Results: What is your favourite set, set costing below $40 and minifigure of 2020?

Surprised by the minifig results. Orange Spaceman is a pretty boring minifig. They could have made him 20 years ago.
Baby Yoda is cool, but the torso print is pretty bad and he doesn't have a lot going on.
I didn't like the Ahsoka minifig because of the weird glassy eyes (she should have human eyes) and the print on the Lekku mould being too high and weirdly shaped.
Would have been fine with Captain Redbeard winning.

I didn't vote for the 501st Battle Pack, but I was secretly rooting for it. Was expecting it to place pretty high, but I'm surprised to see it in 1st place on Brickset of all places.

Pirates of Barracuda Bay is definitely the worthy winner for the best set of 2020.

Personally don't agree on the under $40 set though, but then again not that big into Star Wars. Its a nice set just not what I would call the best $40 set. My pick was the 43177 Belle's Storybook as it was a great set in a new subtheme that I hope continues further from the 4 released last year and one released this month.

I love the Orange Spaceman fig don't get me wrong his a great minifigure but Mario was my pick, a controversial pick for sure as some don't see him as a figure. Redbeard is a great figure too from the best set of the year, had Mario not been on the list I would have voted Cpt Redbeard.

Well, I don't think Barracuda Bay's victory is surprising, but it really did run away with an awful lot of votes. As a fan from the 21st century with no real affection for Pirates as a theme, I wouldn't call it a personal favourite, but it is phenomenally well designed, intricate, ambitious and a credit to fan and professional designer. Congratulations!

501st Legion Clone Troopers, really people?!?!?

Wow the one I voted for actually won!! Go figure that never happens! Orange spaceman was awesome and is proudly a member of my classic space crew.

Spaceman and Star Wars... People are strange...

I'm kind of upset that the 501st 'battle pack' won, honestly. I'm one of the few people who actually dislike the set. I think it could have easily been downscaled by a substantial amount to make for a regular battle pack price point. And then the BARC and AT-RT would even be much more accurate as well! The two droids just seem unnecessary to me, they shouldn't just toss some greatly outnumbered battle droids into the big republic vehicle sets in my opinion. Either make them a serious threat or don't include them at all and give them their own army pack or battle vehicles sets. Seriously, it's been way too long since any separatist alliance army building sets were released (especially compared to all the republic stuff we've gotten instead). What was the last time we saw an actual vulture droid, a hailfire droid or a corporate alliance tank droid, just to name a few? (the answers are six, five and seven years respectively by the way)

I'm really surprised that the white baseplate didn't place on the under 40...

@mr_Fikou said:
"I'm kind of upset that the 501st 'battle pack' won, honestly. I'm one of the few people who actually dislike the set. I think it could have easily been downscaled by a substantial amount to make for a regular battle pack price point. And then the BARC and AT-RT would even be much more accurate as well! The two droids just seem unnecessary to me, they shouldn't just toss some greatly outnumbered battle droids into the big republic vehicle sets in my opinion. Either make them a serious threat or don't include them at all and give them their own army pack or battle vehicles sets. Seriously, it's been way too long since any separatist alliance army building sets were released (especially compared to all the republic stuff we've gotten instead). What was the last time we saw an actual vulture droid, a hailfire droid or a corporate alliance tank droid, just to name a few? (the answers are six, five and seven years respectively by the way)"

Personally I’m worried this will lead to the $15 battle packs getting the axe. Battle Packs were always a way for me as a kid to get a taste of what a wave had to offer since sets were always kinda pricey, so losing them because of this set would really kinda suck.

That and I don’t particularly appreciate the whole “spam hashtags to get what you want” way of doing things. I find if just de-rails conversations that otherwise aren’t related to it and eventually become annoying even if I agree with whatever the goal is.

Back to the topic on hand; good for the Orange Spaceman! The role I gave him for the space station was overseeing construction or the handling of energy crystals. Also glad to see Ahsoka so high up since that’s a character I was hoping to see again for a while.

A small follow-up to my rant about the 501st troopers that also lead me to the conclusion that the separatists get way too few sets:

After some more research, I've concluded that we've only had THREE separatists vehicles that can be used for army building (so one that you could get multiples of) in the last FIVE years (those being a homing spider droid, a droid gunship and the AAT from last year). The other separatist alliance vehicles from that time period (a whopping TWO in total, wow) were all things that canonically are one-of-a-kind items (general Grievous' starfighter and combat speeder) and thus aren't very usable for army building.
Now compare that to the republics statistics: in the last five years, they got 6 sets with vehicles that fit the army building description I explained above (the mini gunship from the clones & jedi battle pack, a clone turbo tank, an AT-AP and an AT-RT, and of course the oversized builds in the 501st set) , and 4 for unique one-of-a-kind vehicles (Anakin's starfighter and interceptor and Obi-Wan's starfighter and interceptor). Still not a lot, but it's exactly double the amount the poor seppies got...

Edit: Whoops, I totally skipped past Yoda's starfighter. That makes five once-only fighters on the republic side.

@mr_Fikou said:
"I'm kind of upset that the 501st 'battle pack' won, honestly. I'm one of the few people who actually dislike the set. I think it could have easily been downscaled by a substantial amount to make for a regular battle pack price point. And then the BARC and AT-RT would even be much more accurate as well! The two droids just seem unnecessary to me, they shouldn't just toss some greatly outnumbered battle droids into the big republic vehicle sets in my opinion. Either make them a serious threat or don't include them at all and give them their own army pack or battle vehicles sets. Seriously, it's been way too long since any separatist alliance army building sets were released (especially compared to all the republic stuff we've gotten instead). What was the last time we saw an actual vulture droid, a hailfire droid or a corporate alliance tank droid, just to name a few? (the answers are six, five and seven years respectively by the way)"

@mr_Fikou and anyone else complaining about 75280

There’s a difference between disliking LEGO’s choices and disliking the set. I agree that they didn’t need the droids, but I still like the set for what it is.

spaceperson Spaceperson SPACEPERSON!

(21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay is a very worthy winner! If you want a hit of classic pirates, do consider the half-the-pieces-half-the-price 31109 Pirate Ship!)

It's interesting that this is the second year in a row that a uniquely coloured spaceman won best minifig. Last year was Lenny, the pink classic spaceman.

@Slobrojoe said:
"There’s a difference between disliking LEGO’s choices and disliking the set. (...)
"

I agree, but I also dislike the vehicles because of their ridiculous size. And just for the minifigs, I don't think the set is worth its price tag. So therefore I still don't want it to win.

I still think the Piano should have won. It was very innovative. PoBB I think is just people speaking from nostalgia but I won't deny that it is a beautiful build. I still need to build both myself lol.
Also, the big sets this year were awesome!

I still can't comprehend how boring spaceman, looking just like the ones from prehistoric age, beats all the original, well-made, detailed minifigures. Nostalgiafriends are so cringe

@jalc_45 said:
"Do we have a name for the orange one? Just curious."
Nnenny.

Do a google image search for nnenn :-)

Remember it was 'favourite' not 'best'. A lot of factors play into people's favourites, namely nostalgia and fandom.

Calling my 2021 Winner prediction early:
Purple Spaceman

As a new LEGO enthusiast, this list is a great reference point for some great sets and minifigures that I need to check out. Thank you!

Breaking news: AFOLs like Classic Space!

I just wish I could get it without having to buy a £30 book I already have the first version of!

Redbeard tied with Baby Yoda but the Barracuda got 6x as many votes as the Razor Crest........

Something smells fishy, mateys

Not that I needed much, but this has convinced me to get Pirates of Barracuda Bay.

I just went back to look at the results from last year, and now I find this year’s results less surprising. Last year a large ideas set won best set and the Pink Spaceman won best minifigure.

However, IMO the fact that the Orange Spaceman only comes in an expensive book makes him less of a great minifigure than the ones that came in 70841.

Last year’s results:
https://brickset.com/article/48306/results-what-is-your-favourite-set-minifigure-and-theme-of-2019

Frankly, the comments are more entertaining than the article! It says 'favourite' people, not 'best'. Personally I voted for my favourite sets, not necessarily the ones I thought were the best. I would have voted for completely different sets in that case. I'm neither surprised by the results, nor upset. I don't get the butt-hurt?

seriously, the best minifig is the most boring undetailed cash grab ever. it has way less effort, intricacy and new parts than many of the others. Very disappointing imo.

@Phoenixio said:
"It's a bit weird to see the same voting distribution for 2nd place and onward in all three categories, but then Pirates of Baracuda Bay just get a thousand more votes? And there's 300 more vote total for that category than for the minifig, and a full 1000 more than for the set below 40... I suspect there might have been a campaign outside the website to instill votes for that set. Not that it doesn't deserve a win, but that's a bit of an intense lead."

It could just be that the $40 set and minifigure votes weren’t actually interesting
I looked at the nominations for both those and thought “meh nothing is particularly great” but Baracuda Bay was an instant vote for me- I doubt I am alone in that :)

@jalc_45 said:
" @SaggyCloud said:
"It's interesting that this is the second year in a row that a uniquely coloured spaceman won best minifig. Last year was Lenny, the pink classic spaceman."

Do we have a name for the orange one? Just curious."

I call him Renny, the black one Denny, and the red one is Penny. Got nothing for the green and light grey ones though.

@King_J said:
"Calling my 2021 Winner prediction early:
Purple Spaceman"

I would love a purple spaceman. I just hope the next spaceman won't be exclusive to an expensive book. I managed to get the book with Renny at half price, but I doubt that would happen again.
Also, I've noticed that some people seem to think that the love for classic space comes purely from nostalgia. I'm sure that a large part of it is nostalgia, but I don't think nostalgia alone is enough to keep something so popular.
I'm 18, so classic space more than twice as old as me. My nostalgia is mostly for Power Miners. But I still really like classic space (mostly the minifigures) because I find it very charming. I'm sure there are others like me.

@fakespacesquid said:
"Redbeard tied with Baby Yoda but the Barracuda got 6x as many votes as the Razor Crest........

Something smells fishy, mateys"

Well, there's a lot more to those sets than their figures. I voted for Barracuda Bay, but was close to voting for the Razor Crest. However, I have no interest in the figures from Barracuda Bay, other than Tattooga. The figures from the Razor Crest are much more interesting to me. I voted for the orange spaceman over both of them though.

@legoninjago69 said:
"seriously, the best minifig is the most boring undetailed cash grab ever. it has way less effort, intricacy and new parts than many of the others. Very disappointing imo."

As others have pointed out, we weren't voting for the best minifigure, we were voting for our favourite minifigure and the orange classic spaceman happened to be the favourite for most of us.

If only LEGO could release more Pirates sets... Not a full wave, but one set a year, as Modular Buildings or Winter Village set, or a "Classic Themes" line with one release a year based upon successful past themes such as Pirates, Western, Adventurers, Classic Space...

LEGO "could have made" Orange Spaceperson 40 years ago . . . but they didn't, and thus we've been waiting that long to have one! That's not exactly nostalgia - that is a heck of a lot of patience!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We need a proper Legacy theme.

Right now we've got Ninjago Legacy, and that's all well and good, but we could expand that even more.

Lots of people clamor and demand that LEGO brings back Classic Space or brings back BIONICLE or brings back Power Miners, but when they actually do revive an entire theme it never seems to work. BIONICLE G2 was a total flop, and the 2015-ish line of Pirates was forgotten almost instantly.

But that's not the case when they do one-off sets. Benny's Space Squad was a best seller, and as this article proves Barracuda Bay is one of the best received sets in history. The next line up of Ideas contains tributes to retro Castle and the 2004 Vikings theme.

It seems obvious to me that nostalgia makes a set or two of your favorite childhood theme a must-have, but full fledged line ups give too many options and are too costly to manage. If anyone from LEGO is reading, take a note from Barracuda Bay and *do more one-offs.* Don't bring back Power Miners, just remaster 8960. Don't bring back BIONICLE, just create a brick built bust of Tahu. So long as it is a tasteful and memorable tribute, w e ' l l e a t i t u p.

@MisterBrickster said:
"Breaking news: AFOLs like Classic Space!

I just wish I could get it without having to buy a £30 book I already have the first version of!"
I have both and thought that too. But in fact the 2020 edition is not just an expansion covering the intervening years and with a different minifigure. It’s a proper revision with some different pictures, the mistakes fixed and greater inclusivity/political correctness (depending on your point of view). I do recommend it even if you have the earlier one.

@Winklebob said:
" @jalc_45 said:
" @SaggyCloud said:
"It's interesting that this is the second year in a row that a uniquely coloured spaceman won best minifig. Last year was Lenny, the pink classic spaceman."

Do we have a name for the orange one? Just curious."

I call him Renny, the black one Denny, and the red one is Penny. Got nothing for the green and light grey ones though.

@King_J said:
"Calling my 2021 Winner prediction early:
Purple Spaceman"

I would love a purple spaceman. I just hope the next spaceman won't be exclusive to an expensive book. I managed to get the book with Renny at half price, but I doubt that would happen again.
Also, I've noticed that some people seem to think that the love for classic space comes purely from nostalgia. I'm sure that a large part of it is nostalgia, but I don't think nostalgia alone is enough to keep something so popular.
I'm 18, so classic space more than twice as old as me. My nostalgia is mostly for Power Miners. But I still really like classic space (mostly the minifigures) because I find it very charming. I'm sure there are others like me.

@fakespacesquid said:
"Redbeard tied with Baby Yoda but the Barracuda got 6x as many votes as the Razor Crest........

Something smells fishy, mateys"

Well, there's a lot more to those sets than their figures. I voted for Barracuda Bay, but was close to voting for the Razor Crest. However, I have no interest in the figures from Barracuda Bay, other than Tattooga. The figures from the Razor Crest are much more interesting to me. I voted for the orange spaceman over both of them though."

I realise it doesn’t fit the ‘-enny’ nomenclature but I’m calling my orange spaceman Krusty after a friend.

As for the red spaceman, he should definitely be called Knudsen. If that seems weird, Google ‘Knudsen’ and ‘Lego minifigure’.

Any future purple one has to be Dave, right? @PurpleDave

I really hope that LEGO gets the message that Classic Space is still popular and not just among AFOLs. I would love a set that was to Classic Space what Pirates of Barracuda Bay is to Pirates.

@Zander said:
"I really hope that LEGO gets the message that Classic Space is still popular and not just among AFOLs. I would love a set that was to Classic Space what Pirates of Barracuda Bay is to Pirates."

I'm also not quite old enough to own any Classic Space firsthand. I don't have a single set, and only a few minifigures. I was relatively unaware of it when I was young. I have no reason to be nostalgic for it.

And yet, I think Classic Space is the distilled essence of everything that was ever wonderful about Lego—the purest, sweetest, most perfect form of this toy that ever was, or ever will be, made. Idea Book 6000 was published before I was born, but when I leaf through it, I think "THIS is Lego." Everything I loved about my late 80s/early-90s Space was the reverberating echo of Classic Space.

So am I nostalgic? Oh heck yes. When 10000 Guarded Inn was announced, my reaction was, "give me my Galaxy Explorer next!" I've been waiting 20 years. 70816 was great. So was 70841. But I still want my Galaxy Explorer. Pirates of Barracuda Bay was the nicest love-note we've gotten from Lego in years, and I don't know how they could ever top it for Classic Space, but I sure hope they try.

Good grief! It was just a poll, not a contest. Nothing 'won'. The question was "What is your favorite...", not "What is the best...".

@GSR_MataNui said:
"I've said it before and I'll say it again. We need a proper Legacy theme.

Right now we've got Ninjago Legacy, and that's all well and good, but we could expand that even more.

Lots of people clamor and demand that LEGO brings back Classic Space or brings back BIONICLE or brings back Power Miners, but when they actually do revive an entire theme it never seems to work. BIONICLE G2 was a total flop, and the 2015-ish line of Pirates was forgotten almost instantly.

But that's not the case when they do one-off sets. Benny's Space Squad was a best seller, and as this article proves Barracuda Bay is one of the best received sets in history. The next line up of Ideas contains tributes to retro Castle and the 2004 Vikings theme.

It seems obvious to me that nostalgia makes a set or two of your favorite childhood theme a must-have, but full fledged line ups give too many options and are too costly to manage. If anyone from LEGO is reading, take a note from Barracuda Bay and *do more one-offs.* Don't bring back Power Miners, just remaster 8960. Don't bring back BIONICLE, just create a brick built bust of Tahu. So long as it is a tasteful and memorable tribute, w e ' l l e a t i t u p."

Encore! Encore! Like what that guy said! Lego Legacy: catchy name, tells exactly what it is. One year it is Classic Space, next is Castle, next is Pirates, next is Bionicles, next is Trains, next is Power Miners, next is Exo-Force, next is Vikings, next is Ultra-Agents... there are so many possibilities. As mentioned, one or maybe two (one large and one more affordable) set is manageable - and you only buy during the years when that theme is dear to you - not affecting too much your regular Lego buying. Usually companies pay good money for market research like that - here they get it for free!