boardgames

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

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.

Shuffle them in smaller stacks then cut each and stack them differently and shuffle again. Repeat a few times.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For Ark Nova before we place the board we do something like this

I usually break them up and shuffle the broken sections up randomly. Don't just go for the whole thing at once