With enough time trends tend to emerge among products, and LEGO Star Wars is no exception. Recent information surrounding the summer wave has popped up which may shed some light on what to expect in the coming months.
Looking back to when 75159 Death Star was released in 2016, we can see that the presence of large playsets in the lineup was reignited. The following year there were no large playsets, but 75192 Millennium Falcon was released which was the largest, and most expensive, set at the time. As 2018 rolled around, a new subtheme was created – Master Builder Series (MBS) – and the trend was underway.
“The Master Builder Series models are large playsets and besides being complex builds they are characterized by having many play features and functions, interior details as well as a range of minifigures. Ultimate Collectors Series will remain highly detailed display models providing complex builds with a focus on authenticity and both Ultimate Collectors Series and Master Builder Series will continue as a way to highlight the unique characteristic of each style of model.”
The first inclusion in the new subtheme was 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City, and the difference was obvious. It was primarily an open concept model with numerous minifigures the likes of which were reminiscent of the Death Star. Retrospectively many fans would say that 75098 Assault on Hoth should have fallen into this subtheme instead, but the criteria of what counts as UCS is always up for debate.
Flash forward another year, and it was obvious that a trend had been established. Coming in the late summer wave of 2019 was 75252 Imperial Star Destroyer – another large, highly detailed, and expensive model. Subsequent releases of 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina last year and 75313 AT-AT in the past couple of weeks catch us up to the current day.
For the past six years then we have seen Playset → UCS → Playset → UCS → Playset → UCS. It has been a while since elementary school, but following the trend suggests that another Master Builder Series style set will be coming out this year. Thanks to Promobricks a price list for next year gives some validity to this possibility.
The set of interest is 75331 priced at $529.99. This is unlikely to be the correct final price as no other LEGO Star Wars set has been at this price point, but it is high enough to suggest that it could be an MBS. However, past MBS sets have been $349.99.
Your guess is as good as ours as to what the set could be, but we are tossing around a few possibilities. The clone factory on Kamino, Jedi Temple, or a Geonosis Arena scene are the most likely possibilities from the Prequel era. Of these, savvy fans are putting their money on the arena. The trend we have described has also been limited to the Original Trilogy thus far, so another installment from this era is probably more realistic.
While the easy go-to might be another large Hoth playset to go along with the other sets we are getting, a redesigned Endor bunker is where I am placing my bet.
Founder and owner of The Holo-Brick Archives, Kevin Downard maintains and curates the Database Catalog as a collecting resource for all fans and covers new product releases.
Getting in at the ground floor when the LEGO Star Wars theme first launched, Kevin has been collecting ever since. He is a self-proclaimed minifigure guru and has a passion for tracking down and cataloging every minifig variation – no matter how obscure. He has assisted Rebrickable and Bricklink in maintaining their set inventories, helped overhaul the rebelscum.com LEGO forum, and created the LSW Collector mobile app.
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