The Top 4 Places to Get Magic Apparel Ranked

Jace, the Perfected Mind | Illustration by Chase Stone

There are tons of ways to show love and support for your favorite games, shows, and movies. One of the simplest is apparel that demonstrates your interest and can often lead to unexpected connections when somebody sees that you like the same guild.

But there are tons of different places to get Magic apparel, and not all are created equal. When you’re buying something, you want the best. Today, I’m going over what to look for in quality MTG apparel and the best places to buy it.

Best Overall

Proper Laboratory Attire | Illustration by Tom Babbey

For the best overall place to get MTG apparel, I’m going with MTG Pro Shop. The prices are reasonable, and the quality is good. They offer worldwide shipping, with few restrictions. They’re a licensed retailer who works close enough with Wizards that they often have an up-to-date catalog with a handful of apparel options featuring the newest set.

The design of the apparel is simple. They often have options with the set symbol and a few notable characters from each set – for example, the All Will Be One collection includes the MTG set symbol on some clothing and each of the compleated planeswalkers.

Additionally, MTG Pro Shop offers a variety of non-apparel accessory products, like mouse pads, pins, and notebooks. The extra options make it an appealing place to find small gifts and other trinkets, providing a more holistic experience than a retailer who sells a few shirts and hoodies.

Buyer’s Guide

There are a few key things to look for when purchasing MTG apparel. First and foremost is comfort. You’re wearing what you buy, so it’s important to find a shop that promises comfort. No design is cool enough to make up for itchy, uncomfortable material.

Quality is a close second and might be the most important for some. You don’t want to buy a cool, comfortable shirt you can only wear once. This is especially important with designs. Some shirts have colored thread woven to make designs; others use various methods to apply the design to the fabric. Careful research to ensure your shirt can hold up to repeated washes and uses is important—as is maintaining the shirt per what the tag says. If it asks you to wash it in a manner you can’t or aren’t comfortable with, that might not be the apparel for you.

These are the most important aspects of MTG apparel, or any clothing. Comfortable, high-quality clothing is the best, especially since you’re paying more for a licensed product than standard, blank clothing. A bit of research is all you need to pick out the perfect piece of MTG apparel.

The “Cadillac” of MTG Apparel

animeape.com Front Page

Anime Ape offers some pricier MTG apparel, but they also have a wider range than some of the other shops here. The most common piece of MTG apparel one can find is T-shirts, which makes sense; they’re cheap, easy to produce, and appealing to customers. Anime Ape offers a bit more on top of just T-shirts.

You can get hoodies, which is another fairly common offering. The special parts are the jerseys and sweaters. The baseball jerseys aren’t just cool; they’re customizable. You get to choose the number and name printed. You can get your name or represent your favorite planeswalker (Nalaar 69 strikes me as highly appropriate and a little inappropriate).

Sample apparel from animeape.com

Perhaps the crown jewel is ugly Christmas sweaters with MTG designs and the dream cloak coats, which are unique and interesting pieces. This all comes together to create a fun shopping experience for MTG players, with the only downside being that shipping can be a bit slow, especially around the holidays.

Best Budget Apparel

teepublic.com Front Page

For the best budget option, there’s TeePublic. Most other sites sell shirts in the $30-$40 range, but TeePublic keeps it around $20. The designs are often pretty simplistic, but they’re MTG-related.

teepublic.com sample apparel

The site does have some quality control issues. These often have to do with the design occasionally coming crooked or smeared. However, these incidents are infrequent, and the customer service team is quite helpful in fixing these mistakes.

Best Comedic Apparel

coalesceapparel.shop Front Page

The previous sites have pretty clear or understated designs featuring characters, logos, and the like. If you want something a little more memey, it’s hard to beat the creative and amusing designs featured on Coalesce Apparel, one of the biggest names in MTG clothing.

coalesceapparel.shop sample apparel

Coalesce’s designs are more comedic. From “mana screw” written in the style of the Mountain Dew logo, to the Riptide Project portrayed like the logo from Jurassic Park, it’s a fun collision of pop culture and Magic cards. There are also plenty of MTG in-jokes, like Dack Fayden claiming a Mox Sapphire or Karn telling players the game is as easy as 1-2-7.

If these meme options weren’t enough, Coalesce also offers several collaborative options. They’ve paired with several prominent MTG creators in the past, including Sam from Rhystic Studies, Caleb Durward, and Jim Davis, letting you represent your favorite game and some of the people who also love it.

Custom MTG Apparel

Finding custom MTG apparel is a little trickier. While print-to-order websites are abundant, few allow you to print copyrighted designs with their services. The best way to truly customize your Magic apparel? Make some yourself!

There are a few ways to go about it. One would be with tie-dye; with a bit of research on how to fold the shirt, it’s possible to create all kinds of designs. This method is best for simple designs, such as mana symbols and the like.

You can get far more detailed if you create a design and then use an iron to heat-press it to a blank T-shirt using transfer paper. Many of the necessary supplies can be purchased at local craft and stationary stores. The simplest method utilizes an inkjet printer, transfer paper, a blank T-shirt, and a clothing iron.

Print your chosen image onto the transfer paper, then cut it out. A box cutter can help remove pieces from the middle, like the gap that appears between the body and arm if somebody has a hand on their hip. Then, use the iron to press the image from the paper onto the T-shirt!

A similar, more complex method utilizes Cricut machines to cut designs in heat-transfer vinyl. You’ll create a design in Cricut’s software, which the machine cuts into the vinyl. You can then transfer the image to the shirt with an iron. This allows for more complex and detailed designs but also requires a greater investment in equipment.

Wrap Up

Whispersilk Cloak | Illustration by Wangjie

Picking the perfect MTG apparel is a great way to show how much you love the game. Ensuring you get high-quality, comfortable clothing is important to longevity and comfort. MTG Pro Shop is the best all-around option, but there are plenty of places to find designs and prices that suit your needs!

Do you have any MTG apparel? How do you like showing off that you love the game (besides playing it)? Let me know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and keep comfy!