We Tested PrintMTG — Is It Legit?

The Grand Calcutron | Illustration by Sean Murray

I’m all in favor of proxies, but I don’t want proxies of my own, if that makes any sense. Power to anyone who uses them as an alternative to shilling out for expensive format staples, but I prefer not to play with them. But I acknowledge their utility, and I felt a little adventurous when I was handed the opportunity to write about and review a proxy website. Why not branch out and dip my toe into the proxy pond? And hey, maybe I’ll get some cool keepsakes along the way.

Today I’m reviewing the sponsor of this article: PrintMTG. I’ve made a purchase with them so that I can go over the process and the product, and so that I can share with you my experience with the website. This is from the perspective of someone who doesn’t have much experience handling proxies at all, so it’s about as close as I can get to an unbiased review as possible.

Let’s see how my time with PrintMTG went.

(Remember folks! Proxies are legal, but selling them while claiming that they’re authentic Magic cards is not!)

What Is PrintMTG?

PrintMTG is a standard proxy-printing website. You enter card names of cards you’re looking to proxy, specify the versions of each card, and pay a bulk amount based on the quantity of cards in your order. It’s a simple process, spelled out cleanly by their very own “How It Works” chart.

The pricing model is nearly identical to other similar sites I’ve seen, with the overall price per card decreasing as you hit certain quantity thresholds. It’s ideal to buy in bulk rather than individual cards, with the sweet spot being $1 per card on orders of 50-99 cards. In other words, you’d spend $100 out of pocket to fully proxy a Commander deck (well, $99 for 99 cards, but you get the point).

I appreciate that the pricing model is displayed right below the space to add cards, and a price indicator constantly updates as cards are added or removed from my order. I know how much I’d spend after every addition/subtraction.

Why Buy from PrintMTG?

From my perspective, the best reason to buy from PrintMTG is the ease of ordering. Type in a collection of cards you’re interested in proxying, click buy, and that’s it. The database seems comprehensive and up-to-date, and I found the majority of cards and specific versions I was looking for.

I did hit a snag when it came to finding cards with strange syntax, like split cards for instance (I tried to proxy a copy of Fire / Ice as an example, but was unsuccessful). I also couldn’t successfully add any double-faced cards to my list, which might be by design given printing complications with DFCs. This all might’ve been just user error, but outside of cards with strange naming conventions, I had no difficulties finding the cards I wanted.

I also made a point to test out cards with different card frames. I wanted a variety of styles and alignments to see how PrintMTG handled each one, and the results were satisfactory. For the record, here’s the collection of cards I ordered:

• Liliana Vess – SDCC 2014 version
• Mana Crypt – Special Guests (green)
• Lotus Petal – Tempest (old border)
• Gaea's Cradle – Gold-border World Champ version
• Fury – Borderless Special Guests
• Krark's Other Thumb – Silver-border Unstable card
• Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath – White-border Mystery Booster 2 version
• Swords to Plowshares – Bloomburrow Special Guests
• Time Warp – Mystical Archive
• Toxrill, the Corrosive – Black-and-white Double Feature version.

PrintMTG: Is It Worth It?

Navigating the Site

There’s nothing glitzy or glamorous about the website aesthetically, but it’s about as straightforward as it can be as far as user-friendliness is concerned. Everything you need to place an order is on the front page directly at the top.

Products Available

Considering you’re essentially making the product, you’re pretty much always getting what you want here. Their FAQ page states that foiling is available by request, and they plan on rolling out foiling as part of the basic ordering process, but it’s not available by default yet.

There’s a custom proxy page if you want to check out pre-made proxies using alternate art, and you can even upload your own creations directly to the website for purchase.

Ordering Product

Placing an order was snappy and intuitive. I appreciated that there were some package deals on popular proxies that were offered during checkout, things like all 10 fetch lands for $5 on top of your order.

There was a $4 shipping fee, though they waive the shipping fee on orders of $75 or more.

I’ll note that for whatever reason, I never received a confirmation e-mail once I placed my order, nor any other sort of confirmation about shipping. I was asked to enter an e-mail address upon checkout, but at no point did I receive an e-mail from this site, during or after the transaction.

Product Delivery

My order took five days to arrive and was packaged securely in a bubble mailer. Within that bubble mailer, all 10 cards were placed within a thick toploader with an Order ID number. There were two additional “cards” used to print out information about the order, so 12 cards total in the toploader. Let’s take a look at the cards I received.

First thing to note is the card back. Proxy sites usually alter the card back to dissuade people from trying to re-sell their proxies as actual cards (literally illegal). At first I thought PrintMTG wasn’t doing this, but a cursory glance will show you that there’s a difference here. Kudos for using purple as the “sixth color in Magic.”

Let’s take a snapshot of all 10 cards together. They look crisp, and the digital art is high resolution. The proxies captured all the different styles and card frames that I wanted to test out, as well as alternative borders like the silver-bordered Krark's Other Thumb or the white-bordered (ew) Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. The proxies look as clear and detailed as the corresponding Magic card would.

Now how about the card condition? Well, I have to ding them here just a bit. Pretty much every card in the order had some extremely minor bending on multiple corners of the card. These pictures don’t illustrate it too well, which is a testament to how small of an issue it is, but they’re definitely not pristine. “Slightly/Lightly Played” is what I’d call these if I had to put a condition on them. You’ll notice from the pic above that there’s some light wear on the upper right corner of the Mana Crypt, and the same issue appears on all 10 cards.

If you scroll back up to the toploader picture, you’ll notice that the toploader looks ever-so-slightly overstuffed, and the edges of the toploader are bending around the cards, which is likely responsible for this issue. Remember the toploader included two “extra” cards for bookkeeping purposes, though I would’ve been much happier having those thrown in the bubble mailer outside the toploader if it meant not putting too many cards in one toploader.

Do I care about minor edge wear on my proxies? No, not at all. But others probably will, so I’m pointing it out.

Outside of the slightly bent corners, the only other issue I’d call attention to is some light fading/scuffing on the side of the Lotus Petal, but again, this isn’t all that problematic and likely wouldn’t even show in a sleeve.

Corners and one edge of one card aside, everything else looks great. There’s no visible wear on the surface of the cards, and all coloration, text, etc. is exactly as I’d expect it to be.

Final Verdict on PrintMTG

Yeah, this just works. I don’t really see much of a difference between PrintMTG and other proxy services I’ve encountered in the past, but there’s nothing all that big to criticize here. It seems like there are minor limitations on the cards you can have printed, but that’s not a deal-breaker by any stretch. Maybe not the best place to proxy out your Tetzin, Gnome Champion deck, but so be it.

Overall, I’ll summarize my experience with the following pros and cons:

Pros:

• Ordering process was extremely easy and intuitive
• Card art meets visual expectation
• Card back is a subtle but necessary change
• About as affordable or competitive as any other proxy-printing site
• Timely delivery (about 4-5 days from ordering)

Cons:

• Slight damage due to packaging that feels like it could’ve been avoided.
• No confirmation e-mail upon ordering.
• Limitations on ordering certain types of cards (double-faced cards, for example).

Can You Make Custom Proxies with PrintMTG?

Yes, actually! PrintMTG has a separate tab for custom proxies. You can do this in either one of two ways. You can upload a custom card you’ve already made from another website. Or you can use PrintMTG’s own card creator to craft something. I tinkered with these tools for a little bit to create this masterful Yeast Within card (give me a call, WotC), though the card creator was much less intuitive than anything else on this site. Not insurmountable, just fiddly.

From what I could tell, ordering custom proxies followed the same pricing model as ordering pre-rendered proxies of MTG cards.

Wrap Up

Phantasmal Image | Illustration by Darren Tan

My experience with PrintMTG was an overall positive one, and that’s coming from someone who typically doesn’t care all that much about proxies. For those of you who almost exclusively build decks using proxies, I think you’ll find this satisfactory. If you’re looking for near-mint proxies, I’d look into other reviews of the site to see if others had the same bending issues that I did.

There’s nothing exactly revolutionary about this site, but I found the simplicity very useful. I created an order and checked out in the span of about 5-10 minutes and didn’t get bogged down on very much while navigating the site. Consider me a satisfied customer! If you have proxy recommendations or you’ve personally used PrintMTG, let me know in the comments below, or on the Draftsim Discord/Twitter!

As always, thanks for making Draftsim your #1 stop for all things Magic!

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