On Thursday, April 14, Top Shot will conduct the final drops for their Holo Icon and Metallic Gold Limited Editions (MGLE) sets, and both drops will happen simultaneously with priority queues opening at 10am PDT. The Holo Icon Moments will come in an Edition Size of 99, while the MGLEs will have an Edition Size of 749, and the packs will cost $999 and $89, respectively.
Holo Icon Pack Details – $999
2,750 available
Moments in Pack
9 Total Moments
1 Holo Icon (99)
1 MGLE (749)
7 Base Set (4K – 60K)
Priority Queue 1 – Opens at 10am PDT
Drop Score Requirement: 25K
Number of packs in PQ1: 1K
Odds of securing a pack based on LiveToken: 24.5% – 29.8%
Priority Queue 2 – Opens at 12pm PDT
Drop Score Requirement: 7,500
Number of packs in PQ2: 1,450
Odds of securing a pack based on LiveToken: 8.08% – 11.2%
General Queue – Opens at 2pm PDT
Drop Score Requirement: 0
Number of packs in GQ: 300
Odds of securing a pack based on LiveToken: 0.04% – 0.4%
Holo Icon Rewards
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Devin Booker
LeBron James
Cade Cunningham
Jayson Tatum
Kevin Durant
Holo Icon Moments
Bogdan Bogdanovic
Kyrie Irving
Patty Mills
Terry Rozier
Nikola Vucevic
Jalen Brunson
Spencer Dinwiddie
Monte Morris
Jerami Grant
Jordan Poole
Klay Thompson
Stephen Curry
Myles Turner
Paul George
Russell Westbrook
Desmond Bane
Tyler Herro
Jrue Holiday
Anthony Edwards
D’Angelo Russell
Immanuel Quickley
Julius Randle
Cole Anthony
Jalen Suggs
James Harden
Joel Embiid
Davion Mitchell
Devin Vassell
Keldon Johnson
Pascal Siakam
Scottie Barnes
Donovan Mitchell
Jordan Clarkson
Due to the high CS requirement and price tag, Legendary Moments tend to function in a different ecosystem than the rest of the tiers on Top Shot, so it’ll be interesting to see what they’ll go for in a down market. As Top Shot’s Community Lead, Jacob Eisenberg, said during our interview a little while back, the Legendary tier is like NBA Top Shot’s “country club,” they are the cream of the crop and often particularly memorable moments such as record-setting events. The ultra-low Edition Size also helps these Moments retain value better than most, although we’ve never seen a Holo Icon dump with 33 Moments released in a single pack before. As a frame of reference, the first Holo Icon drop this season featured just 15 players, so they’ve more than doubled that total for this drop. It’s also worth mentioning that during Series 2, the Holo Icon packs included one Legendary Holo Icon Moment, three MGLE Rares and six Base Set Moments, so they’ve dialed back the potential return on these packs for Series 3 while maintaining the same price point.
When I spoke with Top Shot’s Moments and sets curator, Austin Kent, a while back I asked him about some of the odd players (Kyle Anderson, Josh Jackson, etc.) we saw receive Holo Icon Legendary Moments during Series 2, and he acknowledged that injuries and trades forced them into corners they didn’t want to be in with the premise of the Holo Icon set being the “best three players from every team.” They locked into those three players prematurely, but Mr. Kent assured me they had learned from that experience and would look at Series 3 more holistically with a wider lens to ensure those mistakes weren’t repeated. However, here we are at the end of Series 3, and we’ve got role players (not stars) like Jordan Clarkson, Patty Mills and Monte Morris making the cut.
I think the reason this keeps happening is because most teams don’t have three stars worthy of receiving a Legendary Moment – rather that number tends to be just one or two. So, it’s the concept behind the set itself that keeps forcing Top Shot to make impossible decisions. Moving forward, I would recommend that Top Shot limit the Holo Icon set to two of the best players from every team. One, this would make the Legendary set that much more exclusive, and two, it would help avoid being in a situation where you’re forced to give Devonte’ Graham (who now comes off the bench in New Orleans) a Legendary Moment just because Zion Williamson is hurt.
Metallic Gold Limited Edition Pack Details – $89
20K available
Moments in Pack
6 Total Moments
1 MGLE (749)
5 Base Set (4K – 60K)
Priority Queue 1 – Opens @ 10am PDT
Drop Score Requirement: 20K+
Number of packs in PQ1: 3.5K
Odds of securing a pack according to LiveToken: 53.5% – 75%
Priority Queue 2 – Opens @ 12pm PDT
Drop Score Requirement: 2K+
Number of packs in PQ2: 13K
Odds of securing a pack according to LiveToken: 28.1% – 56.2%
General Queue – Opens @ 2pm PDT
Drop Score Requirement: 0
Number of packs in GQ: 3.5K
Odds of securing a pack according to LiveToken: 0.47% – 5.81%
MGLE Reward Moments
Dejounte Murray
Brandon Ingram
Bam Adebayo
Jalen Green
Luka Doncic
Darius Garland
MGLE Moments
Clint Capela
Andre Drummond
DeMar DeRozan
Zach LaVine
Evan Mobley
Lauri Markkanen
Dwight Powell
Aaron Gordon
Bones Hyland
Marvin Bagley
Saddiq Bey
Draymond Green
Alperen Sengun
Christian Wood
Tyrese Haliburton
Luke Kennard
Marcus Morris
Carmelo Anthony
Jaren Jackson Jr.
Pat Connaughton
Jaden McDaniels
Malik Beasley
Herbert Jones
Jaxson Hayes
Darius Bazley
Josh Giddey
Markelle Fultz
Wendell Carter Jr.
Tyrese Maxey
Cameron Johnson
Deandre Ayton
Josh Hart
Domantas Sabonis
Fred VanVleet
Mike Conley
Rudy Gobert
Kristaps Porzingis
Rui Hachimura
Per Cryptoslam, through the month of April thus far, Top Shot has only had 24,750 unique buyers, which is roughly a 20K drop-off from last month, and their worst numbers ever since the product first gained a substantial user base. Now, there’s still half the month to go and these two drops should help spike those numbers, but it’s looking like they may not clear 1 million total transactions this month, which would snap a six-month streak. If the current numbers hold, we may see a scenario where close to everyone gets an MGLE pack, which will make it tough to sell these Moments for a decent profit.
The numbers weren’t great on the recent Throwdowns release, which dropped a few weeks ago, with just four of the 21 total Throwdowns retaining any value after their Challenges (although we’ve yet to see what the Ja Morant Challenge will be or how it will work), and most of the Moments went for breakeven prices – even during their respective Challenges. I’d also like to highlight that this MGLE drop will have 20K total packs available, which is 3K more total packs than were released during the Throwdown drop.
I think you’ll be able to turn a profit with some of the stars in this drop, but I also think at least 15 of the 38 MGLE’s will be losers, so, plan accordingly.
Incoming Packs
Per Top Shot’s Series 3 road map, they still need to release four, non-playoff packs, with two of those being Common sets (Hustle & Show 2 and a Geographically based set), one a Rare (Teamwork) and the other a Legendary (All-Rookie). The regular season is officially over, and the playoffs begin on Saturday, April 16, with the First Round running through May 1, at the latest, so that gives Top Shot just two weeks to release those final four packs from Series 3; assuming they’d want to get those out before they start dropping playoff packs. Unfortunately, this comes at a time when the current user base is at its lowest point in over a year, so it seems we’ve again run into the problem of an oversaturated marketplace.
Perhaps, in the future, some of these sets will become more valuable if/when Top Shot is able to increase their userbase to where it was back in January when there were about 64K+ unique buyers, but to do that, they’ll need to ramp up their marketing efforts. Hopefully, we’ll see some of that during the playoffs, but 40K userbase increases don’t grow on trees – and Rome wasn’t (re)build in a day, so most likely current collectors will just need to stay patient. One thing I wouldn’t recommend is panic selling your account right now, as I couldn’t think of a worst time to unload valuable Moments. We’ve seen the market ebb and flow throughout Top Shot’s existence, and while they certainly made their fair share of mistakes back in February, I do think they’ve already made a lot of the necessary corrections to alleviate those issues.
Top Shot is responsive to the community, they understand that there’s a supply issue, so hopefully, we’ll see Trade Ticket options to buy some of the upcoming packs, as that’s an excellent way to remove a ton of the least desirable 60K Moments en masse.
