Team BCW returns for 2020 with six competitive Magic: the Gathering players. These players will focus on the Star City Games Tour (SCG Tour).
On Fridays before some SCG Opens, Team BCW will host a BCW Challenge at a game shop near the SCG venue. If you’re a local to the SCG Open, or if you’re traveling and get to the city by Friday evening, please join us at the host store for the BCW Challenge. You can test your skills in a single game of Magic against a Team BCW member. Follow Team BCW on Twitter or Facebook to find details about upcoming BCW Challenges.
Congratulations to the sweepstakes winner – Ron S.
2019 Gen Con attendees – enter for a chance to win a complete Magic: The Gathering Izzet Phoenix deck and BCW card supplies! Simply complete the entry form found in the Gen Con Coupon Book and drop the form in the entry box found at the BCW Supplies booth (2706) in the Gen Con exhibit hall. Enter by 1:00 p.m. on Sunday. One winner will be randomly selected at the BCW Supplies booth on Sunday at 1:15 p.m. and the winner will be notified using the contact information provided on the entry form. See the Official Rules below for details.
To keep gaming cards in good condition, BCW’s standard Deck Guards are a great value. In 2017, we introduced Elite Deck Guards for players that demanded thicker sleeves for better durability and better protection for their cards. While BCW is proud of the quality of Elite Deck Guards, we received feedback from Team BCW and the gaming community, suggesting refinements. This evolution has led to our next generation of premium card sleeves – Elite2 Deck Guards.
As with the previous Elite Deck Guards, the Elite2 versions have a nice textured back that’s great for shuffling. Strong seams will keep the layers welded together through numerous games. Team BCW members have not reported issues with sleeve splitting after using Elite2 Deck Guards through several SCG Opens.
Elite2 Deck Guards are available in matte or gloss finish. This characteristic refers to the clear layer, not the colored layer. While the gloss sleeves present the card artwork and foil reflections best, you may prefer the matte finish sleeves to reduce glare.
We made the following refinements to Elite2 Deck Guards, based on feedback from the previous Elite Deck Guards:
To ensure all Elite 2 Deck Guards are 100% opaque on the colored back layer, we added a blackout layer. This will make all colors of Elite2 Deck Guards tournament legal for games that demand you cannot view anything through the sleeves, such as Magic: The Gathering. This added blackout layer makes the Elite2 Deck Guards slightly firmer than the original Elites.
We added two millimeters to the height of Elite2 Deck Guards, as compared to the original Elites. This is to accommodate some brands of inner sleeves. While BCW Inner Sleeves fit perfectly inside standard Deck Guards and the original Elite Deck Guards, some inner sleeves from other brands are slightly taller. Adding the extra height to our Elite2 Deck Guards will allow all brands of inner sleeves to fit inside the sleeves appropriately.
We have increased the number of sleeves per package and now offer the Elite2 Deck Guards in packs of 100. The original Elite Deck Guards were only offered in packs of 80. The increased quantity is better for Commander players, or simply provides some extra sleeves.
Elite 2 Deck Guards are available in Black, Blue, Red, Green, Teal, Cool Gray, and Mulberry, with more colors coming soon.
Elite 2 Deck Guards are a great value for premium card sleeves. Why pay more for great sleeves? Try our Elite2 Deck Guards today and see for yourself what a great value BCW offers.
While quantities last, the original Elite Deck Guards and other discontinued gaming accessories are available at 20% off their normal price.
To protect standard sized cards, BCW’s 12-Pocket Z-Folios are a popular storage method for card gamers. The pages in the folio display four cards in a row, which is ideal for Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, and other card games using playsets of four. Gamers also appreciate these folios have a zipper closure, ensuring their cards cannot fallout of the album.
12-Pocket Z-Folios – Color Choices
For 2019, BCW is making a refinement to the 12-Pocket Z-Folios. As with the original versions, these folios have faux leather covers, available in many colors. These folios have stitching around the edges of the cover, and the original versions had stitching that matched the color of the faux leather. For the 2019 versions, we changed the color of the stitching, so the thread contrasts with the faux leather. It may be a subtle color refinement, but we think card collectors will like the change.
Faux Leather and Thread – Color Combinations
Faux Leather and Thread – Color Combinations
Faux Leather and Thread – Color Combinations
The Center Spread of a 12-Pocket Z-Folio
The pages in the 2019 version of 12-Pocket Z-Folio are identical to the previous version. These folios contain twenty double-sided pages, so a full folio holds 480 cards, assuming you only place one card in each pocket. The pockets are large enough to hold sleeved cards.
New Packaging for 2019
The only other refinement to the 2019 versions are changes to the package design. Game shops will notice changes to most of BCW’s gaming line as our 2019 products hit the shelves this spring. Game shops can apply for a BCW wholesale account here.
To protect Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, and other TCG’s with valuable cards, some players prefer to double sleeve their cards. The cards are first protected by an inner sleeve that’s barely larger than a standard card, and then insert the card/inner sleeve inside a regular gaming card sleeve.
BCW offers three varieties of Inner Sleeves:
Regular Inner Sleeves are top loading, but a better description might be bottom loading. When inserting cards in these inner sleeves, it’s recommended to insert the card in the bottom. Then insert the card/Inner Sleeve in the regular sleeve in the normal top loading orientation. Using this process, the card will have no edges exposed at the top of the regular sleeve, providing extra protection against a spilled drink.
MTG Mint Card is well known for selling sealed and played Magic: The Gathering cards. They now offer BCW Deck Guard sleeves, Deck Lockers, Pro-Folios, storage boxes, and other accessories from BCW Supplies and Monster Protectors. MTG Mint Card will be distributing BCW products to game shops in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. Shops in these regions can contact MTG Mint Card to learn more.
Comic Town in Columbus hosted the first BCW Challenge during FNM on January 5th. Comic Town players challenged Team BCW members Ross Merriam, The Tannon Grace, and Brennan DeCandio to a single game of Magic. Thirty-three people took the challenge, with 8 people walking away with a victory and receiving a special prize, and all 33 people who played walked away with a pack of BCW Elite Deck Guards. The event was fun for both players and the team, with lots of laughs and great games from Standard, Modern, and Legacy.
Team BCW members at Comic Town in Columbus, OH
As for Saturday at the SCG Tour, the team started off strong with Todd Stevens playing his U/B Processor deck. If you missed it, Todd made a statement via Twitter that if he reached over 100 Twitch subscribers during his Christmas day stream, he would play U/B Processor at the first Open in 2018, and true to his word he played it in the open. Brennan Decandio played his Green Devotion deck that he has been working on and streaming for several weeks. Jim Davis played G/B Tron and he has also been streaming that deck for several weeks. The Tannon Grace took a shot at Grixis Death Shadow for this Open. Ross Merriam was the only team member to make day two and was running his take on Dredge. Ross finished day 1 with a record of 8-1.
Sunday Ross ran into some rough match ups on day two and finished the day in 59th place. Ross stated that he liked his build of Dredge because it was good versus the creature heavy decks. As for the rest of the team, Todd played in the Modern Classic with Bant Eldrazi and Brennan, Jim, and Tannon decided to take their shot at the Legacy Classic. Brennan finished the Legacy Classic in 32nd place with the rest of the team finishing outside of prizes.
The next Open is January 20th and 21st in Fort Worth, Texas, and we will have a BCW Challenge event held at Madness Comics and Games in Plano TX. If you plan on attending the Open, come hang out with the team Friday night. Follow us on Twitter at @Team_BCW for all the updates and fun.
Most BCW cardboard boxes are only large enough to hold standard 2½” x 3½” cards or cards in sleeves. However several boxes have wider rows to accommodate cards in protective holders such as semi-rigids, toploaders, 1-screws, magnetics or other holders or cases. Some BCW boxes are designed to hold graded cards or other tall cards. A few boxes have both wide rows and increased height.
If you are trying to decide which BCW boxes are right for your collection, the list below shows the basic sizes. If you store cards in protective holders, you’ll need a box with WIDE rows. If you have graded cards, other tall cards, or you have 4-screw card holders, get a box labelled GRADED.
BCW 9-pocket sideloading pages are an excellent way to sort and separate you card collection. The colors were chosen such that Magic, Pokemon, and YuGiOh players can easily sort the cards into matching pages. Even if you don’t play these games, the different colors can be employed for sorting the game you do play.
I used 9 different colors and also clear pages to create the sorting separation for my Doomtown: Reloaded Binders. What’s Doomtown? Doomtown is a flavorful card game based in the Weird West, think twisted history mixed with magic, that involves various factions vying for control of a California boomtown. The wild west flavor is further demonstrated with a clever combat system that involves a series of poker hands, and cheating as well is part of the game.
Fixed releases (no randomized booster packs to buy!) and living card style of the game means that I have (at least) four of every card. Unless otherwise used in a deck, all my cards are in binders. This means that most of the cards in my binders are in sets of four, back-to-back. While this makes for some heavy pages, the plastic pages accommodates the weight just fine. When I’m looking for a card, the colored pages and their interior organization makes finding what I’m looking for easy.
For transporting and storage of my decks, I rely on the Prime X-4 Gaming Box. It’s spacious and easily holds four decks, poker chips, dice, and tokens. I can be quick on the shootout opportunity with this deck box holding all I need for a day of Doomtown fun!
