This was asked recently in my Discord’s DMs, but I thought it might be helpful to show others. So… a shuffle plate is essentially a plate you use to shuffle on that protects the table underneath. I don’t like reading cloths for regular use because they shift and wrinkle. Instead, I prefer bare wood. But… well. This is what happens when you shuffle on bare wood over time:

As you can see, shuffling creates a good deal of wear on wood over time. You can also see that when the wear got pretty extensive, I tried to turn the table around and use the other side for a bit. I clearly needed a better solution, though.  No matter how gentle I am with the cards, they begin to wear on the wood as time goes on.

So, while I was at a friend’s house, I noticed a sample piece of granite from the store sitting cast aside on the windowsill that they had considered doing their countertops in. They no longer needed it, and I asked if I could have it.

I took it home, put little fuzzy feet on the underside, and began using it to shuffle my cards on in order to preserve the table top (which it has done spectacularly since acquiring it). Since then, I also found a similarly sized tile in selenite, which I did the same with.

Yes, selenite is soft and, at some point, it will have to be replaced. It does include a cleansing benefit that the granite doesn’t, though.

And, there you have it. A “shuffle plate” is a piece of tile/wood/stone used to shuffle on that protects your table from the wear and tear of shuffling. Soft, fuzzy feet on the bottom are recommended, or the plate will cause it’s own damage to the table’s surface.