Standard scissors are not recommended because making perfectly straight 88mm cuts by hand is extremely difficult, leading to uneven card dimensions.

• Paper Guillotine (Highly Recommended): A heavy-duty guillotine trimmer with a metal base plate and alignment grid is the fastest, most reliable tool for cutting straight lines.
• Rotary Paper Trimmer: A slide-rail rotary cutter is also excellent and provides high precision, although blade replacements are required over time.
• Craft Knife & Metal Ruler: A metal-edged ruler and a sharp utility knife (e.g. X-Acto) used on a self-healing cutting mat yields professional results but requires patience.

Cards with square corners immediately look amateur and wear out quickly in card sleeves.

• Use a dedicated 3mm (or 1/8 inch) Corner Rounder Punch.
• Brands like Sunstar Kadomaru Pro or standard craft corner punches are inexpensive and allow you to round all four corners of a proxy card instantly, matching the factory radius of official MTG cards.

A proxy printed on paper is too light and flexible to shuffle normally. You need backing support and protection:

• Opaque Sleeves: Choose premium sleeves with solid, fully opaque black or colored backings (e.g., Dragon Shield Matte, Ultimate Guard Katana, or Gamegenic Matte). Avoid translucent sleeves as they reveal the white paper back.
• Backing Cards: Use cheap basic lands, advertising cards, or tokens as rigid backings. Place them behind your printed proxy inside the sleeve.
• Inner Sleeves (Optional): Fit the proxy and backing card into a tight inner sleeve before loading them into the outer sleeve for double-sleeving. This completely prevents the paper from shifting.

For reading card text and appreciating high-quality MTG artwork, printer configurations matter:

• Color Inkjet Printer: Standard pigment/dye-based inkjets produce excellent color reproduction and gradients for proxies. Use photo/fine quality settings.
• Color Laser Printer: Laser printers produce crisp, smudge-resistant text and speed up printing of entire decks, although colors can sometimes be slightly darker than expected.