2017 Elite Review

Brendan_B

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So we are now about 6 weeks post release and things are quietening down somewhat, perfect time for a review I feel!

As always I will break down each part of the release and then provide a general summary. I invite feedback from other collectors also as I really believe that this has led to some change within the release year to year.

FOLDERS / FOLDER CARDS

The general appearance of the folder is fine, plain but fine. They seem sturdy enough but I would like to see the design of the folder change each year as it did with Select. This would be more difficult as ESP have maintained the product as Elite where as Select changed it year to year. The folder cards are probably the nicest produced to date. They feel nice in hand and I like how they have split the dual winners into two separate cards.

BOX CARDS

This set was definitely one born out of the feedback on Elite 16. By increasing the box cards to ten and limiting them to dealer only cases it allows the value to hold somewhat. The design is nice and for a box card the All Stars is the perfect set. I think player selection could have been better and more focused toward teams with less hits and I also feel that this set should be 9 cards in total as it just looks so much better on the one page!

BASE CARDS

The dark background did take some getting used to after first appearing in Elite 16 but I don't mind it. The silver foil printing and swirl in the background helps the image standout but I don't know how good these cards are for IP enthusiasts! I will always prefer the older cards where you have a full action shot with background and the player selection is a bit of a head scratcher. The common sets should be either 9 or 18 in total, they look so much better in folders this way and I am always a sucker for a subset within the common set, perhaps even as simple as a Rookie card, coach or former legend. With the amount of high end cards in ESP releases I feel that they need to put more value back into the base sets as lots of collectors are only able to afford a base and some team inserts these days and you don't want to drive collectors away from the hobby.

PARALLELS / SILVER SPECIALS

A nice clean design and good to see different images from the base. I suppose this means they are technically not parallels and they are not marked as such. The same issue as base though, would love to see either 9 card or 18 card sets so they look good in folders. The silver specials being 1:2 packets males them a hard set to finish with not even close to a full set in a case. Hopefully this will help maintain their value and collectability. The pearl specials from Traders were far superior IMO.

ELITE IMPACTS

Easily the best lower end (1:4 / 1:6) Elite insert since the triple threats in 2013. Really nice looking cards, good theme which captures most of the better players from a team. My only criticisms, and they are minor, are that the cards should have been in positional order (1, 6, 7, 9) as opposed to alphabetical. Secondly (this is more of a suggestion instead of criticism) is that between the portrait and action shot perhaps the jersey number could have been printed in silver or gold foil.

CRYSTAL COLLECTION (INC. CASE CARDS)

The design on these are fantastic, really classy and fitting for the players depicted. The theme is good and quite original but the issue is that it throws the balance out dramatically with only 5 teams covered. Moving forward, if this series continues, then the release needs to have a 1:12 insert set also covering other teams. The difficulty will be finding players who have played for 15 or more seasons so perhaps players from yesteryear could be included? The case card element is nice with the gold foil but should this be part of the 45 card set or separate? Only 40 complete sets can be made of all 45 cards which leaves a huge amount of partial sets out there!

CAPTAIN CARDS

These were brilliantly designed last year and they are just as good if not better in 17 Elite. I like the change up from Origin captains to All Star captains but unfortunately these creates big duplication in the set with Friend, JT & GI already being club captains. Realistically though there is no way around this with all rep captains being club captains. Perhaps being a World Cup year they could have gone with an Australian and NZ or England Captains card? Even though about half the set were the same skippers as 2016 the set worked because there were enough changes. I don't think these set should be repeated a third time though.

YOUNG GUN SIGNATURES

Really good to see the design of these going back toward 13 Elite where the background is faded out and the signature panel is a different shade. This really makes the player and signature standout which is what you want in a signature card. The player selection is probably not of the high standard we are used too (a few exceptions) but in saying that all of the players are genuine Young Guns with bright futures. Due to the prices of Elite dropping so quickly I have always felt that these should be 1:48 packets and /195 which adds much more value for the average collector.

LEAGUE SENSATION SIGNATURES

A really classy design befitting of the selected players stature in the game. The gold foil border and printing and faded out area for the signature are top class. The player selection is again very good with loads of players (Papa, Lewis, Bromwich, Vatuvei) having their first signature card. The biggest issue I noticed is the difference of pens used. We had this issue in Elite 13 and this appears to be a quality control issue. Just on the quality, and this would be difficult to manage, I believe that some of the players who signed over there picture and not in the panel should have been asked to do them again, after all they are getting paid to do this.

ALL STAR PARALLELS

These were a huge flop in 15 Elite and I really can't understand why they were included again. The box cards were suffice to cover this match and as already stated that player selection leaves lots of team short changed. In a world cup year this could have been a perfect subset for something nostalgic such as 'world cup warriors''or ''world cup moments'' or a completely different release where teams such as the Warriors, Eels had a bit more high end love.

DALLY M PATCH CARD

This was a great initiative and something never seen before. The card looks really nice and compliments the folder cards very well. The big issue is very obvious, THESE SHOULD HAVE BEEN NUMBERED!!! I know they are /250 but they are still a 1:25 box hit and hard to get. The AFL numbers 95% of their inserts including low end box hits so at the very least these should have been numbered.

MOJO SETS

These are again beautifully designed cards and by keeping them to 9 per team set they look so effective. The Emeralds in particular look spectacular but is a /10 card driving collectors away from the hobby even more. Can the hobby support such low numbered releases? I don't believe so and I feel that master set collecting is a thing of the past and pretty soon team collecting will be also, especially if they go /5 mojo in 18 Elite. The fact that the bulk, if not all of the Emeralds are in dealer cases is something I will cover in my summary. To spend nearly 1k on what is basically a numbered parallel set is hard to do for even the most motivated of collectors! I like the idea of having these individually (ruby 1 per box , sapphire 1:2 etc) but as numbered redemption cards for the team and not a player. While hoarding of some teams will still occur at least individual players won't be hoarded and you would need all 9 of the cards to redeem the set.

RTF JERSEY PATCH & SIGNATURE CARDS

Great looking cards, beautifully designed and perfect in landscape as it really allows the signature to jump off the card. Disappointing that the fourth side (Cows?) couldn't get their jersey sent in time but good initiative from ESP to create the double header card. The player selection is quite good for Canberra and Cronulla although Maclean moving to NQ in 2018 is a shame (cards would have no doubt been in production when this news was broken) and having to use a rugby convert in the Storm double header was also a bit of an annoyance. The only thing I would like to see moving forward is that the /50 signature cards gets the best available patches.

1/1 CARDS

I can't deny that these cards are also a spectacular looking insert but a 1/1 in an NRL release? As a Canberra fan and team collector I would love to own the 1/1 but am not willing to pay 2k+ for a card and have come to terms with the fact that as a team collector I will never own all Canberra cards.

SUMMARY

Overall a very solid release with more good aspects than bad. No release will ever be perfect as a collectors opinion is so subjective. There is always room for improvement and ESP / TLA are showing more of a tendency to listen these days. The biggest issue is the stacking of dealer cases. I have no issues with this as I think the dealers should be supported and be able to make good $$ but they should be marketed as such. Hobby release through dealers for $7.99 packet and Retail through newsagents at $5.99 packet which contains hits up to the case level as they do now. There are 480 Sapphire and Mojo sets and only 400 dealer cases so there will be a few sapphire and emerald mojo's busted from newsagents (I have heard of 2 sapphire and 1 emerald) and every dealer case I have seen busted has had an emerald or sapphire. The loaded boxes is also a concern for me, awesome if you hit one but there are plenty of dishonest people in the hobby and when you start seeing a person with 4 or 5 boxes for sale on eBay I think it is a fair bet they have purchases a case, busted the big hits and are moving on the rest. There is no way that two case hits should be in the same box, it makes no sense!

Overall 7/10

Please feel free to agree, disagree and add feedback to continue the improvement to the product and hobby! If you made it this far thanks for reading!
 
I'd have to agree with 7/10 verdict! Yes perhaps the best one yet from ESP but on the back of the coin, perhaps 16 Elite most comparable to 12 Dynasty in terms of master set collection may go...
 
Hmm I wonder if collectors would be up for a /5 mojo concept if ESP released them as individual cards as Bren mentioned?

Ruby /40 =1:Box
Sapphire /20 =1:2 boxes
Emerald /10 = 1:4 boxes
Diamond /05 = 1:8 boxes, so basically one per case or some even two if lucky!

So even if you're a team collector, at least you'd realistically get SOME bite of the /05 concept as opposed to 1:1192 packs (1:8 cases) lol

Anyway, that's a good question?
 
My review of the review is 10/10, well done Brendan again I think you have captured all the main points.

As I've raised elsewhere I think the Crystal Collection should've been a standalone release and the subset replaced with the usual 2 cards per team subsets as in previous years such as; Master & Apprentice, Run & Gun or Club Champion.

For a St George collector and many other teams this was a very light release once you remove mojo's. I'm glad there is a Super hero release or I would have had very little to collect in the 2nd half of the year.

Again I'm in agreement with many that the mojo's should be seeded 1 card at a time into packs not a single pack with the full set in it. This would have many benefits; stimulate a very sad secondary market, increase the value in a pack to something close to what is being charged hence moving more stock as the chase continues with an extra 10,000 packs with a decent hit in them.

Cheers
Ross
 
My review of the review is 10/10, well done Brendan again I think you have captured all the main points.

As I've raised elsewhere I think the Crystal Collection should've been a standalone release and the subset replaced with the usual 2 cards per team subsets as in previous years such as; Master & Apprentice, Run & Gun or Club Champion.

For a St George collector and many other teams this was a very light release once you remove mojo's. I'm glad there is a Super hero release or I would have had very little to collect in the 2nd half of the year.

Again I'm in agreement with many that the mojo's should be seeded 1 card at a time into packs not a single pack with the full set in it. This would have many benefits; stimulate a very sad secondary market, increase the value in a pack to something close to what is being charged hence moving more stock as the chase continues with an extra 10,000 packs with a decent hit in them.

Cheers
Ross

Brendan, I was going to do my own review but you summed it up nicely. Well done!

As Ross mentions and what I have been saying for a while.....the Mojo cards need to be single card hits rather than whole packs.

Ruby 1 per box, Sapphire 1 in 2.5 boxes and Emeralds at 2 per case or thereabouts.

Outside of the Mojo Packs, the Panthers were also very light on in terms of cards to collect.

Aside from the Elite Impacts and the Captain Card, there were 2 signatures (one player no longer on the team) and the Mojo sets with 2 players who have already left and a number of star players missing from these sets (Moylan/RCG/Wallace/DWZ etc).

If they were single player cards, the secondary market would still be going with people trying to track these cards down also potentially helping move more product along the way.

I would love to add all 3 Mojo cards of Nathan Cleary to my Panthers PC but to do this i'll have to spend $200 for the ruby set, $400+ for the sapphire set and then 600+ for the emerald.

I'm not a completist NRL collector.....i don't need every Panthers card in my PC (would like them all though) so if I dont have an Emerald Mojo set its not a huge deal to me.

Again great write up......love reading these from you!

Cheers
Matt
 
Like the review a lot, agree with most of the points made.

I do like the feeling of opening a pack and the whole thing is full of cards from one team and a different colour. That first Mojo opening is a cracking feeling and watching a box break and it pops up is cool. Just think its a bit too limited at Sapphire/Emerald I was happy at around the Ruby/40.
 
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