MTG Card Size: Exact Dimensions, Pixels, and Printing Guide

You are staring at a pack of sleeves in the store, and you have no idea if they will actually fit your deck.Or maybe you are trying to print a proxy at home and your file keeps coming out just a little bit off.

Here is the answer up front. A standard MTG card size is 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches, which is 63.5mm by 88.9mm. That is the real, official number straight from the Magic rulebook, and everything else in this guide builds off it.

The Core Numbers

The official card dimensions for Magic have not changed since 1993. Every set, every rarity, every booster pack uses 2.5 by 3.5 inches.

You will also see 63mm by 88mm floating around online and on sleeve boxes. That is just a rounded down version sleeve makers use for labeling. It is close enough for buying sleeves, but not exact enough for design work.

Card thickness usually sits around 0.3mm. Weight lands somewhere between 1.7 and 1.8 grams, though this can shift a little depending on the print run and card stock used that year.

That kind of consistency is rare in trading cards. It is the whole reason a card from 1994 still slides into the same sleeve as one printed last month, and why tournament organizers never have to worry about size mismatches at events.

Why You’re Looking This Up

People land here for different reasons, and honestly, most of them are pretty simple problems.

Here is a quick sort so you can skip to what you need:

• You want to print proxies, so grab the pixel numbers and bleed info below.
• You are buying sleeves, so a standard 66mm by 91mm sleeve is your answer.
• You play other card games too, and you are wondering if your Pokemon sleeves will work here.
• You are setting up a design file in Photoshop or Canva and need exact canvas settings.

Pixel Dimensions for Printing and Design

Millimeters describe the physical card. Pixels describe your digital file, and these numbers matter more than people think.

At 300 DPI, the standard for home printing, a true 2.5 by 3.5 inch card comes out to 750 by 1050 pixels. That is the number most proxy templates and print shops actually use.

Need pro level detail for a print service? Use 600 DPI, which gives you 1500 by 2100 pixels. Skip 72 DPI entirely unless you are just previewing on screen, since printing from it turns your card into a blurry mess.

Setting Up Your File in Photoshop or Canva

Open a new document at 2.5 by 3.5 inches, set it to 300 DPI, and keep the color mode on RGB unless your print shop asks for CMYK.

Add 0.125 inches of bleed on every side. This gives your artwork room to breathe so a slightly off center cut does not leave a white edge.

Round the corners to about 3mm, since sharp corners are the fastest way to make a proxy look fake. Free templates from sites like MTG.design can save you the setup time if you would rather skip building one from scratch.

The Aspect Ratio

The aspect ratio of an MTG card works out to roughly 5 to 7. It is not a perfect match, just close enough to use as a mental shortcut.

That tall, narrow shape is not random. It leaves room for full artwork, a name bar, and a text box without the card feeling oversized in your hand.

One thing that trips up designers: the art box got slightly bigger after 2014. Older cards used a smaller artwork frame, so if you are copying an old school layout, do not use the new dimensions or the art will not sit right.

Read This:How Tall Is 72 Inches? 12 Real Life Comparisons to Put It in Perspective

Fitting Cards on Paper

This is where a lot of home printing goes wrong, so let’s do the actual math.

On standard A4 paper, you can fit 3 columns by 3 rows, which is 9 cards with a little breathing room between each one. US Letter paper fits the same 3 by 3 grid, also 9 cards.

Bump up to A3 and you roughly double your space, landing around 16 cards in a 4 by 4 layout. Whatever size paper you use, always print at exactly 100 percent scale. Never let your printer “fit to page,” or every card comes out the wrong size.

Turn on crop marks in your print settings if your software supports them. They give you a clean line to follow when you cut, which matters a lot more once you are slicing through a full sheet instead of one test card. Always run one test print on scrap paper before committing to a full batch.

How MTG Cards Compare to Other Games

Not every card game plays by the same rulebook, and mixing them up gets expensive fast.

• MTG and Pokemon TCG share the same footprint, so one box of standard sleeves covers both.
• One Piece TCG is close enough that standard sleeves fit fine too.
• Yu-Gi-Oh cards run smaller at roughly 59mm by 86mm, so you need mini sleeves, not standard ones.
• Archenemy and Planechase cards are oversized at 3.5 by 5 inches, so they need specialty sleeves only.

Cutting and Corners

Real MTG cards have rounded corners, and skipping this step is the number one reason proxies look obviously homemade.

A basic corner punch set to about 3mm gets you close, and it barely costs anything if you already own one. If you print often, a steel rule die cutter handles several cards per press with clean, even corners every time.

For paper, matte cardstock with a black core layer is your best bet. Glossy paper looks nice on screen, but the ink shows through from the back and ruins the illusion.

MTG Card Weight and Thickness

Curious how many cards you are holding without counting one by one? Weight is a handy shortcut.

A stack of 60 unsleeved cards usually comes out to somewhere around 18 to 20mm tall, based on that 0.3mm per card thickness. Roughly 1kg of cards works out to about 550 to 570 loose cards, which is close enough for sorting bulk boxes.

Just remember that older and newer cards can weigh slightly differently, so big bulk counts might drift a little. It is a good estimate, not a lab measurement.

Sleeves and Storage

Standard outer sleeves run 66mm by 91mm. If you like double sleeving, perfect fit inner sleeves at 64mm by 89mm slide inside those outers with almost no wasted space.

Double sleeving does not add much bulk at all, usually just a few extra millimeters across a full deck. Most standard deck boxes handle double sleeved 60 card decks just fine, so you rarely need to size up.

If your deck is closer to 100 cards, like a Commander deck, that extra thickness adds up faster. Look for a deck box labeled for 100 plus cards rather than forcing a standard box shut.

Mistakes That Are Easy to Avoid

A few small slip ups cause most of the headaches people run into.

• Using the rounded 63mm number for a print file instead of the true 2.5 by 3.5 inch size.
• Skipping bleed, which is the most common and most visible proxy mistake there is.
• Grabbing Yu-Gi-Oh sleeves for MTG cards, since they are simply too small.
• Printing on glossy paper and wondering why the back looks weird under light.

Quick Answers

What sleeve size fits MTG cards? Standard 66mm by 91mm outer sleeves, or 64mm by 89mm for perfect fit inners.

Are MTG and Pokemon cards the same size? Yes, both use the same 2.5 by 3.5 inch footprint.

What is the pixel size for an MTG card? 750 by 1050 pixels at 300 DPI, or 1500 by 2100 at 600 DPI.

How many cards fit on A4 paper? About 9 cards in a 3 by 3 layout.

What is the aspect ratio? Roughly 5 to 7.

The Part Most People Miss

The size itself is not complicated. It is 2.5 by 3.5 inches, and that has been true since 1993.

What actually trips people up is everything around that number. Bleed settings, print scale, paper choice, corner radius, these small details are where a print job quietly goes from great to amateur.

Get those right, and the card size takes care of itself.

Conclusion

Whether you needed sleeve numbers, print settings, or just wanted to settle an argument with a friend, you now have the real numbers instead of the rounded ones.

Got a printing horror story or a sleeve size that tripped you up? Drop it in the comments, we have all been there, and it helps the next person avoid the same mess.