by betsychuck
Yesterday we finished our first year of Season 2 and did use a shuffler. It's not of high quality ... just cheap plastic and we had to glue the handle in place. For the first time, we sleeved our cards. Our poor little shuffler works fine with sleeves and we expect these cards to last "forever" with the Epidemic and Event cards not remaining flatter and fresher and less-nicked than the always-used city cards. Of course, inside the sleeves the stickers are not a problem.We also used it without sleeves for 20 years of Season 1 (326 games, so a LOT of shuffles) and even after 15 games the cards were still in decent shape (though we now have new decks). (As you can imagine, we use a reset system that means we don't put stickers on the cards.)
A note on randomness. Our shuffler (sleeves or not) does not alternate cards exactly ... sometimes one side will feed 2 or even 3 cards before the other side, and that non-regularity is helpful. Also, between shuffles, we "cut" little packs alternating top and bottom, maybe a 5th or 6th of the deck in each pack. That certainly helps, especially if the last few cards in a shuffle all come from the same side since the other side ran out.
Anyway, we're a fan of our little shuffler, and now even of sleeves, which we had never tried before. Sorry to ramble on at such length.