Monthly award programs in Diamond Dynasty highlight some of the best performing players across Major League Baseball each month. The last couple of years, this program has been accompanied by a Retro Lightning collection - meaning we typically get two game changing cards simultaneously.
That appears to be the method again this year, as the April Spotlight Program to unlock the lightning player is largely the same as last year.
MLB The Show 26 April Spotlight Breakdown
This first monthly program was incredibly easy for me to complete without doing the collection for Pack 5. Luckily, I made the decision to invest in the Retro Lightning collection for April despite typically avoiding them. This turned out amazingly as Chipper Jones, my all-time favorite player, was named the first Retro Lightning player of the year.
Coming into today's content, I had collected every previous Spotlight card in preparation for the collection before even knowing Chipper Jones was the reward. That made it very easy for me to put together a full Spotlight/Topps Now team to grind out the missions after I completed the Moments. I typically never play the CPU below All-Star just to keep my swing sharp, but I love doing these monthly programs because that's when I jump into a Play vs CPU game on Rookie and absolutely incinerate the CPU to knock out the missions quickly.
The missions weren't too challenging, just a matter of time investment as something like the 15 Innings Pitched is obviously more than a full game. I had Ben Rice unlocked within probably 45 minutes, unlocked Ellly De La Cruz, then spent the rest of my Stubs to finish the collection for Chipper.
There was serious debate on who could be named the April Lightning player, and truthfully Elly came as a bit of a surprise. I don't consider it a bad surprise, as anytime a free switch-hitting superstar shortstop is available it should be a win for everyone.
Rewards
Full list of players included in the program reward path:
- Shea Langeliers, C, ATH (92 OVR)
- CJ Abrams, SS, WSH (91 OVR)
- Justin Wrobleski, SP, LAD (91 OVR)
- Josh Jung, 3B, TEX (90 OVR)
- Daniel Schneeman, CF, CLE (90 OVR)
- Spencer Torkelson, 1B, DET (90 OVR)
- Samuel Basallo, C, BAL (90 OVR)
How To Unlock April Spotlight Lightning Elly De La Cruz In MLB The Show 26
Unlocking Elly De La Cruz simply requires collecting all previous April Spotlight cards from the Spotlight series, including the following:
Pro Tip: Barring an unforeseen change, this is how each monthly awards program and collection will work. Completing the Spotlight content each will make unlocking each month's Lightning player much faster.
You can complete each week's program by collecting all of the cards in each week's Spotlight Pack. If you're going for the Retro Lightning players, you'll need to buy all of these cards anyway so you might as well save the time and skip the gameplay up front.
The offensive profile on De La Cruz is arguably Chipper Jones-lite, with a little less Contact and a good bit more Speed and slightly better fielding. All on a switch-hitter with a great swing. Shortstop is a critical position and more important than ever in my opinion. The changes to defense and attributes this year have made the game much more realistic on the field. Elly instantly becomes a starter for many teams and provides an elite option for all others.
Elly is also one of the most fun players in the league, and though plenty of other players were possibly more deserving - how can you not love a card like this being available for free to everyone?
How To Complete April Spotlight Retro Lightning Collection For Chipper Jones
Unlocking April Spotlight Retro Lightning Chipper Jones requires collecting 16 total April Spotlight cards that were available in the April Spotlight Drop Packs.
Each year, these collections feel worse to complete. We watched SDS radically change how they designed the Retro Lightning rewards last year, after the first collection for Carlos Santana (MLB The Show 25) was absurdly expensive and difficult to complete. This is a step more towards the middle with cards a bit easier to acquire, but more cards required to complete the collection.
At launch, completing the collection for Chipper will cost around 300,000-350,000 Stubs. This will almost certainly get cheaper to complete within the next couple of weeks.
Value is in perspective. Putting aside the fact that I would be all-in for my favorite player, objectively speaking this is the market value I'd expect on a Chipper Jones card not earnable through gameplay. Is it fun shelling out massive amounts of Stubs? Never.
But Stubs aren't real and neither is money. Time is an illusion and only love matters. And Chipper hits tanks so what are we even talking about?
April Spotlight 94 OVR Retro Lightning 3B Chipper Jones (Atlanta Braves)
You don't need to be a Braves fan to love Chipper. One of the most prolific switch-hitters in MLB history, Chipper has been a longtime Diamond Dynasty Darling™ and typically gets absurdly good cards.
This Retro Lightning version is a perfectly balanced early-cycle card for Chipper. His offensive profile is just plain old very good across the board. Add in the switch-hitting, buttery smooth swing, and the best offensive Quirks in the game and you get one of the best cards in Diamond Dynasty.
April Spotlight Retro Lightning Chipper Jones debuts as the #5 Meta Overall 3B but surprisingly outside of the top-10. This card is still very good, and the collection is still very money-grabby but the card doesn't rate out nearly as high as I expected.
Will this stop me from acquiring him?
I already played my first Ranked game with him. I was blessed with a Chase Dollander pull out of my free pack, which saved me upwards of 60,000 Stubs. Matt Olson was going to be an instant-buy for me, so the savings from pulling Dollander allowed me to wrap up the collection cheaper than I was anticipating. Yet, finishing the April Spotlight Retro Lightning collection still drained my entire Stubs balance.
Dollander is available in the new April Spotlight Drop 5 pack that hit the Show Shop today.
Dollander started the Ranked game I hopped into with Chipper and Matt Olson, and performed very well for me. An Outlier Sinker is less desirable than on the 4-Seamer, but we also get a disgusting Slider/Slurve combination with a Circle Change. Great attributes, velocity, break, and damn near a perfect pitch mix will certainly play in my rotation.
My opponent was a very fun challenge and put up some good at-bats, and knocked Dollander out after only 4 innings. This is by far the worst stamina performance I've seen so far, and I didn't really think much of the 86 Stamina rating but it seems worth noting now.
There was also something weird going on defensively in this game. I'll be curious to see any other reports of defensive miscues. My shortstop Henry Aaron and my opponent's second baseman Brian Roberts, both with 70+ Fielding, booted every single ground ball hit to them all game. No one else fumbled, but it was the first time I've seen routine plays bobbled this year. It triggered some unpleasant memories of bad-defense-in-year's-past, and hopefully we're not going to see a ton of kicked balls now.
April Spotlight Drop 5 Pack Breakdown
Cards featured in the pack are:
- Chase Dollander, SP, COL (93 OVR)
- Ildemaro Vargas, 1B, AZ (93 OVR)
- Andy Pages, CF, LAD (92 OVR)
- Jordan Walker, RF, STL (92 OVR)
- Xavier Edwards, 2B, MIA (92 OVR)
- Moises Ballesteros, C, CHC (90 OVR)
- Liam Hicks, C, MIA (90 OVR)
- Louis Varland, CP, TOR (90 OVR)
- Bryce Elder, SP, ATL (90 OVR)
There's your first monthly awards program and collection of the year. Stay tuned to ShowZone for everything you need to know about MLB The Show 26 and Diamond Dynasty.
Download the new ShowZone Mobile App for iOS and Android today! Take your ShowZone account with you and maximize your Stub balance while tracking program progress, collections, and much more!
