2019-20 Upper Deck Series 2 Hockey

Upper Deck Series 2 arrived mid-season in 2019-20 as the second major release of that hockey calendar year, giving collectors a fresh look at established stars and a chance at rookie cards they might have missed in Series 1. Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, and Auston Matthews anchor the set, but the real pull for many was getting another crack at young talent. The set focuses heavily on current season performance and team composition, with plenty of photography from early campaign action. You get a solid mix of veterans and rising prospects, making it feel like a snapshot of where the league stood in February 2020. Parallels span the usual spectrum from commons to rare short prints, and the base card design is clean without being memorable. What separates this release is the Young Guns subset, which continues the tradition of rookie cards that collectors actually want to track down. The parallel tiers include Red, Blue, Black, and the ultra-rare Gold versions, with Black Ice parallels standing out as particularly difficult pulls. Both hobby and retail versions were available, but hobby boxes give you better odds at high-end parallels and hits. If you're chasing autographs, look for the UD Canvas Signatures insert line, though these are hit-or-miss in terms of player selection. The standard configuration is around 24 packs per box with eight cards per pack, so you're looking at a decent volume of cards to sort through. This product works best if you enjoy sorting through base sets and hunting parallels rather than relying on box breaks for immediate ROI. Retail buyers shouldn't expect much beyond base cards and maybe a few mid-tier parallels, so hobby is the play if you want real variance. It's solid for set collectors and anyone who wants to round out their collection of 2019-20 era cards without dropping money on premium products. Prices have settled to reasonable levels, making singles from this set fairly accessible compared to Series 1.