this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7930619

I'm getting back into MtG - Really I never left, but all my friends who played have moved + I lost all my good decks in a move myself. Now some of my other friends have started playing, and though I hate universes beyond, I enjoy the game.

I don't want to spend a bajillion on cards however, but I also don't want to play with paper cutouts or proxies. It's silly, but I like the cardboard for some reason. And I'd really like to regain some of my old decks, which were from Return to Ravnica/Original Innistraad era.

So I'm looking for a good printshop that prints good-looking Magic cards. I hear some shops in China have gotten better than WOTC at printing.
I'm in the EU.

Anyway, I'd love to get some recommendations. Please help me out.

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[โ€“] theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

If you want any kind of decent quality then it probably isnt going to be cost effective for you to print them yourself.

Firstly you are going to have to pay for the stock for it to be printed onto.

By the nature of the fact you will not want long runs of all the same cards and thus have many sheets all with different cards on you are going to have to get them digitally printed as opposed to litho. Digital quality these days is very good and most people will not be able to tell the difference but wizards would have them done litho and they would be of a better quality because of it. Digital is also not quite as accurate in terms of registration which can make more or less of a difference depending on the method of cutting them out you use.

Im not sure if the real cards are laminated or not from memory but if they are and you wanted to replicate that that is another process that would need to be paid for for machine time and materials. Lamination would make them a lot more durable for sure.

If you want foils then you would need to pay for dies to be made for the foiling as well as then the foil and machine time for doing that.

Cutting them out you would need to have dies made to have them die cut to shape. You could have them cut normally then use a round corner cutter on every card but that is time consuming and less accurate. The registration of the printing method here would then make a difference so depending on how good the print is you may have off center cards with poor borders etc. You could also get them cut on a flat bed die cutting machine which would be more accurate as it uses registration dots that are printed to get its position so the registration of the print in relation to the paper is less vital with that but it costs more.

This is a very big rabbit hole that you could fall into and it all gets very expensive very quickly. You typical high street print shop will be able to get a reasonable finish but the small machines they use are never going to be as good as their industrial grade counter parts.

I personally think it would probably be more cost effective for you to buy job lots of actual cards from eBay and maybe search out some specific sets you want.

We havent even talked about where you are going to get the artwork from for the print shop and paying them for laying down the cards and imposing them for their machines which is costly before anything goes towards paper.

I would recommend trying to find a print shop local to you and going in and having a basic conversation with them about what kind of thing you want to achieve and just get a basic idea of costs to give yourself an idea of an approximate cost for the kind of finish you want to achieve and decide if it is a route you want to go down before maybe then shopping around for the print shop you think may be the best as I think you are going to be surprised at how much it will set you back to print the stuff yourself.

I have no experience of Chinese print houses and their prices / quality.

[โ€“] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 0 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Wow that's a great writeup! Sadly I must've miscommunicated, because I didn't mean I wanted to print/cut the cards myself, rather I wanted to order them from an online printer - Of which there are quite a few. I just don't have any experience with any one of them, so I don't know what to expect price-wise and so on. Stores like this one https://blacklotus.aliexpress.com/store/1101109646 for example. I know there are also some that are based in Germany.

[โ€“] theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Ah OK, sorry, my bad.

Thanks for the link though, it is interesting to have a look at. Do you know ones in Germany are already printing cards like that Chinese place you linked or are you talking about general online print stores that are based in germany?

The reason I ask as if they already do a lot of cards (like the Chinese one obviously does) they will already have a lot of the requires equipment like dies available and in use, if however they are just a generic online print store like say redbubble sort of thing then they may add drastic extra costs to cover additional tooling where they don't already have it, so I would definitely suggest leaning towards companies that already deal in printing cards like that link.

Either way sorry I can't give you an idea of costs or more help.

I foiled these pokemon card things last year at work for a Christmas limited edition and the foiling process alone cost them around โ‚ฌ500 for around 250 sheets which is why I suggest you go with someone that already has the tooling required.

Good luck, I'd be interested to see the results once you do get something done!

[โ€“] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I found one similar shop located in Germany a few years ago, but I haven't been able to dig it up since. I'll send you an update if I end up getting any proxies printed! And thanks for the very kind interaction penguin-love

No worries. If you have any questions regarding the print processes feel free to PM me and I'll answer if I can :D