The Best Pokemon Card Sleeves for Players, Ranked

If you are interested in playing Pokemon at any level – casually at your local league, or competitively taking it all the way to world’s – you are going to want card sleeves that are comfortable, durable, and efficient. We’ve tried the most popular card sleeves out there, and have found that these five are the best for Pokemon. See them ranked from worst to best below.

Modern Pokemon ETB Sleeves

We’re going to group these sleeves all into one bucket because, for the most part, they are all the same. For whatever reason, Pokemon’s own sleeves aren’t very good. They don’t shuffle well from the start, aren’t durable, and will certainly get worse with wear.

That being said, we consider them the entry level card sleeves, or the bare minimum of what you can get away with and play competitively either at your local league or at a big event.

We say that with wincing a little bit because these sleeves aren’t probably even good enough to take to any event bigger than a League Challenge. However, you might be able to get away with it as long as they make it through the rounds. They certainly aren’t good enough for anything bigger than a league cup.

Where do you get them?

There are a variety of Pokemon products that you can get sleeves from. The easiest to find are the Elite Trainer Box. You can pick these up on TCGplayer for a great value.

Cardguard Strategy Sleeves from UltraPro

The next step up the rung is Cardguard Strategy Sleeves. We’ve used these extensively and really like them. They are perfectly adequate for casual play, deliver good shuffle that lasts a long time, and we haven’t noticed them having a big issue with breaking, bending or otherwise getting ruined.

However, there are certainly a few drawbacks. Cardguard are definitly budget sleeves, meaning they lack some of the polish of better sleeves. For example, they don’t have as tight of a fit on your cards, lack as good of a feel and the precise shuffling of better brands.

Lastly, your cards don’t look nearly as good in them as they do in better quality sleeves.

All that said, we really like these sleeves and would recommend them to anyone not looking to become a pro player but still want a decent shuffling experience without breaking the bank

Katana Sleeves from Ultimate Guard

Katana boasts what we feel is the best overall feel of any Pokemon card sleeve out there.

With Katan Sleeves, we’ve left the realm of budget sleeves and entered the realm of premium sleeves. These are pro grade, and ideal for any major event or competitive player. We really, really like Katana sleeves, and, in fact, they were the first ever sleeves we used.

Putting them in second place overall for best card sleeves for Pokemon TCG Players came down to one factor, and that’s durability. While these card sleeves are plenty durable, they have one weakness when compared to Dragon Shield, and that is the quality of the shuffle long term. For whatever reason, these sleeves don’t maintain their fantastic shuffle for long. While at first they slip and slide like magic, before long they begin to stick, and start to feel clunky in general.

While this happens to any sleeve after a while, it seems to happen just a bit sooner for Katana than for the top card sleeve on this list

Dragon Shield

Dragon Shield has the best combination of look, feel, and durability.

No surprise, the legendary Dragon Shield trading card sleeve takes the number one spot of this list. While overall look and feel is quite comparable to Katana (with the noticeable difference being a bit of extra sleeve at the top of your cards), Dragon Shield retains its excellent shuffle feel a little longer than Katana does, so at the end of the day we prefer this well known card sleeve just a hair over Katana.

In Katana’s defense, however, when it’s feeling at its best, it’s got the best feel, as far as playing Pokemon is concerned. However, you can’t go wrong with picking either of these excellent choices.