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As fans flock to Iowa for another Field of Dreams game, Diamond Dynasty gets a new program built with players to make Phillies and Twins fans come home to their controllers.
Field of Dreams Program Rains Legendary Red Diamonds
One of MLB's signature events — the MLB at Field of Dreams game, which this year brings the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins to the field in Dyersville, Iowa that is meant to mimic the one built in the 1989 movie of the same name — is back this Thursday night after a three-year hiatus, and it's being celebrated with the new Field of Dreams program in Diamond Dynasty.
If you're a fan of either the Phillies or Twins, this is great news for you, as the program is topped by legends from both squads that will play between the lines and the stalks. And if you like high-OVR Red Diamond cards, there are plenty of those, too, from the teams that have played in the showcase over time.
The program's crown jewels are 99 OVR Roy Halladay and Torii Hunter, and they're predictably very, very good. Halladay's repertoire of stuff that moves but does not blow away batters with velocity is well-represented on his card, with three of his five pitches — the cutter, sinker, and curveball — coming in with 99 Break and really good stats against righties (if somewhat less good ones against lefties). Hunter is another in a recent spate of excellent defensive center fielders, and while he's maybe not quite on par with Andruw Jones or Carlos Beltran, he's close — and free.
Every Field of Dreams Series player is, actually, from the Ryne Sandberg a couple rungs below Hunter on the XP reward path down to the Whitey Ford that comes just after the stadium itself on the list, and in total there are six 98 or 99 OVR cards here, with the 100 Stars needed to nab Halladay effectively available as a one-shot deal from the Field of Dreams Conquest map, a cornstalk-shaped board that does have 12 Strongholds to capture. There are 100 Stars in the non-Conquest program missions, too, but they require winning a couple of three-inning games disguised as Moments, doing the six individual Moments featuring each player, and also knocking out some stat-based stuff with Phillies, Twins, Legends, and Flashbacks; if you don't mind Conquest, it's clearly the better way to go about getting things done here.
Running parallel to the program itself is the Field of Dreams Event Program, which throws players on the field and requires Cubs, Phillies, Reds, Twins, White Sox, and Yankees players as team construction. There's another pair of Phillies and Twins legends — Robin Roberts and Harmon Killebrew — on the program's reward path, and Killebrew especially is worth the multiplayer grind, with some great pop (121/110 R/L) in his bat. That Event and its reward path will be available through Tuesday, August 18 at 3 p.m. Eastern.
August Spotlight Drop 1 Mixes Things Up
The other regular content drop of this week so far in Diamond Dynasty is the first bit of the August Spotlight Program, whose Drop 1 addresses Spotlight's struggle to include big-name players by reaching to a different program for help.
That comes in the form of Twins prospect Kaelen Culpepper getting an MLB Pipeline Series card to reflect his call-up to the big leagues, rather than the Topps Now card that would usually be in its place on the Drop reward path. It's not a major shakeup, but it does marginally reduce the seemingly endless number of Topps Now cards DD must integrate to make it Spotlight work, and could open up some flexibility for players to get cards for other Series in Spotlight Drops, which could make Collections marginally easier to complete.
Culpepper might not be the most exciting card in the Drop, but he's good, as a shortstop with secondary eligibility at second and third, and players will obviously see a lot of him in the Event. But it's also no shame for him to be the runner-up to Jefry Yan, the Mets' electrifying, leaping reliever, who has 125s in three major pitching attributes and 120 Clutch. It's unclear whether Yan will, in fact, cavort and dance after strikeouts like he does in reality, but his card is plenty exciting on paper regardless of whether his joy is fully reproduced.
The actual Spotlight cards in this Drop, meanwhile, are fairly underwhemling: Angel Genao is the free one, and his card has a lot of green, but he's duplicative of Jose Ramirez in so many ways that Guardians fans might be right to be miffed; the Pack players are Ryan Weathers, an uninspiring starter outclassed by many other Yankees options, and Alec Burleson, who is a typically good lefty bat with little else to recommend him and middling defense that will absolutely not translate to his secondary corner outfield positions.
