DIGITAL DABBLINGS – SPECIAL EDITION #2 – 2017 Year in Review

2017 was the first full calendar year for Topps WWE Slam, and each month brought something fresh to the app.  With over 13,000 individual cards released, it is really too much for any single collector to purchase one of every card.  You really do have to pick and choose what sets you’re going to go after otherwise you get overwhelmed.  Some days are easier than others; in fact most days it doesn’t break your bank to get all the inserts released that day.  But then there are those days where they drop entire sets or huge waves and you spend the next several days or weeks catching up.

Top 5 Highlights in WWE for 2017

#5 – VIP Program

 Just as the fourth quarter of 2017 was beginning we were introduced to the VIP program which rewards paying players with exclusive card sets and opportunities to pull VIP only cards.  Sadly it’s not a subscription model rather it’s based on actual dollars spent for the previous month (and even though they have since switched to a point system, the price points are exactly the same.)  Originally to get VIP you had to purchase at least 1000 diamonds in a month, and got the bonus VIP at 22,000 diamonds.  Now with the points system you have to get 50 VIP points for VIP and 1000 for the bonus.  Bottom line is if you spend $10 a month you get VIP and if you go over $100 you get the bonus VIP.

Now the rewards themselves aren’t all that great to be honest.  Yes you get a VIP only set of cards, but so far they’ve just been a new variant of an existing set, and occasionally there’s more of the VIP cards than even the low tier of whatever set that is.  For example, the October free set was Primal, which in packs ran from just under 1000cc to about 1800cc, but the VIP versions are all almost 4000cc.  The Victory VIP Greens Wave 3 have 1/3rd the CC of the regular version.  Infinite ended up at about 2800cc, while the blue pack versions were capped at 2000cc and the reds were OE.  Blizzard is set to drop January 7.

VIP Bonus Sets

January – Infinite Wave 4

You do get at least one free pack of the next month’s PPV or major tent-pole set (or both) at the lower VIP level, and several packs at the higher level.  Of course if you don’t redeem those packs immediately upon the set drop you stand the chance of losing out on the extremely low CC base variants.  Also you don’t get the expensive Diamond pack you get the cheaper version.

Your other VIP perks are access to one-time diamond bundles (1100 diamonds for $5, 12K and 24K for higher prices, I forget what they are), and access to the monthly VIP only signature.  The set so far has included Ted DiBiase, Dolph Ziggler, Kairi Sane and Edge.  The first couple took a while to sell out, while Sane and Edge sold out almost instantly.

So while the program has a lot of room for improvement it’s better than nothing.  I would personally like to see a VIP only insert that was free rather than having to purchase it on top of what you’ve already spent, this is the way the Bunt VIP program works, or so I’ve been led to believe.  I also think the VIP diamond bundles should be significantly cheaper for what you get.  Right now it feels like they’re just throwing a bone at us rather than actually giving us decent rewards for paying for their content.

#4 – Truly Premium Content

After almost a years’ worth of content that for the most part could be purchased by any free-player with enough coins, the move to diamonds brought about truly premium content.  The phrase “behind the paywall” became fairly common and more and more truly low CC cards started being released.  By year’s end we got two base variant sets with truly limited content in Steel (250cc) and Pink (50cc).  Most of the PPV sets and virtually all of the major non-PPV releases (5 Star, Excellence, High Caliber) were either all low CC or had some sort of super-low CC content.  Despite the veritable deluge of low CC cards demand remained constant or even increased as players found the premium content to trade and sell extremely well.

#3 – Video/Motion Cards

After a big splash over on the NHL App Skate, Video cards finally came to Slam and virtually everyone has at least one since they gave away several for free.  When they hit packs as a mini-marathon with long odds (1:55 in coin packs) they made a lot of collectors very very happy.  Despite technical difficulties and a dodgy selection of actual video, they still remain popular and we look forward to the next iteration.  So far I feel like the technology has regressed a bit since the next set of motion cards only had a blinking light feature, and the third set just had some snow.  There are a total of 21 video cards in the game currently with 13 motion card in the 12 Days of Christmas set and an 8 card Blizzard set.  I’ll go into a bit more detail on Famous Finishers in the month-by-month section below.

#2 – Kiss/Signature Cards

Kiss Cards which have been around in physical Topps sets for quite awhile now, were highly anticipated by a certain segment of the player base, so much so that as soon as any release is issued they sell out their entire run in record time.  Secondary market prices of between $10 and $50 depending on the performer and frenzied trading makes them my #2 highlight of the year, despite the fact that there are as of this writing, only 5 women totaling 1250 cards.  While I wouldn’t mind nabbing a Becky Lynch card none of the other women do much for me, and with no awards, I’m not really that interested, but I know I’m the minority.  The funny thing is watching the fan-feed denizens post they’re looking for Kiss cards and then looking at their collection and realizing they don’t stand a chance in hell of obtaining one with their trade bait.

#1 – Diamonds

It had to be diamonds right?  Pretty much all the other items on the highlight list were secondary to the Diamonds issue.  Overall the app underwent a dramatic change in both appearance and the way that users played the game in 2017.  The introduction of a premium currency in June caused a lot of controversy for players on all sides of the proposition.  From a business perspective I can totally see why Topps decided to introduce a premium currency in each of their digital apps, as it solves a lot of lingering problems in one fell swoop.

On the positive side eBay sellers and coin farmers who were becoming a real problem suddenly got marginalized.  Previously as soon as an insert was released it would be available for reasonable prices on eBay because there are more than a handful of sellers who set up bot accounts to pull cards and then throw them up for sale as quickly as possible.  If you buy from these guys you find your cards can come from dozens of accounts, and that is a huge violation of the terms of service. Of course Topps doesn’t really have the manpower to go after all these sellers, though every now and then one or two get caught.  While selling Slam cards for personal reasons is not against the ToS, setting up a business to do so is strictly prohibited, as is advertising cards for sale on the Fan Feed or in the Info Announcements.  So if you’re thinking about starting one of these businesses, don’t.  These guys are still around and you can still get bargains from them on coin only cards.

The problem with coins being the only currency available was that a player could easily get free coins from daily log-ins and Tapjoy Offers.  While this is a huge positive for players, the in-game content was getting stagnant, and coin pack prices were creeping up higher and higher and odds were getting longer and longer.  Selling content for cash only didn’t seem to be the right answer and thus the second currency was introduced.

As of June of last year Topps now has a channel to really push premium content out to their paying players while remaining nominally free-to-play for those who don’t wish to pay for play.  In any digital app similar to this one the free players outnumber the paying players by a wide margin, but those players don’t drive the game forward and don’t make any profits at all.  Placating the paying players and not driving away the free-to-play players is always a fine line for any app, and while I don’t think Topps is quite there, they’re moving more towards an equilibrium with recent paywall content being cheaper to buy with easier odds.  Premium content also seems to hold its value longer than free content, which often can’t be traded or sold for a profit at all.

So while a very very vocal majority of players hated the introduction of diamonds, those that were already paying for content realized that the move was to their advantage so long as the premium content remains premium.  For the most part it did (see #5 above).  I know the High Caliber release pissed a lot of players off due to the incredibly high price, but I haven’t heard of a single collector who actually spent the diamonds to get gold cards complain due to the incredible resale value those 5cc cards carry.

Besides, if you weren’t already paying for content in the game, you probably won’t be buying diamonds anyway.  In a perfect world Topps would give a nominal payout in diamonds for completed sets, but that’s not going to happen any time soon.  If we’re lucky we might get coin payouts, but I wouldn’t hold out hope.

If I were to do a lowlights list I’d put Diamonds at #1 too since it caused so much derision amongst the player base, and regardless of whether or not you pay for content, losing a player is never good news.  You want to expand the brand not let it decline.

Taking a look at each month separately, I’ll quickly discuss the most important set or two that was released during that time period.

January

The biggest set release thus far in the game dropped in the last week of the month with The Royal Rumble.  Completely outshining the previous record holder Survivor Series 2016, the RR set was just massive with a 52 card base set in two variants, a 30 card rumble number predictor set, a 30 card in-app rumble set, an 8 card legends set, a 4 card program set in two variants, a 5 card signature set in three variants, predictors, posters and Topps Now, and all of this was released alongside the NXT Takeover set.  The in-app rumble was a major pain to complete, with some of the cards coming in under 400cc, but it was kind of fun, that said I’m hoping they don’t repeat it this year, though they probably will since they did the same thing for the Andre the Giant rumble at WrestleMania.  The lowest cc base variant (blue) and most of the sigs were behind the paywall, and in order to get access to them you had to buy a $25 bundle, which priced out a lot of collectors.

February

Elimination Chamber was the main PPV during this month, and it introduced the first ever “booklet” cards in the game, which in my opinion, suck.  You get a card that looks like it’s die-cut, and you can barely see the actual signatures.  The 50cc black version of the booklet doesn’t even sell for $25 today, and it has six signatures.

Topps Fire was also released in February with a high-tier paywall portion that was either $10 per card or $50 for the set of six.  Only 137 of the purple Becky Lynch award exist and that card still sells for about $20.  The interesting thing here is that the lowest tier, the red open edition can still be found in some packs and last time I checked you can still obtain the signature award for completing the set (it may take up to a week for you to get the award).  Red Fire cards are still in somewhat demand as newer players discover the set and realize they might be able to afford a Becky signature.

Also notable is the still popular “Four Horsewomen” set featuring Bayley, Sasha Banks, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch.  They are in somewhat short supply so they don’t come up very often anymore.

March

WrestleMania.  One word that should be all I need to say.  However, not only did the grand-daddy of them all get it’s due, but an entire base set was released earlier in the month, so collectors were both trying to complete their base sets and trying to obtain the massive WM/NXT Takeover set, and it wasn’t easy.  The massive base set had three variants, an open “monochrome”, a less limited red and a behind-the-paywall blue, along with a 5 card signature set in the same variants, though the red were limited to 250cc and the blue to only 33cc.  The obligatory additional content included posters and an Andre the Giant Battle Royale set.  While the drop was huge, the overall impact on the app was minimal due to the paywall portion being underwhelming.  Sure blue base still get traded, and the blue sigs are outrageously expensive, but most of the rest of the content made collectors go “hunh?”

Also in March we got the second set of Personalized Live Signature cards with Bayley and Charlotte Flair being the subjects.  Along with the uber-high-end content (40 tickets each for a basically 1/1 card) they also released some interesting one-offs like a 50cc Signature Relic for each, and a 250cc inscription card.  Those Relics are still in high demand today if you can get them.

April

The Superstar Shakeup that saw Raw raid Smackdown Lives’ roster was the big news in the app during the Spring, with the original 2017 base cards of all the affected superstars selling out almost immediately, and new Blue and Red variants popping up along the same lines as the 2016 draft cards.  Black base cards that sold out now command a nice premium, although discerning their actual CC is tough, it’s not impossible (they’re all between 130 and 169cc).

Video Cards made their debut after having a preview card given for free in March.  While I love the idea of a Video card and think that’s the kind of content this app should continue to provide, the execution is very shoddy.  The clips are a few seconds long and have sound which is great, but the theme is “Famous Finishers”, and virtually every card ends before the pinfall or submission.  Not to mention there’s technical issues on the Android app that either don’t allow them to play or make them autoplay, I’m not sure which, as I have an iPhone.  The set itself is pretty darn good, with a lot of the major stars involved, and of course one of the awards was a Finn Balor Coup-de-Grace, so I had to get them all.  Also it would have been way cooler if they hadn’t done a static Famous Finishers set earlier in the life of the app.

The Hardy Boyz made their in-app debut in both the base set expansion and in several insert sets and they were welcomed by collectors with open arms.  Matt and Jeff had an incredible weekend at WrestleMania, working all three days of the weekend for different promotions and recapturing the Tag Titles after being surprise entrants at ‘Mania.

We also got our first taste of Rob Schamberger illustrated cards in April, and with that came the first of the split paywall sets where some of the cards were available in coin packs and some of them were available in paywall packs.  Some collectors are still upset about this.

Limited also made its WWE debut in April with a 10cc Tye Dillinger (and it’s 100cc brother).  So far there have only been 3 limited releases and fan’s wallets are happy.

Lastly the first of the 30 week marathons finally came to an end in April 2017 and those of us who slogged through the entire 30 weeks were so glad to hear that Topps decided to do away with the long ones all together.  Since that time the maximum they’ve done is a 15-week marathon, and there was much rejoicing.

May

Alexa Bliss Personalized Live Signatures were issued alongside personalized live sigs for Matt & Jeff Hardy and Bray Wyatt.  So while the same number tickets were released this time there was only one design for each performer.  Of course not everyone can afford the huge amount of cash it costs to get these personalized items (and some of us would never pay that much anyway) so Topps placate the masses by issuing the non-personalized live sigs at the same time and that makes fans really happy.  It wouldn’t be Topps without some glitch or controversy though, and this time they decided to change up the colors for the rarity of the non-personalized sigs so you can’t say, “I’m getting all the green live sigs” because one might be 100cc and another might be 1250cc.  Aargh.

The PPV set for May was Backlash and the less said about that event the better.  No I’m not a fan of the Jinder experiment, and neither were most of the app players.  At least the combined Backlash/NXT Takeover set had some new sigs, but once again they were completely behind the paywall, and in order to get the high-tier variant you had to buy a $15 bundle, and to complete that set you had to keep buying that bundle because they didn’t do coin packs (and this was before diamonds) once you purchased the bundle.  Aggravating to be sure.

June

Extreme Rules was the June PPV and the accompanying set featured another multi-signature booklet as the award for collecting the five individual signatures.  Once again the high-tier cards were behind the paywall in bundles, and coin bundle incentives up to $100 reared their ugly head again.  Serious player collectors moaned about having to spend that kind of cash to keep their Finn Balor collections intact, while others merely shrugged.  This would be the new paradigm for PPV sets as every single one has had the same kind of incentives going forward, and even worse, they did almost 4 days in a row of them over Thanksgiving

July

Midway through the month was the 1-year anniversary of Topps Slam and the powers that be gave us a plethora of content to commemorate the event.  While mostly forgotten about today, the release brought us extensions of popular sets like Queen of the Ring, Taglines and Rivalries, as well as “new” 2016 base cards of the Hardys, Mickie James and others who weren’t in the initial set.  We also got new sigs of legends like Stone Cold and Andre, as well as a Macho Man Randy Savage Tribute.  All the anniversary cards had similar design elements and were incredibly popular at the time of release.

July saw both brands get PPVs, and so Topps double dipped on the sets, wisely keeping them small and manageable, and while Money in the Bank was all hype and no substance, Great Balls of Fire was a superb show and better set in the end.  Still neither set the game on fire like the Independence Day themed Fireworks Base set did.  150 brand new base variants gave everyone a chance to obtain their favorite players or complete a full set which wasn’t easy.  The design really popped and they seemed to be very popular then, though now six months later they’re barely traded.

Austin Aries left WWE in July and all his cards sold out.  Alexa Bliss’ Live Signatures were released and her fans went berserk, especially for the 100cc Orange version.  The last highlight of July would be Allegiance Series 2, which while they solved the problem with players loaning cards out to get the award that Series 1 suffered from, angered the players by not making singles tradable until AFTER the awards were issued.  Sure seems like there could have been a better option, since the odds increased as the inserts progressed.  Basically Allegiance was a coin suck of epic proportions. At least there were only 5 levels to progress through instead of the 7 in Series 1, but they added a Legends set and an NXT set to the mix, so instead of 14 cards, 2 awards and one overall award, Series 2 had 20 cards, 4 awards and 1 overall award.  Oh and they used the same basic design which was butt-ugly.

August

We ended the Summer with a full on body slam of releases including two waves of the massive 5 Star set, which while it is a physical set in Baseball, is digital only for WWE.  Five base variants drove collectors nuts, especially for the gold version which was only 100cc, while they only had to chase two variants of the horizontal signature cards: silver capped at 1000 and gold at 150.  Some of the gold signatures ran into the $30-40 range but have since dropped down to more reasonable prices.

Returning for a second series was Monochrome and it was a welcome sight for those who specialize in cards of the fairer sex.  Also returning was the physical to digital WWE Flagship set for a second wave, and was so forgettable that I forgot to mention Wave 1 when it was released slightly earlier.

Personalized Live Signatures returned in August and featured AJ Styles, Kevin Owens and Shinsuke Nakamura.  While the Owens actually didn’t sell out, the AJ and Shinsuke did, and their subsequent “reprint signatures” also sold through rather quickly.  Theses 1250cc prints started with the last set of Alexa Bliss, and feature earlier designs with a signature place on top.  They are fairly easy to trade and obtain though and don’t command much of a premium at all.

Of course the biggie was the SummerSlam set and it certainly didn’t disappoint.  The actual first 2017 SS card was a doozy, The Rock and Brock Lesnar dual signature in gold (50cc) and green (500cc), and to say fans went nuts is an understatement.  The green still commands about $8, while the gold was for some time an elite card, though it’s come down in price to between $15 and $20 these days, down from a high of $80 upon initial release.  The combined SummerSlam/NXT Takeover Brooklyn III set saw a base and sig set of five variants, two of which were available in Diamond packs only.  The lowest CC Purple Sigs were capped at 50cc and commanded decent prices before the award drop, and still have decent prices today.  The purple 4-up award still goes for between $20 and $30.  Additional SS content included a legends set and a matchups set along with the obligatory one-off posters.

Oh and lest I forget, we also got first sets from Boom Studios Comic Covers and a new mini-marathon that was well received called “Triptychs”

September

Our first month of Fall brought another two PPV release, the return of the Schamberger art cards, more comic covers, and the first release of the “Women’s Division” set.  Yet another physical-to-digital conversion this one was made interesting by the fact that the physical release was a Wal-Mart exclusive and thus a lot of regular card collectors didn’t even know about it.  This set, despite it’s technical difficulties (see Digital Dabblings #17 for more details: Link https://www.pwtorch.com/site/2017/09/19/digital-dabblings-17-womens-division-brings-heat/) was extremely popular with fans, even if they had a difficult time finishing it.  Technically the WD set doesn’t have a signature portion, but it was released with the first batch of Undisputed 2017 signatures.

Yes despite the fact that a base Undisputed set was released physically, Topps decided to eschew releasing the base cards into Slam and just went with a completely underwhelming set of single signatures, along with a two multi-signatures for each of the first two waves and none in the third.  To get the signature award for each wave you had to have all 10 singles and both multis.  Of course the singles were limited to 1500cc, while the multis were 250cc.

October

A new mini-marathon called Taglines started off with an almost instant sell-out in Asuka with a 1000cc limit.  Of course it fizzled towards the end, but that Asuka is still in big demand.  Halloween related sets quadrupled in number from last year from one to four in 2017!  Not only did we get a standard Halloween set, but we got a weird hybrid Zombies set (6 cards were photos of action figures and the remaining were all paywalled and shots of CGI Wrestler Zombies, oh and two waves), and a “Contagion” set which featured a second full set as the award in a “clean” version.  The last set was a cute die-cut pumpkin set featuring the brand logos.

Stadium debuted, and was not, as I expected, a WWE Stadium Club set, but rather a photo set depicting performers at Yankee Stadium, and then later at Citi Field for wave 2.  3 cards per performer plus a signature were released with an award.

October was yet another dual PPV month with TLC and Hell in a Cell both dropping, and stabilizing the PPV set paradigm with a 3-tier base and signature set, the lowest CC of both behind the paywall (500cc base and 250cc signatures).

Heritage 2017 also returned this month, and though the design was nice, the set completely underwhelmed and basically bombed.  It was easy enough to collect though and it does have its fans.

Women’s’ Division and Undisputed Signatures returned for a second round to decimate players wallets.  At least they didn’t have the technical issues of the first wave.  Nope those were saved for HIAC (the original signature award of a Triple Shield sig was dropped in packs) and the Green Mickie James Supreme card (wasn’t issued in coin packs when it should have been and has ½ the cc of the rest of the green cards).

Lastly we come to Off the Panels, which I’ve already written about extensively in Digital Dabblings #20 (link: https://www.pwtorch.com/site/2017/11/10/digital-dabblings-20-october-review/).  Nice idea for Topps to let attendees at NYCC trade for exclusive cards, but such low CC numbers (and from what I understand difficulty in actually making fair trades) angered so many collectors, especially Alexa Bliss and Finn Balor player collectors.  In years past anything available at a convention was always available everyone in the app on Star Wars and other apps, but not this year.  They had similar issues with Walking Dead at NYCC as well.

November

Thus we come to the month that Survivor Series and Thanksgiving built, November.  So many releases in November were issued and players wallets, mine included, took a huge beating.  Let’s run it down quickly: Excellence, Topps Picks, Heritage Wave 2, Women’s Division Finishers and Signature Moves (aka Wave 3), 3 Boom Sets, Starrcade, the Thanksgiving Week Bundle sets, the first ever Kiss/Signature cards in game and finally the big one, Survivor Series.  That’s not to mention the other sets that were released but didn’t really impact the game much, and the continuing mini-marathons.  There was just way too much content in November, and so much of it was behind the paywall.

Excellence was an awesome digital exclusive set that consisted of 5 variants of base and three variants of signatures alongside a 5 card Undertaker tribute (that was actually a physical-to-digital release) and a single super-star insert (Finn in Wave 1, Bobby Roode in Wave 2).  The lowest tier of variant base was capped at 100cc with the next lowest at 500cc.  Sigs came in 150, 750 and 1250 cc limits.  While it had entirely too many variants, the set sold like fire and was well liked.

Picks were a curious set of die-cuts shaped like a guitar pick emblazoned with a superstar’s illustration.  Finn was the award here, so demand was high.  Women’s Division finished out it’s run with a third wave consisting of “Finishers and signature moves”.  Starrcade may not have been shown on the WWE Network, but its old-school flavor gave rise to a truncated PPV like set that kind of fizzled upon release.

Thanksgiving week brought way way too many releases to collect, namely the daily diamond bundle incentive sets and the Steel base release.  On Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Apps Tuesday Topps released a new set of bundle incentives that if you managed to buy all of (at a cost of almost $185 in cash) you got a sixth signature card.  Of course those awards are all numbered at less than 50cc, so there is quite a bit of premium value there.  They also released a one-off “Static” set that weekend but it didn’t seem to do much for players.

So we come to Survivor Series and it’s 2017 iteration.  80 base cards split between SS and the NXT Takeover Wargames special, in four variations alongside a 5-card signature set in the same four colors.  Purple were again the color of kings and the lowest CC of the set, 500 for base and 250 for sigs.  Team cards, Predictors, Awards and NOWs all subsequently followed the standard tent pole pattern.

Oh and the first two Signature Kiss cards were issued and sold out within like 2 minutes and shot straight to the top of almost everyone’s want list.  Personally I don’t get it, but live and let live.  For the prices the digital versions are commanding, I’d rather buy a physical version.  Though truth be told I’d never pay more than $10 for any single card, digital or not.  I’d buy a pack of digital or real cards for that much if it had good content.  But I digress.

December

I just posted the December highlights a couple of days ago, so I’ll not bother rehashing the entire month yet again.  Suffice to say collectors were both happy and pissed off over HIgh Caliber – happy if you could afford it, pissed if you couldn’t.  Clash of Champions was a dud.  Pink Base went over well.  More personalized Live Signature tickets were issued and most fans couldn’t afford them.  The NXT Signature Set only released about half of the available cards and made everyone mad for Billie Kay’s first signature.  Three different holiday sets were released with varying success.  We got three more kiss/signatures the most popular of which was Alexa Bliss, surprise surprise.  It was a busy month all in all, but thankfully not quite as busy as November.

Oh and I totally forgot to mention last week there was a weird pack that randomly showed up called “Prize Wheel”.  You could only access it if you looked at the card sheet, chose a white base (as long as it wasn’t Kurt Angle) and clicked the shopping cart to see what packs were available.  The prize pack contained only base cards of 205 Live performers and only 6 of them at that, but it contained the entire rainbow of standard base, including orange and black!  The pack appeared to be unlimited while it was available and it was FREE.  Many players, myself included, stocked up on black base, and so we now have dozens of them.  Of course a few (and I do mean a FEW) players who already collected those guys were more than miffed, but hey the rest of us now can say they own 50+ copies of The Brian Kendrick’s 2017 black base.

A Quick Look Ahead to 2018

So far we know that in March, just prior to WrestleMania we’ll get the transition to Slam 2018, and along with it will come a whole new base set of cards, which at this point is very welcome.  When the 2017 base set hit it was a breath of fresh air, but by now it’s pretty well worn out its welcome, and plus there are a ton of new performers both on the main roster and in NXT who are deserving of cards and who don’t have them yet.  Also they can keep mining the Legends fields for new cards.

Just as I was finishing up this article the Prize Wheel hit the app and Topps promptly screwed it up as usual (look out for my next Special Edition Column on all the times Topps had technical difficulties with the app).  Initially the wheel was giving out sold-out cards, including PPV Season Awards and really rare Sold-Out Black Base, and then none of the cards were tradable; that glitch was so bad it affected the entire game wiping out trading for several hours on the third of January.

WWE is running two fewer PPVs in 2018 than they did in 2017, and that means there will be two less months with two PPVs scheduled.  This doesn’t include NXT TakeOvers, which are usually lumped in with the big four anyway (and Backlash for some reason).  Currently there’s only four Takeovers scheduled for 2018, one less than 2017.

Hopefully this year we’ll get a Hall of Fame themed set, though I’m not counting on it.  We will undoubtedly see the return of video cards at some point once Topps can figure out the tech properly.  Many players are hoping for a set arelated to the Mixed Tag Team Tournament that’s upcoming, and I think that’s a no-brainer.  Who wouldn’t want a card featuring both Braun Strowman and Alexa Bliss, or Nia Jax and Enzo Amore?  Make the award Bobby Roode and Charlotte Flair and you’ve got a license to print money practically.  Maybe we’ll get new single wrestler tribute sets?  I’m sure a Stone Cold or The Rock set would be popular.  Whatever we get, I’m sure it will be yet another fun year in WWE Topps Slam!

Don’t forget you can find me in game at GRENDELSEN, and I’m always happy to trade or answer any questions you might have.  Leave questions or concerns here and I’ll see you next time.