Trading card games
Borderless
Also written: Borderless printing · Full-bleed
A Magic: The Gathering printing with no frame border — the art runs to the trimmed edge and the text sits over it.
ArtThe picture changes
A borderless card is a Magic: The Gathering printing with the usual frame removed. The artwork runs all the way to the trimmed edge on every side, and the type line, mana cost and rules text are laid over the illustration rather than inside panels around it.
Telling the three alternate treatments apart
Magic runs three overlapping ideas and people mix them up constantly. Hold the card beside a normal printing of anything from the same set:
- Borderless
- No margin on any side. The frame is gone entirely and text floats on the art.
- Extended art
- The frame survives. The art has been stretched to the left and right edges, so the side margins are gone but the card still has a proper text box and bottom bar.
- Showcase frame
- A margin still exists, but the frame itself has been redesigned for that set's theme — different border style, different typography.
What sets the price
Borderless is a treatment, not a rarity: the card is the same card, legal in the same formats, and the borderless printing exists alongside the ordinary one. So its price rests on two things — how much the card is played, and how much better people think the art looks without a frame. A borderless printing of a card nobody plays is cheap regardless of how scarce the treatment is.
Treatment and finish are separate axes. A borderless card can be non-foil, ordinary foil, etched foil, surge foil or textured foil, and each of those is a different card to a collector. Confirm both before comparing prices.
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