Well with the great value offered last year by Score (autos etc.), it was up to Upper Deck to either revamp Victory or keep it the same and hope the legions of Victory fans out there will sustain the product. So what does Upper Deck do? Lets shove our second cheapest franchise in as inserts, so Victory now comes with MVP!
I was a pretty big fan of 07-08 Victory but each year I get more and more dissatisfied with the product to the point where I will buy two packs a year and that is pretty much it. I will try and nail some good rookies as part of UD Series 2, but that is pretty much it.
Base card front
Hate it. Looks like they hired some people off the street who just completed a Photoshop workshop and know next to nothing about anything else. IS there any need to have Victory appear TWICE on the front?
Back side
For good measure, lets have Victory appear TWICE on the back too!
Victory Rookies
Rookie design isn't much better which would be the only reason why I would buy a pack ever. In my two packs I ended up with one rookie. Aaron Palushaj who came over from the Blues as part of the D'Agostini trade. If you want to get technical, he has played 3 NHL games and has been traded 3 times (2 where his draft pick rights)
MVP Insert
Not a bad design, by far the highlight of the two packs. Still, I would much rather pull 1 real auto per box or two than have a few facsimile autos in a box. The MVP rookies fall about 1 per 18 packs so they will have some value to them, but not enough for me to drop 30 on a box.
Game breakers insert
Again, I loved the Stars of the Game and Gamebreakers inserts from 07-08. They had nice foil, decent design and were overall appealing to the eyes. This is pretty much crap.
What I like about 11/12 Victory:
- First chance to see new players in their new uniforms
- First look at the late arrival rookies
- Parallel Rookies are always attractive
- MVP offers some value
What I dislike about 11/12 Victory:
- Uninspired card design
- Few decent rookies
- Much better value in Score
- Inserts are mostly a waste of cardboard
- Little value in completing set
I did last year's set because of the rookies... with this year's weak crop, I doubt very much I'll buy more than a pack of this.
ReplyDeleteI'll be staying away from these, thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteVictory has had a redundant design for several years now.
ReplyDeleteThey had these at The National for $25 a box.
I was excited about getting some new cards from next season, and was going to buy a few boxes.
Then I came to my senses and decided that I should put the $75-$100 I would have spent on Victory towards working on my '63-64 Parkhurst set.
Great point Sal, it is amazing the number of vintage cards you can get for under 100 bucks when you consider what Score and Victory cost to compile through box breaks.
ReplyDelete