Yikes. I have about 70,000 cards. It's really hard for me to let go of them even when I know they're bad and I'll never use them. How many times does a card that's been worthless for 10+ years suddenly become amazing because of a newly printed card that combos with it? I got rid of a bunch of Rhystic Studies years ago thinking "Oh, they're commons, no one cares about these" and look what happened with that card.
I used to think there were bad cards but sometimes it is fun making those "bad cards" shine in ways that no one expects. I have a deck using banding. Yes, banding. It is quite powerful when it is used right. I hold on to all my cards because I will never know when they will come in handy.
@@reginaldfluffington5142 Usually downright bad or gimmick cards tend to be the strongest when you build them into a focused deck Example Phage, the Untouchable half of the deck involves playing the card from your command zone and living or cheating it into your hand with stuff such as Command Beacon or even putting it into the grave to get into your hand to play it. It sounds jank till you play it then you will be like "Why is this so strong and consistent?" Though one of my favorite ones to do is animate Battle of Wits into a enchantment creature so i can swing to win with a infinite attack/defense combo after cloning it. Then again i call those party decks just like my Mono White Door to Nothingness which is pretty strong and granted Kenrith is the commander as you need a 5c commander since door has all 5 symbols in its rules text and Kenrith because he is honestly cheaper than a Progenitus money wise which is surprising since he is a cEDH card I also have a Mono Green Maze's End deck but we don't talk about that as no one likes a turn 5 ramp deck and yes there are cards that ramp non basic lands into play. Anyways my point is Gimmick decks tend to be a bit on the strong side usually power level 8's sometimes low 9's just because they are so focused on a gimmick and Phage itself can be low 10's by accident just because of how much it takes to make that commander work just pushes it into that realm of power especially if you have a good bit of graveborn cards and platinum angel in the deck and there are a lot of cards that pull from the deck to put creatures into the grave so you can consistently get Platinum Angel out without worrying even if they counter spell as just play your other graveborn card There are also a good bit of black counter spells on a stick as in usually creatures that have a tap ability or mana cost to counter a spell such as Stromgald Cabal for example let's you counter target white spell. Dash Hopes is also good but it counters itself if anyone pays the 5 life and you also have enchantments that are a counter on a stick such as Deathgrip which let's you counter target green spell which in competitive is really good as everyone just about has green but one of the more funny ones is a World Enchantment Neither Void all spells are countered unless their casters pay an additional 3. and Thrull Wizard is there so you can counter your own commander and let it go into the grave so you can play something like a Gravepurge and get it into your hand then cast it from there and not loose to its ability The specific hate counter spells Black has is really great to have in the deck because in a pod of 4 people at least someone is going to have that color like it is a high chance and if played in competitive well the thoricle win line has black in it so Thrull Wizard has another use other than avoiding a death by Phage also if you really want something to not go through you can actually repeatedly activate Thrull Wizards ability onto the stack targeting that one spell so they have to pay a lot or get rid of Thrull Wizard
Funny you mention Rhystic Studies. My brother and a few of his friends bought a box of bulk cards some 10+ years ago that had multiple copies of Rhystic Studies so they each got at least a copy of it from that. One of them still runs in his commander decks Dream Halls, Opalescence, and Rhystic Studies, that he had gotten from that box of bulk.
I’m in the exact same boat. I got back into it a year ago after probably close to 20 years off and I’m at the point now where I seriously need better organization
What have you done to organize that’s been successful for you? I just bought like a bunch. Box of set boosters, 5 commander decks and 600 random cards from an Etsy seller.
I just want to throw out my organization method, cause I've found it really helpful for deck building for commander specifically. I use the cardboard boxes for cards, but instead of just having one long box for a color or card-type, I have smaller boxes that organize by function and playability in commander. For example, I have a box that contains all ramp and land-tutor spells, it has mana rocks, mana dorks, enchantments that ramp, etc. organized by color. The reason I like this system is because most of us try to have a certain number of ramp spells per deck, and we want those ramp spells to be synergistic with the deck. Having just ramp allows me to find what I'm looking for without looking at 300 unrelated cards while I find them. It just makes sense for the actual deck-building process. From that logic, I also organize creatures and spells from any particular color in a similar way. You don't need to keep your draft chaff blue-creatures in the same box as, let's say, an Archeomancer. As you are organizing you creatures, you ask yourself "could this card go in multiple different commander decks, or is it niche or somewhat unplayable?" An enfranchised player should mostly be able to tell the degree of playability, and then put your more playable, more "staple-y" cards in seperate boxes. This significantly helps the deck building process. That doesnt mean that you don't go looking through the box of more niche cards, you just do that at the more logical point in the deck building process, which is after you've put in the "core" or "foundational" pieces of your deck. Then, apply the same organization to lands, removal, card advantage or card draw, etc. depending on your brain works or how approach the deck-building process. Basically, organize in a manner that actually aligns with your deck building process, not just for the sake of organizing. I know alot of people who put their cards in organization, but spend the same amount of time shuffling through cards because they end up looking at the same amount of useless cards.
In a similar way I bought these wooden card drawers from MTechcave’s kickstarter and split cards by common commander themes. Ramp, rocks (by type like colorless,guild,tri, any color), recursion, sacrifice, different styles of draw ( loot,inspire,sac draw, pay life draw), types of bounce, and on and on. It took a few weekends to get it all sorted but man o man it’s now so easy to put everything away after opening boxes or packs.
I used to do this, but as the product volume kept going up per year, I couldnt keep up with sorting stuff back in. Had to go back to something simpler, but I am seriously thinking about adding cmc ordering to it.
What’s the best way? Sort by color first, then artifacts, basic lands, duel lands, commanders/planes walkers. I was going to do this with ascending mana cost. And then go even more by separating each colors creatures, removals/sorcery/instant and draw cards.
I was gifted a bulk collection of cards from ~2010-2015. It's pretty much just commons and uncommons, only a few foils. It really annoys me not knowing what card I have, even if it is just junk. That was my motivation to organize. They were originally all in bundle boxes. I got one of the "shoebox" bcw boxes and started filling it up. I take a bundle box, organize by WUBRG, artifact/colorless, multicolor, and nonbasic land. Next I alphabetize. Then I scan each card into an app so I have a list of what I own, and it's usually faster than typing it all in. I use delver lens which usually works great for me. I use note cards as dividers/labels so I know where everything is. And then I block out each box separately. I would say it takes me probably a good 4-5 hours to go through one bundle box, which holds about 500 cards. So it is extremely time consuming. Trying to organize that into set or have all the colors together would just take up far too much if I wanted to keep it alphabetical. But I find it fun and this way I am certain of everything I have. For my more current stuff, same organization and scanning as that bulk, but I do separate it by set and I keep it in the bundle box or a 550 BCW if I buy a booster box for the set. Then I have a binder for my standard rares/mythics and foils. I just put them in there bare, unless they are more than $5. It's a 3 ring binder with dragon shield 18 pocket pages. Those are also separated by set. For my nonstandard rares/foils/cards from the list that aren't from the bulk collection, I have a dragon shield portfolio that I have them in, just organized by color. I did not start really collecting until recently so I plan on getting a new binder, when standard rotates I'll move my old standard in there. I don't play standard but I like cracking packs, it's just an easy way to keep track of it.
[Works for Small Collection Only] As a player who played Magic from 2006, I'm one of the few who managed to keep a relatively small collection. I always buy singles and have not purchased a single booster pack for the past 7 years. I play EDH format exclusively now and have built >20 commanders with only 800 of the same colored sleeves. I only need to carry about 200-300 cards to LGS every time and I can play with up to 4 / 5 different commanders that I bring to an LGS at the time, switching cards especially mana rocks and fetches is very quick because they are in the same sleeves. PROS: 1. You only need to own 1 copy of everything. 2. You can potentially keep small collection if that's what you want, I don't like to collect more than I like to play with them. 3. Easy to bring, easy to organize, easy to trade. 4. Technically you only need deck boxes / fatpacks! (I have 1 binder and it's never been full my entire life) CONS: 1. It's aestethically boring because you are locked to the same sleeve forever (it's not a con for me because I don't really care about this but lots of people like Jimmy and Ladee Danger care about aestethics. I already chose my favorite color from the beginning.) 2. It's challenging to expand your collection 3. It requires dilligence to sell / trade cards you don't need / don't play anymore. However, this is a PLUS if you ask me because it's financially beneficial and I don't need to keep cards that I don't use because I don't collect.
Yes! I’d add, as a player with 20 decks and 25 years into the game: 1. If you play sealed or draft, just give away or throw away the useless cards. You know the ones you will never use. 2. As you mentioned I also never buy any booster, except in some rare occasions some collector boosters since they tend to have more playable cards. 3. Trade all the cards you don’t like. For example I know I’d never play Rhystic Study as I hate this card and my assumption will not change in the future. So easy $30 there. 4. The main pro is you do save thousands of dollars in singles, especially storages/deck boxes, and you keep a small manageable collection. I spend less than $50 per month and play all the strategies I want at all the power levels. 5. One last thing not linked to management is, in 25 years, I never bought cards worth more than $20. All the chased cards - well 99.9% of them - dropped to this price once in a while. Mana Vault was $5 for a while, Ancient Tomb $20, Snapcaster $20, Yawgmoth’s Will $20-$40, several times in their history. The best example is Zacama: I waited 4 years to buy it but can finally spend only $10.
Shauna coming through with the cleanest route. Jimmy sorting by playability/theme sounds almost as stressful as just having piles. Massive amount of knowledge required for that
what have worked for me: keep it small. i have a large collection that is mostly bulk, just in a box, without any type of order. but then, since i only play commander, i have a litle box of 650~ cards for the playebles, + a binder for partners, +trade binder, +decks Great episode!
Love when you guys treat themes a lot more indepth in the life of being a magic player, and it feels like a fresh breath after all the non-stop waves onf constant spoilers and set reviews. Our format is much more than spoilers and FOMO, and this episode helped a lot, thanks.
I've collected the bundle box for each set and put the cards in those boxes by colour / rarity. They are VERY aesthetically pleasing on my bookshelves.
Not to be rude but as a german speaker I feel the need to point out that it's 'basic' in in english, not 'standard'. Used to get that wrong myself sometimes. ;)
i believe this is the second episode with the intro being a summary of the episode. I enjoy the change - gets me prepped and excited for the episode - like i am apart of the episode. Nice change and keep it up!
I actually recently organized my collection for the first time since i came back to the game 7 ish years ago. I custom-built a card catalog box that stores roughly 24k cards. i separated them alphabetically into 6 drawers with 3 rows each. It took roughly 160 hours and ended up with 20k bulk. Now i gotta wonder if it would have been better just by set and color lol. Great episode Jimmy and crew.
One trick that I've found is a great way to level up your collection-organization is having a Type Four cube (it's a fun, quick, format that you can find rules for online, and it's really customizable). Mine is about 400 cards currently, mostly just rares and mythics that I'm not using in decks. In my opinion it solves one of the biggest problems in a lot of collections-what to do with all the janky rares that aren't playable in commander. You can do full, multiplayer games in only 10-15 minutes, so it's also a great way to showcase your collection; playing an actual game with the cards in your trade binder makes people go "woah, this card is sweet" a lot more than just seeing it in a toploader. I really recommend a Type Four cube to anyone who wishes the cards sitting around in their collection could still get some playing time in-it's been a huge hit in my playgroup and we've even started collectively picking up cards for the cube just to make it even more fun to play.
1 4-row suitcase for each color, 1 2-row box for artifacts, 1 2-row box for multicolored, 1 2-row box for nonbasic lands, 3 1-row boxes for basic lands, 1 2 inch binder for trading: rares and mythical and planeswalkers, 1 2 inch binder for tokens, and 2 2-row boxes for cards to refile. Been playing off and on since 4th edition. Oh, and 2 underbed plastic rolling costs for the deck boxes for EDH and pauper EDH and regular pauper decks, plus a handful of decks in other formats. Moved one year ago and am acutely aware of how much my collection weighs! Great video, Jimmy. Agape love from ATL.
OK so I seem to have a very very different method than EVERYONE else after years collecting and organizing cards not by set, but by function (especially good for casual format-agnostic quick deck building). I have a few binders with complete sets or just miscelaneous valuable cars (over $2) and I use the standard color/multi/colorless order everywhere - but that's where the similarities end! I have devised a way to split each color by their function. So no more "lands" or " artifacts" - just " mana sources" and " colorless creatures", " colorless permanents" etc . No more cards organized by collector's number - but I have dividers like Creatures, Creature Gains, Bounce, Counterspells, Draw, Damage, Removal, Discard, Graveyard, WU, WB, UB, Multi 3+ etc etc. Each color has its own makeup of function - clearly showing what each color does best according to the metagame, and also helping to build decks very quickly, agnostic to the sets the cards came in. My main " good stuff" box also has the best cards available for each (no Shocks, only Lightning bolts and comparable efficiency/card advantage). If you invite me I can talk about the methodology for at least 30 minutes!
I was in Chicago for an edh get together last Jan and ended up visiting this exact store and was checked out by the exact guy they showed in the pic. Wild.
Thank you for sharing this! I am wanting to downsize my collection, and my priorities are shifting and this gave me a lot of good ideas to work off of. The big take away I got is separate the playable cards from bulk, and I will donate the bulk to my LGS. I feel a lot of players will want to prioritize their collection for deck brewing, and that is not where I am at - I am looking to maintain the decks I have and just tinkering there. So my 5 Row BCW will be divided by playable cards for each deck, and have a slot for playable cards that could go into multiple decks. I already have a separate box for trades that I need to update. The only thing I have in binders - I am working on collecting every card in each Ravnica set, so that is its own system, and have one binder for alters / signed cards / cards that have sentimental value.
Taking a page from deck building guides for any format, but Commander in particular, I like having my binders arranged by category and then by Mana color for each: Commanders Auto-Includes (Command Tower; Arcane Signet…) Big Threats / Wincons Ramp Card Draw Board Wipes Spot Removal Instant-Speed Spot Removal Utility Makes building and taking apart decks super easy for any format. Any cards that care about types like Enchantments go in a Synergy category. Any category can include any card type as long as it fits. Finding the right mana rock or best board wipe for a given Commander is super easy and helps with a good distribution of cards as I’m building. Cons: time and binder space (tried boxes but considering the time to leaf through 100s of cards each build OR visually see what is available when the urge strikes it was an easy switch)
I'm pretty new to magic overall, and brand new to paper Magic; I decided I need an organization system right from the start. I have decades of high-level filesystem organization with computers, and the thing I've taken from that, above all else, is to take the path of least resistance. I know that overcomplicating it means it'll never get done (for me personally). Boxes are quicker and easier than binders, so I'll go with boxes. Boxes that fit into other boxes are easier to wrangle than loose boxes, so I'll likely go with one of those 4x3 stacks. Playing commander, legendary creatures are of particular importance, so I'll likely break those out into their own section. I didn't know about WUBRG priority. That's huge. Hearing all the different methods was very helpful. I've got a plan now for what I think will be the best method for me. Thanks!
I've personally also gone the boxes route with one exception. I only play commander so I put everything staple for commander in a binder along with a separate binder for legendarys.
Jimmy: Gives a detailed, well thought out thesis regarding methodology to storing and keeping a collection. Me: Throws collection in a cardboard box in a dank closet.
This is timely for me since I just reorganized my collection. First, I put any new cards into the online collection log called Deck Box. I pay for the premium account, and it's well worth it. It lets me know exactly what's in my collection and the value of it. Next, I sort cards by color and mana value. I sleeve the cards with perfect fits, then put them into the loose three ring binder pages. Whenever the mana value "changes" I start a new page in my binder. This way, when I inevitably get more green two drops, I just add them in at the end of my green two drop "section" and I don't have to move around any green three drops or one drops because they're in their own section that the two drops don't affect. I do the same for all the other colors, multi colors, and non-basic/full-art lands. I also have my multi colored legendary creatures appear at the front of each mana value section so I can quickly see which commanders I can build. For example, three-drop multi-colored legendary creatures appear before non-lengendary three drop multi colored cards. Also, I have a separate trade binder for cards in my collection over $1. This follows almost the same organization structure, except I sort cards by color, and then price. So my most expensive white cards appear before cheaper cards in the white section of my trade binder instead of being sorted by mana value. I have nearly 3000 cards (although some are in a cube, stored separately) and can fit about 1,000 cards into a three ring 3 inch "better binder" from Staples. Hope this helps!
I just went through this process over the last few weeks. Primarily went with Color + Alphabetical. Broke out rares and cards of value into their own 5k card box for quick access and put the majority of bulk into 800ct boxes
I'm on board with Damen Lenz' method, I have two 3×4 boxes identical to his (I got mine for about $36 CAD each sometime last year) and I also use Manabox - I cannot overstate how great of an app it is! My main difference is that rather than sorting by creatures and then everything else, I have everything organized by WUBRG, colourless, and multicoloured. Since I have the two 3x4's, I've stacked them and have seperated the uncommon's and common's into the bottom 3x4 and the mythics and rares in the top and then I am in the process of alphabetizing the cards in their respective boxes. Since there are twelve long boxes per 3x4, my commons and uncommons take up two boxes together per colour and then a box each for colourless and multicoloured. I keep my lands in the top 3x4 because there is more space :) I hopes this helps anyone who is interested in giving the 3x4's a try 👌
I think you always need to consider how you use, and appreciate your cards when organizing. Use is a combination of building decks, displaying cards, sorting cards, storing cards, and trading cards. As example: - Someone who trades a lot because they enjoy it, or play a format with a lot of rotation, may get a lot more use out of binders than someone who doesn't trade, and plays eternal formats. - Visual people may build decks by looking through binders, and others may do better using online tools to focus on cards with specific abilities, themes, types, or other synergies based on search results and want to pull cards from a list. - Some times a collection's size plays a role in how they are organized. - Some people enjoy looking at cards, and displaying them, so having a way to keep them in sight is important. - Some people are concerned about keeping the cards safe, so having them out of sight, or inaccessible is more important. Here is how I approach sorting as a strategy. First, I ask what attributes are important, and how do I want to prioritize them? I like to sort cards as little as I can, so I have streamlined my system to help there, but I also don't want to look for one card in a bunch of different places, so I also prioritize their organization based on how I build decks. Some attributes are not important to me for sorting and storage as a result. I think about cards first by name, what type they are, and what they do. Color is usually the easiest to sort by, and card names usually invoke a color for me as well, so I sacrifice the efficiency of just alphabetical to make sorting faster and in smaller more manageable chunks. I don't think about cards by type (i.e.; Artifact, Enchantment, Wizard, Instant, Arcane, Snow Covered, Legendary), so adding those as an extra sorting criteria is more sorting with no benefit. Rarity is also not important, because lots of cards have been reprinted at different rarities. Pretty much everything else is unimportant to how my brain thinks about cards, so I sort like this: - Color (WUBRG, multicolor, colorless, lands, tokens) - Alphabetically - Set (I know I said I don't care about set, but I do care about keeping like printings together. It also rarely matters apart from basic lands, and cards that have more than 10 reprintings.) So same thought exercise, but now for your store strategy. Here is how I prioritized my needs for organizing: - My storage is a 10 drawer micro fiche cabinet. Its much easier to add new cards to this when sorted as mentioned above than binders, and safer than boxes. If I fill a row, I can move cards en mass very easily to a new row or drawer to make room. The cabinet is 250 pounds empty, so its more stable than a pressboard bookshelf. Its also vaguely fireproof. - I build my decks online, so I have a pull list to work from. Which printing is not important, but since they are all in the same place, I can pick my favorite printing because they are all in the same location. - I don't trade, so binders offer me no benefits for this type of storage. My collection is easily over 50K cards, so I'd need far too many of them for it to be practical, and binders would make keeping up with sorting into storage far more work than I care to do. However, I love binders as a way to collect cards for decks I am building so I can see what I have, and what I still need. - Boxes are great for unsorted new cards, partially/presorted cards, and cards that I have not put into the cabinet yet. I'm a parent, so I get interrupted a lot, and my pets are not respectful my space, so I cannot leave cards out unattended. I sort and put away cards in small increments as time allows. - Time. If you buy new cards, plan time to put them away. If you're at a draft/sealed event, sort your cards during deckbuilding, between matches, and afterwards before you go home, then put them away as soon as you do. If you use an inventory system, its easy to add at this time too. - Inventory systems are great. If its your thing, use one. It can de really daunting if you have thousands of cards, but its super handy. Its great to look on your phone, and know what you have when you're at your LGS, or a dealer's table at an event. Its also amazing if you ever need to file an insurance claim, or a police report for replacement value.
I have one of those giant collections, about 50-60k cards. I use the 5-row box like Arthur uses, but 4 of them. The bulk common and uncommon cards are sorted by set-chronologically (so Scars of Mirrodin, then Mirrodin Besieged, etc.). Each set is sorted by type/color (Artifacts/Black/Blue/etc.), and then each card in each color is sorted alphabetically. This allows me to just add new rows and boxes as new sets come out without messing with the older ones. Lands, $1 rares, and foils are stored in individual 1k count boxes. I've bought a card house to store those. My expensive/showcase cards are in UltraPro binders. The binders are sorted by set chronologically and by color in each set. I'm sure this sounds a little insane lol, but I just did it while binging Fringe (incredible show btw) about 7 or 8 years ago. Now if I own a card (or am not sure) it takes me less than 30 seconds as long as I know the set, color, and name. Makes it all worth it.
ah, the episode I've been waiting for. this is the answer to every time I sent in a 'question time'. I did reach a breaking point in my organization and had to solve it about a year ago. My collection is large (very, lgs size big, 35k). I have a few favored planes (Mirroden, Innistrad) so those sets I keep in display organized binders. The rest (carefully chosen bulk all the way to original duals) is in 4 slot boxes ordered by year/quarter (I wanted no categories for organizations that could change or expand infinitely, so not by type, value, rarity, etc. only concrete categories, printing date and color id). Each box is it's own color or coloring pairing by color identity (means lands are scattered throughout the system due to identity). However within each box, so section of cards is bigger then about 150 cards, so speed to find any one card is about a minute and speed to put away any one card is about 1 minute since everything is a small unorganized bucket category. This is great for storing and pulling cards, but not really for brewing. The sheer size of the collection means it just takes forever to 'browse' for cards. It is fully inventoried in Archidect and when brewing with there deck builder, it checks my inventory for me so I know right away if a card is available. then with the organization, I can pull all the cards for a deck in about an hour.
i have a pretty organized way of organising my collection . i have excel sheets for each set where i mark each card with colors and keywords so its easy to find for example each "warrior", "combat trick", "Protection", "+1+1 counters" and so on. . or i have excel sheets where i have all my ramp, card draw, card selection, removal, board wipes, mana fixing cards in each color listed with mana cost and some details. it took very long to do it but now im happy. and i use some collection site in the internet to get visual overview as well. its very helpful for deck building. the cards are sorted by set, color and/or cardnumber
I try to keep it simple. First colors > Type (Enchament, Artifact etc.,) > Rarity. Sort alphabetically (don’t bother with anything past first letter or you will go nuts) and put Mythic / Rare in binders, with Uncommon / Common in boxes with tabs. Also, Amazon has cheap card sorting trays, normally display trays, and makes sorting so much easier etc., I also love using binders that allow me to add pages. This way if you need to slot in another page in a section due to more cards it is quick and easy. Oh, last tip, leave some spacing in your binders, I usually leave one empty space between letters. So far it works well for me :)
Here's a good one for anyone interested in the topic. I have my trade binder. And then I have 2 main boxes, one with bulk commons and uncommons. This box is pretty large. The second box is just a fat pack box but inside I keep all my mana rocks, card draw and removal of all rarities. As I don't trade these cards. I call this my deck building box. It allows me to quickly find my sol rings and other goodies for that new sweet deck I'm building. I also keep unique synergies and combos in this box. Ones I want to build around. As I don't want to trade these away. I firmly believe "trade binders" should be all cards are fair game for trading. Nothing hits the feel bads quite like being told that 1 card you pulled out isn't for trade. But these are just my strategies and opinions. Great video!
I have a system very similar to Ashlen's. I organize by set for my rares/mythics in three ring binders. Super easy to add new sheets every time a set comes out and I have cards to put in from when I played during pre-release or pick up playsets of my favorite singles. All of my lands fit into an old deck builder's toolkit box, rares in the back, basics in front, common and uncommon non basics in the middle. My commons and un-commons are in my one and only deck box. A tiny ultimate guard 100 count box. I build commander decks so often that keeping up with bulk singles is just impossible. So I keep what I pull from playing limited in this box and then if I want to add commons or un-commons, I have to give up ones I already own. I only want to have to look at this box and my binders when seeing if I have any singles I need before buying a deck. A large box with 1000+ cards is just not something that would work for me. Since I have a very large deck collection (just got my 61st commander deck this week) I prioritize space for my decks, not singles. So all of my decks are organized by color identity in Stanley cases. pros: super cost effective and space efficient. I do not need a single deck box, since a Stanley case holds 12 decks. Whenever I want to go to an lgs, I just pull out the decks I want to bring and put them into an extra Stanley I have that is empty and custom build it for each trip I take. Cons: not very aesthetic since most of my bookshelf is covered in these toolboxes. Thinking of making a custom shelf so the Stanley boxes can be at angles and then you can see the commanders. That would be amazing! This system has been working great for me and I loved hearing how you guys sort your collections!
I have a medium- large collection and I do a combination of different methods. I have 7 binders that are separated by WUBRG, multicolor, artifacts, lands and then a personal binder. The first 6 binders hold all of my rare/mythic cards or cards worth over $2 and those are spererated with color coordinated binders with artifacts and lands in the back part of 2. I even have a whole section of 1 binder dedicated to the commander legends Commander's to make brewing a new deck easy. It also makes it really easy to take to my LGS and trade cards with other players. My personal binder is all of my commander staples, and cards that I dont want to trade. I have a 5 row box and 4 row box that hold all of my bulk for each color, multicolor, artifacts, non basic lands, and basic lands. Those rows of colors are organized by Enchantment, sorcery, instant, artifact, and creatures. I also have every card scanned into an app for easy searching and price checking!
I like taking the plastic card holder that come in Card Kingdom orders, writing the title of a brew idea on each one and then filling that particular holder with the relevant cards when they arrive, because I'm always brewing and when I order cards it's with a specific purpose. This has helped me organize my "recent" cards
Some great points to consider (consider this as tips): You can make special sorts at the same time you do any sort. I have 3 piles distinct from the other that are just for Mana Rocks, Ramps, and Counter (because you don't need to put them together with other cards if you want a ramp, you WILL go for a ramp Same for rocks and counters). another tip: for lands, you can sort them by color generate, and if enters tapped or not(or not in most of the time)
I really like the method Shauna has. I have two shipping containers full of cards, and with her method I can pass down my extras to my nephews and nieces organized. That way it might be easier for them to decide on cards for their builds 😎
Just got into Magic. I own four preconstructed 60 card decks. Since I don't know how to build a deck I will keep those decks intact. Every deck will be stored in a deck box. Pick a box and you are ready to play. I will at the same time collect sets. Those will be in binders following Shaunas way, collector number. I have no idea how this will go but it is a start.
I can tell you the top rows of the narrow Ikea Alex drawers can hold double sleeved cards upright. Four rows, no clue how deep you can go and you probably want some cardboard or something, at least in front and back, but seperating the rows is also a great idea. It's a great way to store a bit of cards. For when you know, go in and out of the deck before / after a tournament.
Really cool post. I have a very Large collection all the way back to 1994 but with a gap from Scourge until Dominaria. This is my fourth system, designed for making 4-5 CMDR decks a week. I use boxes, but only the kind that store cards vertically. Each color has a box (the shoe-storage type, so 6.5" x 14", two rows) for creatures and a box for spells - no more than 3 copies except for massively used cards like Arcane Signet. All rare creatures are stored separately though. All Legendary Creatures are in binders by color. All Pre-cons are in their original boxes, but I do track on Excel when I remove a card from them. Finally, the MOST USED cards are simply stored out in the open in card sorting trays by color and rarity (Rare/others). I also store a copy of every CMDR deck that is currently active (i.e., not torn down) on Excel. So when I build a new deck, I can search excel for the card I'm looking for and find it either in an existing deck, in the MOST USED pile, or in the boxes. Time to build these decks has been reduced from 3-4 hours down to about 1 hour to design and pull. This works for me, but I'm always thinking about a better way.
I've been collecting and playing since Alpha, with the collection currently around 200,000 cards. I keep between 1-8 of each unique card in 151 3" UltraPro binders with 9-card-slot Ultra-Pro Platinum pages (max 4 cards per slot). The overflow cards are kept in MtG Gift boxes and 500-card boxes. Pre-built decks are stored sleeved in deck boxes and labeled for easy selection and stored single-depth in ~13"x20" plastic boxes. The binders are organized by color, card type for the 5 colors and multi-color (creature, enchantment, aura, instant, sorcery, tokens, basic lands), and sorted alphabetically where applicable. Artifacts, equipment, vehicles, legendary, non-basic lands, art cards, promos, signed cards, planeswalkers, and secret lair cards are in binders sorted alphabetically. Overflow cards are separated by set. One of the most important aspects of managing your collection is the app/database/website/tool you use to keep track of the cards you have. I'm currently using MTG Studio, and have used a variety of tools in the past. There are many apps, tools, and websites that give you the ability to manage deck lists, and as long as you can quickly determine if you have the cards you need for a deck and find them in your collection, you have a functional management and storage scheme.
As a box breaker, I have many MANY cards where I own more than 4 copies. I am on a crusade to go through set by set and put aside all these "Extra" cards with one ultimate end goal... A party! All my MTG friends will gather and build EDH decks from these extra cards as well as being allowed to bring any cards from their own collection to build the best deck possible. (With a grand prize Jace, the Mind Sculptor to incentivize the best builds.) Once our fun is finished, EVERY deck played gets donated to our local library where they teach kids to play and give new players these decks! To make this easier, I am sorting each set by card number in two of the long 1000 card boxes. My playsets and the extras. This will make for a great time, a good cause and easy access to all my cards when I need to find one.
I've adopted a method I've used for years to keep track of my DVD collection, which is to alphabetize and inventory. Keeping them alphabetical allows me to visually and quickly find anything I need and also recognize if something is missing. The inventory allows me to see what percentage of each set I own, the exact number of cards in my collection, and the cost of completing a set as well as how many copies of each card I own. As my collection gets large, no matter what thing I'm collecting, if I don't have it inventoried then there's a risk of losing some of it through loss or theft. So aside from it being very organized, efficient, and OCD friendly, it's safe and accounted for. When I open a new MTG box I sort it into piles by color, then I sort those piles by number. I put the appropriate number of Ultra Pro pages into a D-ring binder based on the number of cards in the set and I print a graphic label for the cover and spine. I single sleeve 1 of each card number into a perfect fit sleeve and put them into the pages leaving spaces for the numbers still needed. The first pages are for the set, and the latter pages are for the variants. I single sleeve the foil cards and put them into the same pocket as it's number in front of the non-foil. All duplicate cards go into an 800 ct. cardboard box in card number order and the box is labeled by set. I have 1 binder per set and the binders are sorted on the shelf by release date. This system has worked well for me as I prioritize collecting and long term preservation. When I need a card to play with I look it up on my inventory app and see if it's in my collection. Then if I have multiples I grab it from the cardboard box, sleeve it and add it to my deck. If I only have 1 copy I'll take it from the binder, and then consider buying copies of it so I don't have to take from the binder in the future (depending on card price of course). This will come in handy later when I start selling off some of my bulk, since I will know exactly how many I have and of what cards. The downside is after opening a new MTG box it takes a few hours to sort and inventory, but that's worth it for me.
I have multiple systems for organizing, because I approach the game from several angles. My sealed products are stacked by set on shelves. My reserve list/old cards are in those 9 card/page binders, also by set. Mythic/Rare/Uncommons are in 1.5 in. binders that I can add pages to. Sorted by color and alphabetized. Commons are in those long boxes, sorted by set and color. Works for me, but requires a fair amount of upkeep as my collection grows all the time.
I organise my cards into what sets they come from. I've got 4x boxes of 5000 storage and they're full; everything is nm+ but I wouldn't sell them because it's niche having cards in storage which could be put into a commander deck. I've got 4x folders based on staples; 1x folder for trades. Everything inside is worth something and it's relevant for different platforms such as pioneer, standard, historic and commander. So recently I've been storing the march of the machine cards. There's several sets based on them but I stick to the following. Artifacts Sorcery, colour sort for everything below et cetera Instant Enchantments Emblems Tokens Creatures-cplour code everything it's easier than numbering the sets. If I need a card for commander before I buy it online I can check online it's previous prints and I've probably got it within the boxes. Recently I found I have a bunch of "catastophe". 6x inside urza's saga and 4x inside battle Royale. Well that saved me £2.50 purchasing one. That's not much I know bit a commander deck is 100 cards; try constructing then from fresh every 3 months 😂
I have a large collection. Enough so that I can't keep my cards all in one spot. I have every card put into Delver Lens. They are organized by color, casting cost and creature/non-creature. In Delver you can make multiple lists and decks. So if I want to know if I own a card I can type a search and I know how many I have and where they are located. I can then find the card in less than 20 seconds. Makes it super simple to build decks and look for inspiration. If I buy a precon Commander deck, for instance, I will pull out the corresponding colored binders and see what fits for upgrades. It has made the building process actually enjoyable instead of a headache. The downside: it took me literally a month on almost a nightly basis to enter in all my cards and sometimes I'll forget to enter in the new ones right away. If you go through the effort of putting in your collection, stay on top of it.
A quick tip for your bulk, buy 10 bucks worth of penny sleeves, and lump up your multiples in to one sleeve, and then sort them how you normally would. Makes flipping through a bunch of commons/uncommons waay more bearable
Great episode. I have a large collection, commander player, rarely trade. For me, I've sorted my cards by ability, ramp, dorks, mil, draw, madness, return, etc. A qr code app helps jump to the box/fat pack containing those cards. This makes it easy to get to cards by themes and when deck building.
20+ years player/collector here. I had a HUGE collection, like 55k cards. I had to shrink it, some way. So i decided to keep my 21 decks (9 pauper, 3 premodern, 3 centurion commander, 2 multiplayer commander, 1 modern 1 legacy 1 pioneer 1 standard), my 3 full sets (Apocalypse, new capenna, Kamigawa) and my 600 cards legacy cube (made by real cards, not proxies) and organize the rest in 2 major categories: cards that i want to keep and cards that i'm ok selling. I sold the cards that i was ok selling and organized the rest in 14 480-cards binders, by color and mana value. So now it's all perfect, i only own cards that i want, and i know exactly where every card is in my 6720 total cards binders shelf. It took almost 6 full days of work to organize it all but it was totally worth it.
I just got 900 card baseball card binders…and I put duplicates behind. I have a binder for each color. The good thing about this is that the pages are removable. This means that it as my collection grows, it’s pretty easy to add a page in the right spot. Cards are sorted by color and alphabetical. I have a medium collection of 3833 cards. Yes, I have an exact inventory using the Dragon Shield app to track my collection. Basic lands are in a box.
I saw this video as I sort my 40k+ magic cards. While it's daunting, my end goal is as follows: 1) Separate by Rarity, Color, and mana value. MAYBE by set as well but that's not as important since I remember MVs and effects over actual card names. 2) Sort by card types (creatures, instants, enchantments etc) 3) Have a bulk box, a trade box/binder, and also even have a commander cube potential box that's sorted by the above methods. I find that with so many cards, this will take a long...LONG time. However the end result will be me being able to find cards by MV fairly fast and easy for deck brewing. This video did add an interesting idea in sorting by alphabetical order/collector number though. So that's something I'll think about as I continue sorting. Thanks for the video!
Awhile back, I bought a vintage library card holder and my cards fit PERFECTLY. Plus, I get to organize them by color and have inserts to separate them out in the shelf by category. It’s made finding cards and putting them back so much easier and more enjoyable.
I sort my collection in binders, but I sort them into functions. So I have a binder for single target removal, a binder for lands and ramp, a binder for card draws and board wipes, a binder for mythics and rares that fall outside these categories and a binder for great commons and uncommons outside those categories as well. Within the binders I sort multicolored, artifacts then in WUBRG-order in ascending mana value. I dont know if this is something the rest of you can use, but it makes deckbuilding extremely easy for me. Plus whenever my friends lack a couple of STR or a couple of card draws, I can immediately find the best options I have available for them. :)
I always sort my cards while watching Command Zone. 1 Hour ist just enough time to do a big pile and tbh what is better than watching Magic content while organizing your collection.
I have a multi tier organization. I have my big white cardboard boxes of common and uncommon. Organized those by color and the card type. So creature, sorcery, instant etc. Then I have binders. I have my binders by color for $2 to $5 rare/mythic. Then the $5 plus binder. And one nicer deck box for all the rare/mythic bulk, sectioned by colors. It really does help for building and trades depending on what people want to look at.
I used to buy Dragon Shield boxes; both commander deckboxes and the longer boxes, to store decks and my collection in, respectively. I've played the last 5-7 years-ish (it depends on whether we're talking first draft or when I built my first deck). Over time, I've filled a lot of boxes. They've even stopped selling both of these things at my LGS. Doesn't help that I got a bunch of draft chaff at my LGS a long time ago and haven't gotten rid of it... and got my friends' bulk cards maybe a year ago. I'll get around to finally organizing things again as soon as I get to the summer. Having a system definitely helps. As a programmer, I know that's something clever people have also figured out there. I can't really apply all of that to how I store Magic cards, but it's not for nothing. Personally, I'd love to use binders for the cards I care more about, and I'd keep the rest of the collection in plastic boxes. I've never been a huge fan of bulky cardboard boxes. A binder for everything that can be a commander would be nice, seeing as I often feel like brewing a new deck. One way I hope to sate my desire to brew and build, but also not spend much more money impulsively (and perhaps cut down on the bulk I keep), is to try and force myself to build what I dub 'bulk budget' decks. I like the idea of keeping playsets of things. I like the idea of having EDH decks I'd be willing to lend out. I feel like Magic keeps getting more and more expensive. Why not combine all of these things and try to really use my noggin, building decks that are cheap and limited on purpose? This way I'll get a break from staples, and I'll get to build more decks for free! Worst case scenario I'll just toss a lot of cards out and free up a lot of space.
I used to have it all in one big, pink tub and it was really daunting to lug it out when building a deck. It also took up so much space! Finally got the organizer that the long white boxes slide into. Haven't put everything in there yet but it's already so much neater and easier to get to cards! Deck building is definitely my main priority so I have organized by color then name. Rares and mythics will be put in a 3 ring binder for easy access/trade. I'm also thinking of putting all legendary cards in there as well. Loved the episode!
I really liked the sound Damen's method. Compared to my friends I've been playing the shortest amount of time and all of them have more substantial collections than me. Because of that I don't really have any trades that they need for now at least. I think this will really help me organize my bulk and set myself up for my growing collection as I mostly focus on brewing and not trading.
I have around 2000 cards, and the method that i use is a storage in small boxes, and those are labeled (classified) for effects. Example: "draw a card, destroy single, reanimate, basic lands, tapped non basic lands, rooms, etc" Thanks for the video.
Ayoo for the few that read my comment about organization; So I mainly play EDH, PDH, a little modern, and pauper. I have my main binder that's got commanders, WUBRG expensive cards (anything over a dollar), and cool lands. My other binder is for cards that aren't worth all that much but are worth putting aside, i.e. PDH commanders, foils, pauper staples, and cards with cool art (retro art from brothers of war, manga artist cards, full arts, etc). Then the bulk of my collection is my uncommons all separated by colors in recycled booster boxes (one contains common artifacts, another contains multicolor commons/ mana rocks/ utility lands, and the last is uncommon artifacts/ uncommon lands/ uncommon multicolored). AND THEN I have a big 5,000 card box for all my commons, this includes uncommons printed at common rarity for pauper. Now I'm uploading my stuff to manabox because I'm in college and can't afford to keep ordering cards that I later find in my collection lol. Anyways, ty for coming to my Ted Talk.
You mean a 5000 count Box for each color artifact's plans multicolor all alphabetized by the first letter, not to mention set binders sitting on the bookshelf gonna need a new bookshelf soon and perhaps binder's specific to a color for trading or just so I know where my good stuff is and I can't forgetThe sorting tray Not to mention theme binders you know dragon's, cat's, sliver's, custom, proxy, counterfeit, signed....and there are still stacks...best move was when I decided to build a collection of decks to accompany my collection of cards. But Hey man as long as it's not the living room floor or kitchen table my wife is happy 😊
Currently I have my cards spread over several bundle boxes separated by set. They're organized by color, WUBRG > Multicolor > Colorless > Nonbasic Land. They're alphabetized within each color group. I've got a lot of misc cards gifted by friends that aren't by set because there's not enough of them to matter. I've been considering mixing the sets to make things easier to find, but I rankle at the idea.
1 - Sort them by color (wubrg multi land artefact token) 2 - Sort them alphabetically (use reference letters on a table) 3 - Sort them by rarity 4 - Now packs are smalls, combine duplicate 5 - Scan them with the tool of your choice 6 - Import them on your collection manager of your choice 7 - Pack them away as you like (boxes, binder) It's long to get started but once done, you'll never have to use your paper collection to build deck and it's easy to find them. You will also, depending on the collection manager you are using, know the price of your collection and follow its trend. You can also share digital trade lists. PS : My previous message was deleted certainly because I was making reference to specifics tools and sites to help you sort your collection. That's the way it is I suppose...
I liked this best 22:34 For me: Color, Use, Mana Cost 5 Rows for each color + additional box for lands, artifacts, and multicolor cards Use = Counters, Ramp, Removal, Draw, Creature Type, etc
I have a old card catalog cabinet I'm putting my 20+ years collection in. It's been a 2 year project. I'm got to by color , alphabetical order, and cut to the most of one card name of 12 ( or 4 of the different art), and rares / mythic are on there own. Don't always work on it but up to red C's. Hope to finish this year.
I organize my collection by set, alphabetically. If I have a lot of cards in a set I divide it by set then color, so Kaladesh - blue. The cards are in just two card boxes with dividers I also index all my cards into a MTG database that I can search whenever I want to find a specific card or check if I have a card. It’s incredibly handy for my collection of 9000+ cards.
Since I got into Magic in 2013, I quickly started sorting rares/mythics into binders and commons/uncommons into boxes. From there, I'd sort them by... Color ID > Card type > Name, alphabetically This, as it turns out, became a pain. The binders because of the time that went into reorganizing whenever I added new cards, and the boxes because it's just been difficult to get my hands on appropriately and consistently sized boxes where I live. Well, I'm moving to a new apartment in just over a month, so my entire Magic collection is in the process of going into moving boxes. This, I figure, is as good a time as any to switch up my system! In the near future, binders will be reserved for commanders, planeswalkers, rare/mythic lands, masterpiece-style cards, and then possibly a separate trade binder if that feels relevant. For everything else, I'm going to try building my own boxes/drawers and hopefully create a space efficient shelving system that's customized for my own Magic needs.
Rares and mythics go into color coded UltraPro binders in mana value order with breathing room for additions. Common and uncommon "staples" across all formats go into a box similar to Arthur's setup in mana value order and type. Commons and uncommons that aren't quite "staples" go into fat pack boxes of a similar color scheme (White in an Avacyn Restored fat pack box, Artifacts in a Scars of Mirrodin box, Blue in a Return to Ravnica box, yada yada). True bulk gets added into a few 800 count card boxes and are donated or sold when they are full.
Haven’t even finished the video but THANK YOU! Finally someone using the card numbers. Always the way I’ve done it and people look at me like I’m nuts.
I have two wider D-ring-binders in black with the Magic-Logo on the front. You might still be able to get them. In those, I have a 100-pack of Ultra Pro binder pages, approximately 50 pages each. Cards are sorted by colour and type. If I run out of space, I sort out cards. My decks are in boulders and arkhives. Organized, compact, pretty. :D
I put my cards in 3 ring binders where you can add sleeve sheets, under 1 of 3 categories. 1. Sets. Each binder holds about 4-5 sets which I put them in color and numerical/alphabetical order, and I do that with each set for all the cards that are common and uncommon. 2. then a seperate binder/s for just the rares and mythics. 3. Then all borderless, extended art and showcase cards get put in another seperate binder/s together. One binder has just land cards (basic/dual etc) as I put one of each different artwork for each of the lands in there. Then I use the bundle boxes to store my commander decks. They hold 4 sleeved decks. Iv bought only one official deck storage box that holds 2 decks and dice/tokens. That's for my main 2 commander decks. All the doubles/bulk cards I'm left with go into booster box boxes.
I have a large collection. Currently Bulk - I keep in large cardboard boxes sorted by set. Decent cards $1-$2.99 - in penny sleeves in smaller cardboard boxes, sorted by color. Anything $3 or more - penny then hard sleeve and keep in those larger cardboard boxes sorted by color or keep in binders with penny sleeves. I don't currently have any decks and this system works great for my current primarily collecting mtg style. What I decide to binder and what to hard sleeve depends on how often I want to see it. I have one binder for MH2 cards, one that I keep secret lairs in, and other things I like to look at every once in a while like my whole Unglued set.
I keep my finished decks seperate from my decks under construction, in boxes. I don't have enough money to sleeve all my decks right away, once they are finished, or deck boxes. I usually reserve those for the decks I use most often. Also, my singles all go into binders. I don't keep loose singles because I need to know what I've got and have easy access to my cards so that if I need them for a new deck, I can just flip to a specific page in a specific binder. I organize by color, creature, instant, sorcery, enchantment, non basic lands, artifacts are separated by color, non color, mana rocks, equipment, tokens, etc. Then I have separate binder for my trades and cards I'm gonna sell. Then I keep my basic lands in bulk boxes, sorted by color. Then my decks are sorted by format. Commander, Pauper, Pioneer, and Modern. I have dual deck box for my 2 Pioneer decks, and I have 3 Pauper decks so I use a dual deck box for 2 of them and then a single deck box for my favorite one. Then I keep my Modern decks in like a bulk box, except for my favorite one, I keep that one in a single deck box. Then there's my commander decks. I store them individually in their own deck boxes typically in pods of 4 so that I can grab 4 at a time for game nights. I have 10 commander decks finished, and 6 under construction. So yeah. Mostly I use the MTG bundle boxes as bulk boxes for storing decks that don't have individual deck boxes. I keep my miscellaneous sleeves in a sleeve vault made from an old shoe box sorted by color and size as I play multiple tcgs like yugioh, Pokémon, and Cardfight Vanguard.
Speaking as a collector who got into the game in 2012, and has 2 storage units strictly dedicated to collecting mtg and miniature collectibes, i personnally organize by Year > block > set > rarity > playset and anything graded has its own sections seperate from everything else....and i know its a little ocd and adhd. I know but i plan to sell it off as a retirement fund lmao so the extra organization and dedication helps a lot, i personally dont do many trades so no experience or advice on trades or cube binders etc. P.S any deck i make/play or structure i buy as separate singles online or from any number of LGS's and go into a footlocker organized by format hopefully this also helps any people looking to organize if they have the extra room and options to spare or have that of a larger sized collection
Lady's idea inspires me, but it will use a lot more space. Currently I have each color in it's own 5k box (and artifact/multicolor/lands in their own). With the exception of more valuable cards, which I have in their own binder (in the correct color)... and then there's 2 exceptions, because I collected the whole set. They are in their own binder; Theros and Amonkhet =)
Ha I've been growing my collection for 10 years and somehow have made it this long without organizing it. Started three days ago, and then this video gets uploaded. Couldn't have come at a better time!
I'll post my reorganization I'm in the middle of on your social media. Been playing since '94. I lost a big part of my early collection when I had multiple binders and my one big box stolen, but have expanded the collection again. I have one 3" binder containing my Urza block, and what I own from the Invasion block as well as Antiquities- my friends gave me the Urza moniker many many years ago, so I show that off. Most of my cards I organize by picking out all the rares,, they have a separate box, then all my bulk is organized by set then collector number (like Shauna). I started last year, my job doesn't give me as much down time as I'd like to keep chugging along, but I've got one box done, which has 1993 cards up to Ixalan. Next box will have everything else.
Recently I put all my cards in boxes that were labeled by 800, 1600, and 3200, respectively, I had roughly 19,000 cards... this was February 2024, I just got through all my cards 2 weeks ago August 2024, very daunting, but I got rid of roughly 10,000 cards. And got my stuff organized for edh deck building, makes building a deck pretty quick.
I have, I'd say, a medium collection, and I'm big into brewing cmdr decks; so when I decided to sit down and organize, my first identified need was: "If I'm in a brewing mood, I need to be able to quickly look at all my potential commanders". That transitioned into having a Legendary and Multi-Color binder. Then for my non-legendary cards I have a large binder which is sorted into color and type. So Red Cards > Creatures, Sorceries, Instants, Enchantments, Artifacts. Etc for the rest of the colors. This works pretty well for Rares, Mythics and particularly good low-rarity cards; and then for bulk I am starting to sort them into set specific boxes by color, type, mana-value
Pro tip: Ultra pro binders can actually hold up to 5 copies of one card per sleeve. So a 360 card binder can in actuality hold somewhere around 1800 physical cards. Such a binder however, is kinda thicc.
I currently have a large shared collection at home that different friends have been chipping into and building from for over a decade. We have a binder for rares/mythics of each color plus one for colorless and multicolor each all sorted by cmc. Then we have three shoe boxes of bulk organized by the same standards with each basic type having it's own place. I didn't do any of the work but I'm damn glad my friend did.
At 1st I thought this video might not help me...But then I saw Ashlen's collection and O.M.G. my collection looks about the same size as hers..maybe a little bigger. But She had so many cool ways to sort em' ! Definetely helped me . Thanks SOOOO much 🙂
I find the best for deck building is binders with removable sheets, into different colours, then in draw, ramp, removal & then the rest of the 99. That way if I’m building a simic deck I look at the Green & Blue draw spells & pick the best 10 etc & so on for ramp & removal. Was good to see how you guys do it, thanks for sharing.
Hi! Resident librarian & archivist here. About a quarter into the episode and looking forward to delving into the different methods people are using. My biggest breakthrough moment in my own organization was considering how much TIME and ENERGY I had to organize matched with the AMOUNT of cards we were purchasing on a regular basis. I initially began by trying to do a set > mana colour/identity > alphabetical method, but after a while.. it got so tiresome that cards ended up piling up. I didn't want to bother organizing them into boxes. We now do them roughly by set > primary mana colour > total mana cost in boxes with dividers. No, it isn't the most technical. But we know they'll get organized in a timely fashion! (Cards we love/want to put into decks and cards we want to sell get put into two separate binders.)
Just started organizing my cards 2 days ago! Doing mine by color and putting it all in mana box - I have about ~1500 cards and it’s working great so far
I have 17+ large 4 row boxes (BCW boxes) (up to 4k cards each) 3 of them fit per cube of an ikea kallax. Cards are sorted 100% alphabetical for ease of retrieval. I use online tools like EDH Rec, Scryfall, etc for deck building, then go pull what I have, see what I still need to get. I have a spare "to be sorted" and a nice card sorter (CoolStuffInc ultimate sorter) for returning stuff to the boxes.
Thanks for the insights, great video! My way to go is: by color identity, and then mana value, and then rarity, and then creatures / sorceries / instants / enchantments / artifacts / planeswalkers. In that way it can grow limitless. And this system is duplicated by staples and then bulk. So I always check first staples this way and if it's not there, go to the bulk. It can grow easy and finding cards is easy as well. Though I only use cardboxes, but I'm looking forward for getting binders!
Such a great episode! I never have enough time to sort my collection properly... But part (~ about 5k cards) that's already organised has been organised this way: Columns by color: w/ u/ b/ r/ g/ multi/ c/ and nonbasic lands + landstation. Within columns separation by creature/noncreature card at first, than by CMC and subtype at noncreature cards (instant-sorcery-enchantment-artifact-planeswalker) than by rarity from common to rares. Multicolor cards sorted the same way except colour sorting goes from allied colour pairs to enemy colour pairs, than wedges nearly similar way, than 4, than 5c cards. For lands are similar rules - colour identity first, than colour fixing without colour identity, than other utility land. I'd like to sort all of that it alphabetical, but I don't have so much free time ( :( ) and 'cause I have cards on multiple languages, so this becomes unnecessary hard to do.
I tend to only keep one Master collection binder of each set. Any bound playsets of cards are kept organized by WotC playable formats, identified casual gamestyles, or by my Spark Brethren circle's homebrew casual gamestyles, & then by color. Anything else, I either sell in bulk or grade & sell on eBay or on Delcampe if I'm selling cards in foreign languages. I don't have much bulk, save for the binders on my shelves. I have so many binders that 3 of the walls, except for above the studio door & the nearby windows, are shelved with Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, & Magic.
I have a bunch of different storages set up. Commander is my main format, so I have Secret Lair boxes with commander staples (one for ramp, one for removal, and a couple others for everything else), a binder with more expensive staples, trade binder for expensive cards that I dont use, WUBRG binders for bulk rares, big cardboard boxes for good commons or uncommons sorted by color, and loose super bulk cards in large boxes. These I usually donate when I accumulate too many. I also have bundle boxes for nonbasic lands and fancy basics. I also use these for decks I am working on before they are finished and sleeved. Edit: As for deck boxes, I use clear plastic ultra pro boxes. They protect the cards well, are stackable, small, and I can see the commander without opening it.
Yikes. I have about 70,000 cards. It's really hard for me to let go of them even when I know they're bad and I'll never use them. How many times does a card that's been worthless for 10+ years suddenly become amazing because of a newly printed card that combos with it? I got rid of a bunch of Rhystic Studies years ago thinking "Oh, they're commons, no one cares about these" and look what happened with that card.
I used to think there were bad cards but sometimes it is fun making those "bad cards" shine in ways that no one expects. I have a deck using banding. Yes, banding. It is quite powerful when it is used right. I hold on to all my cards because I will never know when they will come in handy.
Maybe you could get rid of overcosted vanilla creatures?
Dude that's like 700 commander decks there I don't really know the math but 70k divided by piles of 100 is 700 decks/piles of 100 cards
@@reginaldfluffington5142 Usually downright bad or gimmick cards tend to be the strongest when you build them into a focused deck Example Phage, the Untouchable half of the deck involves playing the card from your command zone and living or cheating it into your hand with stuff such as Command Beacon or even putting it into the grave to get into your hand to play it. It sounds jank till you play it then you will be like "Why is this so strong and consistent?"
Though one of my favorite ones to do is animate Battle of Wits into a enchantment creature so i can swing to win with a infinite attack/defense combo after cloning it. Then again i call those party decks just like my Mono White Door to Nothingness which is pretty strong and granted Kenrith is the commander as you need a 5c commander since door has all 5 symbols in its rules text and Kenrith because he is honestly cheaper than a Progenitus money wise which is surprising since he is a cEDH card
I also have a Mono Green Maze's End deck but we don't talk about that as no one likes a turn 5 ramp deck and yes there are cards that ramp non basic lands into play. Anyways my point is Gimmick decks tend to be a bit on the strong side usually power level 8's sometimes low 9's just because they are so focused on a gimmick and Phage itself can be low 10's by accident just because of how much it takes to make that commander work just pushes it into that realm of power especially if you have a good bit of graveborn cards and platinum angel in the deck and there are a lot of cards that pull from the deck to put creatures into the grave so you can consistently get Platinum Angel out without worrying even if they counter spell as just play your other graveborn card
There are also a good bit of black counter spells on a stick as in usually creatures that have a tap ability or mana cost to counter a spell such as Stromgald Cabal for example let's you counter target white spell. Dash Hopes is also good but it counters itself if anyone pays the 5 life and you also have enchantments that are a counter on a stick such as Deathgrip which let's you counter target green spell which in competitive is really good as everyone just about has green but one of the more funny ones is a World Enchantment Neither Void all spells are countered unless their casters pay an additional 3. and Thrull Wizard is there so you can counter your own commander and let it go into the grave so you can play something like a Gravepurge and get it into your hand then cast it from there and not loose to its ability
The specific hate counter spells Black has is really great to have in the deck because in a pod of 4 people at least someone is going to have that color like it is a high chance and if played in competitive well the thoricle win line has black in it so Thrull Wizard has another use other than avoiding a death by Phage also if you really want something to not go through you can actually repeatedly activate Thrull Wizards ability onto the stack targeting that one spell so they have to pay a lot or get rid of Thrull Wizard
Funny you mention Rhystic Studies. My brother and a few of his friends bought a box of bulk cards some 10+ years ago that had multiple copies of Rhystic Studies so they each got at least a copy of it from that. One of them still runs in his commander decks Dream Halls, Opalescence, and Rhystic Studies, that he had gotten from that box of bulk.
It is such a pain moving all of my cards out of my bathtub to shower every day. This video is an amazing help, thank you!
Oh my god YES thank you for making this video. Having recently gotten into Magic and already amassed a TON of cards - I need this lol
I’m in the exact same boat. I got back into it a year ago after probably close to 20 years off and I’m at the point now where I seriously need better organization
What have you done to organize that’s been successful for you? I just bought like a bunch. Box of set boosters, 5 commander decks and 600 random cards from an Etsy seller.
Its not so hard if you start early ^^. If not....Well ^^*
I just want to throw out my organization method, cause I've found it really helpful for deck building for commander specifically.
I use the cardboard boxes for cards, but instead of just having one long box for a color or card-type, I have smaller boxes that organize by function and playability in commander. For example, I have a box that contains all ramp and land-tutor spells, it has mana rocks, mana dorks, enchantments that ramp, etc. organized by color. The reason I like this system is because most of us try to have a certain number of ramp spells per deck, and we want those ramp spells to be synergistic with the deck. Having just ramp allows me to find what I'm looking for without looking at 300 unrelated cards while I find them. It just makes sense for the actual deck-building process.
From that logic, I also organize creatures and spells from any particular color in a similar way. You don't need to keep your draft chaff blue-creatures in the same box as, let's say, an Archeomancer. As you are organizing you creatures, you ask yourself "could this card go in multiple different commander decks, or is it niche or somewhat unplayable?" An enfranchised player should mostly be able to tell the degree of playability, and then put your more playable, more "staple-y" cards in seperate boxes. This significantly helps the deck building process. That doesnt mean that you don't go looking through the box of more niche cards, you just do that at the more logical point in the deck building process, which is after you've put in the "core" or "foundational" pieces of your deck.
Then, apply the same organization to lands, removal, card advantage or card draw, etc. depending on your brain works or how approach the deck-building process.
Basically, organize in a manner that actually aligns with your deck building process, not just for the sake of organizing. I know alot of people who put their cards in organization, but spend the same amount of time shuffling through cards because they end up looking at the same amount of useless cards.
Nice, I started doing something similar a couple years ago. I love having all my ramp, for instance, in one spot.
In a similar way I bought these wooden card drawers from MTechcave’s kickstarter and split cards by common commander themes. Ramp, rocks (by type like colorless,guild,tri, any color), recursion, sacrifice, different styles of draw ( loot,inspire,sac draw, pay life draw), types of bounce, and on and on. It took a few weekends to get it all sorted but man o man it’s now so easy to put everything away after opening boxes or packs.
I used to do this, but as the product volume kept going up per year, I couldnt keep up with sorting stuff back in. Had to go back to something simpler, but I am seriously thinking about adding cmc ordering to it.
Literally yesterday i was looking up tips to organize my collection, and here my favorite channel is addressing it today… woohoo!
SAAAAAAME!
What’s the best way? Sort by color first, then artifacts, basic lands, duel lands, commanders/planes walkers. I was going to do this with ascending mana cost. And then go even more by separating each colors creatures, removals/sorcery/instant and draw cards.
I was gifted a bulk collection of cards from ~2010-2015. It's pretty much just commons and uncommons, only a few foils. It really annoys me not knowing what card I have, even if it is just junk. That was my motivation to organize. They were originally all in bundle boxes. I got one of the "shoebox" bcw boxes and started filling it up. I take a bundle box, organize by WUBRG, artifact/colorless, multicolor, and nonbasic land. Next I alphabetize. Then I scan each card into an app so I have a list of what I own, and it's usually faster than typing it all in. I use delver lens which usually works great for me. I use note cards as dividers/labels so I know where everything is. And then I block out each box separately. I would say it takes me probably a good 4-5 hours to go through one bundle box, which holds about 500 cards. So it is extremely time consuming. Trying to organize that into set or have all the colors together would just take up far too much if I wanted to keep it alphabetical. But I find it fun and this way I am certain of everything I have.
For my more current stuff, same organization and scanning as that bulk, but I do separate it by set and I keep it in the bundle box or a 550 BCW if I buy a booster box for the set. Then I have a binder for my standard rares/mythics and foils. I just put them in there bare, unless they are more than $5. It's a 3 ring binder with dragon shield 18 pocket pages. Those are also separated by set. For my nonstandard rares/foils/cards from the list that aren't from the bulk collection, I have a dragon shield portfolio that I have them in, just organized by color. I did not start really collecting until recently so I plan on getting a new binder, when standard rotates I'll move my old standard in there. I don't play standard but I like cracking packs, it's just an easy way to keep track of it.
[Works for Small Collection Only] As a player who played Magic from 2006, I'm one of the few who managed to keep a relatively small collection. I always buy singles and have not purchased a single booster pack for the past 7 years.
I play EDH format exclusively now and have built >20 commanders with only 800 of the same colored sleeves. I only need to carry about 200-300 cards to LGS every time and I can play with up to 4 / 5 different commanders that I bring to an LGS at the time, switching cards especially mana rocks and fetches is very quick because they are in the same sleeves.
PROS: 1. You only need to own 1 copy of everything.
2. You can potentially keep small collection if that's what you want, I don't like to collect more than I like to play with them.
3. Easy to bring, easy to organize, easy to trade.
4. Technically you only need deck boxes / fatpacks! (I have 1 binder and it's never been full my entire life)
CONS: 1. It's aestethically boring because you are locked to the same sleeve forever (it's not a con for me because I don't really care about this but lots of people like Jimmy and Ladee Danger care about aestethics. I already chose my favorite color from the beginning.)
2. It's challenging to expand your collection
3. It requires dilligence to sell / trade cards you don't need / don't play anymore. However, this is a PLUS if you ask me because it's financially beneficial and I don't need to keep cards that I don't use because I don't collect.
Yes! I’d add, as a player with 20 decks and 25 years into the game:
1. If you play sealed or draft, just give away or throw away the useless cards. You know the ones you will never use.
2. As you mentioned I also never buy any booster, except in some rare occasions some collector boosters since they tend to have more playable cards.
3. Trade all the cards you don’t like. For example I know I’d never play Rhystic Study as I hate this card and my assumption will not change in the future. So easy $30 there.
4. The main pro is you do save thousands of dollars in singles, especially storages/deck boxes, and you keep a small manageable collection. I spend less than $50 per month and play all the strategies I want at all the power levels.
5. One last thing not linked to management is, in 25 years, I never bought cards worth more than $20. All the chased cards - well 99.9% of them - dropped to this price once in a while. Mana Vault was $5 for a while, Ancient Tomb $20, Snapcaster $20, Yawgmoth’s Will $20-$40, several times in their history. The best example is Zacama: I waited 4 years to buy it but can finally spend only $10.
Shauna coming through with the cleanest route. Jimmy sorting by playability/theme sounds almost as stressful as just having piles. Massive amount of knowledge required for that
what have worked for me: keep it small. i have a large collection that is mostly bulk, just in a box, without any type of order.
but then, since i only play commander, i have a litle box of 650~ cards for the playebles, + a binder for partners, +trade binder, +decks
Great episode!
Love when you guys treat themes a lot more indepth in the life of being a magic player, and it feels like a fresh breath after all the non-stop waves onf constant spoilers and set reviews. Our format is much more than spoilers and FOMO, and this episode helped a lot, thanks.
I've collected the bundle box for each set and put the cards in those boxes by colour / rarity. They are VERY aesthetically pleasing on my bookshelves.
My most important step was to realize, that i dont need to store every basic land. Since that point it gets a lot easier.
Not to be rude but as a german speaker I feel the need to point out that it's 'basic' in in english, not 'standard'. Used to get that wrong myself sometimes. ;)
@@Todesnuss good point. makes it sound like non basics that are legal in standard
Thank you, you’re right. I have edited standard to basic
Basic lands I just have in a long box, just sorted by type, within that just throwing them in with foils in sleeves to the back :v
Back in the day, basic lands were hard to get. Only way to get them were Tournament Packs and Theme Decks.
I'd love to see Josh and Craig's organization methods. If Craig got you into Magic his collection must be enormous.
i believe this is the second episode with the intro being a summary of the episode. I enjoy the change - gets me prepped and excited for the episode - like i am apart of the episode. Nice change and keep it up!
Same here! 🙌🙌🙌
Ah yes, because the title doesn't already tell you
I actually recently organized my collection for the first time since i came back to the game 7 ish years ago. I custom-built a card catalog box that stores roughly 24k cards. i separated them alphabetically into 6 drawers with 3 rows each. It took roughly 160 hours and ended up with 20k bulk. Now i gotta wonder if it would have been better just by set and color lol. Great episode Jimmy and crew.
When I’m lazy, which is most of the time, I keep the cards in the booster box. But this really encourages me to get organized, thanks Jimmy!
One trick that I've found is a great way to level up your collection-organization is having a Type Four cube (it's a fun, quick, format that you can find rules for online, and it's really customizable). Mine is about 400 cards currently, mostly just rares and mythics that I'm not using in decks. In my opinion it solves one of the biggest problems in a lot of collections-what to do with all the janky rares that aren't playable in commander.
You can do full, multiplayer games in only 10-15 minutes, so it's also a great way to showcase your collection; playing an actual game with the cards in your trade binder makes people go "woah, this card is sweet" a lot more than just seeing it in a toploader.
I really recommend a Type Four cube to anyone who wishes the cards sitting around in their collection could still get some playing time in-it's been a huge hit in my playgroup and we've even started collectively picking up cards for the cube just to make it even more fun to play.
1 4-row suitcase for each color, 1 2-row box for artifacts, 1 2-row box for multicolored, 1 2-row box for nonbasic lands, 3 1-row boxes for basic lands, 1 2 inch binder for trading: rares and mythical and planeswalkers, 1 2 inch binder for tokens, and 2 2-row boxes for cards to refile. Been playing off and on since 4th edition. Oh, and 2 underbed plastic rolling costs for the deck boxes for EDH and pauper EDH and regular pauper decks, plus a handful of decks in other formats. Moved one year ago and am acutely aware of how much my collection weighs! Great video, Jimmy. Agape love from ATL.
OK so I seem to have a very very different method than EVERYONE else after years collecting and organizing cards not by set, but by function (especially good for casual format-agnostic quick deck building). I have a few binders with complete sets or just miscelaneous valuable cars (over $2) and I use the standard color/multi/colorless order everywhere - but that's where the similarities end! I have devised a way to split each color by their function. So no more "lands" or " artifacts" - just " mana sources" and " colorless creatures", " colorless permanents" etc . No more cards organized by collector's number - but I have dividers like Creatures, Creature Gains, Bounce, Counterspells, Draw, Damage, Removal, Discard, Graveyard, WU, WB, UB, Multi 3+ etc etc. Each color has its own makeup of function - clearly showing what each color does best according to the metagame, and also helping to build decks very quickly, agnostic to the sets the cards came in. My main " good stuff" box also has the best cards available for each (no Shocks, only Lightning bolts and comparable efficiency/card advantage). If you invite me I can talk about the methodology for at least 30 minutes!
Rhystic Studies shirt!! Awesome to see content creators promoting each other. Rhystic Studies is an AMAZING channel.
Grahams crackers comics is my weekly lgs! Super cool to see them get some recognition. Always great game nights!
It’s a great store only 20 min away
I bought my first unlimited starter deck there.(at it's original location.
I was in Chicago for an edh get together last Jan and ended up visiting this exact store and was checked out by the exact guy they showed in the pic. Wild.
Thank you for sharing this! I am wanting to downsize my collection, and my priorities are shifting and this gave me a lot of good ideas to work off of. The big take away I got is separate the playable cards from bulk, and I will donate the bulk to my LGS. I feel a lot of players will want to prioritize their collection for deck brewing, and that is not where I am at - I am looking to maintain the decks I have and just tinkering there. So my 5 Row BCW will be divided by playable cards for each deck, and have a slot for playable cards that could go into multiple decks. I already have a separate box for trades that I need to update. The only thing I have in binders - I am working on collecting every card in each Ravnica set, so that is its own system, and have one binder for alters / signed cards / cards that have sentimental value.
Taking a page from deck building guides for any format, but Commander in particular, I like having my binders arranged by category and then by Mana color for each:
Commanders
Auto-Includes (Command Tower; Arcane Signet…)
Big Threats / Wincons
Ramp
Card Draw
Board Wipes
Spot Removal
Instant-Speed Spot Removal
Utility
Makes building and taking apart decks super easy for any format. Any cards that care about types like Enchantments go in a Synergy category. Any category can include any card type as long as it fits. Finding the right mana rock or best board wipe for a given Commander is super easy and helps with a good distribution of cards as I’m building. Cons: time and binder space (tried boxes but considering the time to leaf through 100s of cards each build OR visually see what is available when the urge strikes it was an easy switch)
I'm pretty new to magic overall, and brand new to paper Magic; I decided I need an organization system right from the start. I have decades of high-level filesystem organization with computers, and the thing I've taken from that, above all else, is to take the path of least resistance. I know that overcomplicating it means it'll never get done (for me personally). Boxes are quicker and easier than binders, so I'll go with boxes. Boxes that fit into other boxes are easier to wrangle than loose boxes, so I'll likely go with one of those 4x3 stacks. Playing commander, legendary creatures are of particular importance, so I'll likely break those out into their own section. I didn't know about WUBRG priority. That's huge. Hearing all the different methods was very helpful. I've got a plan now for what I think will be the best method for me. Thanks!
I've personally also gone the boxes route with one exception. I only play commander so I put everything staple for commander in a binder along with a separate binder for legendarys.
Jimmy: Gives a detailed, well thought out thesis regarding methodology to storing and keeping a collection.
Me: Throws collection in a cardboard box in a dank closet.
Only problematic part there is the "dank" part.
dank closet 😎
I'm worse. I threw that cardboard box into a basement prone to flooding
I just started playing a few months back, and I'm starting to organize now so when I do eventually grow my collection it's not a huge daunting mess!
This is timely for me since I just reorganized my collection. First, I put any new cards into the online collection log called Deck Box. I pay for the premium account, and it's well worth it. It lets me know exactly what's in my collection and the value of it. Next, I sort cards by color and mana value. I sleeve the cards with perfect fits, then put them into the loose three ring binder pages. Whenever the mana value "changes" I start a new page in my binder. This way, when I inevitably get more green two drops, I just add them in at the end of my green two drop "section" and I don't have to move around any green three drops or one drops because they're in their own section that the two drops don't affect. I do the same for all the other colors, multi colors, and non-basic/full-art lands. I also have my multi colored legendary creatures appear at the front of each mana value section so I can quickly see which commanders I can build. For example, three-drop multi-colored legendary creatures appear before non-lengendary three drop multi colored cards. Also, I have a separate trade binder for cards in my collection over $1. This follows almost the same organization structure, except I sort cards by color, and then price. So my most expensive white cards appear before cheaper cards in the white section of my trade binder instead of being sorted by mana value. I have nearly 3000 cards (although some are in a cube, stored separately) and can fit about 1,000 cards into a three ring 3 inch "better binder" from Staples. Hope this helps!
Moxfield is free
I just went through this process over the last few weeks. Primarily went with Color + Alphabetical. Broke out rares and cards of value into their own 5k card box for quick access and put the majority of bulk into 800ct boxes
I'm on board with Damen Lenz' method, I have two 3×4 boxes identical to his (I got mine for about $36 CAD each sometime last year) and I also use Manabox - I cannot overstate how great of an app it is!
My main difference is that rather than sorting by creatures and then everything else, I have everything organized by WUBRG, colourless, and multicoloured. Since I have the two 3x4's, I've stacked them and have seperated the uncommon's and common's into the bottom 3x4 and the mythics and rares in the top and then I am in the process of alphabetizing the cards in their respective boxes. Since there are twelve long boxes per 3x4, my commons and uncommons take up two boxes together per colour and then a box each for colourless and multicoloured. I keep my lands in the top 3x4 because there is more space :) I hopes this helps anyone who is interested in giving the 3x4's a try 👌
I think you always need to consider how you use, and appreciate your cards when organizing. Use is a combination of building decks, displaying cards, sorting cards, storing cards, and trading cards. As example:
- Someone who trades a lot because they enjoy it, or play a format with a lot of rotation, may get a lot more use out of binders than someone who doesn't trade, and plays eternal formats.
- Visual people may build decks by looking through binders, and others may do better using online tools to focus on cards with specific abilities, themes, types, or other synergies based on search results and want to pull cards from a list.
- Some times a collection's size plays a role in how they are organized.
- Some people enjoy looking at cards, and displaying them, so having a way to keep them in sight is important.
- Some people are concerned about keeping the cards safe, so having them out of sight, or inaccessible is more important.
Here is how I approach sorting as a strategy. First, I ask what attributes are important, and how do I want to prioritize them? I like to sort cards as little as I can, so I have streamlined my system to help there, but I also don't want to look for one card in a bunch of different places, so I also prioritize their organization based on how I build decks. Some attributes are not important to me for sorting and storage as a result. I think about cards first by name, what type they are, and what they do. Color is usually the easiest to sort by, and card names usually invoke a color for me as well, so I sacrifice the efficiency of just alphabetical to make sorting faster and in smaller more manageable chunks. I don't think about cards by type (i.e.; Artifact, Enchantment, Wizard, Instant, Arcane, Snow Covered, Legendary), so adding those as an extra sorting criteria is more sorting with no benefit. Rarity is also not important, because lots of cards have been reprinted at different rarities. Pretty much everything else is unimportant to how my brain thinks about cards, so I sort like this:
- Color (WUBRG, multicolor, colorless, lands, tokens)
- Alphabetically
- Set (I know I said I don't care about set, but I do care about keeping like printings together. It also rarely matters apart from basic lands, and cards that have more than 10 reprintings.)
So same thought exercise, but now for your store strategy. Here is how I prioritized my needs for organizing:
- My storage is a 10 drawer micro fiche cabinet. Its much easier to add new cards to this when sorted as mentioned above than binders, and safer than boxes. If I fill a row, I can move cards en mass very easily to a new row or drawer to make room. The cabinet is 250 pounds empty, so its more stable than a pressboard bookshelf. Its also vaguely fireproof.
- I build my decks online, so I have a pull list to work from. Which printing is not important, but since they are all in the same place, I can pick my favorite printing because they are all in the same location.
- I don't trade, so binders offer me no benefits for this type of storage. My collection is easily over 50K cards, so I'd need far too many of them for it to be practical, and binders would make keeping up with sorting into storage far more work than I care to do. However, I love binders as a way to collect cards for decks I am building so I can see what I have, and what I still need.
- Boxes are great for unsorted new cards, partially/presorted cards, and cards that I have not put into the cabinet yet. I'm a parent, so I get interrupted a lot, and my pets are not respectful my space, so I cannot leave cards out unattended. I sort and put away cards in small increments as time allows.
- Time. If you buy new cards, plan time to put them away. If you're at a draft/sealed event, sort your cards during deckbuilding, between matches, and afterwards before you go home, then put them away as soon as you do. If you use an inventory system, its easy to add at this time too.
- Inventory systems are great. If its your thing, use one. It can de really daunting if you have thousands of cards, but its super handy. Its great to look on your phone, and know what you have when you're at your LGS, or a dealer's table at an event. Its also amazing if you ever need to file an insurance claim, or a police report for replacement value.
I have one of those giant collections, about 50-60k cards. I use the 5-row box like Arthur uses, but 4 of them.
The bulk common and uncommon cards are sorted by set-chronologically (so Scars of Mirrodin, then Mirrodin Besieged, etc.). Each set is sorted by type/color (Artifacts/Black/Blue/etc.), and then each card in each color is sorted alphabetically. This allows me to just add new rows and boxes as new sets come out without messing with the older ones.
Lands, $1 rares, and foils are stored in individual 1k count boxes. I've bought a card house to store those.
My expensive/showcase cards are in UltraPro binders. The binders are sorted by set chronologically and by color in each set.
I'm sure this sounds a little insane lol, but I just did it while binging Fringe (incredible show btw) about 7 or 8 years ago. Now if I own a card (or am not sure) it takes me less than 30 seconds as long as I know the set, color, and name. Makes it all worth it.
ah, the episode I've been waiting for. this is the answer to every time I sent in a 'question time'.
I did reach a breaking point in my organization and had to solve it about a year ago. My collection is large (very, lgs size big, 35k). I have a few favored planes (Mirroden, Innistrad) so those sets I keep in display organized binders. The rest (carefully chosen bulk all the way to original duals) is in 4 slot boxes ordered by year/quarter (I wanted no categories for organizations that could change or expand infinitely, so not by type, value, rarity, etc. only concrete categories, printing date and color id). Each box is it's own color or coloring pairing by color identity (means lands are scattered throughout the system due to identity). However within each box, so section of cards is bigger then about 150 cards, so speed to find any one card is about a minute and speed to put away any one card is about 1 minute since everything is a small unorganized bucket category. This is great for storing and pulling cards, but not really for brewing. The sheer size of the collection means it just takes forever to 'browse' for cards.
It is fully inventoried in Archidect and when brewing with there deck builder, it checks my inventory for me so I know right away if a card is available. then with the organization, I can pull all the cards for a deck in about an hour.
i have a pretty organized way of organising my collection . i have excel sheets for each set where i mark each card with colors and keywords so its easy to find for example each "warrior", "combat trick", "Protection", "+1+1 counters" and so on. . or i have excel sheets where i have all my ramp, card draw, card selection, removal, board wipes, mana fixing cards in each color listed with mana cost and some details. it took very long to do it but now im happy. and i use some collection site in the internet to get visual overview as well. its very helpful for deck building.
the cards are sorted by set, color and/or cardnumber
I try to keep it simple. First colors > Type (Enchament, Artifact etc.,) > Rarity. Sort alphabetically (don’t bother with anything past first letter or you will go nuts) and put Mythic / Rare in binders, with Uncommon / Common in boxes with tabs. Also, Amazon has cheap card sorting trays, normally display trays, and makes sorting so much easier etc., I also love using binders that allow me to add pages. This way if you need to slot in another page in a section due to more cards it is quick and easy. Oh, last tip, leave some spacing in your binders, I usually leave one empty space between letters. So far it works well for me :)
Here's a good one for anyone interested in the topic. I have my trade binder. And then I have 2 main boxes, one with bulk commons and uncommons. This box is pretty large. The second box is just a fat pack box but inside I keep all my mana rocks, card draw and removal of all rarities. As I don't trade these cards. I call this my deck building box. It allows me to quickly find my sol rings and other goodies for that new sweet deck I'm building. I also keep unique synergies and combos in this box. Ones I want to build around. As I don't want to trade these away. I firmly believe "trade binders" should be all cards are fair game for trading. Nothing hits the feel bads quite like being told that 1 card you pulled out isn't for trade. But these are just my strategies and opinions. Great video!
I have a system very similar to Ashlen's. I organize by set for my rares/mythics in three ring binders. Super easy to add new sheets every time a set comes out and I have cards to put in from when I played during pre-release or pick up playsets of my favorite singles. All of my lands fit into an old deck builder's toolkit box, rares in the back, basics in front, common and uncommon non basics in the middle. My commons and un-commons are in my one and only deck box. A tiny ultimate guard 100 count box. I build commander decks so often that keeping up with bulk singles is just impossible. So I keep what I pull from playing limited in this box and then if I want to add commons or un-commons, I have to give up ones I already own. I only want to have to look at this box and my binders when seeing if I have any singles I need before buying a deck. A large box with 1000+ cards is just not something that would work for me.
Since I have a very large deck collection (just got my 61st commander deck this week) I prioritize space for my decks, not singles. So all of my decks are organized by color identity in Stanley cases. pros: super cost effective and space efficient. I do not need a single deck box, since a Stanley case holds 12 decks. Whenever I want to go to an lgs, I just pull out the decks I want to bring and put them into an extra Stanley I have that is empty and custom build it for each trip I take. Cons: not very aesthetic since most of my bookshelf is covered in these toolboxes. Thinking of making a custom shelf so the Stanley boxes can be at angles and then you can see the commanders. That would be amazing!
This system has been working great for me and I loved hearing how you guys sort your collections!
I have a medium- large collection and I do a combination of different methods. I have 7 binders that are separated by WUBRG, multicolor, artifacts, lands and then a personal binder. The first 6 binders hold all of my rare/mythic cards or cards worth over $2 and those are spererated with color coordinated binders with artifacts and lands in the back part of 2. I even have a whole section of 1 binder dedicated to the commander legends Commander's to make brewing a new deck easy. It also makes it really easy to take to my LGS and trade cards with other players. My personal binder is all of my commander staples, and cards that I dont want to trade. I have a 5 row box and 4 row box that hold all of my bulk for each color, multicolor, artifacts, non basic lands, and basic lands. Those rows of colors are organized by Enchantment, sorcery, instant, artifact, and creatures. I also have every card scanned into an app for easy searching and price checking!
I like taking the plastic card holder that come in Card Kingdom orders, writing the title of a brew idea on each one and then filling that particular holder with the relevant cards when they arrive, because I'm always brewing and when I order cards it's with a specific purpose. This has helped me organize my "recent" cards
Some great points to consider (consider this as tips): You can make special sorts at the same time you do any sort. I have 3 piles distinct from the other that are just for Mana Rocks, Ramps, and Counter (because you don't need to put them together with other cards if you want a ramp, you WILL go for a ramp Same for rocks and counters).
another tip: for lands, you can sort them by color generate, and if enters tapped or not(or not in most of the time)
I really appreciate the military mindset perspective to organization. Putting in the work in the beginning pays off in the long run.
"Darkness Beans" is absolutely phenomenal name for black creatures
Shouts out the the boy Arthur, organizing the same way I do
I really like the method Shauna has. I have two shipping containers full of cards, and with her method I can pass down my extras to my nephews and nieces organized. That way it might be easier for them to decide on cards for their builds 😎
Just got into Magic. I own four preconstructed 60 card decks. Since I don't know how to build a deck I will keep those decks intact. Every deck will be stored in a deck box. Pick a box and you are ready to play. I will at the same time collect sets. Those will be in binders following Shaunas way, collector number.
I have no idea how this will go but it is a start.
I can tell you the top rows of the narrow Ikea Alex drawers can hold double sleeved cards upright. Four rows, no clue how deep you can go and you probably want some cardboard or something, at least in front and back, but seperating the rows is also a great idea. It's a great way to store a bit of cards. For when you know, go in and out of the deck before / after a tournament.
Really cool post. I have a very Large collection all the way back to 1994 but with a gap from Scourge until Dominaria. This is my fourth system, designed for making 4-5 CMDR decks a week. I use boxes, but only the kind that store cards vertically. Each color has a box (the shoe-storage type, so 6.5" x 14", two rows) for creatures and a box for spells - no more than 3 copies except for massively used cards like Arcane Signet. All rare creatures are stored separately though. All Legendary Creatures are in binders by color. All Pre-cons are in their original boxes, but I do track on Excel when I remove a card from them. Finally, the MOST USED cards are simply stored out in the open in card sorting trays by color and rarity (Rare/others). I also store a copy of every CMDR deck that is currently active (i.e., not torn down) on Excel. So when I build a new deck, I can search excel for the card I'm looking for and find it either in an existing deck, in the MOST USED pile, or in the boxes. Time to build these decks has been reduced from 3-4 hours down to about 1 hour to design and pull. This works for me, but I'm always thinking about a better way.
I've been collecting and playing since Alpha, with the collection currently around 200,000 cards. I keep between 1-8 of each unique card in 151 3" UltraPro binders with 9-card-slot Ultra-Pro Platinum pages (max 4 cards per slot). The overflow cards are kept in MtG Gift boxes and 500-card boxes. Pre-built decks are stored sleeved in deck boxes and labeled for easy selection and stored single-depth in ~13"x20" plastic boxes.
The binders are organized by color, card type for the 5 colors and multi-color (creature, enchantment, aura, instant, sorcery, tokens, basic lands), and sorted alphabetically where applicable. Artifacts, equipment, vehicles, legendary, non-basic lands, art cards, promos, signed cards, planeswalkers, and secret lair cards are in binders sorted alphabetically.
Overflow cards are separated by set.
One of the most important aspects of managing your collection is the app/database/website/tool you use to keep track of the cards you have. I'm currently using MTG Studio, and have used a variety of tools in the past. There are many apps, tools, and websites that give you the ability to manage deck lists, and as long as you can quickly determine if you have the cards you need for a deck and find them in your collection, you have a functional management and storage scheme.
As a box breaker, I have many MANY cards where I own more than 4 copies. I am on a crusade to go through set by set and put aside all these "Extra" cards with one ultimate end goal... A party! All my MTG friends will gather and build EDH decks from these extra cards as well as being allowed to bring any cards from their own collection to build the best deck possible. (With a grand prize Jace, the Mind Sculptor to incentivize the best builds.) Once our fun is finished, EVERY deck played gets donated to our local library where they teach kids to play and give new players these decks! To make this easier, I am sorting each set by card number in two of the long 1000 card boxes. My playsets and the extras. This will make for a great time, a good cause and easy access to all my cards when I need to find one.
I've adopted a method I've used for years to keep track of my DVD collection, which is to alphabetize and inventory. Keeping them alphabetical allows me to visually and quickly find anything I need and also recognize if something is missing. The inventory allows me to see what percentage of each set I own, the exact number of cards in my collection, and the cost of completing a set as well as how many copies of each card I own.
As my collection gets large, no matter what thing I'm collecting, if I don't have it inventoried then there's a risk of losing some of it through loss or theft. So aside from it being very organized, efficient, and OCD friendly, it's safe and accounted for.
When I open a new MTG box I sort it into piles by color, then I sort those piles by number. I put the appropriate number of Ultra Pro pages into a D-ring binder based on the number of cards in the set and I print a graphic label for the cover and spine. I single sleeve 1 of each card number into a perfect fit sleeve and put them into the pages leaving spaces for the numbers still needed. The first pages are for the set, and the latter pages are for the variants. I single sleeve the foil cards and put them into the same pocket as it's number in front of the non-foil. All duplicate cards go into an 800 ct. cardboard box in card number order and the box is labeled by set.
I have 1 binder per set and the binders are sorted on the shelf by release date.
This system has worked well for me as I prioritize collecting and long term preservation. When I need a card to play with I look it up on my inventory app and see if it's in my collection. Then if I have multiples I grab it from the cardboard box, sleeve it and add it to my deck. If I only have 1 copy I'll take it from the binder, and then consider buying copies of it so I don't have to take from the binder in the future (depending on card price of course).
This will come in handy later when I start selling off some of my bulk, since I will know exactly how many I have and of what cards.
The downside is after opening a new MTG box it takes a few hours to sort and inventory, but that's worth it for me.
I have multiple systems for organizing, because I approach the game from several angles. My sealed products are stacked by set on shelves. My reserve list/old cards are in those 9 card/page binders, also by set. Mythic/Rare/Uncommons are in 1.5 in. binders that I can add pages to. Sorted by color and alphabetized. Commons are in those long boxes, sorted by set and color. Works for me, but requires a fair amount of upkeep as my collection grows all the time.
I organise my cards into what sets they come from. I've got 4x boxes of 5000 storage and they're full; everything is nm+ but I wouldn't sell them because it's niche having cards in storage which could be put into a commander deck. I've got 4x folders based on staples; 1x folder for trades. Everything inside is worth something and it's relevant for different platforms such as pioneer, standard, historic and commander. So recently I've been storing the march of the machine cards. There's several sets based on them but I stick to the following.
Artifacts
Sorcery, colour sort for everything below et cetera
Instant
Enchantments
Emblems
Tokens
Creatures-cplour code everything it's easier than numbering the sets. If I need a card for commander before I buy it online I can check online it's previous prints and I've probably got it within the boxes. Recently I found I have a bunch of "catastophe". 6x inside urza's saga and 4x inside battle Royale. Well that saved me £2.50 purchasing one. That's not much I know bit a commander deck is 100 cards; try constructing then from fresh every 3 months 😂
used to be a cheese monger and got a bunch of wooden cheese boxes that fit cards perfectly, works great and looks good as decor
I have a large collection. Enough so that I can't keep my cards all in one spot. I have every card put into Delver Lens. They are organized by color, casting cost and creature/non-creature. In Delver you can make multiple lists and decks. So if I want to know if I own a card I can type a search and I know how many I have and where they are located. I can then find the card in less than 20 seconds. Makes it super simple to build decks and look for inspiration. If I buy a precon Commander deck, for instance, I will pull out the corresponding colored binders and see what fits for upgrades. It has made the building process actually enjoyable instead of a headache.
The downside: it took me literally a month on almost a nightly basis to enter in all my cards and sometimes I'll forget to enter in the new ones right away. If you go through the effort of putting in your collection, stay on top of it.
A quick tip for your bulk, buy 10 bucks worth of penny sleeves, and lump up your multiples in to one sleeve, and then sort them how you normally would. Makes flipping through a bunch of commons/uncommons waay more bearable
Great episode. I have a large collection, commander player, rarely trade. For me, I've sorted my cards by ability, ramp, dorks, mil, draw, madness, return, etc. A qr code app helps jump to the box/fat pack containing those cards. This makes it easy to get to cards by themes and when deck building.
20+ years player/collector here. I had a HUGE collection, like 55k cards. I had to shrink it, some way. So i decided to keep my 21 decks (9 pauper, 3 premodern, 3 centurion commander, 2 multiplayer commander, 1 modern 1 legacy 1 pioneer 1 standard), my 3 full sets (Apocalypse, new capenna, Kamigawa) and my 600 cards legacy cube (made by real cards, not proxies) and organize the rest in 2 major categories: cards that i want to keep and cards that i'm ok selling. I sold the cards that i was ok selling and organized the rest in 14 480-cards binders, by color and mana value. So now it's all perfect, i only own cards that i want, and i know exactly where every card is in my 6720 total cards binders shelf. It took almost 6 full days of work to organize it all but it was totally worth it.
Great podcast Jimmy. You nailed the main point at the end! Love the work and Thank you!
I just got 900 card baseball card binders…and I put duplicates behind. I have a binder for each color. The good thing about this is that the pages are removable. This means that it as my collection grows, it’s pretty easy to add a page in the right spot. Cards are sorted by color and alphabetical. I have a medium collection of 3833 cards. Yes, I have an exact inventory using the Dragon Shield app to track my collection. Basic lands are in a box.
I saw this video as I sort my 40k+ magic cards. While it's daunting, my end goal is as follows:
1) Separate by Rarity, Color, and mana value. MAYBE by set as well but that's not as important since I remember MVs and effects over actual card names.
2) Sort by card types (creatures, instants, enchantments etc)
3) Have a bulk box, a trade box/binder, and also even have a commander cube potential box that's sorted by the above methods.
I find that with so many cards, this will take a long...LONG time. However the end result will be me being able to find cards by MV fairly fast and easy for deck brewing.
This video did add an interesting idea in sorting by alphabetical order/collector number though. So that's something I'll think about as I continue sorting. Thanks for the video!
Awhile back, I bought a vintage library card holder and my cards fit PERFECTLY. Plus, I get to organize them by color and have inserts to separate them out in the shelf by category. It’s made finding cards and putting them back so much easier and more enjoyable.
The perfect card storage furniture
I sort my collection in binders, but I sort them into functions. So I have a binder for single target removal, a binder for lands and ramp, a binder for card draws and board wipes, a binder for mythics and rares that fall outside these categories and a binder for great commons and uncommons outside those categories as well. Within the binders I sort multicolored, artifacts then in WUBRG-order in ascending mana value. I dont know if this is something the rest of you can use, but it makes deckbuilding extremely easy for me. Plus whenever my friends lack a couple of STR or a couple of card draws, I can immediately find the best options I have available for them. :)
I always sort my cards while watching Command Zone. 1 Hour ist just enough time to do a big pile and tbh what is better than watching Magic content while organizing your collection.
I should honestly do that. Great excuse to organize my collection, and also a great opportunity to get through unwatched Command Zone videos
I have a multi tier organization. I have my big white cardboard boxes of common and uncommon. Organized those by color and the card type. So creature, sorcery, instant etc.
Then I have binders. I have my binders by color for $2 to $5 rare/mythic. Then the $5 plus binder. And one nicer deck box for all the rare/mythic bulk, sectioned by colors. It really does help for building and trades depending on what people want to look at.
I used to buy Dragon Shield boxes; both commander deckboxes and the longer boxes, to store decks and my collection in, respectively. I've played the last 5-7 years-ish (it depends on whether we're talking first draft or when I built my first deck).
Over time, I've filled a lot of boxes. They've even stopped selling both of these things at my LGS.
Doesn't help that I got a bunch of draft chaff at my LGS a long time ago and haven't gotten rid of it... and got my friends' bulk cards maybe a year ago. I'll get around to finally organizing things again as soon as I get to the summer.
Having a system definitely helps. As a programmer, I know that's something clever people have also figured out there. I can't really apply all of that to how I store Magic cards, but it's not for nothing.
Personally, I'd love to use binders for the cards I care more about, and I'd keep the rest of the collection in plastic boxes. I've never been a huge fan of bulky cardboard boxes. A binder for everything that can be a commander would be nice, seeing as I often feel like brewing a new deck.
One way I hope to sate my desire to brew and build, but also not spend much more money impulsively (and perhaps cut down on the bulk I keep), is to try and force myself to build what I dub 'bulk budget' decks.
I like the idea of keeping playsets of things. I like the idea of having EDH decks I'd be willing to lend out. I feel like Magic keeps getting more and more expensive. Why not combine all of these things and try to really use my noggin, building decks that are cheap and limited on purpose? This way I'll get a break from staples, and I'll get to build more decks for free! Worst case scenario I'll just toss a lot of cards out and free up a lot of space.
I used to have it all in one big, pink tub and it was really daunting to lug it out when building a deck. It also took up so much space! Finally got the organizer that the long white boxes slide into. Haven't put everything in there yet but it's already so much neater and easier to get to cards! Deck building is definitely my main priority so I have organized by color then name. Rares and mythics will be put in a 3 ring binder for easy access/trade. I'm also thinking of putting all legendary cards in there as well. Loved the episode!
sometimes listening to these talks is like being in a uni classroom, for a Magic degree. That'd be awesome
I really liked the sound Damen's method. Compared to my friends I've been playing the shortest amount of time and all of them have more substantial collections than me. Because of that I don't really have any trades that they need for now at least. I think this will really help me organize my bulk and set myself up for my growing collection as I mostly focus on brewing and not trading.
I have around 2000 cards, and the method that i use is a storage in small boxes, and those are labeled (classified) for effects. Example: "draw a card, destroy single, reanimate, basic lands, tapped non basic lands, rooms, etc"
Thanks for the video.
Ayoo for the few that read my comment about organization; So I mainly play EDH, PDH, a little modern, and pauper. I have my main binder that's got commanders, WUBRG expensive cards (anything over a dollar), and cool lands. My other binder is for cards that aren't worth all that much but are worth putting aside, i.e. PDH commanders, foils, pauper staples, and cards with cool art (retro art from brothers of war, manga artist cards, full arts, etc). Then the bulk of my collection is my uncommons all separated by colors in recycled booster boxes (one contains common artifacts, another contains multicolor commons/ mana rocks/ utility lands, and the last is uncommon artifacts/ uncommon lands/ uncommon multicolored). AND THEN I have a big 5,000 card box for all my commons, this includes uncommons printed at common rarity for pauper. Now I'm uploading my stuff to manabox because I'm in college and can't afford to keep ordering cards that I later find in my collection lol. Anyways, ty for coming to my Ted Talk.
You mean a 5000 count Box for each color artifact's plans multicolor all alphabetized by the first letter, not to mention set binders sitting on the bookshelf gonna need a new bookshelf soon and perhaps binder's specific to a color for trading or just so I know where my good stuff is and I can't forgetThe sorting tray Not to mention theme binders you know dragon's, cat's, sliver's, custom, proxy, counterfeit, signed....and there are still stacks...best move was when I decided to build a collection of decks to accompany my collection of cards. But Hey man as long as it's not the living room floor or kitchen table my wife is happy 😊
Currently I have my cards spread over several bundle boxes separated by set. They're organized by color, WUBRG > Multicolor > Colorless > Nonbasic Land. They're alphabetized within each color group. I've got a lot of misc cards gifted by friends that aren't by set because there's not enough of them to matter. I've been considering mixing the sets to make things easier to find, but I rankle at the idea.
1 - Sort them by color (wubrg multi land artefact token)
2 - Sort them alphabetically (use reference letters on a table)
3 - Sort them by rarity
4 - Now packs are smalls, combine duplicate
5 - Scan them with the tool of your choice
6 - Import them on your collection manager of your choice
7 - Pack them away as you like (boxes, binder)
It's long to get started but once done, you'll never have to use your paper collection to build deck and it's easy to find them.
You will also, depending on the collection manager you are using, know the price of your collection and follow its trend.
You can also share digital trade lists.
PS : My previous message was deleted certainly because I was making reference to specifics tools and sites to help you sort your collection.
That's the way it is I suppose...
I liked this best 22:34 For me: Color, Use, Mana Cost
5 Rows for each color + additional box for lands, artifacts, and multicolor cards
Use = Counters, Ramp, Removal, Draw, Creature Type, etc
I have a old card catalog cabinet I'm putting my 20+ years collection in. It's been a 2 year project. I'm got to by color , alphabetical order, and cut to the most of one card name of 12 ( or 4 of the different art), and rares / mythic are on there own. Don't always work on it but up to red C's. Hope to finish this year.
Where did you get the card catalog cabinet? Seems like the perfect piece for card storage.
I organize my collection by set, alphabetically. If I have a lot of cards in a set I divide it by set then color, so Kaladesh - blue.
The cards are in just two card boxes with dividers
I also index all my cards into a MTG database that I can search whenever I want to find a specific card or check if I have a card.
It’s incredibly handy for my collection of 9000+ cards.
Since I got into Magic in 2013, I quickly started sorting rares/mythics into binders and commons/uncommons into boxes. From there, I'd sort them by...
Color ID > Card type > Name, alphabetically
This, as it turns out, became a pain. The binders because of the time that went into reorganizing whenever I added new cards, and the boxes because it's just been difficult to get my hands on appropriately and consistently sized boxes where I live.
Well, I'm moving to a new apartment in just over a month, so my entire Magic collection is in the process of going into moving boxes. This, I figure, is as good a time as any to switch up my system!
In the near future, binders will be reserved for commanders, planeswalkers, rare/mythic lands, masterpiece-style cards, and then possibly a separate trade binder if that feels relevant. For everything else, I'm going to try building my own boxes/drawers and hopefully create a space efficient shelving system that's customized for my own Magic needs.
Rares and mythics go into color coded UltraPro binders in mana value order with breathing room for additions. Common and uncommon "staples" across all formats go into a box similar to Arthur's setup in mana value order and type. Commons and uncommons that aren't quite "staples" go into fat pack boxes of a similar color scheme (White in an Avacyn Restored fat pack box, Artifacts in a Scars of Mirrodin box, Blue in a Return to Ravnica box, yada yada). True bulk gets added into a few 800 count card boxes and are donated or sold when they are full.
Haven’t even finished the video but THANK YOU! Finally someone using the card numbers. Always the way I’ve done it and people look at me like I’m nuts.
I have two wider D-ring-binders in black with the Magic-Logo on the front. You might still be able to get them. In those, I have a 100-pack of Ultra Pro binder pages, approximately 50 pages each. Cards are sorted by colour and type. If I run out of space, I sort out cards. My decks are in boulders and arkhives. Organized, compact, pretty. :D
I put my cards in 3 ring binders where you can add sleeve sheets, under 1 of 3 categories.
1. Sets. Each binder holds about 4-5 sets which I put them in color and numerical/alphabetical order, and I do that with each set for all the cards that are common and uncommon.
2. then a seperate binder/s for just the rares and mythics.
3. Then all borderless, extended art and showcase cards get put in another seperate binder/s together.
One binder has just land cards (basic/dual etc) as I put one of each different artwork for each of the lands in there.
Then I use the bundle boxes to store my commander decks. They hold 4 sleeved decks. Iv bought only one official deck storage box that holds 2 decks and dice/tokens. That's for my main 2 commander decks.
All the doubles/bulk cards I'm left with go into booster box boxes.
I have a large collection. Currently Bulk - I keep in large cardboard boxes sorted by set. Decent cards $1-$2.99 - in penny sleeves in smaller cardboard boxes, sorted by color. Anything $3 or more - penny then hard sleeve and keep in those larger cardboard boxes sorted by color or keep in binders with penny sleeves. I don't currently have any decks and this system works great for my current primarily collecting mtg style. What I decide to binder and what to hard sleeve depends on how often I want to see it. I have one binder for MH2 cards, one that I keep secret lairs in, and other things I like to look at every once in a while like my whole Unglued set.
I keep my finished decks seperate from my decks under construction, in boxes. I don't have enough money to sleeve all my decks right away, once they are finished, or deck boxes. I usually reserve those for the decks I use most often. Also, my singles all go into binders. I don't keep loose singles because I need to know what I've got and have easy access to my cards so that if I need them for a new deck, I can just flip to a specific page in a specific binder. I organize by color, creature, instant, sorcery, enchantment, non basic lands, artifacts are separated by color, non color, mana rocks, equipment, tokens, etc. Then I have separate binder for my trades and cards I'm gonna sell. Then I keep my basic lands in bulk boxes, sorted by color. Then my decks are sorted by format. Commander, Pauper, Pioneer, and Modern. I have dual deck box for my 2 Pioneer decks, and I have 3 Pauper decks so I use a dual deck box for 2 of them and then a single deck box for my favorite one. Then I keep my Modern decks in like a bulk box, except for my favorite one, I keep that one in a single deck box. Then there's my commander decks. I store them individually in their own deck boxes typically in pods of 4 so that I can grab 4 at a time for game nights. I have 10 commander decks finished, and 6 under construction. So yeah. Mostly I use the MTG bundle boxes as bulk boxes for storing decks that don't have individual deck boxes. I keep my miscellaneous sleeves in a sleeve vault made from an old shoe box sorted by color and size as I play multiple tcgs like yugioh, Pokémon, and Cardfight Vanguard.
Speaking as a collector who got into the game in 2012, and has 2 storage units strictly dedicated to collecting mtg and miniature collectibes, i personnally organize by Year > block > set > rarity > playset and anything graded has its own sections seperate from everything else....and i know its a little ocd and adhd. I know but i plan to sell it off as a retirement fund lmao so the extra organization and dedication helps a lot, i personally dont do many trades so no experience or advice on trades or cube binders etc.
P.S any deck i make/play or structure i buy as separate singles online or from any number of LGS's and go into a footlocker organized by format
hopefully this also helps any people looking to organize if they have the extra room and options to spare or have that of a larger sized collection
Lady's idea inspires me, but it will use a lot more space. Currently I have each color in it's own 5k box (and artifact/multicolor/lands in their own). With the exception of more valuable cards, which I have in their own binder (in the correct color)... and then there's 2 exceptions, because I collected the whole set. They are in their own binder; Theros and Amonkhet =)
Ha I've been growing my collection for 10 years and somehow have made it this long without organizing it. Started three days ago, and then this video gets uploaded. Couldn't have come at a better time!
I'll post my reorganization I'm in the middle of on your social media. Been playing since '94. I lost a big part of my early collection when I had multiple binders and my one big box stolen, but have expanded the collection again. I have one 3" binder containing my Urza block, and what I own from the Invasion block as well as Antiquities- my friends gave me the Urza moniker many many years ago, so I show that off. Most of my cards I organize by picking out all the rares,, they have a separate box, then all my bulk is organized by set then collector number (like Shauna). I started last year, my job doesn't give me as much down time as I'd like to keep chugging along, but I've got one box done, which has 1993 cards up to Ixalan. Next box will have everything else.
Recently I put all my cards in boxes that were labeled by 800, 1600, and 3200, respectively, I had roughly 19,000 cards... this was February 2024, I just got through all my cards 2 weeks ago August 2024, very daunting, but I got rid of roughly 10,000 cards. And got my stuff organized for edh deck building, makes building a deck pretty quick.
I have, I'd say, a medium collection, and I'm big into brewing cmdr decks; so when I decided to sit down and organize, my first identified need was: "If I'm in a brewing mood, I need to be able to quickly look at all my potential commanders". That transitioned into having a Legendary and Multi-Color binder. Then for my non-legendary cards I have a large binder which is sorted into color and type.
So Red Cards > Creatures, Sorceries, Instants, Enchantments, Artifacts.
Etc for the rest of the colors.
This works pretty well for Rares, Mythics and particularly good low-rarity cards; and then for bulk I am starting to sort them into set specific boxes by color, type, mana-value
Pro tip: Ultra pro binders can actually hold up to 5 copies of one card per sleeve. So a 360 card binder can in actuality hold somewhere around 1800 physical cards. Such a binder however, is kinda thicc.
I currently have a large shared collection at home that different friends have been chipping into and building from for over a decade. We have a binder for rares/mythics of each color plus one for colorless and multicolor each all sorted by cmc. Then we have three shoe boxes of bulk organized by the same standards with each basic type having it's own place. I didn't do any of the work but I'm damn glad my friend did.
At 1st I thought this video might not help me...But then I saw Ashlen's collection and O.M.G. my collection looks about the same size as hers..maybe a little bigger. But She had so many cool ways to sort em' ! Definetely helped me . Thanks SOOOO much 🙂
Tireless provisioner’s ad was great, I even love the ads on this show, it’s amazing!
I find the best for deck building is binders with removable sheets, into different colours, then in draw, ramp, removal & then the rest of the 99. That way if I’m building a simic deck I look at the Green & Blue draw spells & pick the best 10 etc & so on for ramp & removal.
Was good to see how you guys do it, thanks for sharing.
Holy cow Jimmy have said "Ultra pro" a million Times in this video.... Sponsorship. Sponsorship :)
Hi! Resident librarian & archivist here. About a quarter into the episode and looking forward to delving into the different methods people are using.
My biggest breakthrough moment in my own organization was considering how much TIME and ENERGY I had to organize matched with the AMOUNT of cards we were purchasing on a regular basis.
I initially began by trying to do a set > mana colour/identity > alphabetical method, but after a while.. it got so tiresome that cards ended up piling up. I didn't want to bother organizing them into boxes.
We now do them roughly by set > primary mana colour > total mana cost in boxes with dividers. No, it isn't the most technical. But we know they'll get organized in a timely fashion!
(Cards we love/want to put into decks and cards we want to sell get put into two separate binders.)
Just started organizing my cards 2 days ago! Doing mine by color and putting it all in mana box - I have about ~1500 cards and it’s working great so far
I have 17+ large 4 row boxes (BCW boxes) (up to 4k cards each) 3 of them fit per cube of an ikea kallax. Cards are sorted 100% alphabetical for ease of retrieval. I use online tools like EDH Rec, Scryfall, etc for deck building, then go pull what I have, see what I still need to get. I have a spare "to be sorted" and a nice card sorter (CoolStuffInc ultimate sorter) for returning stuff to the boxes.
Thanks for the insights, great video! My way to go is: by color identity, and then mana value, and then rarity, and then creatures / sorceries / instants / enchantments / artifacts / planeswalkers. In that way it can grow limitless. And this system is duplicated by staples and then bulk. So I always check first staples this way and if it's not there, go to the bulk. It can grow easy and finding cards is easy as well. Though I only use cardboxes, but I'm looking forward for getting binders!
Such a great episode!
I never have enough time to sort my collection properly...
But part (~ about 5k cards) that's already organised has been organised this way:
Columns by color: w/ u/ b/ r/ g/ multi/ c/ and nonbasic lands + landstation.
Within columns separation by creature/noncreature card at first, than by CMC and subtype at noncreature cards (instant-sorcery-enchantment-artifact-planeswalker) than by rarity from common to rares. Multicolor cards sorted the same way except colour sorting goes from allied colour pairs to enemy colour pairs, than wedges nearly similar way, than 4, than 5c cards.
For lands are similar rules - colour identity first, than colour fixing without colour identity, than other utility land.
I'd like to sort all of that it alphabetical, but I don't have so much free time ( :( ) and 'cause I have cards on multiple languages, so this becomes unnecessary hard to do.
I tend to only keep one Master collection binder of each set. Any bound playsets of cards are kept organized by WotC playable formats, identified casual gamestyles, or by my Spark Brethren circle's homebrew casual gamestyles, & then by color. Anything else, I either sell in bulk or grade & sell on eBay or on Delcampe if I'm selling cards in foreign languages. I don't have much bulk, save for the binders on my shelves. I have so many binders that 3 of the walls, except for above the studio door & the nearby windows, are shelved with Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, & Magic.
I have a bunch of different storages set up. Commander is my main format, so I have Secret Lair boxes with commander staples (one for ramp, one for removal, and a couple others for everything else), a binder with more expensive staples, trade binder for expensive cards that I dont use, WUBRG binders for bulk rares, big cardboard boxes for good commons or uncommons sorted by color, and loose super bulk cards in large boxes. These I usually donate when I accumulate too many. I also have bundle boxes for nonbasic lands and fancy basics. I also use these for decks I am working on before they are finished and sleeved.
Edit: As for deck boxes, I use clear plastic ultra pro boxes. They protect the cards well, are stackable, small, and I can see the commander without opening it.