2016 UD ultimate Worst product of the last decade.

[creasecollector]

I really liked ITG Final Vault. The stamp doesn't matter to me, and if the original card sufaces, great. If not, it's not the end of the world.

Just me opinion of course. I don't want to open up a can of worms with the Vault stamping issue.

To each their own! :)

[Stryfex]

I'm going to join in on this ™™™™-train a little bit to express some of my disdain for this year. Normally I like to keep my negativity to myself mostly but this year is just too upsetting and this thread has made me want to share how absolutely atrocious I think the majority of the lineup was this year...

Don't expect any really intelligent analysis here...just kind of crapping on stuff that really deserves to be crapped on

15-16 SP Game Used was an atrocity at it's initial price point and it was actually kind of embarrassing watching breakers try and sells spots and seeing nobody even remotely interested in it
15-16 SPX seriously...why does this product exist? It's a disaster. If we need a cheap true rookie jersey auto I"m sure a better set could be upgraded to just have this thing stop cluttering up the hobby
15-16 Trilogy - Trilogy is a product that shouldn't be as bad as this OR shouldn't be this friggin' expensive. This year's set was just so poorly put together with crooked ugly stickers and completely totally valueless cards. When a set has so few collectors that you can barely give singles away...it probably shouldn't be a product
16-16 Black Diamond - The fact that this stuff is several hundred dollars per pack is astonishing to me. Why are you people paying this? With all those manufactured relics and other issues I don't know how interested I would even be at ONE hundred for a pack
15-16 Champs/Portfolio/Full Force - No words to describe how silly and completely unwanted and unnecessary these products are. I can see a market for something LIKE full force if it's cheaper and less ridiculous. If you want something with flashy cards that might interest younger collectors...let them buy it for $3/pack or just combine this and MVP together into a single product at price point of about $45 per box
15-16 Contours - This has probably got to to be the worst thing i've ever seen. I've seen it on quick sales for $75 CDN per box and nobody I mean NOBODY bought it. This is upper deck at their worst. I appreciate them taking a chance and showing some creativity...but people work hard for their money, they don't want to light it on fire
15-16 Ultimate - It's already been said enough in the thread
15-16 Black - I've paid almost no attention to this but the reviews are pretty ruthless
15-16 Ice - Maintaining ratios to go with overproduction by flooding /1999 and /1499 rookies on a product that costs almost $30/pack is seriously ™™™
15-16 Series 1 - I would normally never mention this great set, but the almost criminal level of overproduction has made this seem 90s-level destructive. I've got a stack of inserts from this set at home about 8 inches high that I can't even get 50 cents a card for...I actually like the cards and set configuration but between epack/COMC combo and overproduction, it's just destructive to the hobby

I actually like some products. I think OPC Platinum is a fun one this year. I think artifacts is artifacts which is great if you like artifacts. I don't like how many redemptions are in SPA and making those /199 cards part of the natural set is pretty mean to set builders but overall I still think SP Authentic is fairly solid.

I'm not going to go on about the leaf products because I've been negative enough for one day

please 16-17...be more like 14-15 :(

[atruong317]

The biggest problem I see is, what does somebody collect? There's too many products that overlap in what they do and it distracts from them focusing on their core products.

Ideally UD should cut/combine some products. If they keep the following and focus on these I think they should do well.

What's better?

Having a small portfolio of products where Quality is a focus
Having a large portfolio, but emphasis is lost on Quality, BUT you get more variety of card types/ideas

Low End
MVP - Low end set with parallels O-Pee-Chee - Classic low end set, good for set builders

Mid End
Series 1 - Young Guns, set builders
Series 2 - Young Guns, set builders
OPC Platinum - Parallels! Fancier O-Pee-Chee with hard signed autos
Artifacts - Memorabilia, sticker autos, parallels

Mid to High End
SP Authentic - Hard Signed Autos, FWAs,
ICE - Acetate Set - That being said, UD is releasing Acetate cards all throughout Series 1 and 2for 2016-17instead of just Acetate Young GunsTrilogy - I don't actually know to be honest. Sticker autos and levels?
High End

The Cup - ARPs, Veteran content

10 total sets above.

So that leaves

Full Force - I'm not a fan, but I see a bunch of the kids at the LCS buy these
Contours (new to 15-16) - Didn't see too much of this opened
Premier - ARPs, cannibalizes the Cup
Black (returned in 15-16) - Both Black and Black Diamond should be combined to make a set. Perhaps throw SPx into it as well.
Black Diamond (reconfigured for 15-16) - See above about combining into 1 set
SPx - Combine into 1 set with Black and Black Diamond
Ultimate (reconfigured a bunch of times) - Don't what to say about this. What's the appeal of this set? What's subset of cards in this product is the crown jewel?
Portfolio (new to 15-16) - I haven't seen enough of this to comment.
Champs (returned in 15-16) - Fancier O-Pee-Chee with hard signed autos and some off the wall cards - Sound familiar? See OPC Platinum

Black Diamond wasn't a good seller previous to the reconfiguration. The new stuff did sell out at my LCS, but he didn't order too much of it.
A lot of the issues with Black Diamond previously was re-using pictures year to year, tough to complete sets with 4 diamond cards dropping at a few in a box. It was a "fancy" Series 1 type of set with base cards/rookies/jersey cards and sticker autos. So for 15-16, they just made it high end with Real Diamonds! to see if that would work.
I think if they combine Black, Black Diamond and maybe SPx, into one set it would do better. That would put it onto the High End side. It'll be the Dark side of the Cup.

Premier looks good in the previews, but it cannibalizes their flagship the Cup with a lower price point and good looking ARPs. So I don't know what to think of this. It lowers the price point so that you can get some nice looking ARPs. It just feels too similar to the Cup.

[Craig2]

Is anyone else putting together the Ultimate set and/or subsets? I've found prices to be very low on singles sales, and I'm just curious if that's across the board.


I've been working on the 70 autographed rookie cards. So far I've got 30 of them, including three of the /99, and I've paid less for everything than I would for a single box. I don't know if it's the glut of products on the market, the ugly design, or just a lack of appetite for anything non-McDavid, but I'm amazed at what I've got for what I'm paying.

[kovyheater]

The rookie crop is less than stellar for non /99. I've been passing on paying for the /299 ones as these will be pennies in a year

[Craig2]

The rookie crop is less than stellar for non /99. I've been passing on paying for the /299 ones as these will be pennies in a year

I've got most of them in $2-$5 range, especially if I can find some with combined shipping. I think Parayko is the only one outside of that range so far.

Even a Virtanen went for $60 tonight...just waiting for Murray and Domi to come down.

[kovyheater]

Agree. Redemptions are hard to pay top dollar for....who knows when they will be filled. I'm looking at you Panarin....

[Sportfreund]

On COMC, there are 14k cards listed for 2012, 29k for 2013, 14k for 2014, and 15k for 2015 (they haven't even uploaded a few of the newer sets yet so this will surely rise).

So obviously it seems that 2015 had far more cards produced than 2014 but why are there almost double the amount in 2013, was the market flooded that year or something?

[odjickfan]

im only relating it to the title of the post "worst product of the last decade" not worst bang for your buck or worst return on investment. For me the product is garbage. I have seen cards from my want list in this product, cards I have never seen in the 10 years they were suppose to have been released, and now they have this stupid V with a 1/1 stamped on the front. I will likely never see the original card for my pc because ITG ruined them with this stupid stamp

The cards with the stamp are not part of the original print run, they are extra that were kept for replacements.

[Yzerberg]

The biggest problem I see is, what does somebody collect? There's too many products that overlap in what they do and it distracts from them focusing on their core products.

Ideally UD should cut/combine some products. If they keep the following and focus on these I think they should do well.

What's better?

Having a small portfolio of products where Quality is a focus
Having a large portfolio, but emphasis is lost on Quality, BUT you get more variety of card types/ideas

Low End
MVP - Low end set with parallels O-Pee-Chee - Classic low end set, good for set builders

Mid End
Series 1 - Young Guns, set builders
Series 2 - Young Guns, set builders
OPC Platinum - Parallels! Fancier O-Pee-Chee with hard signed autos
Artifacts - Memorabilia, sticker autos, parallels

Mid to High End
SP Authentic - Hard Signed Autos, FWAs,
ICE - Acetate Set - That being said, UD is releasing Acetate cards all throughout Series 1 and 2for 2016-17instead of just Acetate Young GunsTrilogy - I don't actually know to be honest. Sticker autos and levels?
High End

The Cup - ARPs, Veteran content

10 total sets above.

So that leaves

Full Force - I'm not a fan, but I see a bunch of the kids at the LCS buy these
Contours (new to 15-16) - Didn't see too much of this opened
Premier - ARPs, cannibalizes the Cup
Black (returned in 15-16) - Both Black and Black Diamond should be combined to make a set. Perhaps throw SPx into it as well.
Black Diamond (reconfigured for 15-16) - See above about combining into 1 set
SPx - Combine into 1 set with Black and Black Diamond
Ultimate (reconfigured a bunch of times) - Don't what to say about this. What's the appeal of this set? What's subset of cards in this product is the crown jewel?
Portfolio (new to 15-16) - I haven't seen enough of this to comment.
Champs (returned in 15-16) - Fancier O-Pee-Chee with hard signed autos and some off the wall cards - Sound familiar? See OPC Platinum

Black Diamond wasn't a good seller previous to the reconfiguration. The new stuff did sell out at my LCS, but he didn't order too much of it.
A lot of the issues with Black Diamond previously was re-using pictures year to year, tough to complete sets with 4 diamond cards dropping at a few in a box. It was a "fancy" Series 1 type of set with base cards/rookies/jersey cards and sticker autos. So for 15-16, they just made it high end with Real Diamonds! to see if that would work.
I think if they combine Black, Black Diamond and maybe SPx, into one set it would do better. That would put it onto the High End side. It'll be the Dark side of the Cup.

Premier looks good in the previews, but it cannibalizes their flagship the Cup with a lower price point and good looking ARPs. So I don't know what to think of this. It lowers the price point so that you can get some nice looking ARPs. It just feels too similar to the Cup.

Ultimate - Hard signed rookies #/99, i would be REALLY,REALLY pissed off if they stopped this set. i don't hold any value to photo shoot ARP's so in my opinion Ultimate has the best RC's. Ultimate Debut Threads is also a huge set for collectors, all four tiers of them.

Premier - Acetate ARP's, mega patches. both for a lot of collectors are key in their collections. premier gives ARP's at a much lower price point then cup which helps out a lot of people.