Big Bunch Of BBM

BBM did their monthly update of their website yesterday and announced details of eight sets that will be released over the next month or so.

- The big announcement was for this year's 1st Version set which looks a lot like last year's 1st Version set.  Once again there will only be 372 cards in the base set - 324 player cards (27 per team), 12 team checklist cards (don't know the theme yet but expect mascots yet again) and 36 "Cross Freeze" cards (for the fifth time in the last seven years, BBM is doing a cross set subset).  There are two 12 card insert sets - "Infinite Talent" which features "young stars and note-worthy rookies" and "3D Cross" which features each team's "main star" in some sort of 3-D card.  And then there's the usual cornucopia of parallels, autographed cards and memorabilia cards.  The set will be released in mid-April.

- The theme of this year's Icons box set is Speed, both on the bases and from the mound.  Each box contains 37 cards - a 36 card base set (I think it's three players per team) plus (as usual) one special card - possibly an autographed card or a die-cut card (and maybe even an autographed die-cut card).  It appears that the set includes rookie players like Shinnosuke Ogasawara and Junpei Takahashi.  It will be out in late March (Jambalaya says the 26th).

- BBM is issuing the first two of their "Autographed Edition" team box sets for the year in the next two weeks -  Opening for the Fighters and Dragons Dash for Chunichi (obviously).  Both boxes contain 28 cards - a 27 card base set plus one autographed card.  One of the cards in the base set in each box will be a parallel card as well.  The Fighters set will be out on the 24th while the Dragons set will be out a day later.

- BBM has announced their first four of their pack based team sets for the year.  The first two will be released in late March and are for the Eagles and the Giants (which is a bit surprising as usually the Giants set is one of the last team sets to be released each year).  The sets for the Tigers and Marines will be released in mid-April.  Each set will feature 81 cards in its base set - somewhere between 65 and 69 cards for the manager and players and 12-16 cards in different subsets.  Each set except the Giants set has 18 insert cards spread over a couple different sets while the Giants set appears to have 21 insert cards.  Each set has various parallels available both for player cards and insert cards - the Giants set appears to have the most elaborate ones.  Each set also has autographed cards available but I think only the Giants set has memorabilia cards also.