Today wrapped up a busy content week, with the next major collection added on top of the usual Friday fare. Not only that, the next major roster update went live which featured big changes in the live series collection.
Let's start there.
Live Series Roster Update Breakdown
The Live Series is made up of the actual 40-man rosters for every MLB team. Each team has a collection reward for collecting the current 40-man roster, that then feeds into bigger collections. This culminates in the major collection rewards: Felix Hernandez, Albert Pujols, and Troy Tulowitzki. As we also see today, it feeds into the additional Legends & Flashbacks collections that are an "extension" of the MLB Live Series collection.
Major roster updates like today can shake up these collection costs, as players are upgraded and/or downgraded based off of their production this year. Today, six players became Diamonds after being upgraded:
- Jacob Misiorowski, SP MIL
- Cam Schlittler, SP NYY
- Ben Rice, 1B NYY
- Shea Langeliers, C OAK
- Yandy Diaz, 1B TB
- Pete Crow-Armstrong, CF CHC
An absolutely horrific side effect of Shohei Ohtani being a literal baseball God is that he was just upgraded to become the first ever Red Diamond Live Series player.
This card is now almost 1 million Stubs.
1,000,000.
For a Live Series card that isn't even that good in terms of the whole fantasy world of Diamond Dynasty. I am not really sure what the answer is but SDS really needs to get the cost of Ohtani and Aaron Judge down. It's absurd that "unplayable" cards are this unobtainable. They act as the proxy instead of paying directly for any of the main reward cards. At this point, just let me buy the damn cards straight up.
I digress.
Above, you can see the quick-sell values for 85 OVR - 89 OVR. The biggest effect roster updates have stems from quick-sell values like these. Plugged-in players use ShowZone's Roster Update Predictor to stay ahead of the market, and capitalize on the best investment opportunities.
Using Jacob Misiorowski as the example, we can see he is now an 85 OVR card. Smart investors stockpile the live series cards of high-performing players like The Miz. Let's say you acquired 100 copies of The Miz before he was upgraded and cheaper to acquire. You can now quick-sell those cards, and instantly become 300,000 Stubs richer.
To learn more about investing and how to leverage roster updates to generate Stubs, check out our dedicated section here.
The complete roster update notes can be found here.
99 OVR Awards Victor Martinez (Detroit Tigers) Collection Breakdown and Review
The big cheese of today's content drop is Victor Martinez in Detroit Tigers gear for his debut 99 OVR card in MLB The Show 26.
Collecting this Martinez card will not be easy or cheap, as you'll need a total of 24 vouchers to unlock Martinez. Vouchers are acquired by completing collection milestones within various card series, or acquiring a specified "main" collection reward within those series. Martinez follows Miguel Cabrera, who was the initial Legends and Flashbacks collection of the year. Cabrera required 21 total vouchers, so Martinez will require three more vouchers to unlock.
Before today, I was a couple of vouchers short of the 99 OVR Miguel Cabrera. After finishing the Mets Live Series collection and the NL East, I ended up with 5 vouchers for Martinez. Needless to say I will not be acquiring this card anytime soon. Nor do I really want to?
Obviously, the offensive attributes are insane. There's literally nothing else to say. This is easily the best overall hitter in Diamond Dynasty now, especially when factoring in swing, switch-hitting capability, Quirks, etc. He's a primary first baseman that can also play catcher. The defensive attributes suck, but when he's going 4-5 with multiple home runs you probably won't care that much.
It's just kinda boring at this point that every major collection or pack card is a switch-hitter. This goes back to last year when the packs and collections weren't exciting, because the big rewards were unobtainable for most of us and they were all just "uber switch-hitting meta dudes."
The attribute change this year has been huge, with pitchers now also having handedness-specifc attributes. This probably has a net positive effect on switch-hitting performance, so the rewards catering to that "tier" of card is just boring. I'm not even trying to sound "complainy" because I love the game this year.
but like....yay.
another expensive switch-hitter while the rest of the known and constantly discussed issues within the community remain
woo
How To Unlock 99 overall Victor Martinez in MLB The Show 26
Unlocking Victor Martinez is simple, just expensive.
You'll need 24 total vouchers from the Legends & Flashbacks tab to unlock Martinez.
Check out the Collections page here at ShowZone for a more in-depth breakdown on everything you need to know about unlocking Victor Martinez.
Pack Palooza Program Breakdown
Do you like packs, son?
This program features a handful of previous premium packs, earnable in a hybrid program that features stat grind missions and Extreme Moments.
The Extreme Moments are only on All-Star, so they might be worth giving a shot if you typically skip Extreme stuff.
You'll easily complete the program just by playing whatever you like playing in Diamond Dynasty. This is a great chance to pull cards you might be missing from old sets to work towards Cabrera and Martinez. Keep an eye on the market, too. These card series should drop a bit, so I'll be looking to strike so I can grab up the 99 OVR Miggy. The Awards version has been an absolute monster for me, so I can't wait to add the Milestone Miggy very soon.
June Spotlight Program & Pack Breakdown
The June Spotlight Program kicks off with the first Red Diamond of June. The once-hyped Roki Sasaki gets a spicy card. Meta Overall doesn't love this card, which isn't surprising when there's a million mutant switch-hitters available. True Overall, however, has Roki as the #5 starting pitcher. This perhaps implies some hidden value with Saski if you can truly learn to master his arsenal. It's a great pitch mix, though it lacks Outlier or other meaningful quirks.
I'll definitely be giving Roki a start or two in Ranked to see how this version plays.
- Roki Sasaki, SP LAD (95 OVR)
- Gage Jump, SP ATH (93 OVR)
- Luis Garcia Jr., 1B WSH (93 OVR)
The requisite Spotlight pack contents are as follows:
- Jackson Chourio, LF MIL
- Isaac Paredes, 3B HOU
- Chad Dallas, RP TOR
- Edwin Arroyo, 2B CIN
- Victor Bericoto, RF SF
The Red Diamond Spotlight cards this week aren't too shabby, with Jackson Chourio a borderline top-10 Meta outfielder at the corners.
I'm highlighting Chourio because this is the kind of card that would be insanely fun grinding to Parallel 5, then unlocking Diamond mods to create your own 99 OVR version of the card. I think the Spotlight pack cards will be sneaky budget cards moving forward. These cards should settle between 20-30k Stubs, if not lower, and can provide insane value if you do the P5 + Mod approach. As always, these cards are elite for theme teams but they're also more useful for normal team builds as well.
Planet Conquest Map Overview
If you're going to be grinding any of the missions that dropped today, you can do so with the new Planet Conquest map. Completing the map will earn you the usual Stubs and packs, but you'll also unlock 94 OVR Topps Now Jasson Dominguez.
If expensive switch-hitting collection rewards aren't your speed, perhaps I can interest you in a very free switch-hitting outfielder that can steal you some bags while being pretty meh in the outfield? Knock out the Conquest map and you'll unlock The Martian.
Funny timing, with all of the alien disclosure conversation happening right now. Cheeky kudos to SDS. I look forward to the Interdimensional map that releases when we find out that humanity has been quietly guided by the Galactic Federation for thousands of years. Your favorite Pleiadian is probably a switch-hitter.
Chase Pack 14 Featuring 97 OVR Postseason Lance Berkman (St. Louis Cardinals)
EVERYBODY LOOK!
THEY DID THE MEME!
Another premium, expensive, hard-to-obtain switch-hitter! Lance Berkman is cool, and a legend I've not had a chance to really use since he's come into the game. That certainly isn't changing anytime soon lmao. My review on Chase pack cards at this point is - do you have the premium switch-hitter at that position yet or not? Most of us aren't even going to be able to use this card.
womp womp
Don't Forget
Freddie Freeman and Max Scherzer, two should-be Hall of Famers, just achieved major milestones in their respective careers. Both players also received Milestone programs with a Red Diamond card attached.
Frederick is quite the wonderful first baseman, with very good offensive attributes and solid Fielding across the board. He also has a sweet swing, and is somewhat fleet of foot for a first baseman as well. Dodgers fans get a core anchor, and everyone else gets a very fun card to customize into their ideal 99 overall first baseman with mods.
Mad Max gets a Red Diamond for his incredible 3,500th strikeout. Scherzer is now only six strikeouts shy of entering the top-10 all-time strikeout leaderboard. Seven more punchouts will give him sole possession of 10th place.
I love Scherzer and typically love using his cards. I'm really missing a sinker on this version, but I'll still be happy to give him a shot. Potential top-10 strikeout pitcher of all-time? Current top-10 Meta Overall starting pitcher in Diamond Dynasty (#9).
What are you grinding first this weekend? Let us know in the comments!
