2018 Topps Opening Day Baseball

No falso advertising here, today we start in on a 2018 Topps Opening Day baseball blaster...

11 packs with 7 cards each, and heading into opening this one, I have 142 of 200 base cards. It may be optimistic, but I'd love to close that missing card gap in half if I could. Knowing my luck, I'll only get a couple new to me base cards, but there are always the Jays and the inserts to help make the opening work, even if the base cards fail me.

I already have one of these in my unopened pack collection, so we do get to open the whole box - so let's knock one pack off today.

A design that has grown on me over the years, "the wave" as it were. Not a great start as these were all dupes, no Jays, no error cards, so me hope for a good pack lies on the insert...

I can get behind that. I must say, the Opening Day insert sets are usually pretty solid affairs, and the team traditions and celebrations theme is a good one. Here documenting the opening day parade for the Reds which has a history stretching over 100 years now - very cool.

Only going to head yp from here - right?

Better Ending

 Let's wrap these Magic cards up, and not too shabby an ending...

The rare isn't anything special - again, bulk rare and not in my collection, but we do get a few sweet keepers today including the token.

Myr Kinsmith works well in a Myr deck - not sure if those remain a real playable deck to construct, but there are plenty of available cards that you can make one - just don't know how successful a deck it would be.

Dune Mover is...fine. Nothing too great, and the mana cost with ability doesn't make it a very strong card, but it is an artifact and has a home with me now.

That wraps it for these packs, so let's see how we did...

Not too bad - middle of the pack, good number of artifacts with one being a great mythic hit. I'm happy with this one, but glad I got the packs for relatively cheap.

A Little SHort

 The second to last pack shows I may have worn out my luck on these Phyrexian packs already.

The token card is a keeper, but Red Sun's Twilight is a bulk rare, so nothing special for it, and nary another artifact card that fits my collection, is to be seen.

There are some good common cards to be had though - Blazing Crascendo is a really good ability card that works with ramping up red and would be a card I would definitely play with. Duress shows up in another print - I know it's been in other sets and seems to keep cycling into recent sets to remain playable in most formats.

Still, not a great collecting pack, but one more tomorrow to maybe end on a high note.

Breakdwon By Colour

Figure we can look at the next pack and see what the breakdown is by colour and which would win from the group. Why? Because I felt like it!

A very black and white pack, but with the rare being from black, and overall solid creatures, I'd give black the win on this pack. If I was playing the colour, definitely a win with this booster.

The artifact showing is alright with the Prism and another token. I like that "back when I played Magic", you just had to make up your own tokens, and there wasn't really a lot of them, so you could just use scraps of papers or coins, and knew what they represented. Now, you could end up with so many different tokens out in a game, you kind of need real representations to know what is what.

May not have won the pack, but I'll take two keepers for the collection. Two more packs to go, and the showing has been really solid so far, definitely a winning purchase regardless of what comes in the last two packs.

Another Nice Pull

 We get to about half way through the packs from Board Game Bliss for the Phyrexia There Will Be One set, and we get another solid hit which I might just put into the sell pile to 401games.

Tekutahl is another mythic hit, though this one doesn't do for my collection. I definitely will have reason to trade it in as I should be able to get $15-$20 store credit for it, and with the other cards I am sticking aside for store credit, I may have a chnace to finish a couple artifact set collections by picking up a couple more expensive cards. Will have to do a little homework on that thought, but if I do it, of course I will share here.

What I do get for keep is another (different) Skullbomb artifact - nice.

Another artifact token for keeps as well, and another Phyrexia language basic land, with the full art looking amazing.

Also, as you can tell by the numbering in the bottom left corner, the Sawblade Scamp is a showcase version, which has a number greater than the base set count - you can see the other cards show an /271, whereas this one doesn't. Doesn't mean it's big value, but more rare to pull, and something a little more special, if nothing else.

The Best It Gets For Me

 Sure, I could maybe get a foil version, but today I pulled the most expensive artifact card from the draft boosters...

It only runs about $15 give or take as there aren't a lot of big money cards in this set - probably part of the reason they were a cheaper pickup, but I feel much better spending the money on all of these packs and coming away with this card (which would have cost me about the same), plus all the extras.

It's a good card itself too, and a mythic, which is why the price also. Wasn't expecting to get one, but more than happy to be in the position - very cool.

Seems the tokens may be my best friend though as there are a few artifact related token cards I can get, so nice to see the second keeper.

With these being loose packs, I guess there's always the chance I could get another, versus pulls from a single box. Wouldn't be upset if that happened!

The Other End

Second pack of Phyrexia All Will Be One, and we get the opposite compared to yesterday - a fine enough pack, but no artifacts for me...

The rare, Conduit of Worlds is an interesting card with the land draw from graveyard ability. Definitely a green card by concept, and not a bad pull, just not something for me to keep. We get close to an artifact with the veil, though it has Cody Rhodes mask vibes to it which is cool.

I have to say that the land cards are pretty nice looking, and very obviously Phyrexian when the symbol is plastered in them. I won't count the ad card as a card for scoring, but included it in the scan to show, it exists, and is packing material if nothing else.

Blissful Opening

 If memory serves, these Magic The Gathering packs came from an order I did last Christmas where Board Game Bliss was doing a clearance sale of sorts, and these were just a bunch of loose packs they were looking to move/sell a couple dollars off each. Given the sale price, which you don't see a lot on Magic packs, I picked them up. I didn't need any unopened packs, but there are some artifact cards here I might luck into which would be a good pick up, otherwise, maybe something worthwhile for trade.

First pack, to give a lay of the land, is shown in the exact order it opens, front to back:

A bit unusual, but if you open the cards as they show, you get the token, land, and then the big "hits" before the rest of the cards. It's not the usual order for packs if I recall, but they do seem to change it up depending on the expansion set.

The poison counter has a great look and can be useful. The forest land is in the language of Phyrexian (something that is done with a number of cards in the set). As for the rares, The Rat King foil card shows a good example of how the poison counters will come into play. Showing the cards to my kids - we have pet rats, so they appreciated The Rat King card as well for, well, being a rat.

As for Kaya, I remember when planeswalker cards were rare, and almost all were really really good, but with time, these have been watered down and there are just so many, and more of which, are just not great and as such, not "special" or expensive. Kaya is an example. I don't think I have ever played a game with a planeswalker, and I haven't played the commander version - so shows how out of the game I have been, so you can take my thoughts as a player of the "old" game, and with a grain of salt.

Resistance Skywarden reminds me of an old school baddie - not too much to him but five mana for a 5/5 which would add a bit of toughness to your battlefield.

A good end with the commons on this pack with three artifacts for me. As you can see the Skullbomb cards have similarities, and there are a few in the set. As for the Atlas, another show of how the poison counters and effects of poison were heavily included in this expansion set.

A great first pack out of the game, so, happy so far!

A Bit From A Lot

I did another trade with TCDB member althib, this one for a bunch of Toronto content he knew I take dupes, and it was about 120 cards going each way. I'd show you all the great dupes, but figured I'd focus on the new to me cards that came in the bunch instead. I do appreciate all the rest, but wanted to focus for once.

The majority of the cards were hockey, but there were a handful of Jays cards. Can't go wrong with new to me Delgado and Joey Bats cards.

The Leaf content was heavy on junk periods, but not only, and some of the newer content was new for me. Still have some recent year flagship needs, and Timmies Retrospective cards were new to me as well and are a neat set.

Lucky enough to finish off a couple sets of Leaf content in the trade with the one and done Initial Strides insert set for the Timmies Retrospective, and Mats was the last base Leaf I needed for 2000-01 Pacific Aurora. 

More than happy to do any team for team trade is anyone doesn't mind dupes, I'd take Toronto dupes in exchange, or if you don't have anything I "need", Toronto dupes in hockey or baseball are more than welcome, though not on my TCDB want list.

From The Source

 You can chalk this one up to being stuck around my house unopened for...I don't even know, a few years at least. This pick up was from the site and isn't a dollar store version, as such, the price was a couple dollars more, but you get an extra item or two in the bag. Is it worth it? No, likely not, but I know it was on sale or I wouldn't have bothered either, so should be an interesting enough opening.

I am use to the smaller ones from the dollar store, so let's see what we get in the slightly fatter one...

I don't usually use the mini snaps, but okay, that's fine - maybe a nice auto I can stick in and stand up on a shelf. As for the packs - it will all come down to the content, but we have 25 cards to see if I can get something to keep.

First pack of the rookies gets marks for being sets that are not your usual suspects with 1994-95 SP and 1999-2000 Pacific Omega. Nothing for me to keep here, but nice it's not "junk" era cards.

I like the theme for the pack as I do enjoy a good goalie card, and there was a chance Johnson might be a keeper as 2006-07 Fleer is on my collect list, but alas, I already had him.

Finally we get a couple cards to keep. Zetterberg helps with one set build, and Brassard with another. The 2018-19 Upper Deck MVP set with the blue border is the factor set, so I find it an interesting task to put together a factory set through trades and purchased cards like this, instead of simply buying it as a factory set.

Well, twelve cards together with no rhyme or reason, so it's like a Dollarama pack in and of itself. A ouple keepers and the insert Roenick isn't too chabby, though I already had that one.

A bit surprised we had absolutely no Leaf cards in the bag, but all in, there were six set helpers, the last, Drew, being one of them as well. They are more for the entertainment of opening since usually not much in the bags for keeps and the score reflects it below.

Trades!

 Happy to have another couple small trades to share today, and the first is with tullyelly, which marks our fifth trade together.

2002 Topps was an ugly looking set with that border colour. Match it with the Jays uniforms and logos being ones I really didn't like, and these cards make me sad. Still need to collect them, but....yeesh. Much prefer the Romero designed 2012 Opening Day.

As for Tommy - in thinking I had the 1990-91 Upper Deck hockey set done, found out going through, I was wrong so he's one of a few cards I somehow marked off as collected, but didn't have. My best guess is either a wrong ticking in TCDB, or I sorted them into the wrong pile when putting things away and ended up with them gone for some reason. Either way, a reminder I am just human.

We end that trade with Panini wrestling cards, and at least the red Blue parallels from 2022 Panini Select give those cards some nice colour and pop to the design instead of the straight silver look. We then end with a nice looking Ziggler.

A great little trade, and one of two to share today as the other is an even smaller trade, but brought me a couple Jays from Kleskomaniac. Funny enough, it was the fifth trade I had done with him as well.

You can see by the cards why I would do this PWE trade for just a couple cards. The 2021 Bowman Sapphire Edition card looks fantastic in hand with the blue crackling design effect - scanned pretty nice too.

As for Alford, I remain a sucker for a serial numbered card, and it's the only serial number card from the "base" set of 2017 Panini Chronicles, so now I just need a couple more base cards for my Jays set there.

Thank you both for the trades, always appreciated!

Could Have Been Closer

 Here together are the last two packs of hockey cards from the 2021-22 Upper Deck MVP hobby box.

A now gone Leaf in Marner (still sad...), a few more base adds (not as many as I would like), and a couple more solid inserts, but let's talk overall on this set after a hobby box, and the cards I had in hand prior to....

For the base set, I am at 141 cards. The 20 boxes have roughly 100 base cards, and about one third ended up being duplicates for me which was a bit disappointing since I still have about 100 cards to go in the base set. Just the luck of it, I know, but was hoping to be further along.

The inserts were on pace for expectations, and was happy enough with them. I mean, the gold parallel Mark Stone was a solid card to get, and MVP isn't exactly a set you go after for inserts and such.

The good news - I have a retail box to open somewhere down the line, and that should hopefully fill a bunch of the holes, so I won't actively be looking to collect cards from this set until I get to that opening!

In the meantime, while the year winds down, I'm starting to think about and look at what I will be sharing in 2026...I have a lot to go through - a new one from a usual source - or a bunch of "new" products to still open. A good problem to have and one I will happily share with everyone on the blog either way!

Familiar Face

 Just four packs of 2021-22 Upper Deck MVP hockey cards left from the hobby box, and the two today bring a familiar face on a familiar insert...

Picked up the more rare Mark Stone 20th anniversary gold card earlier, and now the same card without the gold. Probably 3 or 4 of these 20th anniversary cards in the box and the single gold, so a bit of an oddity to get the same player on both, but those be the odds I hit here.

Zach wins this first pack though as the lone Leaf. Glad to see him break out a bit with the move to Edmonton. A shame he couldn't keep growing in Toronto as he was a guy I liked to watch play for the team, but can't keep everyone al the time unfortunately - well, I guess you could, but would be a pretty stagnant team, and unless they are winning championship after championship, the fans aren't going to like it.

Pack two has the essentially one per hobby box, Mascot Sparkle card. Maybe not the one I would have picked, but not going to complain - other than, I think they should have gone with a more cartoonish blue instead of green for the mascot himself being literal with the blue jacket, instead of insect green. Heck, they could have gone all in on this insert and made it a real game of sorts instead of just looking like it and being a "compare stats and win" type of simple game. I get it though, not exactly a strength of the card company itself, and leave such games to Wizards of the Coast.

Getting More Hart

 I spoke about the shiny and sparkling cards in the inserts of 2021-22 Upper Deck MVP's hockey set yesterday, and nicely, we get another pretty card in the first pack today...

I would put Panarin in the same boat as Kane yesterday in so much as, he is probably a bigger deal in the franchise area he plays versus league wide. Not quite on the Crosby/Ovechkin/McDavid/Matthews line of play that they draw eyes and attention from around the country/league, but still a really great player. Again, maybe it's just me and being in the Toronto market, the feel that you are either a star across the league, or just a really good player who is a step or two back from being that top level star.

Toronto would push and put Marner, Matthews, Nylander and Marner all in that top tier because that is the push of being in a big market - you have to be a top line star - with Marner now outside of the spotlight, we are getting to see whether he really is a star regardless of the market, or if being in Toronto - meaning those he played with, as well as the market as a whole, made him.

Let's see where he ends at the end of the year before making judgement one way or the other though.

More Mascot

 We saw a couple already, but we get another visit from the Mascot insert with the first pack up today...

As much as I may mot be a big fan of Boston, have to respect the history of the franchise and success it has had over the years. The mascot is one that has been around, though updated, for a while. Cool to pick up, though outshined from the sweet Nylander pick up.

Jacob's a solid rookie pick up - after a few years with Ottawa, a short stint with Buffalo, he moved onto Detroit this past summer looking to find continued NHL success.

As for the second pack...

I do really like those Before & After insert cards look - heck anything with the nice cracked ice / sparkling type look, I won't complain about seeing more of. Evander may not be a star I followed much, or really had much excitement for, but a lot of that is location wise - just wasn't one I saw a lot of. Maybe it's just me. Maybe he was a bigger deal in the markets he played it.

Golder Addition

Nice to get through a few trades, but here we go back to a couple more packs from the 2021-22 Upper Deck MVP hockey hobby box, and we get another nice longer odds card in the box of 20 packs...

I may not be too lucky on the base cards which are about half new, half dupes, and the insert from the first pack is a nice enough 20th anniversary insert, but in the second pack...

Here we get the more rare, gold version of the 20th anniversary card. The "normal" version is every 5 packs, while the gold falls one every 36 packs, so a nice longer odds pull. Would have been fantastic to pull a Leaf, but wasn't quite that lucky. Stone is a solid enough pull though.

Turning Magic to Sports

I don't usually do a lot of trades with Magic cards, and when I do, it's not usually for sports cards, but that's what we have today with TCDB member somnus2 who is working on the Final Fantasy full set, so I sent some of those cards across, and here are the sports cards I got back in exchange. 

We start with baseball that looks similar to yesterday's trade - some Bowman and some 2021 Topps flagship additions for the base set. Neat to see early Jays cards for Syndergaard and Hoffman considering their careers since then. The red, wheite and blue Hoffman does look really good in hand too.

Wasn't just baseball though, as we have some hockey content too, and Borje has to be my favourite of the bunch. Unfortunately, we don't have any team sets completed, but that's more just an observation as it was another fantastic trade.

Trade With jamestagli

 Another trade for sharing today, and highlighted by a bunch of Jays. We get to see if we end up finishing off any team sets by chance because, I don't always take a good look at such things when offers come in. I'm just happy to get new to me needs, so as long as it's fair, I don't necessarily do a great job of considering whether it's the best cards I can get from the person making the offer. Not a complaint at all, as I am always happy with the trade, I just don't look at what cards one person may have that I can't necessarily get elsewhere as easily.

That all being said....cards.......

We start back in 1997 with my first Pacific Prism Invincible - Gems of the Diamond cards. A very Pacific design, so easily recognizable as such. The dead centre card is a 1998 Topps Stars serial numbered card. Sure, the serial number is out of 9799, but it's still a serial number, so that's a nice and exciting card to get.

As for Ted Lilli - not sure how he ended up on my wants, but my guess is a wrong coded Jay card, that I didn't catch when adding to my list. Good news is, since it's a gold parallel, I still get to keep it as it fits my collection, but wasn't what I was necessarily looking for.

Plenty of Bowman as I slowly continue to fill in a bunch of the sets, insert sets, parallels from many years of the product. Did get one Toronto team set done from the bunch, the massive two cards for 2010 Bowman Platinum with the Vernon Wells addition here.

Nice - the 2016 Gypsy Queen is one of the better designs as far as my personal tastes are concerned, so cool to get a few more Jays.

We end with a singe Jay "team" set for 2021 Bowman Draft Genesis insert set which is a great way to finish off this trade.

Much appreciation for another fantastic trade.