then I know where to go find my dance of dragons

As far as slotting them into the binders, I keep them ordered by their set and number. So anytime a new chapter pack comes out, I just have to sort them into the appropriate groups, order the numbers, and put them in. The only real headache with the system is that it seems every deluxe comes in the middle of a cycle, so it gets pushed to either before or after the cycle.

Credit for this system goes to Zombie Prime because sorting them alphabetically was a pain with each new chapterpack.

KU