Jason There is nothing quite like an unexpected ZeeRee video to remind you that a new set has been released. I’m honestly not sure why CbH is always so unprepared whenever something new hits the shelves. We blame UD’s lack of communication, obviously, but never let it be said that we are afraid of last minute hot takes hastily made while anxiety-eating a disgusting burger. This is the life! A life. Life? It’s something, anyway.
I never know what to make of SPx. I’ve never bought a hobby box myself, but of course I own a few singles. Lots of great cards out there in recent years. And while I love diving into a new review, I’ll be real, my train of thought derailed several times while I tried to get my cardboard thoughts in order. Let me walk you through my journey tonight:
- Shit shit shit. Which one is SPx again?
- The one without Future Watch, that’s right. I always get them confused.
- No FWA means means no breaking the bank! God, I wish I had Future Watch Money.
- Didn’t last year’s SPx have, like, 1 pack of 5 cards per box?
- “Ghetto Premier.”
- Wait, wasn’t this the set that had 1 card per pack, and 4 or 5 packs per box at one point? I can’t keep any of this straight. How much does UD spend on wrapping?
- Do we like SPx?
- I ate that Whopper way too fucking fast.
- Why are Whoppers so messy? I think its the sauce, and all the wet shit they put in there. You lose some Mac sauce at McDonalds – I’m not saying other big burgers are monuments to cleanliness – but if you don’t eat a Whopper in it’s wrapper you aren’t going to be eating all of it. I can one-hand pretty much anything Wendy’s will sell me. I should have gone there and gotten a Spicy Chicken, the worlds best burger.
- Black Obsidian always looks amazing, though! Worth the price of admission.
- What the fuck do you mean Black Obsidian isn’t part of SPx anymore?
I dwelt on that last part for an uncomfortable amount of time.
Here’s what you get in a $130 CAD Hobby box:
- 8 packs per box
- 3 cards per pack
Each hobby box should contain:
- 2 Finite
- 4 PETG or Hologram Inserts
- 1 Gold Parallel
- 3 Silver Parallels
- 4 base Rookies
- That doesn’t add up to 24 and I don’t know why.
While I don’t understand math, expectations, or maybe SPx, I do know what makes a good set! There are a lot of interesting cards here, so lets get judgey.
The Chase Cards.
Short prints be gettin’ shorter, yo.
Star Focus Signatures. There are only 11 cards in this series, and honestly? There are no bad names. Petey had an off year, not everyone is a Stone fan, and I still want to know if Tuch is as popular as UD seems to think he is, but I dont think you’d be mad if you pulled any of these cards. The Gold is /10 so you wont ever see those, but this design hits the mark, somewhat similar to Jewels Of The Draft. Really clean, lots of straight lines and designs, and yeah, sticker auto, but welcome to a sub $150 CAD box. Great looking cards, no notes.
Holoview F/X. There is something about the way they did the background portrait that really works. When you see them on camera or in hand it just pops, and they are common enough that you’ll be able to enjoy them, which isn’t always the case.
Game Film. This is the best insert of the set. Am I just saying that because I am a photographer? Yes. Does it help that I also collected some of the OPC Photo Driven cards? Also yes. This is just a much, much higher quality version of those cards, with parallels, and, fuck. Shut up and take my money. 1:13 packs should keep the cost down, Red is /10 which gives you something to chase, Blue color matches the Canucks, Oilers, and Leafs… the stars have aligned. Chase!
Grande Finale. From what I can tell, some subsets have this variant and it is just a gold outburst /50. Fuck those cards! What you want is anything that has the multicolored foil dot pattern, its incredible. Thats how you do a background! Previous years had something similar, and they were good, but in Allure-esque fashion this year really dialed it in and they got their money’s worth.
Acceptable If You Get Them.
These cards don’t look super special but hey, if you get them… ya know?
SPx Rookies. Everybody loves a rookie card, and everybody loves a rookie card that isn’t a YG or FW (so they can afford to attend the party even if their seats aren’t very close to the stage). We chose a Blue auto /100 for the example image here, but the Extended rookies look nice, the F/X rookies look nice… The rookie holograms look nice! If it says rookie on it, it looks nice. What do you want us to say? eBay responsibly.
Bound For Glory. If this was in The Chase you’d insult me. If this was in The Garbage, you’d insult me. Maybe you’re just a shitty person? But it does suggest this is the happy medium and the right place. This is a very common card with a /199 and /10 if you really feel it. Every set these days has a “All Aboard” themed card, the “who is next” subset, and this is SPx’s take on the next generation of stars. Its basically just the top few YGs from the past several seasons, dive in whenever the mood strikes you. The water’s warm.
SPx Force. I just think they’re neat. I will say, I want to hate that the auto variants only have the single signature, but honestly? Quad autos are a gazillion dollars, so lets keep this one kid friendly. I’ll take that win. Also, have you seen some of the previous years die cuts? Straight to jail.
Garbage Cards for Garbage People.
These cards are bad and you really should feel bad for liking them.
Salute. This is the worst looking insert in SPx this year. This is one of those cards that should never have gotten approved and will be someone’s career defining mistake. Did you find 23/24 Artifact’s weird, vulva-adjacent design irresistible for reasons you can’t quite put a finger on? Have we got a deal for you! On the upside, there are 5 cards in this series, they are insanely hard to hit, and of the 5 only Ovie has an auto at all and its /24. You can avoid this one from a safe distance.
Radiance. This is the other worst insert this year. “Lets make an outburst, but BLUE!” “Genius.” “Throw the outline of the jersey number on there, fuck yeah.” *Guitar Solo* “Fuck, yeah!” This is some all-time cynical filler.
On a side note, I saw a Red Outburst on Reddit the other day where the red was peeling off. Is that just a film over the silver? Is that all these cards are? We are going to fucking down in color variant outbursts soon, I can see it. I don’t love that for us.
All-Time Holoview. You guessed it: the other other worst insert. Ugly. So, so ugly. Bronze on bronze on bronze! Letters on top of other letters so that no single word is legible. Mark Messier! It’s a clusterfuck of an afterthought. Get the players you love if you need them for your collection, fine. The usual rules apply. But having a /10 auto variant isn’t helping anybody outside of the very rich or the very lucky. And, of course, there is a Linden there, fuck my life.
Super Scripts. This review has gone on too long, and I apologize for that, but we need to have a quick discussion about this series. And to be clear, this isn’t the rookie version, this is the 18 card veteran checklist. Awful. The cards don’t look good, the colors are bad, the player placement in a lot of the photos, also bad. Look at Romanov! And the checklist itself is hilariously awful. Turcotte, Ok. I can understand Woll, Geekie maybe… Who the fuck is collecting JT Compher cards? Who is JT Compher? Ryan Reaves? Really? I don’t know anything about Eeli Tolvanen, he scores about 16 goals a year in the NHL which means he is everything I’d want to be in this world and I am not taking his place in this checklist personally. He does, however, fall into that Sign Of The Times grey zone of “something for everybody, eventually.” And I do love that for the fans, but 15 of the 18 cards are unspectacular, so every time you see the corner of one in a pack you know your hit is going to be a disappointment.
This Is Why You Can’t Have Nice Things.
What the fuck do you mean, there is no Black Obsidian this year? What the hell? I think ZeeRee is right, Black is going to be the next new set, replacing whatever was the lowest performer or most confusing product in UD’s line. And it will look awesome, and it will be expensive, because we need another Engrained or Premier for breakers to enjoy. Spam those Insta accounts, breakers! Flex so hard your tired little fingers snap. Stolen Valor, card collector edition.
I think Mark would agree that SPx is a really good looking set this year. I don’t know if it will sell, or if the value is there, but I think it will find an audience. Or reddit is right and this is 25% too expensive and it has no value whatsoever inside each box. Is 24 cards a lot in a box for $130 whateverish CAD dollars? No, but maybe it’s more enjoyable to open than Premier. Or maybe 24 misses will hurt more than 5? At least with Premier you’ll have a chance at a decent looking patch, but is that a $500 chance you want to take? I’m not sure. Deep thoughts.
Also, fuck that Whopper.
