The Ultimate Guide to Printing Proxies
I've done a lot of trouble shooting and I've finally figured out all the right settings and products to use to get the PERFECT proxy. They look slightly better than Magic cards (at least mine do but I use a nice printer) and the feel just like real cards, not to thin and not too thick.
A couple things first
- This is designed to be used as double sleeved cards
- I have done a lot of trouble shooting with paper and card stock size to get the individual cards to feel very close to the real thing. Still each card is a not exact to a real magic card, and when you print a 100 card commander deck, the whole thing comes up just large enough where you might struggle to get it into your average commander deck box.
- Because of that, I highly recommend that that at least 30 of your cards in a commander deck are normal magic cards, that balances out the increase in thickness. Also, I figure that each card is about 35-45 cents to print, not counting the time and labor. Therefore, for me, it makes sense to still buy cards are that under 1 dollar.
Here are the things you need
Obviously a Printer. I have a Canon Pixma Pro 200, but I bought this for photography printing first. I can't really suggest a lesser printer because I don't know how quality will change.
A paper cutter. DO NOT use the sliding type, where the blade slides over the paper. Instead use the type that has the arm that slices down. This will allow you to make extremely fine, precision cuts that you will need to do at times. Here is what I recommend, but you can use any kind of this style of cutter.
- A Corner cutter. This is the one that works routinely. Use will use the SMALL setting to get the corner cut you need. Corner cuts are important for the aesthetics of the card but it also will help in making fine cuts later.
- Paper. Use the sticker glossy style paper. This is the kind I use
- Card Stock; 92Lb is what I use. Maybe a smaller pound would work better, but the cards feel right in the hand with this, so I stuck with this
- DragonSleeve Perfect fit card sleeves
PREPARING THE PAPER.
- It works better if you prepare you paper BEFORE you print. To do so, you will need to stick the card stock to the paper. The best way to do this is to peel a small, 1 inch corner of your sticker paper and fold it down into a triangle. Then align it with your card stock and while squeezing them together, smooth down your stick paper onto the card stock. Now just slowly peel away the sticker sheet beneath. After you get the first 4-6 inches down, you're in the clear and the rest of the paper will align properly. Don't worry if there is a little bleed over on the edges. You will have some wiggle room.
MAKING THE PROXIES
- I like Proxxied.com. The site has everything I need right there and is so easy to use. This youtube video runs through it very well:
https://youtu.be/KR-NCflTU-0?si=BBNEGuZ_DUfttOuf
On the left, under preferred art source, choose MPC
Below enter your cards one at a time
Click on each card and you can adjust the artwork, then duplicate if you need to
On the right, under settings, select Letter 8.5 x 11 to match our paper size
For bleed, I use 0.5
In advanced car positioning: set card spacing to Horizonal 2 Vertical 2. This is important, it allows us a vastly better margin to precisely cut our cards. Just below that, change Vertical offset to -1 or -2. This gives us some room at the bottom of our cards.
Under guides, this is important, change the card cut guides to wrap around the WHOLE card. This will make it easy to get a perfect fit for our card in our Dragon sleeve Perfect fit.
Now, down at the bottom, export at 900 DPI
I suggest using adobe acrobat reader. Open our PDF and select Print; Change Custom Scaling to 99% (This slightly shrinks our card to compensate for the increased thickness, and helps it fit correctly into the Perfect Fit Sleeve.
Also, click properties and change print quality to standard. Don't use high, it just uses too much ink and the cards don't look any different.
CUTTING THE CARDS
It is good practice to let your ink cure for at least 30 minutes before you cut.
Do a rough cut for all your cards on the sheet, leaving plenty of white space.
Now, when you actually go to cut, your goal is to cut EXACTLY along the green line, try not to go ANY further into the card than the green line. It is better to have a hint of green on your card that you can shave off rather than have a card that is now too small for the sleeve (it's easy to mess up than you think). The trick is to line up the left side of the card where the green line JUST passes the edge of the cutting surface, then gently lower the rubber grip of the cutting blade down so you can still move the card. Now adjust the card so that the right side also lines just past the edge.
Give firm, swift cuts, with some gentle pressure of the blade against the edge of the cutting platform. After a sheet, clean off the residual glue off the blade to make cutting easier.
Now cut your corners on SMALL
Now, you will try to slide your card into the PERFECT FIT Dragon sleeve. It should fit in snug but not tight. A good rule of thumb is that if the card bows into the sleeve, you will pull it out and make a VERY small precision cut along one edge. Look at your card, try to assess which side looks a little off and make the cut on that corner. When you do so, take the corner of that edge JUST past the edge of the blade, only just enough that the blade is able to cut. You will be amazed how the smallest amount of too much here can throw off the whole card. Recut your corner after you make a precision cut. Remember: just one tiny cut along a lopsided edge can make a card that's too tight to fit in the perfect sleeve fit perfectly
(This is why we scale our cards down to 99%. At 100%, the cards are ever so slightly too large where I found that EVERY card needed extra cutting to fit. At 99% they are just the right size to where if you cut exactly at the line, they should fit and if they are still too tight, the slightest of cut on one corner should do the trick.)
And that should be it! You can now put the card into your main sleeve and you're done. It will look amazing and feel just like a real card, costing about 35 cents. It takes a lot of practice, but this guide should get you there