It's easy to do with books, but playing older mtg sets the way I've been doing it includes a lot of arts & crafts. Any alternatives? Similar physical card games or ways to emulate older MTG?
Not sure about alternatives, but arts and crafts can be done with less arts and crafts.
If you are willing to step down in size to 2 1/8 in. x 3 3/8 in then micro perforated rounded edge cards on 70lb cardstock are available https://mcgpaper.com/products/plain-blank-cards-printable-hobby-playing-cards
Otherwise, 5x7 photo can be split into 4 2.5" x 3.5" cards with only 2 cuts and I think a print shop can ream cut up to 250 sheets of cardstock in one go. Skip rounding the corners and use opaque back sleeves.
Laying out the images for either option can be done with a mail merge in any office suite, including free ones, and the images can be batch resized prior to layout with free software as well.
112 cards I can just pop out of a sheet? This is great, Thank you.
I oughta learn more free software anyway, so I'll give that a look see as well!