Released September 5, 2018 • hobby box includes 24 packs with 10 cards each, 240 cards total • click here for checklist on Trading Card Database
My review:
I’ve already written the story of buying a box of 2018-19 O-Pee-Chee on a whim and how it pulled me back into the hobby. I have a soft spot for this set, which is funny because I think the base cards are a bummer. The design is really weird – I don’t recognize any particular past designs or eras that inspired it, nor does it seem modern. The beigey-greys of the border are as neutral as colors come, and get really old really quick over the 600 card set. A couple of team-specific color splashes in the border might have woken the cards up a bit.
While I do still care about base cards, it is also true that O-Pee-Chee’s appeal for me is mostly found in the inserts and retro variations, and those areas are where 2018-19 shines. The base and retro designs might have been intentionally designed to be polar opposites of each other – the colors on the retros are anything but neutral, featuring four different super bright and saturated color schemes. I love the little position-specific silhouettes in the lower right corners (reminiscent of 1973 Topps baseball) and the Ben-Day dots in the background.
More great design is found on the playing cards and minis inserts. The playing cards have my favorite look out of all of the sets so far. Check out the detail on those backs! And the minis feature a spot-on tobacco cards-era look on a tobacco card size.
After six years of containing 32 packs with eight cards each, hobby box configurations shrunk down a bit to have 24 packs with 10 cards each. Retros had always been one per hobby pack in the past, but are more like 1.3 per pack in 2018-19 so that hobby boxes still feature around 32 retros. Another change is the absence of any rainbow or foil parallels, replaced by border color parallels. The silver borders might be the most redundant parallel ever, taking the light grey base borders and turning them dark grey. Gold border glossies look much better, and are pretty limited, falling just one per hobby box.
My ratings /10:
base design 6.9 retro design 8.6 inserts 8.0 overall 9.0
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Regular Print Base Cards #1-500
Short Prints #501-600 • 1:2 hobby packs
Marquee Rookies #501-550, Season Highlights #551-560, Team Checklists #561-591, League Leaders #592-600
It’s a weak rookie crop even for O-Pee-Chee, headlined I guess by Casey Mittelstadt, Warren Foegele, and EBUG Scott Foster.
Retro parallels • 1:.75 hobby pack
Other Parallels:
retro black border • serial numbered to 100
retro scratch-off • unannounced
retro blank backs • odds unknown, estimated print run of 5-20
silver border • 1:3 hobby packs
gold border glossy • 1:24 hobby packs
red border • five per wrapper redemption pack
red border blank back • wrapper redemption insert
Inserts:
Minis • regular print, 1:6 hobby packs, short print, 1:26 hobby packs, super short print 1:64 hobby packs
Minis back variation • numbered to 27
Minis black border • regular print, 1:8 blaster packs, short print, 1:38 blaster packs, super short print 1:96 blaster packs
Playing Cards • 2-King, 1:8 hobby packs, Aces 1:120 hobby packs
box bottoms • two per blaster box (base design), four per hobby box (retro design)
Retro Award Winners • unannounced
Retro Cup Captain • unannounced
Marquee Legends • unannounced
Manufactured Patches • 1:96 hobby packs
Update Set #601-650
Inserted into Upper Deck Series 2, the update set features some strong rookies including Elias Pettersson, Andrei Svechnikov, Miro Heiskenen, Brady Tkachuk, and Rasmus Dahlin.
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