I use bookprintingchina.com to print my game card, I start 100 copies for the first order, the quality superior, and the price is cheaper than in USA. They responded to my emails promptly, and all my questions, doubts, and concerns were always clarified.
Can we just bootleg magic cards and play the game? Or is MTG not fun enough on its own without the collecting part?
Yes. They’re called proxies. Some people are fine with it, some aren’t. It’s not legal in tournaments obviously but some communities/syles like CEDH are fine with it.
obviously
It doesn’t seem obvious to me how that gives a competitive edge to anyone unless the skills involved are browisng ebay with a lot of money
It’s obvious if you consider TCG companies literally thrive on selling pieces of paper for far more what they actually cost them. If everyone could just print their own deck no one would buy packs anymore.
I use chinaprinting4u.com to print my TCG cards, and you can design your tcg card with photoshop or use canva.com