Time for a second round of Pack vs. Pack. This time I am going to do two of the same packs, but I’m expanding a little bit. I’m not just doing one pack each of Gypsy Queen. Instead I am doing the multi-packs with three packs and then a pack of parallels and compare two of those. (The packs pictured are from a hobby box I got and I think they are a different number of cards – I forgot to take pictures of the multi-packs.)
This will be a lot of cards to judge in each pack than the previous where I was looking at just two simple packs against each other.
Pack 1
This is a good set of All-Stars to get. I’m kind of on the fence on saying that about Pham at this point in his career, but I think even if you bump up some of the others guys in the pack it would somehow deserve the extra points for that. DeGrom is an awesome one to get for me. This is also the old Jake as he’s cut his hair short for this season.
These secondary guys are not too shabby. That’s part of my reason for putting Tommy Pham on my top line. I would say if you have an argument for one of these guys to be on the top line that’s fine. Switching them out with Pham would still be the same points.
The commons in these packs aren’t so bad. Juan Lagares bumps up my score since he’s a Met. And it looks like two base rookies out of these packs might be the standard. I could be wrong on that but it looks like that’s consistent for me.
Here’s where I think this pack really takes charge of the two packs. The Harper Tarot card is pretty great. I actually like the idea of this insert set. I like the design in the background and the rounded corners. I like the Fortune Teller cards but I feel like in years past they had some more variety in the colors than I’ve seen in the packs I’ve opened this year.
Gypsy Queen Multipacks always offer these type of parallels. They are fine I guess. It’s never something I would look to collect. That Nimmo will go out for a TTM definitely. And with this being a parallel and a Met I got lucky.
Pack 2
Pack Two opens with awesome pitchers. Thor is my only Met in this pack, but Kershaw and Greinke are awesome to have on this all hurler top line.
The Stars in this pack are REALLY strong. The Lindor is obviously an All-Star. Zimmerman is probably an All-Star for a homer, but while he had an awesome year last year, he’s always injured and he’s gotta get back on track more regularly for me. Tanaka is good, but there are so many pitchers you think of before him. Still this is a much stronger pack in the Star and All-Star categories.
The commons are just that. You might think there’s something in here to move up to the Star level and that’s fine, but for me there’s nothing really special here. The Duffy may become a TTM as I think I have a double of that.
Two base rookies, just like the last pack. Then there the Walker Buehler parallel. It’s funny that I doubled up on Greinke with the base and the parallel. This was a good pack but inserts or special cards over the other one.
The Final Tally
I feel like this one was going to be a pretty easy one given the extra inserts in pack one and nothing in the other. But it turns out what I judged as Stars/All-stars between the two packs might have evened things out. Maybe I need consider valuing inserts/parallels a little higher? I guess it depends on what I would value more.
The other thing is that it looks like you are guaranteed two base rookies and then the three parallels. So that’s five points that cancel each other out in these packs.
Pack One (22 pts)
- Parallels: 3 (3 pts)
- Inserts: 2 (2 pts)
- Favorite Team: 3 (3 pts)
- Stars: 4 (4 pts)
- All-Stars: 4 (8 pts)
- Rookies: 2 (2 pts)
Pack Two (20 pts):
- Parallels: 3 (3 pts)
- Favorite Team: 1 (1 pts)
- Stars: 3 (3 pts)
- All-Stars: 5 (10 pts)
- Rookies: 3 (3 pts)
Pack One takes it. That was a lot closer than I thought it was going to be.