2023-24 Topps UEFA Club Competitions Inception Soccer Hobby Box

Description

There is some good and bad news when looking at 2023-24 Topps Inception UEFA compared to 2022-23 Topps Inception UEFA. Let’s start with the bad since it’s a much shorter list than the good. The print run is up ~30% compared to last year because there are more numbered parallels for each player. That said I have seen some boxes with 3 parallels so it could be less. That’s it as far as I can tell for the bad. Now for the good. The base checklist is down to 100 cards from 120 cards. This year has a rookie, Lamine Yamal, that is on fire. The auto and relic checklists are much stronger this year.

While Inception isn’t as reliant on the base checklist as other hobby products, Lamine Yamal is enough to make it better on his own with the way his prices are going. The Legends players are also stronger this year than in the past. With this year only having 100 player checklist there aren’t a ton of players you will be upset about hitting a numbered parallel like you would be in other Topps UEFA 200 card checklists. This is one of the things that makes people look forward to Inception. Even when you whiff it doesn’t feel as bad as other products in most cases. The relic checklist is also much better in 2023-24 Topps Inception UEFA because it has Lamine Yamal cards. Last year didn’t have any rookie non auto patch cards. The non auto patch cards don’t matter much in Inception but it’s better to hit rookies than not if they are going to be in the set.

The auto checklist is boosted greatly by Lamine Yamal cards as well. Not only is he in the regular sticker auto checklist, he is also in the on-card Marks Of Excellence set. This is the first set all year that has Lamine Yamal on-card rookie autos which should be a big deal. We will see if the market treats them as such. He has so many sticker autos, but these on-cards should be fairly limited unless Topps does something crazy like come out with 2023-24 Topps Dynasty in 2026. Yamal is in 5 of the auto checklists including the Patch Auto, Dual and Short Print. Topps didn’t seem to limit his sticker autos in Inception so you have a decent chance of hitting him.

Topps also brought back the wildly popular Silver Signings on-card autos. This year after debuting them last year with a Jude Bellingham-Jamal Musiala dual auto card. This year they are single player cards but look just as incredible. There are 6 players featured highlighted by Ronaldinho, Ronaldo Nazario and Erling Haaland. The preview images of these actually use gold ink which would be a nice change. The Dual and Quad autos and booklets are back this year. The Dual Auto Patch Booklet is highlighted by another Lionel Messi-Cristiano Ronaldo card. The 1/1 of this card has already been hit. There is also a Les Gagnants Autograph Book card that features 21 Ballon D’Or winners. There is only 1 of these and it’s sure to be a big chase for some collectors even if it’s hard to display since it’s so big.

Configuration: 7 cards per box, including one autograph card and two numbered parallel cards.