I went in with an open mind knowing this was a budget-to-midrange retail offering from Upper Deck, but holy moly, this set bores me to tears. There's nothing outright wrong or offensive about the base set or inserts, but the design is bland beyond belief - hope you're a fan of whitespace and really dislike flavor text, because you have 350 cards worth of it here. Also, every photo feels like the same full-player-in-frame-from-the-front pose or vantage point, which I think is a nod to Parkhurst cards of the 50s and 60s, but without any of the retro design touches to pull it all together. If they're going to go this route, why are they mixing it into a set with a ton of holo/foil inserts and bog-standard thin Upper Deck glossy stock? Why not chop out the background and offset the player against a solid color or basic pattern like the Parkhurst sets of old? Also, why do half the inserts still use that same unimaginative framing as the base set? I know they're not parallels, but they may as well be, as I'm hard-pressed to tell the difference in a lot of cases.

Most of the upsides of the set revolve around inserts, in my opinion. 'Tis The Season is a neat idea if you like your cards on the cutesy side, and I think the purple Prominent Prospects inserts look cool on their own, though they don't really suit the overall aesthetic of the rest of the set. You have your autographs, your 3-4 sets worth of parallels, your Parkies, your 3-4 parallels worth of Parkies, and I'm suddenly finding myself trying not to fall asleep while typing.

I ended up giving this set a 2.5 out of 10 but will admit that there's a hefty dose of context included in that rating - it's a mediocre set on its own, but suffers more when compared to its 2021-22 competition, even in the lower price range. I'd almost compare it to collecting Score in the mid-90s, but even those cards were more adventurous and attractive for their time, whereas I felt turned off by this set after opening a few packs. There's a niche for this *type* of card in today's market, but that niche is already filled by the O Pee Chees and MVPs of the world, and I just can't see why anyone would want to spend a solitary cent on this set when there are so many better options available.