Upper Deck Champs - Dinosaur bones?

[cnshockey]

Dang. There's goes our streak. Couldn't disagree more.

Champs, at least, offers something unique. I would certainly think "not for everyone" applies here (I completely understand why someone wouldn't like it)...... but what did HP bring us? Patches? Autos? Patch / Auto / RCs ??? The Designs were different.... and didn't look bad..... but it's just the same stuff that's in other UD products.

Me likes different.

seems weird we're not in agreement here but I just find the fact that you get mini cards, dinosaur cards, etc is just weird. The design of the set is actually quite nice but the concept of the set to me is flawed majorly. I just don't get it. And I love HP because I found that I did extremely well on boxes that didn't have good patch autos. When you pull a scrub atlant patch auto with a SICK 4-5 color patch with tons of breaks, a 2 color J. Staal jersey /100, 2 color brodeur jersey, a rookie /10, and a gordie howe hot commodities /100 all in one box, I'd say thats pretty good.

[cprince80]

Dang. There's goes our streak. Couldn't disagree more.

Champs, at least, offers something unique. I would certainly think "not for everyone" applies here (I completely understand why someone wouldn't like it)...... but what did HP bring us? Patches? Autos? Patch / Auto / RCs ??? The Designs were different.... and didn't look bad..... but it's just the same stuff that's in other UD products.

Me likes different.

I have to agree with you here. I hated the regular champs rc's but I love the mini cards and it would be sweet to pull a dino bone.

[CoolHandLuke]

I pulled this one and traded it here on SCF for a PC card and a nice one too!

[wolf1bh]

nice pull luke any idea on what the bv was?

[Inferno]

seems weird we're not in agreement here but I just find the fact that you get mini cards, dinosaur cards, etc is just weird. The design of the set is actually quite nice but the concept of the set to me is flawed majorly. I just don't get it. And I love HP because I found that I did extremely well on boxes that didn't have good patch autos. When you pull a scrub atlant patch auto with a SICK 4-5 color patch with tons of breaks, a 2 color J. Staal jersey /100, 2 color brodeur jersey, a rookie /10, and a gordie howe hot commodities /100 all in one box, I'd say thats pretty good.

Champs was meant to be a sort of answer to the Allen & Ginter baseball set that was is successful and featured a similar concept. UD took it a step further by offering fossil cards and I was very intrigued at first, but the majority of breaks were weak (very watered down autograph pulls) and UD pulled the bait-and-switch by promising big things on the preliminary checklist only to have some big hits pulled from the final product. I for one welcome the concept, but the execution could have been better. If my most wanted preliminary checklist card (Velociraptor fossil) wasn't pulled from the final product my review might have been better.

[30ranfordfan]

That's fair. If you killed a box or two of HP, I can see why you'd miss it.

I will also give you this one...... becuase personally, one thing I don't like is 'mini' cards. They seemed to be pretty popular last year though.... so I figure those can be used as decent bait while I pull other stuff from the boxes I want for myself.

seems weird we're not in agreement here but I just find the fact that you get mini cards, dinosaur cards, etc is just weird. The design of the set is actually quite nice but the concept of the set to me is flawed majorly. I just don't get it. And I love HP because I found that I did extremely well on boxes that didn't have good patch autos. When you pull a scrub atlant patch auto with a SICK 4-5 color patch with tons of breaks, a 2 color J. Staal jersey /100, 2 color brodeur jersey, a rookie /10, and a gordie howe hot commodities /100 all in one box, I'd say thats pretty good.

[cnshockey]

Champs was meant to be a sort of answer to the Allen & Ginter baseball set that was is successful and featured a similar concept. UD took it a step further by offering fossil cards and I was very intrigued at first, but the majority of breaks were weak (very watered down autograph pulls) and UD pulled the bait-and-switch by promising big things on the preliminary checklist only to have some big hits pulled from the final product. I for one welcome the concept, but the execution could have been better. If my most wanted preliminary checklist card (Velociraptor fossil) wasn't pulled from the final product my review might have been better.

I remember people were pretty livid about that. As for the auto checklist being weak, I've come to realize people will always feel auto checklists are weak, unless its like the cup or superlative and even at times people can think that is weak. I find the concept to be very....well...dumb. I don't care if it's their version of another set. I just don't like dinosaurs mixed with hockey. Whats next? Space rocks and asteroid cards in a football product? Car parts in a baseball product? My examples are weak but the point is that it just makes zero sense and it's just another attempt of UD to steal ideas from stuff thats already been done.

That's fair. If you killed a box or two of HP, I can see why you'd miss it.

I will also give you this one...... becuase personally, one thing I don't like is 'mini' cards. They seemed to be pretty popular last year though.... so I figure those can be used as decent bait while I pull other stuff from the boxes I want for myself.

I believe I broke two or three boxes of it in the final year it was out (07-08, which was my 1st year in collecting) and I walked away happy every time I broke it. I don't say that very often. Aside from HP, I was happy with breaks of H&P and my killer break of BTP last year. I can't even really say I was happy with 07-08 SPA when I hit a Kane FW AU simply because I broke I believe 4? boxes and aside from the Kane, I just hit autos that almost everyone else seemed to hit.

And the mini cards to me are very unattractive. I didn't really like the BAP Portraits huge portraits (MAINLY because of the looks. Could have been executed better) and I don't like the mini cards. The size cards are now is okay. Maybe go a little bigger but not much (to allow for bigger swatches, more room for autos, more room for pictures, etc) and definitely not smaller.

I also wasn't a fan of having the different color backs of the cards on the autos. Overall, champs is just not my favorite product. I will for sure be grabbing player Pc cards but I'm never going to pay to break a box of it. Good luck to those who do and remember me for your Loktionov rookies

[Slyner77]

I just dont get why they put anything non hockey related into "Hockey card" packs? I guess it appeals to some people but to others it makes us steer clear and wait for our PC items to pop up on the bay or for trade.