A proxy is a stand-in card you use in place of a real Magic: The Gathering card for playtesting and casual games — same dimensions, same role at the table, just not an official printing. To make one at home, design the card, download a print-ready PDF sized to a real card, print it at 100% scale (with "fit to page" turned off), trim it to 2.5 × 3.5 inches, and sleeve it. For a print shop or MakePlayingCards, the same card downloads with the bleed they ask for. The rest of this guide walks each step in detail.
What a proxy is and when to use one
A proxy stands in for a card you don't physically own so you can keep playing. The legitimate uses are everyday ones:
- Playtesting your own designs. If you're brewing custom cards, a printed proxy lets you actually shuffle the idea into a deck and see how it plays instead of evaluating it on a screen.
- Trying a deck before you buy it. Proxying an expensive list lets you test whether you enjoy it before spending real money on the staples.
- Replacing a damaged card in casual play. A creased or water-damaged card that's no longer tournament-legal can be proxied so the original retires safely to a binder.
In all three cases the proxy is a tool for play, not a counterfeit. Keep that distinction and you'll stay on the right side of both the rules and your playgroup.
Designing the card in PipGlyph
Before you can print anything you need a card to print, and PipGlyph is built to produce print-ready files. Open the card editor and fill in the card: name, mana cost in pip notation like {2}{R}{R}, type line, oracle text, and power/toughness or loyalty. Upload your own art, and the MTG card maker renders everything as a finished card in a live preview.
If you're proxying a real card to test a deck, recreate its text as closely as you need to — for a playtest, a legible, correctly-sized stand-in is all that matters. If you're designing something original, this is where the actual design work happens, and our guide on designing balanced custom MTG cards covers how to cost it so it plays fairly.
When the card looks right, open its Download menu, on the card's page or in the editor. What it offers depends on your plan:
- Every account can download a 750 × 1050 PNG or JPEG that carries the PipGlyph mark — plenty for a playtest stand-in.
- Plus and Pro downloads carry no watermark. The Image tab gives a 1500 × 2100 PNG or JPEG and, for printing, a Resolution of 600 or 800 ppi and a Bleed: None, 1/8″, or MakePlayingCards. The PDF tab gives One card: a page exactly 2.5 × 3.5 inches, or the card with a 1/8″ bleed and crop marks.
- Pro adds Sheet of copies on the PDF tab, Print / download for any cards you select in My Cards, and the whole-deck export — the fastest way to print a playtest deck.
For home printing, reach for the PDF. It's already sized correctly, so it takes the guesswork out of scaling — the single most common place proxies go wrong.
Which file to download
The plan in brackets is the lowest one that has it.
- One card on your own printer: PDF → One card (Plus).
- A page of one card: PDF → Sheet of copies (Pro).
- A mix of cards: My Cards → select the cards → Print / download → Print PDF (Pro).
- A whole deck: your deck's Export → Print proxies · PDF (Pro).
- At a local print shop: PDF → One card with the bleed, or Image → Bleed: 1/8″ (Plus).
- Through MakePlayingCards: Image → Bleed: MakePlayingCards (Plus), or a ZIP of them (Pro).
Every one of these print files is drawn with your original uploaded art at full resolution, so upload the largest version of the art you have. It shows most on full-art and borderless frames, where the art fills the card: the whole card is 1500 × 2100 pixels at 600 ppi and 2000 × 2800 at 800.
Resolution: 600 or 800 ppi
A printed card is 2.5 × 3.5 inches, so the pixel count decides how fine the detail can be.
- 600 ppi, 1500 × 2100. Plenty for home printers and most print shops. Every PDF is printed from it.
- 800 ppi, 2000 × 2800 (Plus and Pro, PNG only). For print shops that ask for it. Text, mana symbols and your art are drawn at 800 ppi; the frame artwork itself is enlarged from its 600 ppi master, and the download says so.
Pick 800 ppi when a shop asks for it; 600 ppi is the right default everywhere else.
Bleed and crop marks
Print shops cut cards in stacks, and the blade can land a hair off the line. A bleed is extra card printed past the cut line, so a cut that drifts shows a little more card instead of a white sliver. The usual request is 1/8 inch.
PipGlyph's 1/8″ bleed makes the file 2.75 × 3.75 inches (1650 × 2250 pixels at 600 ppi, 2200 × 3000 at 800). It continues the card's own edge outward, the border where the card has one and the art where the art runs to the edge, and it never scales the card: everything inside the cut line is the same card you'd get without the bleed. The one-card PDF puts crop marks on the four cut lines, outside the bleed, and marks its trim and bleed boxes for print software.
At home the bleed is optional. It helps if you want no white edge even when a cut strays, and it costs space: fewer cards fit on a sheet.
Print sheets
A sheet puts several cards on one US Letter or A4 page, with guides to cut along. Sheets are a Pro feature, and there are three ways to build one:
- Copies of one card. The card's Download → PDF → Sheet of copies.
- Any cards you pick. In My Cards, select cards (your own, or ones on the Liked tab), choose Print / download, then Print PDF. On sheets, set how many copies of each card to print; one export takes up to 150 cards.
- A whole deck. Open one of your decks, choose Export, then Print proxies · PDF. Each custom card repeats by its quantity in the deck, and real cards without a custom proxy go on a checklist page instead of printing.
Every sheet takes the same options:
- Paper: US Letter or A4.
- Spacing: No gap, or a 1/16″ gap. Butted cards need one cut between neighbors; with a gap, each card takes its own cuts, and a cut that strays stays in the gap.
- Cut guides: Corner marks, or Full-length lines along every cut, shown in the margins and gaps.
- Card size: 2.5 × 3.5 in, the usual rounded size, or 63 × 88 mm, a printed Magic card's exact size, about 1% smaller.
- Add a 1/8″ bleed: each card runs past its trim, and the guides still mark the trim.
Without a bleed, a sheet holds 9 cards in a 3 × 3 grid. With the bleed, US Letter holds 6 and A4 holds 8, on a landscape page. The guides print only in the margins and gaps, never on a card. My Cards and the deck export can also build One per page instead of sheets, and the sheet options start from the ones you used last in that browser.
Ordering from MakePlayingCards
MakePlayingCards (MPC) prints custom cards to order. Its poker-size card asks for an image of 822 × 1122 pixels at 300 dpi: the card plus MPC's own bleed. PipGlyph's MakePlayingCards option makes exactly that shape at twice the resolution:
- Open the card's Download menu and stay on the Image tab.
- Under Bleed, choose MakePlayingCards. You get a 1644 × 2244 PNG (2192 × 2992 at 800 ppi) with square corners and no watermark.
- In MPC's poker-size card builder, upload the file as the card's front, and check the preview before you order.
The file is always portrait: a Battle or Split is turned sideways onto the card, the way the printed card carries it. On Pro, a ZIP of MPC files comes from Print / download in My Cards or from a deck's Export, with the image size set to MakePlayingCards; the 1/8″ bleed is never added on top of MPC's.
PipGlyph exports card fronts only, so choose the back in MPC's builder. Use a back of your own rather than the official Magic card back: it keeps a proxy clearly a proxy. And the rule from the top of this guide still holds: proxies are for your own table, never for sale.
Print settings that actually matter
The most important setting is the simplest one: print at 100%, or "actual size." Turn OFF "fit to page," "scale to fit," or "shrink to printable area" in your print dialog. Those options resize the page to your printer's margins, which shaves your card down a few millimeters — just enough that it no longer matches a sleeved real card. The PipGlyph PDF is already the right size; your only job is to stop the printer from "helpfully" resizing it.
A quick pre-print checklist:
| Setting | Set it to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Scale | 100% / Actual size | Produces a true-size card |
| Fit to page | OFF | Prevents the printer from shrinking the card |
| Paper size | Letter or A4, as the PDF was built | Matches the PDF layout |
| Orientation | As the PDF is laid out | Bleed sheets are landscape; other pages are portrait |
| Quality | Best/High for final, Draft for tests | Draft saves ink while you iterate |
| Color | Color (not grayscale) | Keeps mana and frame colors readable |
After the first print, measure the card with a ruler before you commit to a batch. If it isn't exactly 2.5 × 3.5 inches (or 63 × 88 mm, if you chose that card size), scaling snuck back in somewhere — fix it and reprint one before running the rest.
Paper and materials
What you print on decides how the proxy feels and how opaque it is. There's no single right answer; pick based on how much the deck matters and how long it needs to last.
| Material | Cost | Durability | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain printer paper | Cheapest | Low (sleeve it) | Quick playtests and iterating fast |
| Cardstock (~200–300 gsm) | Low | Medium–high | Proxies you'll reuse for a while |
| Sticker/label sheet | Medium | High (applied) | Premium feel and full opacity |
Plain paper is the workhorse. It's flimsy on its own, but sleeved in front of a real card it disappears into the deck. Cardstock is sturdier and shuffles better unsleeved, though check that your printer accepts the weight you buy. The sticker route gives the best result: print the card on a full-sheet label, cut it out, and apply it to the face of a real basic land. That gives you a genuine card's opacity, weight, and back — a proxy that's indistinguishable from the rest of the deck in hand.
Cutting and sleeving
Once it's printed, you need clean edges. A craft knife and a steel ruler work, but a guillotine paper trimmer is far faster and straighter for more than a card or two. Cut along the guides: on a sheet, the corner marks or full-length lines sit on every cut line, and on a one-card bleed page the crop marks do. Without a bleed, cut exactly on the line; with one, cut on the line and let any drift fall into the bleed.
PipGlyph's print files have square corners, with the card's edge carried into them, so a corner rounder punch gives the proxy real rounded corners that sit flush in a sleeve.
Sleeving is what makes a paper proxy actually playable. A bare paper card is thin and see-through — opponents can read it from the back, and it won't shuffle with the rest of the deck. The fix: slide your trimmed proxy into a sleeve in front of a real card or a basic land. The land behind it supplies weight and opacity so the proxy is the same thickness as every other sleeved card and shuffles identically. Use the same sleeve brand across the deck so the backs match and nothing stands out.
Color and printer tips
A few small things separate a proxy that looks decent from one that looks washed out:
- Run a draft first. Print in draft mode while you're still tweaking — it's faster and saves ink — then switch to best/high quality only for the final copy.
- Mind your ink. Inkjets render frame gradients and art more smoothly; laser printers are crisper on text and don't smear if the card gets damp. Either works.
- Calibrate if colors look off. If reds come out orange or the frame looks dull, your printer's color profile may need attention — print a test page and adjust saturation or color balance in the print dialog. The export is drawn from the same frames and colors as the preview, by a separate server renderer that parity tests hold to it, so if colors drift, it's happening at the printer.
- Let ink dry before sleeving, especially on glossy or label stock, so nothing smudges.
Bringing it back to playtesting
Printing is only half the point — the reason to make proxies is to play with your ideas. A stack of printed customs turns a screen-bound design into something you can shuffle, mulligan, and lose to. Once your proxies are cut and sleeved, our guide on how to playtest custom MTG cards covers how to run games that actually tell you whether a card is fun and fair. And if you hit a snag with the export itself — formats, sizing, or print scaling — the exports and printing FAQ has the specifics.
FAQ
Are proxies legal?
For casual and playtest use, proxies are widely accepted as long as your playgroup agrees to them — always ask before bringing them to a table. They are not legal in sanctioned or competitive tournament play, where every card must be an authentic printing. Selling proxies or passing them off as real cards is never acceptable and crosses into counterfeiting.
What size are MTG cards?
A printed Magic: The Gathering card measures 63 × 88 mm, about 2.48 × 3.46 inches, and the size is usually rounded to 2.5 × 3.5 inches. PipGlyph's PDF prints a card at 2.5 × 3.5 inches, and print sheets can use 63 × 88 mm instead. Either way, print at 100% scale and your proxy fits a standard sleeve beside real cards.
Why does my printed proxy come out too small?
Almost always because "fit to page" or "scale to fit" is enabled in the print dialog. Those options resize the page to your printer's margins and shrink the card. Set scaling to 100% / actual size, turn fit-to-page off, and measure the first print with a ruler before printing the rest.
Do I have to sleeve paper proxies?
For real play, yes. A bare paper card is thin and partly see-through, so it doesn't shuffle or hide like the rest of the deck. Sleeving the proxy in front of a real card or basic land gives it weight and opacity, making it feel and shuffle exactly like every other card in hand.
Do I need a bleed to print proxies at home?
No. A bleed matters most when a print shop cuts stacks of cards and the blade can drift. At home, a PDF without the bleed and a steady cut along the guides gives a clean card, and more cards fit on each sheet. Add the 1/8-inch bleed if you want no white edge even when a cut strays.
What files does MakePlayingCards need?
One image per card in the shape of MPC's poker-size card: 822 × 1122 pixels at 300 dpi, which includes MPC's own bleed. On Plus and Pro, choose MakePlayingCards as the Bleed on a card's Image download to get that shape at 600 ppi (1644 × 2244 pixels), always portrait and with square corners. On Pro, a selection in My Cards or a deck's export builds a ZIP of them.