Monday, November 10, 2008

Product Review: 2008 UD Masterpieces Football

Thank god this set was brought to other sports, because the idea of it is way too good to let Baseball hog it. I love the elegance of the set, and I do have a few things to say about it, but let me assure you, this is the only set like this I would ever consider buying, as Turkey Red can suck it.

The Good

I cant say enough good things about the base cards, they are freaking gorgeous works on most, and even the bad ones are still better than most of the other crap out there right now. I love the idea of doing paintings for cards, as you know that there are probably millions of amateur artists that have done the exact same thing as pictured on these cards. Not only do they have great works, but they also get to choose the poses that they like, so you dont have to wait for that perfect game shot - see the Peterson vs Chargers card if you dont believe me.

I like the inserts too, as they have a lot of really nice smaller pieces included in it. The jerseys and autos are nicer than I expected, and I was shocked to see them as all on card. Very nice. There are some bad aspects to this, which I will get to, but an overall win.

There really isnt much to this set, and that is beyond awesome. More sets need this type of thing to help it be legit, and I think it works perfectly a la Chrome. With such pretty cards, you dont need much.

As featured before on here, I like the past and present cards which combine older players with newer players to create a new aspect of this set. Its cool to see Butkus go after All Day, even though it looks like he aint gonna catch him, and I think it adds a lot to a set that feels retro in a modern way.

The Bad

I like the on card autos, but the sets with the rookies have them in their college jersey. Obviously most were signed at the Premiere, so its inevitable, but it still looks out of place when they have regular cards in their NFL jersey next to these. Its not awful, but I wanted more new stuff from the RCs.

The parallels in this set are just about the worst thing ever. They look okay, but there are so fucking many of them that I want to pull my hair out and feed it to the parallel god. Do we really need this many? There are like 20.

The Ugly

I am so fucking pissed that there are no auto'ed versions of the base cards. Now I have to find a way on my own to get them done, and that sucks when you live half a country away from your favorite team. Hopefully Shawn at DA Cardworld can come through for me...

Its funny, for someone that hates base cards as much as I do, I love autoed base cards. The base designs of a set usually look so much better than the inserts, and the auto on them always make them a target for me. It sucks I cant get an auto of some of the best base cards ever.

Overall, this set rocks just for the production values. I love it. Go buy five boxes and wow yourself with how great it looks. The paintings will blow your mind with how cool they are as actual cards. I know there was at least one anonymous commenter that thought I was up UD's ass, but Im sure that this set is a universal "booyah" from the peanut gallery.

7 comments:

  1. Maybe someone that does group breaks on his site, will be doing one with UD Masterpieces Football? hint,hint,hint.

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  2. I bought two boxes of Masterpieces over the weekend and I must say that Upper Deck did a lovely job and this totally blows topps turkey crap out of the water. I pulled a Daryl "Moose" Johnston Red bordered autograph serially numbered 8/10. My other other autograph was Dexter Jackson. I wasn't sold entirely on the jersey cards. They need to be putting bigger square swatches on the cards. Overall I didn't pull hardly any duplicates out of two boxes. I was impressed.

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  3. Do you know how on the back of the upper deck cards, there is a little white box, with 5 letters in it. could you post some of the 5 letter codes here for me please. there is a website where you use those codes to buy sports boxes.

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  4. The Adrian Peterson base card looks almost as badass as my 1986 Topps Andre Dawson Expos Team Leader card.

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  5. Im not sure if you are joking around, but I refuse to argue with that beefy mustache. Look at all its majesty! Wow.

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  6. I'm just doing what I can to fit in here, despite the tiny amount of sports card knowledge I possess. What I meant to say was "Yeah, suck it hard, Beckett, you overrated, megalomaniacal bunch of blowhards! TWGM rules 4 life!"

    Hmmmm.... I don't have your gift for this, so I'm just gonna go back to my page.....

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  7. Gift, there is no gift here my friend. Trust me on that. Feel free to continue to join in on the debauchery.

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