Some games come with gigantic stacks of cards that I find hard to mix with card-friendly methods. Games like Ark Nova, Clank, Hogwarts Battle have unmanageable decks but I hate bending the cards.
Whats the best way?
Normally when I’m struggling with a big deck I ask a friend to help out. It can get overwhelming handling all these big decks and your arm definitely can get sore.
cut the deck into manageable stacks.
shuffle the stacks.
cut each stack, and mix the other half with a different stack.
reshuffle each new stack
reassemble the stacks into a complete deck.
repeat as desired.
I usually “deal” the cards face down in 6 different piles and then stack them together again, and repeat the process two or three times
In TCG tournaments you usually do this with 5 or 7 stacks of cards to shuffle your cards.
I can’t comment on TCGs outside of MtG, but this is not considered sufficient shuffling in Magic tournaments (you may pile shuffle to count the cards in your deck, but it is not enough on its own). I would be surprised to find out that it’s not also considered cheating in other games as well, since it is extremely easy to manipulate the location of cards while seeming to randomize your deck using this method, if you know what you’re doing.
That said, in casual board game play, I don’t see the issue with doing it.
Interesting, the page you linked, does it explain anywhere what is the recommended shuffle style? It just says not to pile shuffle (only once), but maybe I missed it.
This, but I vary the number of piles between shuffles as well.
With nice stiff sleeves, I cut the deck into manageable sizes, then push the bottom corner of one stack into the middle of another stack until they’re riffled with each other.
I do that until every stack is paired with another, then cut the stacks and mash them into an unpaired stack.
Keep doing this until all the stacks have cards from every other original stack in them, then get somebody else to stack the stacks in whatever order they want.
Sometimes I also just leave the deck in multiple stacks (as you mentioned, Ark Nova’s deck is huge, TM as well, and with sleeves can be impossible to stack high) and let people take the top card from either stack. Obviously if the top card of the deck can be manipulated then you need a rule for what happens in that case.
A good way to shuffle large decks in my opinion is to get some sleeves an den learn to Mash Shuffle. Here is a video about this on YouTube. Depending on the form factor of your cards it may be tricky to get fitting sleeves, but if you do it’s very much a game changer.
Shuffle them in smaller stacks then cut each and stack them differently and shuffle again. Repeat a few times.
A deck for the Commander (EDH) version of Magic is 99 cards; usually sleeved. With good-quality card sleeves, “mash shuffling” usually works pretty well: split the deck in halves and just kinda push them together edge-to-edge, using the shape of the sleeves to help.
Table-riffle, split into smaller decks if needed. Easy to learn and not too bad on the cards since you bend them much less than you’d with a regular riffle.
I enjoyed watching this video about how the pros do it.
Thanks for the vid, where does he speak about the shuffle? I tried to skip through but he was only talking about how to open in Ark nova. Do you have a timestamp
That video is more about managing the a large deck by splitting it and doing it to casino standards, meant it more as an interesting tidbit than a tutorial.
This 2 minute video explains the shuffle itself in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvLE_MCNOe4
sleeves make it super easy to shuffle without bending.
I had a major shuffling speed boost with the No bend riffle shuffle , but a little modified, I hold the cards of one hand rotated 90 degrees.
This is after the full deck is broken down into manageable size chunks.
I highly recommend everyone try this style of riffle. It took one day to have a decent speedy riffle.
Probably still explain or ask permission before doing it with other peoples cards too.
Much appreciated! This is what I was hoping for. I will have to practice a bit :)
As someone with little hands, thank you! This technique makes shuffling large cards so much easier!
I usually sleeve the cards on card heavy games, so regular shuffling doesn’t work for me. Usually, I will give some cards to another player or two and we will all do some shuffling of those cards, then hand some of the cards from our pile to someone else, while taking some of their cards and shuffling them into the group I kept.
Doing this allows for the shuffling to be divided by a few people, making the amount of cards being shuffled by each individual more manageable. It also helps to get the other players involved in set up, which can keep them from being bored.
We broke down and got a shuffler for playing rainbow pirate.
what kind of shuffler? Like a Casino one?
This is the one I got
Nileole 1-6 Decks Automatic Card Shuffler, Battery-Operated Electric Shuffler for UNO,Phase10, Texas Hold’em, Poker, Home Card Games, Blackjack, Home Party Club Game (6 Deck) https://a.co/d/5UTBs8t
It feels kind of flimsy, but it shuffles real well. I wouldn’t want to travel with it very much.
These are kinda affordable, do you know if these also work with sleeved cards?
I haven’t tested, but I think that they will probably work
For Ark Nova before we place the board we do something like this
We did two games with a new ark nova and the cards were not random enough. We reshuffled again and are on a third game and it appears a bit better. I guess with time it will improve.
I usually break them up and shuffle the broken sections up randomly. Don’t just go for the whole thing at once
Of for sure, I do break it into smaller sections. But must methods leave the deck not as random as I would like. Even if I split and shuffle
What makes you think the deck is not random enough?
When you draw a five cards and three were in the same sequence present in the last game. Or the same card that’s grouped together because of game mechanics.
In that case I’d say pile shuffle before regular shuffle is the way to go
Yea, that’s what I usually do. With breaking up the regular shuffle into smaller stacks when the deck is huge.
Sleeved cards is also good, because you can usually skip the pile shuffle and just do the mash shuffle
Could not have summarized this any better
