DA Drops of the Week: 5/23-5/27

By Troy Licastro on May 24, 2022 in Basketball, DA Drops, Hockey, New Releases, Panini, Pokemon, Soccer, Sports Card News and New Products, Topps, Upper Deck

Another week, another blog detailing what’s hitting shelves this week. Let’s get into our DA Drops.

Tuesday, May 24

Basketball

Look out for 2021/22 Leaf Memories Basketball Hobby dropping.

Leaf says Memories Basketball Hobby will feature the “most elite” 2022 draftees and a selection of 2021 draft picks. Additionally, collectors will see an “unparalleled” selection of high school basketball prospects.

This all-autograph product features signers like A.J. Griffin, Scoota Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, Jabari Smith Jr., Nalyssa Smith, Franz Wagner, Blake Wesley, and Mikey Williams.

Leaf also mentions there are Steph Curry and Giannis autos in the product. There are seven cards per box, all of which are autos.

Wednesday, May 25

Soccer

In the first of its kind, Topps will release the Stadium Club Chrome Bundesliga product on what most people would consider payday.

According to Topps, the 100-card base set will show collectors the full range of Bundesliga’s rookie and veteran players.

Fifty insert cards will show “very special players” from all clubs, including Golden Promises, highlighting the best young talent from the league. Topps also says this will include rare parallels.

Collectors should also look for 35 chrome autograph cards. You’ll receive one autograph card and two ball artist inserts per box.

Keep an eye out for SuperFractor parallels.

Topps Stadium Club Chrome Bundesliga has 18 packs per box and six cards per pack.

Panini Mosaic is also making its debut, not with Bundesliga, but with the 2021/22 Premier League season.

The 200-card base set includes players from all 20 EPL clubs.

Hobby exclusive parallels include Mosaic Red, Mosaic Blue (#’d/99), Mosaic Purple (#’d/49), Mosaic Pink (#’d/25), Mosaic Gold (#’d/10), and Mosaic Black (#’d/1).

Panini says collectors can find top footballers in three hobby-exclusive insert sets, including International Men of Mastery, Pitch Masters, and Montage.

There are also four exclusive insert parallels, Mosaic, Mosaic White (#’d/25), Mosaic Gold (#’d/10), and Mosaic Black (#’d/1).

Current and retired footballers will have autograph cards with Premier League Scripts Mosaic and Premier League Autographs Mosaic. Those have two hobby-exclusive parallels Mosaic Gold (Max #’d/10) and Mosaic Black (Max #’d/1).

Like other sports that have Mosaic products, EPL is no different. There will be hobby-exclusive case hit inserts, Stained Glass and Overdrive.

Panini Mosaic EPL boxes contain one autograph card, five base silver, 15 Mosaic parallels, and 20 inserts or insert parallels.

It is ten packs per box and 15 cards per pack.

Basketball

Impeccable Basketball is back from Panini with the 2021/22 NBA Rookie class. That includes rookies like Cade Cunningham, Jalen Green, Evan Mobley, and Scottie Barnes.

Panini says the Elegance Rookie Jersey Autograph set will be on-card. There will be “popular and rare themed” autograph insert sets, numbered to player’s jersey numbers, draft spot or a specific player stat.

Search for Stainless Stars cards of non-auto and autograph versions with parallels numbered as low as one.

Panini says to chase after “rare and randomly” inserted cards made with real silver and gold bars.

Each box of Panini Impeccable has five on-card autographs, three base or base parallels, and one silver metal insert, gold metal insert, or Stainless Stars.

Impeccable is one pack with nine cards per pack.

Hockey

Wednesday will also see 2020/21 Upper Deck Stature Hockey Hobby release.

According to Upper Deck, all the autos in Stature are hard-signed. This base set will have 100 veterans and retired legends. The other 100 in the 200-card base set will be rookies. Each base rookie is #’d to 399.

There are nine parallels to the base set, Upper Deck says. That includes five autograph parallels. The highlight of the autograph parallels is the one-of-one black auto, and seven of the nine parallels are #’d to 99 or less.

Upper Deck says you can also collect the Portrait Variant of the complete base set and up to five parallel sets. Some collectors will find patch auto prallel cards #’d as low as one.

There are three new insert sets in this year’s UD Stature:

Proteges: Features the best-of-the-best 2020-21 rookies
Gravitas: Features the top veteran players in the game today
Century Momentous: Consists of some of the greatest players in the history of the game. The non-autographed versions will highlight a crowning achievement in the career of each player – from a notable statistical record of hoisting the Stanley Cup

Stature is one pack with eight cards per pack. Each box will have one autograph or autograph patch card and one base set rookie card.

Friday, May 27

Gaming

All Friday releases will be gaming, including the anticipated drop of a new Pokemon Sword & Shield booster set. Check the details below!

Astral Radiance is the tenth set in the Sword & Shield series.

Here are the optics of this release:

Over 180 cards
Three brand-new Radiant Pokemon
Seven awesome Pokemon VSTAR
19 powerful Pokemon V and two enormous Pokemon VMAX
30 cards with special art in the Trainer Gallery subset
More than 20 Trainer cards

“Travel back to a land of myths, legends, and wilderness as Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR and Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR shape the fabric of time and space! Decidueye, Typhlosion, and Samurott arrive as Hisuian Pokemon VSTAR, joining more Pokemon and Trainers from the ancient region of Hisui. Meanwhile, Shiny Pokemon reappear as Radiant Pokemon, with Radiant Greninja leading the charge in the Pokemon TCG: Sword & Shield Astral Radiance expansion!” the folks with the Pokemon TCG said.

There are 36 packs with ten cards per pack.

Next up is a VSTAR Collection Box.

Each Pokemon Kleavor VSTAR Premium Collection Box includes:

[1] etched foil promo card featuring Kleavor V
[1] etched foil promo card featuring Kleavor VSTAR
[1] oversize foil card featuring Kleavor VSTAR
[6] Pokemon TCG booster packs
[1] collector’s pin featuring Kleavor
[1] metallic coin featuring Kleavor
[1] acrylic VSTAR marker
[1] code card for Pokemon TCG Live

Digimon will also have a booster box release Friday. The New Awakening Booster Box will have characters from the Digimon Adventure 02 Anime (2000). Cards from this set will work together with two starter decks also releasing.

This set also includes the debut of multicolor cards. Those cards will expand gameplay strategies.

Players will also find two previously released pre-release event cards as an exclusive box topper. It gives players a chance to obtain these cards after stores finish distributing them at their events.

There will additionally be six parallel tamer cards.

Here is a rarity breakdown: