Jason If it seems like 2022/23 Premier just came out and nothing makes sense anymore you aren’t wrong, because it did. Also, nothing does.
2022/23 Premier released “way back” in November – we reviewed it on Episode 002 of the podcast if you need a recap – and generally we really liked it. The designs were clean, the checklists mostly made sense, and I’ve picked up one or two cards as promised (Premier Slapshots is a super decent card, Linden looks great on my shelf, and I only wish I had bought that SSP gold variant the one time I saw it on eBay at a reasonable price). Some regrets.
All that being said, let’s review some of the inserts, parallels, and generally more interesting designs in the latest edition of Premier Hockey. This won’t be an obsessive list as we only want to talk about what we want to talk about. Keep in mind that we are basing our review on interesting designs and collectability, and less on “SSP Bedard Rookie patch autos are worth a mint lets buy some boxes.” You get it. Go get a drink and put on your Judgey Hat!
Premier is Back On The Menu, Boys.
Ultimately, and this isn’t a hot take for many of our readers, to enjoy Premier you have to be ok with blindly spending $100 per card – you aren’t buying a box of cards, you’re buying a single pack. And that can be ok! If you have the disposable wealth this is maybe the best set to throw money at. These cards are mostly excellent, making it a truly premier (sigh) product, unlike Engrained. It’s much cheaper than The Cup! It also helps if you have no interest in base cards or hoarding stacks of cardboard.
Like The Cup, Premier leans heavily into using silver, gold, and holographic foil around borders and windows, basically anywhere something needs to be outlined or highlighted. Lines in the background. Lines, everywhere! It looks incredible and doesn’t overwhelm, it just draws your eye to the exciting areas. Classy as fuck, and I love it.
Here’s what you get in a $480 CAD Hobby box:
- 1 pack per box.
- 6 cards per pack.
Each pack should contain:
- 1 Autograph Patch Card
- 1 Additional Autograph
- 2 Memorabilia Cards
- 1 Base or Parallel Veterans and Legends
- 1 Base or Parallel Rookies
The Chase Cards.
You know them. You love them! You will probably never touch them. Still, tho.
Anything “Mega.” Triple Patches, Mega Patch Sleeve Numbers, Mega Jersey Trios, Mega Quads… Mega Patch Chest Logos! Literally anything Mega. Premier has always been a patch-based set, auto’d or otherwise, it’s only the fine details that change year to year, card to card. Unlike other sets, everything in Premier should be game worn, so you won’t find any tacky manufactured trash here, thank god. Everything is basically a win!
Patch-Tacular. The novelty of insanely large, game-worn patches never gets old. This patch is huge by any standards and that is the only thing the product is trying to say. What they do on the other half of the card is largely inconsequential, but I appreciate that they didn’t fuck it up. Keep it nice simple and don’t take any focus off all those threads. The Mega Patch: women want it, men want to be it.
Premier Focus. Auto, Patch Auto, Rookie Patch Auto, it doesn’t really matter which variation you open. If it has a fuzzy letter “O” in there, you’re in business. The autos are all under /30 and the patch autos are 25/50/75, but they are gorgeous cards if you find a way.
Acceptable If You Get Them.
If you’re a glass half full sort of collector this is where you live. This is your home, now.
Precipice Autos. It’s hard to put this in “Acceptable” and not “Chase” because the design just works for me, but it struggles when compared to some other cards in the set. But it’s so pretty! I’m torn. If there was a patch window there, this would be my Card Of The Year. The great players are all SSP, of course, which is frustrating. Are you a big Hertl fan? Tuch? Hayes would be a disappointing pull for a lot of people. I’ll never see a Pettersson, but I’ll keep my dreams alive, somehow. Everything said applies to Legends and Rookies as well, its only the player names that change.
Premier Slapshots. Read: Premier Precipice.
Random Base-Adjacent Autos. There are so many autos in this set. So. Many. They are 1:4 packs! The look is fine. The checklist is fine. It’s fine. I don’t know who is PCing Boone Jenner or Mason McTavish but they deserve their cards too and I’m happy for anyone who is happy with their eBay experience. The set does have some great names, many of which are SP, but too many are cards that you just bypass on your way to your once chance to hit something absurd at the back. The base set isn’t awful looking, I just don’t want filler numbered to /299 most of the time. Add an auto though…
Garbage Cards for Garbage People.
Again, I’m mostly joking. But also… you know?
Premier Collection Super Rookies. That’s one of the busiest looking cards and least coherent insert title I’ve ever seen on a card. This design has that “Hey have you heard of this new tool Photoshop everyone is talking about?” kind of energy. That late 90s Xtreme With An X vibe. Being fair, we’ve seen a lot worse, but it doesn’t meet the quality standards of this set.
All /299 Base. I mean, fuck off, right? Yes, we will all take a /299 McDavid, and the lower numbered cards are even better, but this is what filler looks like when you are independently wealthy. If you split the cost per card, you re paying $100 for each base card. But you can get almost every base card for 1 to 5 dollars on eBay, so why do these exist? No one is collecting this set. Its just another mediocre Hellebyuck card Mark now has to buy for his PC.
On The Forefront. Swatch cards are, repeat with me: not the cards we want. At this price, why not make every single base card a swatch? Because they are a hassle to make at scale, I assume, and you don’t want to flood the hobby with even more swatches. This design is lazy, swatches belong in Allure, and we deserve better. When the breakers just set them aside you know the perceived value is low. These are functionally base cards. Disclaimer: the auto of these are pretty nice, depending on player.
Exemplary Stamps. The checklist is above average but the card design is so, so, so outdated. Are we running out of good photos for our legends? What we lack in photo variety we more than make up for with fonts. Four! Four different fonts! not to Mention the multiple layers set to various levels of transparency. yikes.\
And while we would love a Roy, Sakic, Forsberg, or Gretzky to add to our collections, to name a few of the 14 card set, they are all /10 and will be way too expensive. Go hunt a better looking version, nothing here is original or rare.
Global Nobility. What the fuck are these cards? I’ve no idea! It’s hard to make an patch card no sane person would say no to, but we live in a society…
You Get What You Pay For?
If we’ve learned anything from this review – and we’re not saying that we did – its that searching eBay for “Upper Deck Premier” and expecting to find what we’re looking for is cute in a sad, nice sort of way. If everything is Premier than nothing is Premier! Still like it as a set name, but yeah. Fun searches.
In the end, if you’re looking for a digestible quote… Premier remains some of the best cards to chase but perhaps one of the worst boxes to open. $500 CAD gets you the 30 seconds it takes to rip and look through the six cards. That means in a half minute you will go from hand shaking anxiety to either abject joy or disappointment, and usually its the latter.
GP Sports Cards posted their usual launch day Youtube box break, and this was the result of 1 box (including on screen comps):
- Kaprizov swatch to 99 (garbage)
- Gaudreau swatch (non-numbered) (nostalgic garbage)
- Seth Jones 2/99 (also garbage)
- Premier Auto Rookie Askarov 18/35 ($150) (box hit)
- Premier Rookie Luke Hughes 8/49 (fine, not expensive?)
- Rookie Premier Focus patch (swatch?) Nick Swaney 80/175 (hot garbage) ($15)
That’s brutal. No one wants that pack, and you only hide your rage if you are playing with house money or aggressively promoting a series of expensive breaks online. It always reminds me of people who buy a box of clear cut for $130 or whatever and get a random player that never think about that is worth $20. Feels bad.
If you buy a box/pack of this you have my respect, and I hope you crush it – hit some SSP insert that funds a year of collecting – but honestly, you are better of buying singles when you can get a fair price. All or nothing is fun when that empty box of flagship only cost $150 and you got some decent pulls. Losing 80% of your purchase when its $500 is something else entirely.
Good luck, and happy collecting!
