Epoch had a kind of similar 2023 as BBM - basically an average year with no real unexpected or unusual offerings. Epoch put out 21 sets - one more than in 2022 - but that number's a little misleading as three of their sets issued in 2023 had 2022 "cover dates".
Let's cover the late 2022 sets first. In February they issued their second set for the Japan Retired Foreign Players Association and then in March they issued two ultra high-end sets in association with the OB Club - "Career Achievement" and "Holographica". This answered my concern from last year that Epoch and the OB Club weren't working together anymore after having done at least one set every year since 2009.
Epoch upped the number of "Premier Edition" sets from eight to ten last year. These are "reasonably priced" team sets although they are not "comprehensive" like BBM's team sets are. Each set had between 30 and 45 cards and some of the cards were for OB players in addition to the active players. The teams Epoch did sets for were the Baystars, Buffaloes, Carp, Dragons, Eagles, Fighters, Hawks, Lions, Swallows and Tigers or everyone but the Giants and Marines. On the more expensive team set side, Epoch issued only three of their ultra high-end active/OB "Stars & Legends" team sets and oddly enough two of them were for teams they didn't do "Premier Edition" sets for. The Giants and Marines were joined by the Tigers but this was half the number of "Stars & Legends" sets Epoch did in 2022.
Epoch released their flagship "NPB" set and the "Pacific League Rookies" box set for the sixth consecutive year. For the second straight year they issued the "NPB Luxury Collection" as a higher end version of a subset of the "NPB" set although this year it wasn't a simple parallel version.
Epoch's other two 2023 sets were both in the ultra high-end category - the "Pacific League Premier Edition" and the 2023 version of "Career Achievement" - the latter being done once again with the OB Club. The 2023 edition of "Holographica" has again been delayed and won't be released until March.
Epoch continued to produce their on demand Epoch One cards last year and I mean that in more than one way. They actually continued to produce the 2022 cards into mid-February of 2023, ultimately adding almost 30 more cards to the 2022 set in calendar year 2023 for a total of 1033 cards in the set. The 2023 edition has 1017 cards so far. It remains to be seen if they'll continued to do 2023 cards into 2024 although I fully expect them to as they haven't done any cards for the 2023 draft picks yet. Cards were issued for all the teams except the Carp and the Buffaloes with the Baystars being the new addition for 2023 (although to be fully accurate Epoch did Epoch One cards for DeNA in 2020 and some of the 2022 cards issued in 2023 were also for the team).
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