Play Mats

I will admit to not completely understanding play mats, nor have I used one in all the years of playing collectible card games.

I get it that they provide some protection for your cards. However, the cards are already in sleeves and sometimes more than one sleeve. Isn’t the entire point of the sleeves to protect the cards? Is the mat kind of redundant as just another added layer of protection?

Play mats also may make it easier to exhaust and ready cards that are in play. If the play area surface is rough then constantly turning cards to mark them used or unused for the round would potentially put scuff marks on the sleeves. Isn’t the point of the sleeves to take the beating so the cards stay safe? Is the mat at that point protecting not the card, but the sleeve that is then protecting the card?

I suppose there have been some game shops that I’ve been to where the play mat would be handy. Playing on top of a comic book case and hoping your cards don’t fall between the rows of books would probably be solved by having a mat covering those gaps. It may also solve the issue of a sticky surface and keeping gunk off of the card sleeves, but now you’ve just got that gunk on the mat itself.

I was recently browsing Etsy for new items that were Star Wars Unlimited related and came across something extremely surprising to me. Starring me right in the face was a play mat with the “Get Off My Lawn” header image that I had generated with artificial intelligence. First reaction was shock and disbelief, followed quickly by awe and laughter.

One thing that I had overlooked for a long time was the aspect of self expression that a play mat affords to the player.

There is only so much you can do with the deck itself. Of course the leader can be a character you identify with in some regard, but in a large event and certainly across multiple events others would have the same leader. Another player’s deck could even be card for card the same as yours.

Same goes for card sleeves. I have seen online that there are vendors which allow for custom sleeves to be created. However, for the most part people are using what is available in their local game store. Without going the full custom route there is a feasible limit to what you could conceivably do. I am partial to green sleeves, and eventually in enough events, I would have multiple opponents that also have a similar color if not completely identical sleeves.

The play mat gives just another added level of self expression. Sure there are the benefits described above and likely more than are not occurring to me as I write this, but being able to represent a favorite character or scene regardless of what deck is being played is pretty cool. It also allows an amount of bragging without saying anything such as would be the case with limited edition mats tagged with dates and top X finish, or labelled as a year and the word “champion”. In those cases it could even go beyond branding and into a realm of subtle intimidation.

Anyway, seeing the custom artwork that I had created for use as a column header graphic out of context on an Etsy listing made me realize that I suddenly had to have a play mat. Will I use it all the time? No idea, but I’m at least going to give it a try finally after all these years of not using one.

Get your cards off my lawn and put them on a play mat already.