2026 Topps Cosmic Chrome Baseball Review: Planetary Pursuit, Mars Attacks and the Honest Box Math
Counter Talk · Set Review
I am not going to pretend. I am hyped for this one.
Last year Cosmic Chrome Football showed what happens when Topps builds a product around a collecting idea instead of a checklist. Planetary Pursuit turned a box break into a mission. Now the concept comes back in baseball, and baseball has the names to carry it: Shohei Ohtani on all ten planets, Aaron Judge, Paul Skenes, Bobby Witt Jr., Juan Soto, and a rookie class with Roman Anthony, Konnor Griffin, Kevin McGonigle, JJ Wetherholt and Munetaka Murakami in the solar system.
Can it get better? Yes. Mars Attacks. Topps crosses its old sci-fi brand into MLB. Nobody needs a Mars Attacks set. And yet it is somehow exactly the kind of card that makes you grin when it falls out of a pack. And somewhere in the cases sit cut signatures of Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Neil Armstrong. In a baseball product.
Same as in football: this is not a box-hit product. Autos are the bonus. The reason to open Cosmic Chrome is the solar system and the SSPs.
2026 Topps Cosmic Chrome Baseball Hobby Box
Quick Verdict
The most fun baseball product of the year if you like inserts, planets and stars. Not the box for auto hunters.
Planetary Pursuit Sun · Bobby Witt Jr. · Mars Attacks MLB · Paul Skenes · Cosmic Dust · Shohei Ohtani
Before We Get Into It: The Honest Context
The presale sold out in the middle of the postseason. That is when baseball is loudest, when every swing moves a card. The boxes ship on November 4. By then the season is over and the offseason starts. The hype peaks now, the product lands after. Keep that in mind when you see presale prices on the secondary market.
Price is the good news for once. Topps EU listed the Hobby box at 505 € with a limit of two per cart. Inside the EU that is the landed price, no import tax, no customs surprise. For comparison: Cosmic Chrome Football cost us around 750 to 800 € landed. Baseball comes in a lot cheaper for the same 80 cards.
And Topps published the full odds sheet a month before release. That is how it should always be. Every number in this review comes from that sheet.
Product at a Glance
| Detail | Spec |
|---|---|
| Release date | November 4, 2026 |
| Configuration | 4 cards × 20 packs = 80 cards per Hobby box |
| Boxes per case | 8 |
| Base set | 200 cards, 77 of them rookies |
| Guaranteed | 1 Nucleus Refractor per Hobby box |
| Autographs | Not guaranteed, about 1 every 2.7 boxes |
| Lunar boxes | About 150 worldwide, hidden among Hobby boxes |
| New this year | Magenta Cosmos Refractor /299, Forces of the Diamond, Mars Attacks MLB, Stellar Stars, Cosmic Explorers Cut Signatures |
| Topps EU price | 505 € (limit 2, sold out in presale) |
Lunar: The Box You Cannot Buy
Lunar is not a format you order. You open a normal Hobby box and the packs say Lunar instead of 2026. Then you are holding one of about 150 boxes worldwide, and every single pack carries a numbered card /10 or lower.
- Base Lunar Eclipse falls 1:2 packs. The Lunar Eclipse versions of the inserts and autos exist only here.
- Supernova jumps from 1:1,214 Hobby packs to 1:77 in Lunar.
- Planetary Pursuit, Mars Attacks, Cosmic Dust, Planetarium and Starfractor stay at the same odds as in Hobby.
Parallel Rainbow
- Refractor 1:10
- Nucleus 1:20
- Magenta Cosmos /299 1:25
- Aqua Equinox 1:38
- White Hole 1:40
- Purple Nebula 1:50
- Blue Moon 1:76
- Green Space Dust 1:101
- Gold Interstellar 1:151
- Orange Galactic 1:303
- Black Eclipse 1:757
- Lunar Eclipse (Lunar only) 1:2
- Red Flare 1:1,513
- Superfractor 1/1 1:7,567
Fourteen stops on the base card, odds per Hobby pack. The new Magenta Cosmos is numbered to 299 and falls more often than the White Hole. That is the kind of detail you only see when Topps publishes the full sheet. A Magenta is a nice pull. It is not a rare one.
Jac Caglianone /299 · Jacob Misiorowski Gold · Cam Schlittler base
Planetary Pursuit: Still the Best Insert Concept in the Hobby
Ten players, ten cards each, one for every body from the Sun to Pluto. The further out, the rarer. You are not chasing an insert. You are chasing a solar system. In football it was the reason to buy. In baseball it is even better, because the ten names are the right ten names.
The ten: Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, Bobby Witt Jr., Paul Skenes, plus the rookies Roman Anthony, Munetaka Murakami, Konnor Griffin, Kevin McGonigle and JJ Wetherholt.
Planetary Pursuit Sun · Bobby Witt Jr. · Planetary Pursuit Jupiter · Munetaka Murakami
Every planet counts as SSP in our checklist, the Sun included. The Sun is the most common planet, but it is still part of the Planetary Pursuit chase, and nobody builds a solar system without it.
Cosmic Explorers: Albert Einstein in a Baseball Box
Seventeen cut signatures of astronauts and scientists: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Carl Sagan, Edwin Hubble, Niels Bohr, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. In a baseball product. The odds are 1:85,901 Hobby packs, about one in every 4,295 boxes or 537 cases. Nobody in Europe will pull one this year, and that is fine. It is the most absurd and most charming chase card of 2026, and the moment it surfaces somewhere, the whole hobby will talk about it.
Mars Attacks MLB: The Crossover Nobody Asked For
Ten cards. 1:1,513 Hobby packs, so about one every 76 boxes or one every nine and a half cases. Roman Anthony, Jac Caglianone, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuña Jr., Pete Crow-Armstrong, Paul Skenes, Konnor Griffin, JJ Wetherholt and Kevin McGonigle.
Is this a marketing stunt to remind you that a Mars Attacks set exists? Of course it is. Does anybody need it? No. Would I still rip a case for a Skenes Mars Attacks? Probably. That is the whole trick, and it works on me too.
The Case Hits
| Insert | Cards | Hobby odds | About one per |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cosmic Explorers Cut Signatures | 17 | 1:85,901 | 4,295 boxes |
| Mars Attacks MLB | 10 | 1:1,513 | 76 boxes |
| Supernova | 25 | 1:1,214 (Lunar 1:77) | 61 boxes |
| Planetarium | 25 | 1:961 | 48 boxes |
| Anti-Gravity Variation | 25 | 1:961 | 48 boxes |
| Cosmic Dust | 25 | 1:606 | 30 boxes |
| Constellation Variation | 25 | 1:605 | 30 boxes |
| Starfractor | 100 | 1:282 | 14 boxes |
| Planetary Pursuit | 100 | Sun 1:120 to Pluto 1:28,000 | 6 to 1,400 boxes |
Cosmic Dust · Shohei Ohtani · Forces of the Diamond · Derek Jeter · Stellar Stars · Roman Anthony
Ohtani Everywhere, and the Crow-Armstrong Gap
Ohtani is on all ten planets, Mars Attacks, Cosmic Dust, Supernova, Planetarium, the Anti-Gravity and Constellation Variations, Starfractor, Dual and Triple Star Clusters, and three autograph sets, including a dual auto with Ichiro. If you collect Ohtani, this product was built for you.
Pete Crow-Armstrong is in the NL MVP conversation and the name I wanted to see everywhere. He is in, but not everywhere: Mars Attacks, Constellation Variation, Planetarium, Starfractor, a Dual Star Cluster with Alex Bregman and the Launched Into Orbit autograph. No Planetary Pursuit, no Cosmic Dust, no Supernova. If you were hoping for a PCA Pluto, there is none. The Mars Attacks PCA is the card to chase.
Premium Chase by Team
Counting Planetary Pursuit (all ten planets per player), Mars Attacks (MA), Cosmic Dust (CD), Supernova (SN), Anti-Gravity (AG), Planetarium (PL), Constellation Variation (CV) and Starfractor (SF). Autos are all autograph cards for the team.
Autograph Checklist by Set
| Auto set | Key names | Hobby odds (base version) |
|---|---|---|
| Cosmic Chrome Autograph Variation | 58 cards, mostly rookies: Roman Anthony, Jac Caglianone, Konnor Griffin, Kevin McGonigle, JJ Wetherholt, Munetaka Murakami, Jacob Misiorowski, Nolan McLean, Trey Yesavage, Roki Sasaki | 1:136 |
| Extraterrestrial Talent Autograph Variation | Shohei Ohtani, Paul Skenes, Juan Soto, Bobby Witt Jr., Roman Anthony, Nick Kurtz, Jacob Misiorowski | 1:653 |
| Launched Into Orbit Autograph Variation | Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken Jr., Barry Bonds, Mike Trout, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Munetaka Murakami | 1:1,051 |
| Stellar Stars Autograph Variation | Paul Skenes, Mike Trout, Elly De La Cruz, Gunnar Henderson, Roman Anthony, Roki Sasaki, Yoshinobu Yamamoto | 1:1,622 |
| Star Clusters Dual Autographs | Ohtani / Ichiro, Bonds / Judge, Jeter / Rivera, Trout / Pujols, Witt Jr. / Caglianone | 1:15,535 |
| Cosmic Explorers Cut Signatures | Einstein, Newton, Armstrong, Aldrin, Sally Ride, Carl Sagan | 1:85,901 |
Design Report Card
Planetary Pursuit
Same idea as football, better cast. Ohtani, Judge, Skenes, Witt and Soto plus the five rookies everybody wants. A collecting mission with escalating rarity. This is what an insert set should be.
Cosmic Dust, Planetarium, Anti-Gravity, Constellation
Four case hit layers, each with 25 cards, each with the stars and the right rookies. The cards look strong. Plenty to chase without a single auto in the box.
Cosmic Explorers Cut Signatures
Einstein, Newton and the Apollo crews in a baseball product. Unpullable for almost everyone, unforgettable for the one who does.
Mars Attacks MLB
Nobody needs it. Everybody will want the Skenes. A cross promo for another Topps brand, done well enough that I do not mind being marketed to.
Forces of the Diamond and Stellar Stars
Solid new inserts at 1:8 packs, about two and a half per box each. Forces of the Diamond brings Jeter, Ripken, Gehrig, Honus Wagner and Jackie Robinson. Good box filler with real names.
Autograph program
Good names in the variation sets, and the Ohtani and Ichiro dual is a monster card. The base auto set leans on depth rookies. A bonus, not the reason to buy.
Top 5 Break Spots
The only team with two Planetary Pursuit players. Skenes and Griffin are in Mars Attacks and every case hit layer. 35 premium cards, the deepest slot in the product.
Ohtani in everything plus the most autos of any team (13). The safest high-end spot.
Soto on the planets, two rookies across the case hits, 12 autos. Better value than the Dodgers.
Witt on the planets, Caglianone in Mars Attacks and every case hit, plus their dual auto.
Judge everywhere including Mars Attacks, Schlittler in Cosmic Dust and Constellation. The Bonds and Judge dual auto sits partly here.
Bottom 5 Break Spots
Minnesota Twins (Buxton Starfractor only), Colorado Rockies (Dollander Starfractor only), Houston Astros, Miami Marlins and Texas Rangers. None of them has a single Planetary Pursuit, Mars Attacks or Cosmic Dust card. Only buy these as cheap spots and for the base and parallels.
Who Should Buy
| Collector type | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Planet chasers and set builders | Yes. This is your product. Start with the Sun and Mercury of your player and build outward. |
| Ohtani, Judge or Skenes PC | Buy singles. Every one of them is spread over 15 or more cards. |
| Auto hunters | Not your box. Buy the auto you want as a single. |
| Breakers | Pirates, Dodgers, Mets, Royals and Yankees carry the chase. Price the bottom five accordingly. |
| Everybody | Check the packs. If they say Lunar, you are holding one of about 150 boxes worldwide. |
Final Rating
The Bottom Line
Planets: best in the hobby. Names: the best ten you could pick. Mars Attacks: unnecessary and great. Einstein: in the box, in theory.
Football showed that Planetary Pursuit works. Baseball shows what it looks like with a cast that does not need a draft class to sell it. Ohtani on Pluto is a real card. A Skenes Mars Attacks is a real card. This is a collector's product, and that is exactly why I am excited.
505 € buys you 80 cards, one Nucleus, a real shot at the Sun and the small chance that your packs say Lunar. Chase the solar system. Do not chase the hit.
Buy the card because you want it, not because everyone else does.
Full set, every planet and every odds line: 2026 Topps Cosmic Chrome Baseball Checklist · Last year in football: 2025 Topps Cosmic Chrome Football Review
Cosmic Chrome Baseball lands November 4. Singles from the set go live in the shop as soon as they are scanned.
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