Sunday May 17th 2026 • sunbro
Printing proxies for local play
What’s a proxy and what are they useful?
In TCGs, a proxy is, typically, a home-printed version of a card. In short, instead of buying a “real” copy of a card you want, you just print it at home. There can be multiple reasons to do so:
- Figuring out whether you like a specific deck or archetype before buying all the cards you need
- Discovering retro TCGs or formats without having to hunt down old cards
- Having other decks on hand so you can play with friends
Keep in mind, proxies are typically not allowed in official events and should not be sold as real cards. Ask your local game shop to be sure, but you can typically bring proxies for casual play when there’s nothing on the line.
As you can see, proxies are a comparatively cheap way to build decks at home and enjoy TCGs with your friends. Let’s look at a quick price breakdown and how to get started.
What do I need to get started?
Price breakdown
This is for my specific setup. You can of course invest in a better printer, ink, or paper for higher quality results. I iterated on my setup and found something that I think strikes the right price/time balance for me.
Essentials
- Printer:
- Typically recommended model: EPSON EcoTank: ~260 EUR
- My specific model: EPSON WF-2510, an fairly old printer I had laying around: Free
- Ink:
- 3rd party ink from my local supermarket: 30 EUR
- Paper:
- Epson A4 Archival Matte Photo Paper (189gsm): 30 EUR (for 50 sheets, 9 cards per sheet -> 450 cards total)
- Sleeves:
- Ultra Pro Standard Size sleeves: 3.50 EUR (for 50 sleeves)
- Backing cards:
- Pokemon energy cards in bulk: 2 EUR (for 200 cards)
Nice to have
- Corner cutter:
- Sun-Star Kadomaru Pro Neo 3-Way Corner Cutter (Pokémon cards need 3mm corners): 25 EUR
- Paper cutter:
- Fiskars A5 Guillotine: 30 EUR
Total: About 380 EUR (printer included) -> ~330 EUR (essentials) + 55 EUR (nice to have)
- About 9 EUR in supplies per 60 card deck (compared to 40-60 EUR MSRP)
Getting started
Once you have all the supplies, getting started is fairly easy:
- Find an online tool to generate the PDF you want to print (see “Helpful resources” below)
- Configure the printer for a high quality matte print
- It’s important to test these settings before fully committing, print a card, cut it out and see how it looks in a sleeve
- If you don’t like it, tweak the settings and try again
- Print the PDF
- Cut out each card, round the corners with the appropriate radius
- Pile the card on a backing card and sleeve it
- Enjoy!
Helpful resources
Written by sunbro
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