2023-24 Trilogy Hockey Cards Box Break

After taking a hiatus in 2021-22, Upper Deck Trilogy returned for the 2022-23 season. Trilogy is back again for 2023-24, released in the middle of May. Since Trilogy is a late-season release, Upper Deck can include cards of Blackhawks rookie Connor Bedard, who made his debut at the start of the season.

A box of 2023-24 Trilogy contains six packs. Each pack has four cards. A box costs around $160. So, that’s about $27 per pack – or $6.75 per card. You get two hits per box “on average,” according to the front of the box. Hits can be a jersey or patch card, or an autographed card, such as Trilogy’s popular “Signature Pucks” cards that have an autograph on a mini-puck that is embedded in the card. 

I recently opened a hobby box of 2023-24 Trilogy. Here is what was inside. 

12 Base Cards

Each of the six packs I opened had two base cards, for a total of 12 base cards in my box. The base set consists of 100 cards (1-100). Base cards have lots of silver foil on the front, including silver logos, side borders, and piping. 

Card backs have just one year of stats and career totals, plus the usual info such as height, weight, shoots, and birthdate. 

1 Rookie Premieres #/999

Like last year’s Trilogy set, the 2023-24 Trilogy set has three different levels of “Rookie Premieres” cards – Common (101-150), Uncommon (151-200), and Rare (201-250). Only 50 different rookies are featured in this subset, though each one gets a Common, Uncommon, and Rare version. I got a Rookie Premieres card of Rangers winger Will Cuyle which is one of the “Common” rookie cards. That’s a bit of a letdown, as last year, I got one Common, one Uncommon, and one Rare rookie card in my box. 

1 Red Parallel Card #/99

Miro Heiskanen of the Dallas Stars was the lone base parallel in my box. The Red Parallels are numbered out of 99. There are also Blue, Green, and Purple Parallels, as well as jersey, patch, and autographed parallels. 

2 Generations Inserts 

Generations inserts consist of three cards of players from the same team – a past star, a current star, and a future star. The three cards “fit” together and spell out the word “Generations” at the top. The two Generations cards I pulled were Artemi Panarin and Joel Pavelski

2 Generations Red Parallels #/799

And yep, there are parallels of these, too. I got Generations Red Parallel versions of Artemi Panarin and Billy Smith, which are numbered out of 799. 

1 Generations Blue Parallel #/349

I also got a Generations Blue Parallel of Alexis Lafreniere, numbered out of 349. 

1 Rookie Renditions

My Rookie Renditions card is of Islanders winger William Dufour, who played ONE GAME for the Islanders in 2022-23, then spent the rest of his career since in the minors. Hey, they all can’t be Connor Bedard, right? 

Anyway, I was critical of the Rookie Renditions inserts from last year, as they were just a photo of a rookie with a big gray swoopy border. This year, the Rookie Renditions cards are way more interesting, as they have a sketch of a player morphing into a photo of the player. These are superimposed over a sketch of the team logo. The look a bit of the Hundo P inserts from the 2021-22 Upper Deck set.

These Rookie Renditions insert cards also remind me of the “Unfinished Horse Drawing” meme.

Kidding aside, I really like the look of the Rookie Renditions cards. 

1 Rookie Renditions Red Parallel #/799

Oh yes, there are parallels of these, too. I got a Rookie Renditions Red Parallel of Capitals d-man Vincent Iorio. It is serial-numbered 507/799.

1 Memorabilia Jersey #/499

Memorabilia Jerseys is a skip-numbered parallel version of cards 1-150. I got a Memorabilia Jersey card of Sabres goaltender Devon Levi. It is numbered 288/499 and has a blue piece of jersey. 

1 Memorabilia Patch #/49

The other “hit” in my box was a Memorabilia Patch card of Dallas Stars rookie goalie Matt Murray – not to be confused with the other goalie named Matt Murray. The younger Matt Murray played in only one game during the 2023-24 season, but it was a shutout, so that’s promising. Murray also made three appearances in 2022-23, going 1-2 with a 3.39 GAA. Anyway, this card has a piece of a patch from a Stars jersey and is numbered 30/49. Like the Memorabilia Jersey cards, the Memorabilia Patch cards are a skip-numbered parallel set of cards 1-150. Some cards from this parallel set are autographed, but this card was not. 

It’s hard for me to get excited about Trilogy, especially when a box costs $160 and you are not guaranteed an autograph. Yes, the box does say that you get two “hits” per box, and I did get two “hits”…if you can call them that. Look, whenever a box costs north of $100, I feel that it should always have an autographed card inside – especially when you are getting so few cards overall. And a box of Trilogy with a Signature Pucks card is like a box of SP Authentic without a Future Watch Auto card. In other words, a major letdown. Seven of the 11 insert or parallel cards I pulled were serial-numbered, which is nice, I guess. And the Memorabilia Patch card is decent. But $160 is a lot for 12 base cards, just one rookie card, one base parallel card, three insert cards, four parallel insert cards, and two memorabilia cards, is overall very underwhelming. 

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