If you’ve ever uploaded a “perfect” proxy file and the preview looks like someone took scissors to your mana symbols, welcome. This MTG proxy dimensions guide exists because card printing is a fun hobby until you meet the words bleed, trim, safe area, scaling, and “helpfully” auto-cropped uploads.
The good news: once you understand the handful of numbers that actually matter, most proxy sizing problems disappear. The bad news: you will still occasionally get a slightly off-center cut, because paper cutters also live in the real world.
Exact MTG card size: the numbers that matter
For most practical purposes, Magic cards are “poker sized.” The problem is that different printers and templates describe “poker sized” with slightly different numbers, and those tiny differences are exactly how you end up with a hairline border on one side and a guillotine on the other.
Here are the two sizes you’ll see most often:
- 63 mm x 88 mm (about 2.48″ x 3.46″)
- 63.5 mm x 88.9 mm (exactly 2.5″ x 3.5″)
Both are close enough that they look identical until you put them next to a real card or try to align borders precisely. Some print services even label these as different “poker” variants (for example, “standard” vs “traditional”).
So which one should your proxies be?
- If you’re ordering from a print service: match their template and upload requirements, not your feelings.
- If you’re printing at home and cutting yourself: you can treat 2.5″ x 3.5″ as the “human-friendly” target, but you still want bleed and safe margins so your cuts are forgiving.
- If you’re mixing sources: pick one workflow and stick to it. “Close enough” is how you get a deck that looks like it was assembled by three different time travelers.
Also worth noting: a lot of other TCGs live in this same neighborhood (Pokémon, Flesh and Blood, and many fan-made Netrunner projects), which is why sleeves are mostly interchangeable. “Mostly” is doing a lot of work there, but it’s usually true.
MTG proxy dimensions guide cheat sheet: trim, bleed, safe area
There are three rectangles you need to care about. Everything else is just people arguing on forums with rulers.
Trim (final cut size)
This is the finished card size after cutting. Think “what ends up in your sleeve.”
Bleed (extra art past the trim line)
This is extra image area that gets cut off on purpose so you don’t end up with accidental white slivers at the edge. Standard print bleed is commonly 1/8 inch (0.125″) on each side.
Safe area (keep important stuff inside this)
This is an inner margin where you keep text, mana costs, set symbols, and anything else you’d prefer not to donate to the paper trimmer.
A practical rule that works across most proxy workflows:
- Bleed: extend background/art 0.125″ past the trim line on all sides
- Safe area: keep critical details at least 0.125″ inside the trim line
- If you insist on a visible border: give yourself even more inner margin, because borders make cutting errors obvious fast
And yes, this is why “full-bleed” templates look larger than the finished card. They are supposed to.
Pixels, DPI, and why your file looks fine until it doesn’t
You can design in inches/mm or pixels. Either is fine. What matters is that you’re consistent about DPI (dots per inch) when exporting for print. Most print-on-demand services treat 300 DPI as the baseline minimum.
Here are the pixel conversions you’ll actually use in proxy land:
Common trim sizes at 300 DPI
- 2.5″ x 3.5″ (trim): 750 x 1050 px
- 63 mm x 88 mm (trim): about 744 x 1039 px (because metric is here to remind you life is complicated)
Common full-bleed upload sizes at 300 DPI
Many services want you to upload a larger image that includes bleed. For poker-size cards, you’ll commonly see:
- 822 x 1122 px (full bleed at 300 DPI)
You might also see older guides referencing 816 x 1110. If you see both numbers floating around, don’t panic. That’s just the internet doing what it does best: preserving outdated templates forever. When in doubt, follow the current upload requirements of the printer you’re using.
A quick note on “it cropped my image”
Sometimes the preview crop is not an error. Some upload tools show you the trim area on top of your full-bleed image, which makes it look like you’re losing content. That’s normal. What’s not normal is losing important content inside the safe area.
If your mana cost or title is getting chopped in preview, one of two things is happening:
- you built the file without bleed/safe margins, or
- the file got resized or stretched (usually by a “fit” setting you didn’t ask for).
Borders: the fastest way to make cutting errors visible
A “border” means two different things depending on context, and that confusion causes pain.
- Art border (like classic MTG frames): part of the card design
- Print border (a thin line near the edge): a trap you set for yourself
If you add a thin line close to the edge, any normal cutting tolerance will make it look uneven. You’ll swear the printer “messed up,” and they’ll calmly explain that cutting has tolerances because reality exists.
If you want a border anyway, make it one of these:
- Thicker and farther from the edge so small shifts aren’t obvious
- Full-bleed art with no border line near the trim
If your goal is “looks good in sleeves,” full-bleed art wins almost every time. Sleeves hide a lot of sins. This is one of the few times denial is a legitimate strategy.
“Why is this cropped?” The usual suspects
Here are the most common reasons proxies get cropped, stretched, or mysteriously decapitated.
1) “Fit to page” (a classic)
If you print at home and your print dialog has anything like:
- Fit
- Scale to fit
- Shrink to printable area
…turn it off. Print at 100%. Always. Your printer is not helping. It is improvising.
2) Aspect ratio mismatch
If your file isn’t the same aspect ratio as the card template, something has to give. Most upload tools will either crop or stretch. Both are bad. Crop is less bad, but it still eats your edges.
3) You designed to trim, not bleed
If your background art stops at the trim line, the cutter will reveal tiny white edges the first time the cut drifts a hair. Bleed exists because cutters drift a hair. It’s their whole thing.
4) Your “safe area” is imaginary
If you put the mana cost right up near the corner because it “looks fine,” you have created a race between your design and the cutter. The cutter is faster.
5) The export resized your file
Some apps quietly resample images when exporting PNG/JPG. If your file size doesn’t match what the print service expects, it may be auto-scaled on upload.
Tip: after exporting, check pixel dimensions before you upload. It takes five seconds and saves an hour of arguing with a preview window.
6) Rounded corners ate your corner details
Cards are rounded. If you put tiny details right in the corner (like a microscopic set symbol or a decorative frame element), the corner radius can clip it even if the trim is “correct.” Keep corner-critical details farther in.
7) Front and back alignment assumptions
If you’re printing double-sided proxies, front/back alignment is its own hobby. Even commercial printers can have slight front-to-back shifts. If your back design has a tight border, it will look off. If you use a classic card back that’s borderless and forgiving, it will look fine. Notice a theme?
A practical workflow that stops the pain
If you want the simplest “works for most people” setup:
- Design using a template that includes bleed + trim + safe area.
- Keep all important text/icons comfortably inside the safe area.
- Export at 300 DPI (or higher if your art supports it).
- Confirm the pixel dimensions match your printer’s requirement before uploading.
- Order a small test batch before committing to 600 cards, unless you enjoy learning expensive lessons.
And if your playgroup is still in the “what even is a proxy?” phase, you can send them this and pretend you’re doing it for education, not because you’re tired of re-exporting files: All About MTG Proxy Cards | What They Are and Where to Get Them.
If someone insists your proxy is “illegal” because it’s 0.5 mm off, you can gently redirect them toward something actually important, like understanding priority: MTG: How the Stack Works (and Why Your Spell Didn’t Resolve).
Final sanity check
This MTG proxy dimensions guide boils down to: match the printer’s spec, include bleed, respect the safe area, and never let your print dialog freestyle your scaling.
And if your preview still looks weird after all that, it’s probably showing you the trim overlay on a full-bleed image. Which is annoying, but not actually a crime.
