iheart Presents: The Cheapskate's Guide to Magic: the Gathering

I'm a huge fan of Magic: the Gathering. It's one of those games with significant replay value, and the enjoyment doesn't only come from playing the game - putting together interesting decks is half the fun. My favorite format is EDH (if you're unfamilar with EDH - aka Commander - it's a fantastic multiplayer format, and I highly recommend it). As wonderful as this game may be, though, Magic is not for the faint of wallet, and even casual gamers are not immune to the sticker shock.

A friend and I gloriously stumbled upon the perfect solution to expanding our Magic decks as economically as possible: magiccards.info.

This site has a great, easy to use card proxy printing function. If you've reached a point where you'd love to modify or create a deck but the cards you want are ridiculously expensive, I would heartily recommend adding proxies to the mix. I've found this to be a great way to help bridge the massive gap that can exist between collections and even out the playing field. (It's tough for people who play on a budget to compete with friends that own 4 of nearly every rare/mythic rare out there!)

To print out proxies from the site, first type in the card you want in the "Query" field and click "Search". Once you've found the card, go to the bottom left of the screen and click on the number of copies (1 - 4) you'd like to print. This will take you to a display screen of selected proxies. Either print the page or click "Back" to search and continue adding more cards. It couldn't be any easier!

After printing your cards, you'll want to sleeve them. I've found that what works best is to grab some penny sleeves and use junk commons to "back" the proxies. You can find penny sleeves at any gaming shop and, as the name implies, they are very inexpensive. Just put a printed proxy card on top of a junk common and sleeve them up together.

Magic: The Gathering Week: Be sure to check back all week as I'll be posting new downloadable content to improve your all around gaming experience.

Find other great Magic: the Gathering related content on the Downloads page