Buzz Break: 2021 Donruss Optic baseball cards (blaster)

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The box: 2021 Donruss Optic baseball cards (blaster)
First Buzz preview: Click here
Where to buy: BlowoutCards.com (other formats)

Keep reading for a full breakdown and gallery of images.

Packs per box: 7 (six standard one Pink)
Cards per pack: 4 in standard, 3 in parallel pack
Cards per box: 27
Set completion: 
15 of 200 (8 percent)
Duplicates: 0

Base cards – Cody Bellinger, Mookie Betts, Walker Buehler, Kris Bryant, Joey Gallo, D.J. LeMahieu, J.P. Crawford, Carlos Correa, Anthony Santander, Trevor Story (DK), Nelson Cruz (DK)

Rookie Cards (4) – Tyler Stephenson, Luis Gonzalez, Daniel Lynch, Isaac Paredes

Insert/short-print cards: 11 (all cards in box in gallery below)
Holo Prizm (1) – Pavin Smith
Pink Prizm (3) – Evan White, Carlos Correa, Brandon Lowe
Lights Out (1) – Trevor Bauer
Mythical (1) – Ken Griffey Jr.
Mythical Prizm (1) – Cal Ripken Jr.
Rated Prospect (2) – Yiddi Cappe, Hunter Greene
T-Minus 3 ... 2 ... 1 (1) – Nolan Arenado
The Rookies (1) – Ha-Seong Kim

Autographs/memorabilia: 1
Retro 1987 Rookie Signatures (1) – Spencer Howard

What's Buzz-worthy: I got a box that certainly wasn't the norm with an autograph but the other all feeling I was left with on this box was from its retail SRP sticker price of $35. (I had thought it was $30 ... but no.) Even with the ink it felt rough and basically the same as last year while costing more. The lineup here is basically about the basics with some Pink parallels only found here in a separate pack. There are, as always, a number of subsets to mix things up but I think some type of more-dramatic improvements or dramatically different inclusions should come with any price hikes. But that's just my gut feeling here. My overall RC volume here was less than half of my blaster last year but I did land a couple of Rated Prospect inserts and Rated Rookies among my parallels. One quirk that made me notice another in this box? All but one of my standard cards were blue in this box ... and I noticed there but throughout that the photos are too repetitious -- why is every photo a full-body shot? (Photo variety would help out a ton here ... Imagine more base card photos like the image for the Howard card mixed in ... makes a big difference.) If you're a long-time Optic baseball ripper then this one perhaps felt on-par with past releases. For me, I just expected a little more this time.

Product Grade: B
Box Grade: B+ (ink not in every box ... without it very likely an average box)
Fun Grade: B

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