We Checked Out LiberProxies — Is it Worth It?

Last updated on February 10, 2025

Johnny, Combo Player | Illustration by Kensuke Okabayashi

The past few years, we've come a long way in terms of “proxy acceptance.”

Proxies are commonly used in many play groups as an alternative to multi-hundred or even thousand dollar cards to keep decks affordable.

They also allow you to have multiple copies of a card to prevent re-sleeving so many darn times!

In fact, even some tournaments — especially in the cEDH world — support and encourage varying degrees of proxy use.

Given their growth in use, it's no surprise there are a few more companies appearing in the proxy market.

Today I'm reviewing LiberProxies, a boutique proxy company that primarily serves the European market.

The company sent me a nice array of proxies, stickers, and metal tokens, so I'm going to break down the quality of their products and let you know if they stack up to the competition!

Just a heads up, I was provided with free sample products for evaluation. This helped me test a wide variety of their different card printings and some additional add-ons and accessories.

With that said, let's get into it and check out what LiberProxies has to offer.

Ordering Experience

Stock Up | Illustration by Izzy

I would call ordering at LiberProxies both somewhat straightforward and somewhat manual.

The good news is that you can just make a list of the proxies you want and send them to the store. The bad news is that you have to order through a Google Form instead of a traditional ecommerce shopping cart.

That said, I did not end up testing the full process for this review — I talked to site owner directly, and he generated my order for me.

However, I imagine the real ordering process would have a similar feel:

Pricing

The pricing for LiberProxies' proxies is pretty good, with prices roughly equivalent to the competition here in the US for a sample order of 100 cards.

At the time of this review, the USD to EUR exchange rate is essentially one-to-one, so you can basically think of the prices above in dollar terms.

It is commonplace for you to get a discount when you order and print proxies in bulk, and I was glad to see that same kind of pricing structure here.

There's also a significant discount (3x!) if you order 999 cards or more vs just nine.

I think I might be able to come up with 10 Commander decks to build!

As I mentioned, ordering right now is pretty manual. You have to create a list of cards using a deck over on Moxfield (a deckbuilding tool) and include the link to the order form.

The owner then receives the form submission, processes the order manually, and prints your proxies for you.

When I spoke to the owner, he was friendly and accommodating, and made sure to send me a package with everything I needed to thoroughly test all his products.

Shipping and Unboxing

Imperial Seal | Illustration by Milivoj Ceran

LiberProxies generally serves the European market, but since I live in the US, I had the samples shipped here for evaluation.

Despite the fact we were shipping to America from Germany, the package still made very good time.

From initial shipping to arrival, it only took 7 days to come all the way from Germany to California. Not bad at all.

My assumption is that intra-Europe shipping would take significantly less time.

My package arrived securely sealed and completely intact:

Everything was tightly shrink wrapped in a single “brick” and was very solidly packaged. Overall, the packaging was minimal, effective, and not excessive.

The cards inside were in good shape — they were not bent or damaged at all during their journey across the Atlantic.

Hooray!

Package Contents

So, what goodies did I get?

Inside we had:

• 40 cards, in various frames and formats so I could see print quality
• Some holographic foil stickers
• Some cardboard backing to protect the cards during shipment and to prevent bending
• An amazing metal Treasure / Food token — more on that later!

You can see the variety of special alternate art and promo cards that LiberProxies sent me.

The Cards

I wanted to start judging the cards by sampling a variety of different types to check out their print quality and “real-ness.”

The Print Quality

Overall, I was definitely impressed.

While these are not literally the same as what WotC does with their professional printing process, overall the cards were very sharp, readable, and clear.

And once you put them behind a sleeve, any irregularities become virtually unnoticeable.

I was most impressed with the regular frame, borderless, and special/custom proxy prints. These looked spot-on and were nearly indistinguishable from a regular card.

This is about as “normal” looking as you are going to get for a proxy. Great work.

The adventure and retro border cards looked just a little off, but were still well within a happily usable range. They seemed a little too “bold”/saturated and had issues with sharp and blurry contrast, respectively.

The white-bordered cards looked good as well.

While the card back is *ahem*… evocative… of a “real” Magic card, there is no confusing this for a fake card. It is very clearly labeled as a “proxy” on the back, so you can be 100% clear with your play group you are using playtest cards and are not trying to pass these off as the real thing.

The Feel

The cards feel very close to normal cards. If I had to nitpick, I would say a pile of them feels ever so slightly more flexible than regular cards.

This is with a pile, though. One-to-one I can't tell much difference.

When shuffling an unsleeved pile of 40 Magic cards, vs these, the difference in feel is somewhat magnified.

The proxies feel a little softer, less stiff, and more pliable than the real cards.

However, when you shuffle them together with other cards, any difference in feel becomes indistinguishable.

And keep in mind that any proxy cards you get are always going to be slightly different than real Magic cards — that's the point.

With Sleeves

Of course, the feel in sleeves also matters a lot. You're not a maniac who plays without sleeves, are you?

Flicking through a stack of proxy and non-proxy cards with sleeves on, I can't tell any difference between the two of them at all. Good.

If I do a mash/side shuffle of both card types together, everything also feels fine.

Finally, a riffle shuffle had a very small difference in feeling, but it wasn't enough to bother me.

Foil Stickers

Card back notwithstanding, if we are trying to make the front of the card look and feel like the real thing, then there is one crucial ingredient missing — the holo stamp.

Rare and mythic Magic cards always have a stamp on them to signify authenticity (and to show that they are special and more rare than their common and uncommon counterparts).

LiberProxies offers a similarly-styled holostamped sticker so your rares and mythics feel “more real.”

Universes Beyond sets have a triangle-shaped hologram, while regular in-universe Magic sets have an oval-shaped hologram.

One thing to keep in mind is that these stickers are tiny. And personally I am really bad at handling little fiddly things. It's always hard to place stickers like this exactly.

I recommend using tweezers (LiberProxies uses a scalpel themselves!) and having a lot of patience.

Holographic stickers for Universes Beyond and “regular” Magic sets.

Below, you can see a holo sticker that I added to a Demonic Tutor proxy:

Yeah, I know it's not straight — that's my fault. I told you I wasn't good at this stuff!

However, it looks virtually and functionally the same to me as a regular card. It shines and catches the light nicely when you move the card around.

I definitely recommend these if you are going for the “full experience” and want to bling out your rares and mythics.

Metal Token

Finally we have the icing on the cake — a custom token!

I was totally not expecting this or thinking about this as a bonus for ordering proxies.

Like alters, proxies are a great way to express yourself as a Magic player (with custom art and styles), so why not do the same with your tokens too?

Check out this bad boy:

Yes, this is a thick, hefty metal token. The thing feels indestructible.

Here's a video of me picking it up and dropping it so you can get an idea of how weighty and substantial it is:

It's got a Food token on one side and a Treasure token on the other.

Overall, I was really impressed. The thing is AWESOME. The details have a nice raised feel to them and the gold plating adds a premium touch.

The heaviness and the clanking noise when you drop it reminds me of using metal dice. And you know that whenever you hand those over to your opponent, they take notice!

No weak stuff here!

One of the cool things about this particular combo is that Treasure/Food is an evergreen token type that is always in need (there are nearly limitless treasure cards and food cards). So you can get a lot of mileage out of it, regardless of what format you're playing.

This is going right into my deck box as a permanent feature. I'm going to scare the heck out of my opponents the next time I throw that thing on the table!

Overall Thoughts

Gold Rush | Illustration by Eric Wilkerson

The value and pricing here are quite good compared to other stores.

I'd estimate the value of what I was sent at around $75. Do I feel like that was a good deal? Yes.

Based on the amount of custom printed cardboard that I got, had these been actual cards for decks I wanted, I would have been quite happy. I mean Volcanic Island and Fierce Guardianship alone would have cost me way, way more to put in my deck.

And the quality was much higher than if I had tried to do it myself by breaking out the old laser printer.

When he communicated with me, it was very clear that the owner is proud of the quality of his work, and it shows. There is also direct support for your orders and additional community in their Discord.

Assuming my play group was fine with proxies, I would be completely happy to use these in my decks. They are indistinguishable enough from real cards on the front side — this is about as close as it gets to the look and feel of using the real thing.

Particularly if you are in the European market, I think this company is worth checking out! Their quality is on par with other services and the owner is engaged and responsive in the business.

If you're looking to play casually without spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on the equivalent cards, I think LiberProxies is a great option to consider.

This post is sponsored by LiberProxies. We will never work with a brand we don't love and trust, and by supporting them you also support Draftsim.