REVIEW: 2025 Topps All-Star Game (mega box)

A couple of weeks ago, I hosted a cheap group break over on my Discord that included two boxes:  a box of 2025 Topps All-Star Game and a blaster of 2024 Panini Prizm.  Today, I'm going to double-dip on the group break by using the box of 2025 Topps All-Star Game for a review on the blog!

2025 Topps All-Star Game (mega box):

Each mega box of 2025 Topps All-Star game comes with only four packs, though each pack contains 20 cards.  In the end, it comes out to 80 cards per mega box with (slightly) less pack wrapper garbage waste as compared to most boxes of this size.

As far as what to expect in a box, there are no guaranteed hits and only three insert sets (All-Star Game Greats, Homegrown Heroes, and Classic Swings).  The Homegrown Heroes are all Braves (since this year's All-Star game was held in Atlanta).  

Base:

The base design looks a lot like what a 2025 Topps Big League set would have looked like if Topps had produced such a set this year.  Actually, I'd describe this as "Big League with two changes."  First, the team logos have all been replaced with the appropriate National or American League logos.  Second, every card gets a ton of foil slapped across it in the form of the All-Star game logo.  Otherwise, it's basically Topps Big League.  Decent photography, career stats on the card backs, and a small write-up for each player.  It's worth noting that the checklist for the All-Star Game set is only 100 cards, with almost every subject either a star player or a rookie (because, of course, Topps has to cram as many rookies into every product as possible).  Our mega box produced 49 of the 100 base cards, so even with perfect collation, you'd still need three mega boxes to get the full set.  Ugh.

Parallels:

Our Mega Box produced a total of four parallels, basically one per pack.  We pulled three Rainbow Foil parallels (Sasaki, Wheeler, and Jobe).  

We also found one serially-numbered parallel, a Purple Foil of Adley Rutschman #13/75.  

That's a nice hit for the Orioles.  I kind of wish the colored parallels were a bit more common; the foil All-Star game logo looks much better with the colored backgrounds!  

Inserts:

As I mentioned earlier, the 2025 Topps All-Star set only contains three insert sets.  We pulled eight of the Hometowk Heroes set (a set of all Braves, both current and retired players):

We also pulled eight of the MLB All-Star Game Greats.

This is another set with both current and retired players, though at least here more than just Braves are represented.  The design is simple enough, but I like it quite a bit.  Unfortunately, all eight of our cards from this set were miscut (you can see the top of the star of the next card on the sheet at the bottom of all eight cards here).  There's no real excuse for Topps to be doing such shoddy work, especially at the price point of the mega boxes (nearly $60).

Finally, we pulled (you guessed it) eight of the Classic Swings cards as well.

For some reason, the Classic Swings set design reminds me of peak ESPN graphics back in the day.  I mean that as a sincere compliment, the Classic Swings set is my favorite insert out of the three options in the set!

Hits:

Although we weren't promised a hit of any sort, we did find a nice relic in our box of Matt Olson.

According to the card back, Olson's jersey is from the 2023 MLB All-Star Game.  That's a great change from the usual "this relic is not from any particular game, event, blah blah blah" that we usually get on cards like this.  

Overall, I give the 2025 Topps All-Star Game mega box the following rating:

Set Design:  C

Collation:  F

Opening Thrill:  C-

Overall:  D

From my perspective, this is a set that simply doesn't need to exist.  It's not offensive in any way (other than the miscut cards), but it's also not special enough to interest me much.  If Topps lowered the price to the cost of a blaster, then my view of the set would be quite a bit different, but under current pricing, this set is basically a foiled-up Big League set (and one of the best parts of Big League was that it didn't have foil)!  

Note:  I use "collation" as a category when I grade a box of cards on the blog. I gave this set an "F" for that category due to the eight miscut inserts.