We Tried Out ProxyPrintery — Is It Legit?

Miming Slime | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

I have a very neutral position when it comes to proxies. I don’t love to use them myself, but I’m a big proponent of others using them, and I love to see the customization that people put into creating proxies. I’ve also reviewed a number of proxy sites at this point, so it’s always interesting to see how new various distinguish themselves from the competition.

That’s the question I’m aiming to answer today, with a review of ProxyPrintery. I’ll comb through their website, order some proxies, and evaluate the cards when they arrive, all culminating in a verdict of whether they’re worth your time and money.

Thanks to ProxyPrintery for providing a discount code for this order. Now let’s get to it.

What Is ProxyPrintery?

Stunt Double | Illustration by Joseph Meehan

ProxyPrintery is a proxy-printing website that operates out of Germany. Like many other proxy sites, they exist to create high-quality proxies for those in need, and they ship worldwide, despite being located in Europe.

Why Buy from ProxyPrintery?

We’ll get into all the details shortly, but the main reasons I found to buy from ProxyPrintery were the quality of their product and the robust app they have for ordering proxies. There was a minor learning curve to use their app, but once I figured everything out, it became clear that this was one of the best proxy-ordering methods I’ve personally used. I also appreciated the way my order was sorted upon arrival, but more on that later.

ProxyPrintery seems like a good bet if you want to order bulk amounts of proxies at once. This probably wouldn’t be my first choice for a single-card order, but if I were trying to proxy an entire deck or multiple groups of cards at once, this would be my go-to choice moving forward.

If you want to take it directly from the horse’s mouth, you can see how ProxyPrintery advertises their advantages against their competitors in the chart up above.

ProxyPrintery: Is Ordering Worth It?

Navigating the Site

ProxyPrintery has a very straightforward homepage, with some navigation tools at the top and a few reviews down below. The current homepage also shows off a pretty spectacular Finale of Devastation, which is a nice showcase of what to expect from them.

There really isn’t much aside from the usual bells and whistles. Easy navigation with an “Order Now” button at the top. There’s also a direct link to their Discord server, which seems to be their preferred form of contact besides e-mail.

Ordering Product

Okay, this is where things get a little complicated. With most proxy sites I’ve visited, you can usually just type in cards on the homepage and compile an order that way. ProxyPrintery is a little different. There are four order methods displayed on their website, and none of them are quite as easy as just typing in a list of cards.

The first option is to enter a pre-prepared decklist. This can be an entire deck, or a list of just a couple of cards, but this option allows you to pull the URL from another website that contains the decklist already and essentially convert that decklist into a card order. This requires a “deckbuilder” of sorts, like a separate deck on Moxfield or Archidekt that contains all the cards you intend to buy. I found it a little strange that you can’t just type in a new order of cards from scratch, but I suppose this is actually easier for anyone who already has their decklist ready. If you do, this is as easy as copying the URL where that decklist is contained.

Option two is to use a link to a Google Drive folder, though after watching their tutorial, this seemed like the most convoluted method, and I didn’t even try it. It seems useful if you already have a bunch of card images lying around somewhere and want to make custom cards using those images.

Option three is to use MPC Autofill to essentially create an order with hand-selected fronts and backs for each card. MPCfill is a preferred tool for tons of proxy sites, but I find it overly complex to use and wouldn’t recommend this method unless you’re already familiar with how MPCfill works.

The final option is the one I found the most accommodating: an in-house ProxyPrintery app. It works on desktop, and it has a little bit of a learning hurdle to overcome, but once I understood how everything worked, it actually seemed like one of the best proxy-ordering methods I’ve ever used.

The basic gist is that you create packages of cards (“groups”) and add those groups to an order. For example, I created one group that was all the evoke elementals from Lorwyn Eclipsed and applied a holo foil to those cards. Then, I created a second group of cards for staples like Lightning Bolt, Dark Ritual, etc. The separation of groups allowed me to apply different qualities to different selections of cards. I could adjust the foiling on one group of cards, the language on another, the card backs on a separate group, and so on.

It took me a few minutes to distinguish adding new groups from adding cards within a group, but after that hurdle it seemed like a pretty smooth process. When adding cards, it seemed like they had every possible version of the cards accounted for, so the selection was there. Some of the other methods of ordering make it much more difficult to find a specific version of a card, but this app simplified that.

There was even a feature to upload custom art, or even full custom cards. These could then be put into a group and added to the order as well. I dug up some very old custom cards I made years ago and placed them in the order. The parameters are off, so I assumed these would look off in person, but that’s mostly a warning to make sure the dimensions of your image are correct before uploading here.

As far as pricing goes, ProxyPrintery uses a pricing model that’s quite common for proxy websites, where there’s a base price per individual card that decreases the more cards you place in one order.

You’re highly incentivized to flesh out a larger order than to pick up individual cards. I tinkered around with numbers and quantities a lot, but you can check out some of the calculations and order totals based on a few dummy orders I experimented with. Note the slight price differences between partials foils, holo foils, black core versions, and normal proxies.

And in case you’re wondering, “black core” refers to proxies printed on a high-quality card stock, though at a slightly higher price point. In all my experimenting with orders I failed to actually order any of these, though I imagine if they’re higher quality than what I got, I’d be quite satisfied with the option.

Product Delivery

Worth noting that I made a fairly complex order here. I created seven distinct “groups” of cards to test out various features on the site, like different card stock and foiling, so we’ll see how they did for each individual group.

The order took about two weeks to arrive, which makes sense, given the processing time for my order, plus the fact that it was shipped to the U.S. from the Netherlands.

Aside from the giant black rectangle blocking out our addresses, this is how the product arrived. Nice, secure cardboard box. Love to see it. A little loosey-goosey on the inside, but the individual cards are folded up into tissue paper. Considering I didn’t see any dings or dents on my cards, this seems sufficient.

I’m very happy to see the way the individual cards were packaged here. They all have an extra card on top distinguishing the different groups from one another. Part of me was wondering if all the cards would arrive grouped together in a single box or something like that, but they’re separated here, which is great.

Now to see if they got everything right. The first bundle is a group of Alchemy cards I had proxied up for a buddy up in Canada, and I’m happy to see everything accounted for and in good condition. One of the throughlines with all these bundles is that there’s virtually no damage on any of the proxies. Basically no scuffing, scratches, or anything to make me think these weren’t handled well.

That Ulalek, Fused Atrocity you see in the picture wasn’t part of my original order. It seems they throw in a popular “bonus commander” proxy with each bundle, and I ended up with an extra seven cards because of that.

Bundle #2 is a collection of Zendikar Expedition fetch lands and Murders at Karlov Manor full-art surveil lands, which I’m sending off to another buddy in Georgia. These look clean and crisp, and we’ve got a cool freebie Edgar Markov proxy to go with it.

This next group is the first to contain foils. I created a group of all the evoke elementals using the “holo foil” option. These came out good, though they’re noticeably glossier on the front face, and they definitely had slight curling if that matters to you. Nothing that would be an issue once sleeved up, but curling’s been a point of contention with foil-lovers like me.

This picture of Emptiness doesn’t quite capture what I’m talking about, but you can immediately tell this is a proxy foil, which is a good thing. Proxies should be distinguishable from real MTG cards. The curling’s not quite U-shaped, but it’s immediately noticeable (the curling foil pictured above is a separate group from the elementals).

This is even more obvious with the fourth bundle, which included a full cycle of the Duskmourn Overlords. These were marked as “partial foils” and have some heavy inking or something that almost looks like a peelable sticker of sorts. I prefer the holo foiling to these.

I want to highlight one more of the remaining three bundles (two of the others are basically repeats of ones I’ve already shown, and one of them’s off to another friend in Texas). This last one is the bundle of custom cards I ordered, and I was pleasantly surprised that they were scaled correctly to fit on the card, despite the online version looking like they might be off-center. These look exactly how I created them online, and I could definitely see myself going back to order more custom cards this way if I ever had a reason to.

And just to highlight one of them up close, check out this ridiculous “Check Engine Light” custom card. It looks great, though it seems I left off the mana cost on this one. Oops!

The Verdict: Is ProxyPrintery Worth It?

I’d say ordering through ProxyPrintery was an overall positive experience. Again, there’s a small learning curve to operate their app, and I didn’t find the other options all that useful for what I personally needed, but the app was extremely thorough and the delivery was great.

I’d probably hold off on foils, since some of them were either dim, slightly curled, or looked a bit too “inky”, if that makes sense, but I have no qualms with the non-foils.

I also appreciate the throw-in proxy commanders. Nice touch on a complicated order. Plus, you might’ve noticed some holo foil stamps in the full inventory picture above. Those were available through their site if you want to manually add them.

I should also note that there was a “bonus” gift involved with ordering a certain total value of product, but since ProxyPrintery offered me a credit for the purposes of this review, I wasn’t eligible to redeem the gift. Nice that there are extra throw-ins for using the site, though.

FAQ Section

Can You Upload Custom Art to ProxyPrintery?

Yes, you can. As demonstrated up above, I was able to pull existing images of custom cards I had made and have those printed and delivered. You can also change the card back, if you’re so inclined. I went with the default card back for everything, which makes it clear the cards you’re receiving are proxies.

Can You Import Decklists from Moxfield? Archidekt?

Yes, ProxyPrintery advertises being compatible with Moxfield, Archidekt, TappedOut, and a number of other sources. Some of the order creation methods simply need a link to a decklist created on one of these websites, which seems to be the easiest way to go about proxying up an entire deck.

Wrap Up

Clone Legion | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

Just to reiterate, I’m not much of a proxy player myself. I can appreciate what they offer to the community, but I love a good, crisp, real card. That said, I can’t get crisp versions of printed Alchemy cards and custom MTG cards out of a normal booster pack, can I? I think ProxyPrintery is a great option for exactly those sorts of things, and if you’re looking to essentially print out a deck or playtest something without shilling out, this is a good place to do that.

Of all the proxy sites I’ve used and reviewed before, I think the order-creating app and grouping system found here made ProxyPrintery my favorite among them. Small gripes about foils, but easy solution: Just stick to the nonfoils. Or you know, sleeve up your decks!

Thanks again to ProxyPrintery for providing the credit so I could test out a bunch of different features and options, and best of luck to anyone ordering their next package of proxies. Let me know how it goes in the comments down below or in the Draftsim Discord, and check out our Newsletter to stay up to date on the latest MTG news.

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