Playmats have been used in TCGs for years now. They are usually very colorful and unique and can make for a fun and helpful experience. They can range in quality and in size, but all help make the game much more fun for the players.
The best playmats are ones with high quality, low cost, aesthetically pleasing design, and the appropriate size for you. The best playmat will be different for every person because of this.
What Is A Playmat?
A playmat is an accessory for a card game like MTG or Pokémon. It is a playing surface that can be many different materials like paper or rubberized, cloth-covered, foam. In this way, a playmat is very similar to a mouse pad. Playmats make playing card games much easier due to their soft surface. Also, they help keep your cards safe and protected while you play.
What To Get Someone Who Plays Magic: The Gathering?
Playmats for any card game like Pokémon or MTG make for great gifts. They are affordable fun and very useful.
Playmats in MTG help express a player’s creativity, make a unique experience for the player, protect their cards and make gameplay easier.
Speaking from personal experience, I always think of the person who gave me the playmat I am playing on. So that is always a nice little bonus to giving a playmat/receiving a playmat as a gift.
You can also buy the person magic cards or sleeves but sometimes if you want a more personal experience, a playmat is the way to go. For example, when my at the time girlfriend was just getting into magic, I got her a very special playmat.
She is a big fan of cute animals and her favorite animal is the cow. I was able to find an artist that made a picture of all of these animals “disguised” as cows. I then used that picture to create a custom playmat that she still uses 6 years later.
What Accessories Do I Need For MTG?
MTG has many accessories but technically, all you need is the cards and another person to play the game. With that being said, the cards can sometimes be expensive and there are products out there that will help protect your investments. Some of those products are card sleeves, playmats, dice, and deck boxes.
Card Sleeves
Card sleeves are a great accessory because they will help protect your deck of cards from being accidentally damaged. They also help make shuffling a lot easier. Personally, I love using KMC Hypermat Sleeves along with KMC Hypermat Sleeves.
In my opinion, these sleeves work really well together. I do like using different kinds of sleeves and seeing how each one feels. When ordering sleeves to protect your cards, make sure you order the correct sleeves. For example, Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh cards are different sizes. For clarification, check out this article about card size differences here.
Playmats
Another fantastic accessory for are playmats. Playmats come in every shape and color. You can get custom playmats with your favorite card art on it, and you can even get playmats to cover your whole table!
Lots of companies make and distribute playmats. One of the top companies to to this is Ultra Pro. They are a company that gets most of the licensing for the art from the cards in MTG. This means that whenever a new set releases, you can usually get a playmat with one of the new characters on it.
Another very popular company that makes playmats is Inked Gaming. Inked Gaming has high-quality playmats that are fully customized.
Playmats make your game more fun and easier to play. Due to the soft/ squishy “mouse pad” material, picking up your cards and moving them is much easier to do on a playmat. Not only that but because of the smooth surface, your playmat helps protect your cards from anything that might be on the surface you are playing on.
With the ability to customize the art on each playmat, they can be very fun and unique to use. For example, maybe you love ghost Pokémon and you use the above playmat while playing your game. Each time you play a card, you are greeted with the beautiful are from some of your favorite Pokémon.
Dice
Much like playmats, dice play a huge role as an accessory. Dice can help keep track of your life, different counters, or even who goes first. They are very versatile and because of that, very helpful to have around.
There are many kinds of dice including the die that Wizards of the Coast came out with, the spin-down die. There is a picture of this below.
These spin down dice make it easy for you to track your life total. They are 20 sided dice that are not randomized. They make it easy to “step down” when you take damage or when you gain life. This is why dice can be a great accessory for playing MTG.
Deck Boxes
Deck boxes are also very important as an accessory for MTG. They will help you carry your cards safely from one place to another. Some deck boxes, like the Ultra Pro Satin Towers seen below, also have room for you dice in the bottom.
How Big Are Playmats?
Playmats come in all different kinds of sizes. Playmats can come in nearly any size that you can imagine but some more typical sizes are:
- 24″ x 14″ for a one-player playmat
- 24″ x 24″ for a two-player playmat
- 28″ x 14″ for a one-player oversized playmat
Playmats can be any of these sizes and more. In fact, lot of local game stores like to use very large and very long playmats to cover their whole table. That way the entire surface of the table is a playmat for their customers.
The most popular of these sizes is the 24″ x 14″ one-person playmat. This is the most popular because it can usually fit all of your cards on it and because it is designed for only one person, both players in the game get to express themes. They get to do this by using their own playmats.
How Do You Clean Playmats?
Sometimes accidents happen. A drink gets spilled or some food gets on the playmat. So the question exists; how do you clean your MTG playmat?
Cleaning you playmat really isn’t that hard. You will need three different materials for thus. You will need a sponge with a brush pad on one side, powdered laundry soap and water.
Next, is to actually clean the playmat. This is an easy process to do and can be done at home. To do this, just follow the below 7 steps.
- Soak the playmat in a bucket full of water.
- Dip the sponge in the water and put the laundry soap on the sponge.
- Then, lightly scrub the playmat where the affected area is.
- Rise the playmat by dipping it in the water.
- Then lightly scrub the playmat with the side of the sponge without soap on it.
- Continue to do this until the affected area is completely treated and the soap is gone.
- Then rinse the playmat and hang it to air dry.
Are Custom Playmats Worth It?
Custom playmats are usually more expensive than their noncustom playmats counterparts. In addition to that, because they have to print the custom playmat specific for you, printing, shipping, and handling take much longer than if you were to order a noncustomized playmat.
With that being said, custom playmats are definitely worth it though. Their high quality and unique art make for such a fun and exciting experience as well as a great gift.
In my day-to-day play, I use both custom and noncustomized playmate, and overall, I love my customized playmats more. They are unique and special to me.
| Pros | Cons |
| Personalized and unique playmat | Long time to print and ship comparatively |
| Makes a fantastic and meaningful gift | Can be more expensive than their counterparts |
Best Playmats
Value
The brand of playmat with the best value would be Ultra Pro. Ultra Pro’s playmats typically cost between 20-25$ USD when they are mass-produced. Inked gaming on the other hand costs between 30-40$ USD. While this isn’t a huge difference, the shipping can end up increasing the price even more. If you think about that and the availability of the Ultra Pro playmats, shipping might not be an issue.
As a result of all of these factors, this would lead to Ultra Pro beating out Inked Gaming playmat-wise.
Art
This can be a very subjective question. Trying to quantify who has the best art is almost impossible. In this case though, I will go with Inked Gaming. This is because inked gaming will give you exactly what you want. You could upload a picture of your favorite magic card or a picture of your cat, Inked Gaming will give you exactly that.
Picking Inked Gaming over Ultra Pro in this case is not a slight to Ultra Pro at all. Ultra Pro can give you so many arts from so many different cards as well as some other art too.
Custom Playmats
Inked Gaming has the best custom playmat. Every playmat I have from them has the exact art that I wanted and In fantastic shape. The ink seems to last a very long time and as a result, they make the best custom playmats.
Highest Quality
The playmat company with the highest quality has got to be Inked Gaming. From my experience, their playmats feel really good and tend to last much longer. I have had many more Ultra Pro playmats start to curl and start to develop ripples than I have for playmats from Inked gaming.
Best Overall
Overall, I would rank Ultra Pro as the best playmat company. Ultra pro-Playmats have the best value and get all the licensing from Wizards of the Coast. With that and their good quality playmats, that makes them the best.
Inked Gaming is very good and while they have the highest quality, best custom playmats, and best art, their cost and availability offset the other high marks. They are still a fantastic company to go with, especially if you are looking for a very high-quality custom playmat. They are certainly the best at that.
The fact that Ultra Pro Playmats are not only in every local game store but now big box stores like Target and Walmart makes them so so so much more accessible. Inked Gaming playmats have to be ordered through the Inked Gaming website. This makes sense given their dedication to customization but the convenience of Ultra Pro wins out in the end.
End Step
After going through and reading this article, you should now be well-equipped to face any situation when it comes to playmats. You should now have a gauge as to what the best playmats are that are out there as well as which playmats you should be getting.
