Ilia Topuria's China-Market Cards: Lucky Envelopes, Lucky Red and Lucky Gold
We have catalogued 8 Ilia Topuria cards from the «Lucky» family, the one born for the Chinese market, across 5 sets: Panini's Lucky Envelopes /8 and the Lucky Red and Lucky Gold from the 2023 Goodwin Champions China blaster. 6 have a photo of the real copy.
These are two different families sharing one word, Lucky. Upper Deck's come from a blaster made for China; Panini's, from a box of their own with usually two cards, numbered /8, a format born for the Chinese store Tmall. According to the shops that sold them, none comes out of regular hobby boxes, so they rarely show up in the Western market: we have recorded 18 confirmed sales, and two of them we have never seen at all.
Lucky Envelopes: Panini's two-card box
What they are: official parallels numbered /8. Panini lists them as «Lucky Envelopes» in its checklists for UFC Prizm, Select and Donruss Optic.
Born for the Chinese market: GTS, an official Panini distributor, sold the 2019-20 «Select Basketball Tmall Edition Lucky Envelopes Box» (Tmall is Alibaba's online store): one pack with two exclusive /8 cards. In UFC, the 2021 Select box, with no Ilia Topuria cards, was sold as a «Tmall Edition» in the «International Exclusives» category at Blowout Cards: one two-card pack (secondary source).
Ilia Topuria's: the 2022 Donruss Optic UFC box carries Panini's Chinese logo, 帕尼尼, and is presented as an Asia exclusive in a UFC Breaks video (secondary source). We have found no trace of the 2022 Prizm and Select boxes. The 2023 Prizm box was also sold by a US shop, DA Card World, as a ten-pack box with two /8s in each (secondary source).
The name refers to the red envelopes given in China for good luck, according to the sales copy of Monmouth Cards (secondary source); Panini has not explained it.
How to spot them: neither the front nor the back says «Lucky», so the finish and the print run give them away.
Prizm: a silver, iridescent checkerboard. On our copies the print run sits top left on the back in 2022 (4/8) and at the bottom in 2023 (5/8). Do not mistake it for the Octagon /8, a mesh of octagons.
Select: gold triangles in Concourse, silver in Premier Level and Octagonside.
Donruss Optic: diagonal stripes and triangles.
The 帕尼尼 in the back's fine print is no clue: every Panini card carries it.
No odds: Panini does not publish how many packs it takes per fighter. What is known is the print run: eight copies of each in the world.
2022 Prizm, #115 /8, with the RC logo. Its number also has an Octagon /8.
2022 Select, Concourse #23 /8: the gold one of the family. It is not the Gold /10, which is plain gold, nor the Gold Disco (circles) nor the Gold Flash (rays). eBay links its only recorded sale to its Lucky Envelopes /8 product page.
2022 Select, Octagonside #262 /8: we have never seen one. Its number also has a Cracked Ice /8.
2022 Donruss Optic, Rated Rookie #110 /8: never seen either, although PSA has graded at least one.
2023 Prizm, #167 /8, alongside the Octagon, also /8.
Lucky Red and Lucky Gold: the 2023 Goodwin Champions China blaster
Three blasters, three bonus packs: the North American one brings four Turquoise, the Mega four Orange and the China blaster four Lucky Red from base 1–100. The China blaster also brings the Platinum Lucky Gold at 1:24 packs. That comes from Checklistcenter, a secondary source. Upper Deck's official sell sheet is for the North American edition: it does not mention China, and names the Lucky Red only in the caption of an image that actually shows a Turquoise.
The proof is on the back: on our copies, the bio on the Lucky Red and the Lucky Golds is in Chinese, while on the Turquoise, Orange and Neon Green it is in English; name, measurements and set stay in English. In the Chinese text his surname is written 托普里亚. And the parallel is printed, «LUCKY RED» or «RAINBOW LUCKY GOLD», whereas the Orange and the Turquoise carry no such line.
Base #73, Lucky Red: with the word ROOKIE, and on the back his lightweight debut, the KO of Jai Herbert on 19 March 2022 that took his record to 12-0. With four per bonus pack among 100 cards, Ilia Topuria's turns up on average in one of every 25 China blasters: our estimate.
Platinum #P49, Rainbow Lucky Gold: the chrome, gold version, with the same text. At 1:24 among the 100 Platinum cards, Ilia Topuria's comes out once every 2,400 packs: our estimate.
Platinum Splash of Color #SCP-89, Rainbow Lucky Gold: same odds, because Checklistcenter counts SCP-76 to SCP-100 among the 100 Platinum cards; our copy confirms it. Its back tells another fight: the submission of Bryce Mitchell on 10 December 2022 (UFC 282), which took his record to 13-0.
They are not numbered: their scarcity is the box, not the print run.
What gets mixed up
Lucky Gold is not Gold: it is a parallel of its own from the China blaster. And the other way round: Select Concourse's Lucky Envelopes is gold, but it is not the Gold /10.
Panini's are numbered (/8) and Goodwin's are not: with the Lucky cards, the print run does not tell you which is harder.
Ilia Topuria's other cards that come from a single box are in the format exclusives; all of these except the 2023 Prizm are also among his rookies.
How to read this list
2 cards carry an AI-recreated image: we have never seen the copy.
Odds apply to any fighter on the checklist: Ilia Topuria's specific card comes out many times less often.