How to Print MTG Proxies at Home With Sticker Paper and Cardstock

Printing MTG proxies at home can absolutely work, but it is not as simple as pressing print and cutting out nine cards. The difference between a proxy that feels good in a sleeve and one that feels like a paper craft project usually comes down to paper thickness, print scaling, cutting accuracy, and whether you test before committing to a full deck.

This guide is based on a detailed Reddit field guide by Ferngullysitter from r/magicproxies. The original method uses glossy printable sticker paper mounted onto black cardstock, then printed, cut, corner-rounded, and fitted into perfect-fit sleeves. It is a clever method because it tries to solve the two biggest home proxy problems at once: getting a better printed surface and getting enough card thickness without using real card backs.

There is one important warning before you copy the settings blindly: the author later reported that the exact same process suddenly started producing cards that were several millimeters too small. That means the settings below should be treated as a strong starting point, not a guaranteed universal recipe. Printer drivers, PDF viewers, browser exports, and proxy tools can all change how scaling behaves.

Quick verdict

What you need

The original setup is built around a photo-quality inkjet printer, glossy sticker paper, black cardstock, a guillotine-style cutter, a corner cutter, and perfect-fit sleeves.

There are a few product links in the original guide, including the Dahle 15e cutter, Sunstar Kadomaru Pro, Koala glossy sticker paper, and 92 lb black cardstock. They are useful references, but the exact brand is less important than the specs and the consistency of your results.

Before printing, understand the tradeoff

This method creates a layered proxy: glossy sticker paper on top of black cardstock. That gives the card a better printed face and a thicker feel than normal printer paper. The downside is that the finished card can be slightly thicker than a real MTG card, especially once double sleeved.

That matters most with a full 100-card Commander deck. If every single card is a homemade proxy using this layered method, the deck may become thick enough that it struggles to fit into some normal Commander deck boxes. The original author suggested mixing in at least 30 real Magic cards to balance the thickness. That advice makes sense.

This is also why cheap cards are usually not worth proxying at home. If a card costs under $1, buying the real copy often saves time, ink, cutting, testing, and frustration.

Step 1: mount the sticker paper onto cardstock before printing

The original method starts before anything is printed. Instead of printing on sticker paper first and sticking it onto cardstock afterward, the guide recommends attaching the glossy sticker paper to the cardstock first.

1. Take one sheet of glossy printable sticker paper.
2. Peel back about a 1-inch corner.
3. Fold that peeled corner down into a small triangle.
4. Align the sticker paper carefully with the black cardstock.
5. Press the exposed sticky corner into place.
6. Slowly peel away the backing while smoothing the sticker paper onto the cardstock.

The first few inches matter most. Once the first 4 to 6 inches are aligned cleanly, the rest of the sheet usually follows more easily. A tiny bit of overhang at the edge is not a disaster because the sheet will be trimmed later.

Go slowly here. If the sticker paper bubbles, wrinkles, or drifts diagonally, the printed sheet will be harder to cut cleanly.

Step 2: create the proxy sheet in Proxxied

The Reddit guide uses Proxxied.com to generate the printable sheet. The settings matter because they control card size, spacing, bleed, and cutting guides.

The extra spacing is not just cosmetic. It gives you more room to cut each card precisely. Tight sheets are tempting because they feel efficient, but they leave less room for error. With handmade proxies, cutting margin is worth more than squeezing every last millimeter out of the page.

Step 3: print from Adobe Acrobat Reader

After exporting the PDF, open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader instead of printing directly from a browser. This gives you more predictable print-scaling controls.

The original guide used 99% custom scaling. The reason was practical: at 100%, the cards came out just slightly too large for the perfect-fit sleeve after layering. Scaling to 99% made the cards easier to sleeve after cutting.

That said, this is also the most fragile part of the process. The author later reported that the same workflow suddenly produced cards that were too small. So 99% is not a universal truth. It is a starting point.

For print quality, the original guide recommends using standard instead of high quality. The claim is that high quality used more ink without producing a visible improvement for this use case. That will depend on your printer, paper, and ink, but it is worth testing because ink cost adds up quickly.

Step 4: let the ink cure before cutting

Do not cut immediately. The guide recommends letting the ink cure for at least 30 minutes before handling and cutting the sheet.

This is especially important with glossy sticker paper. Glossy surfaces can smudge or feel tacky if handled too early. Even after drying, one commenter noted that glossy sticker paper can still feel slightly grippy. Double sleeving helps hide that feel, but if you are sensitive to surface texture, this method may bother you.

Step 5: rough cut first, precision cut second

Start with rough cuts. Separate the cards from the full sheet while leaving extra white space around each one. Do not try to do the final card cut while the full sheet is still awkward to move around.

For the final cut, the goal is to cut exactly along the guide line, without cutting into the card face. It is better to leave the tiniest hint of guide color that can be shaved down later than to make the card too small. A card that is too large can be corrected. A card that is too small is usually ruined.

Keep the card aligned so the guide line sits just past the edge of the cutting surface. Lower the cutter’s clamp or grip gently, adjust both sides, then cut firmly and cleanly.

If you are using sticker paper, glue residue can build up on the blade. Clean the blade after each sheet or whenever the cut starts to drag. Dirty blades make worse cuts.

Step 6: round the corners on SMALL

After the straight cuts, use the corner cutter on the SMALL setting. This gives the proxy a more card-like shape and removes the sharp square corners that immediately make a homemade proxy look unfinished.

If you later shave a tiny amount from one side of the card, round that corner again. Even a small precision trim can leave one corner looking slightly off.

Step 7: test the fit in a perfect-fit sleeve

The final test is not the ruler. It is the sleeve.

Slide the card into a Dragon Shield Perfect Fit or whichever inner sleeve you plan to use. It should feel snug, not tight. If the card bows as it enters the sleeve, it is still too large or slightly uneven.

When that happens, remove the card and make a very small cut along the edge that looks off. Do not take off a full visible strip unless the card is clearly oversized. Often the difference between “too tight” and “perfect” is a tiny shave from one edge.

The biggest problem: sizing can break without warning

The most important update from the discussion is that the author later said the process stopped working correctly. The same setup and same workflow started producing cards that were too small by a few millimeters.

That does not make the entire method useless, but it does change how you should use it. Do not treat any proxy-printing site, PDF export, printer driver, or scaling percentage as permanent. A browser update, site update, PDF setting, driver default, or accidental “fit to page” option can change the final card size.

Before every serious batch, print a test. Not once per printer. Not once per paper pack. Every serious batch.

Troubleshooting

Alternative methods from the discussion

The comment section had useful reality checks. Some users prefer printing directly onto 330 gsm black core cardstock with a laser printer. That can create a card with a closer “snap” and avoids layering sticker paper onto cardstock. The downside is printer compatibility. One commenter pointed out that some Brother printer manuals list a much lower recommended gsm than 330 gsm, meaning direct printing on heavy cardstock may be outside the official spec.

Another user mentioned Brother HL-L3300CDW, while another mentioned Brother HL-L3295CDW with front and rear bypass paths to reduce curling and jams. That is useful field data, but not a guarantee. Heavy cardstock can jam printers, wear rollers, or behave differently from model to model.

There was also support for die-cutters, especially Alibaba-style card die-cutters, as a cleaner cutting solution. The catch is price, shipping, and availability. For someone making proxies regularly, a die-cutter can make sense. For someone printing one casual deck, it is probably overkill.

For double-sided cards or card backs, one commenter suggested double-sided photo paper with lamination. That can work for tokens or special projects, but alignment is difficult. For normal proxies, opaque sleeves are usually simpler than trying to make perfect backs.

Should you print backs?

For this sticker-paper method, plain backs are usually the better choice. Adding a separate printed back layer can make the card too thick and change the feel. If your sleeves are transparent enough that the back matters, the cleaner solution is to use fully opaque sleeves.

Do not print original Magic card backs if your goal is safe casual proxy use. A proxy should be clearly for casual playtesting, kitchen-table use, cubes, tokens, or personal decks, not something designed to pass as a real card outside a sleeve.

When this method is worth it

This method is worth trying if you enjoy the process, want control over your card art, and only need a small batch of casual MTG proxies. It is also useful if you want custom tokens, custom basics, cube cards, or temporary playtest cards that look better than printer-paper slips.

It is less attractive if you need a full Commander deck quickly. Between paper prep, printing, drying, rough cutting, precision cutting, corner rounding, sleeve testing, and fixing mistakes, the labor adds up fast. The author’s own cost estimate does not include time, wasted sheets, failed tests, or ink lost to troubleshooting.

For a full deck, the practical decision is simple: proxy the expensive cards, buy the cheap cards, and test the process before you trust it.

Final recommendation

The sticker-paper-on-cardstock method is one of the more practical DIY approaches for home MTG proxy printing, but it is not plug-and-play. The paper combination makes sense. The Proxxied settings are useful. The cutting advice is genuinely important. The 99% scale tip may solve one setup and break another.

Use this as a controlled workflow, not a magic recipe. Start with one sheet. Measure against a real card. Sleeve-test before printing a deck. Keep notes on your printer, paper, PDF settings, scaling, and cutter behavior. Once you find your exact setup, save it, but keep testing because software and printer settings can change.

For home proxy printing, precision matters more than speed. A slightly slower workflow that gives you consistent cards is better than a fast batch of proxies that are all a few millimeters wrong.

Source image note: The Reddit author shared finished-card example albums on Imgur, but direct downloadable image file URLs were not available from the accessible source. The albums are linked here for manual review: example album 1 and example album 2.

Inspired by: The Ultimate Guide to Printing Proxies by Ferngullysitter.