Review of Black Diamond

Well, what can I say? I am a sucker for this product every year as I always have done fairly well breaking it. In years past, I have hit some nice rookies and parallels. This year seems to be following suit. The one glaring problem that has been resonated across the boards is that the cards take on way too much damage at packout and come out of packs looking pretty hideous. I wish UD would read some of these and try to revamp their packaging process to help protect the condition of the cards a little better.

Base--overall the design follows what past years have done. Nothing really new. Alot of lines and movement on the cards.
Parallels--while I dont mind getting parallels, it is a little disheartening to pull a ton of worthless(to me) parallels of guys who have had their moment in the spotlight. I know that every pack can't have a quad diamond but come on. Shake it up a bit. The ruby and gold parallels look nice again this year.

Player selection--I like the added feel of more oldtimers and legends in this year's product. It brings back a feel of yesteryear when you pull the likes of Stan Mikita, Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, and Orr.

Inserts--Once again the quad swatch game used cards are nice. The added touch of having the Onyx parallels being auto'd are a great chase. The Hardware Heroes cards look great this year as I love the transparent windows featuring a picture of the player on the card. The Gemography autos are watered down a tad but that is to be expected with so many players worthy of autographed cards and the odds to hit one coming one every third box or so isn't too bad.

Added value--I like the idea of the horizontal SP's this year. They are nice looking. I'm not so sure about the diecut horizontal cards though. It seems a bit much for the product and waters it down a bit for resale value.

Overall--I like the product. If you're lucky enough to hit a Tavares, Duchene, Kane, Van Reimsdyk, or Gustavvson quad diamond RC, you are doing well. I think that UD gets a decent score of a B for this product.

My Hits:
Alexander Ovechkin Quad Diamond SP
Gordie Howe Quad Diamond SP
Patrick Roy Quad Diamond Ruby Parallel /100
Jonas Gustavsson Quad Diamond Ruby Parallel /100
Christian Hanson Triple Diamond GOLD Parallel /10
Matt Duchene Quad Diamond RC
James Van Riemsdyk Quad Diamond RC
Jonas Gustavsson Quad Diamond RC
Rick Nash Quad Swatch red parallel /50
David Perron Onyx Quad Swatch Auto/5 Redemption

I also got some nice Hardware Heroes:
Bobby Orr
Teamu Selanne
Patrick Kane

I like it. I don't know if I would invest in a box(these were picked up via trade) as the hits are iffy from box to box but I enjoy busting it nonetheless.

very good review Blan. I have picked up some singles of different Penguins and I won a Ruby of Luca Caputi the other day and can't wait to see what it looks like in person. I just wish the cards scanned better.

I also wish they scanned better. Man, there are so many of the cards that are dinged up it just ticks me off.