<a href="https://www.si.com/collectibles/2025-26-topps-chrome-update-basketball-pre-order-details-early-look” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>2025-26 Topps Chrome Update Basketballwill be coming to The Hobby very shortly. There is a lot to be excited about this product: Debut Patches, Fanatical, Helix, and Image Variation Inserts. One of the chase cards that collectors should be extremely excited about is the Alter Ego Insert. The Alter Ego from Topps was introduced in 2025 in Topps Chrome Update Baseball. These cards depict athletes as superheroes or mythological creatures combined with their sport, and as super short-print card, they are very valuable in The Hobby.
The Alter Ego Insert comes as a base card or a superfractor. The base baseball Alter Ego had odds of one in 4,000 hobby packs, which will probably be close to the same with basketball. The top sale was the Shohei Ohtani Superfractor, which sold for $105,000, and his base, graded a nine by PSA, sold for $20,000. Aaron Judge’s base raw Alter Ego is selling for roughly $5,000 in today’s market. The baseball checklist consists of ten cards
Advertisement
Here’s a look and description of some of the basketball cards that will be pulled this year
The ten-card checklist includes two rookies and eight NBA superstars. Unlike most cards, where there are many different refractors with print runs, there will be the base and Superfractor. The two rookies are Kon Knueppel and Cooper Flagg, and the eight superstars are LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Victor Wembanyama, Nikola Jokic, Kevin Durant, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Ja Morant, and James Harden
Some of the artwork shows Durant as the Grim Reaper, Kon flying with hornets, and LeBron sitting on a throne as a king. It’s rare for someone born and raised in Maine to be the number one pick in the NBA and win rookie of the year. The Alter Ego artwork is spot on with Flagg’s card; instead of artwork relevant to his NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks, they went with a Maine-themed card. Flagg is larger than life and “The Maine Event” while standing on the coast with a lighthouse in the background. The lighthouse seems to depict the Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
Advertisement
Ja Morant is shown jumping through a flaming hoop and dunking over people. SGA is in a dark tunnel with samurai swords. The value of these cards is still to be determined, but they could be close to or more than baseball. People could argue that LeBron James has a market like Shohei Ohtani, but Ohtani’s career is not over yet, and he has an international fanbase
Topps announced it will sell unwrapped mega boxes of Topps Chrome Update Basketball to steer away scalpers. Hopefully, a lucky collector can pull some of these Alter Ego cards in those mega boxes
Today’s best reads
-
2018 Bowman Chrome Baseball Shohei Ohtani Superfractor Sells for $3.3 Million
-
PSA’s Most Graded Subjects For June: The Hobby’s Most-Graded Stars
-
Top 5 Justin Verlander Cards to Celebrate His Retirement Announcement and All-Star Nod
-
Will Ja Morant’s Card Market Return to Glory With The Portland Trail Blazers?
-
Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock Topps Dual Auto Sells for Record Price
This article was originally published on www.si.com/collectibles as Topps Chrome Update Basketball Alter Ego Inserts Are Worth the Chase
