Sorare.com | New Player Guide (Low ~30$ Budget)
Who is Sorare For ?
I can highly recommend giving the Sorare.com NFT Football Fantasy Game at least a try starting on a low-budget to everyone who follows Football (or NBA/MLB) and regularly watches matches. The fact that you have specific players that are of extra interest to you as they can help you earn real prize money really adds an extra dimension to it all. The time requirement is also very limited to just setting your line-up twice a week kind of similar to filling in a lottery ticket. There certainly is skill involved but also some luck and it's not mandatory to play the Pay2Win game in order to really be competitive for the top places.
Basic Idea Behind Sorare!
Sorare is a Fantasy Football game with a monetary interest where you own your players and are able to sell them. Twice a week you can enter your line-ups in different tournaments where you will get a score based on the performance of your players. You can earn prizes in ETH in case you reach a certain threshold (250 Points) or earn extra cards in case you finish in one of the spots where these come as a prize.
Supported Leagues!
Auctions & Manager Sales
In order to play in one of the tournaments, you need at least 5 players (1 Goalkeeper / 1 Defender / 1 Midfielder / 1 Attacker / 1 Extra ) The extra can be any on the 4 player types. These cards can be bought directly from Sorare as they put them up on auction each season based on the rarities. It is also possible to buy directly from players who are selling or to make them an offer.
Player XP and bonus %
When you buy a player from an auction, it by default will have a +5% bonus on its score. Each week players automatically get some XP which levels them up and players that you enter in a tournament get more XP. each time a player reaches the next level, the bonus % goes up with 0.5%. At the start, this goes very quickly but higher levels require a lot more XP.
IMPORTANT
Bonus % doesn't count in the Cap240 Leagues where you get to form a team with a maximum combined points of 240 based on their scores in the last 15 matches. When your team manages to score 250 points in total, you are sure to get a $ payout in ETH!
Each card has a season attached to it and at the start of a new season, players of which new cards are being minted get a -5% bonus decrease. This is a pay2win mechanic designed to make the new cards sold by Sorare more attractive especially at the start of the season since they can be leveled up quickly for the highest bonus % giving an edge over other players.
A mechanic of collections was also introduced recently where players get an extra bonus % based on how many cards of their team in that season you collected. This is another pay2win mechanic or it can benefit players who are fan of 1 specific team and all have players from that. These re the rules for collection bonus %
Different Tournaments & Academy
For each rarity of cards, there are different tournaments that can be entered. In order to enter, you simply need 5 player cards that can form an entire line-up. individual cards only can enter in 1 of the tournaments twice each week. You can enter in as many different tournaments that you are able to.
The most interesting especially for new players on a low budget is the Limited Cap 240 since no bonus points count there while it is very much possible to score 250 points regularly which earns 5$ in ETH each time. In the Academy, practice teams can be submitted so players level up faster and recently there was also a prize pool added to these. Everyone starts with 3 Academy teams and this can be increased to 8 by using sorare points that you earn by playing.
Starting in Limited Cap 240 League
The thing that make the Limited Cap 240 League the most attractive for new players is the fact that you can calculate the potential Return. (If you spent 30$ on a team that can be entered 40 times during a season, you only need to finish 6 times with 250 points or more in order to fully get the investment back)
Since Cap 240 was introduced, I regularly managed to reach this threshold also even winning some really valuable card prizes on top of the 5$ ETH.
With card prices that have come down a lot and bonuses not counting, I also now for the next season built a Rare Cap 240 Team (Link) which pays 50$ in ETH each time the 250 Threshold is reached. I'm highly looking forward to the new season to start putting these to good use and hopefully win some prize money
Sorare Card Prices Evolution
The entire crypto market has been in a bear mode in the past year and Sorare didn't escape this as the general interest in crypto and Play2Earn Gaming kind of went away. This makes it so that cards became a lot cheaper and actually affordable on a low-budget. Goalkeepers used to go for no less than 100€ when I started while right now you can pick some up for 10€ already.
The price history of players can be found on soraredata.com and from what it looks like, in July around the start of the season when a lot of new players come in, the prices generally seem to spike. It already can be seen a bit now in the average prices which have gone up slightly already.
Example Limited Cap 240 Team
Since bonus % doesn't count for Cap 240 Leagues, old cards are of equal utility value compared to new cards. You also need to make sure that you stay under the 240 cap which can be a struggle. It is possible to reach 250 points even if there is a player that didn't score any points. so technically it should be possible to form a team under 10$.
For just 24.32€, I quickly made a team that is capable to be played in the Cap 240 League just showing how affordable the prices are right now compared to the potential earnings. Warleson most likely will be #1 goalkeeper of Cercle and costs around 10€, when paying double you can get more certainty with someone like Koffi who is expected to be the #1 goalkeeper in Charleroi. Kayembe was one of the big transfers to Genk and I do expect him to get his place in the A-Squad. Ashimeru has a lot of confidence under Riemer and also should have his place in the team. Koita was not properly used last season and was mostly a substitute player. many players left and I think he will get another chance with a more offensive role. He already scored twice in one of their recent practice matches. Maertens is a certainty for OHL as their best midfielder and he plays everything unless he gets injured.
Free2Play Sorare
Sorare also has a free2play draft mode putting everyone on a level playing field with some Limited card prizes only for the top performers. So while you are able to take part without any cost, it also is unlikely to actually win something. Right now this is only the MLS but other leagues like EPL / Bundesliga will also have these Free2Play drafts. Right now it looks like over 40k players have entered with only the top 200 actually winning something.
Free Limited Card
Sorare does have a Referral Program with an incentive to sign-up with the link of someone as this will give you a free Limited card after buying 5 cards via cautions or from a Starter Pack in the first 30 days after signing up.
Sorare Economy Sustainability
The way these Play2Earn games always go is that enough new players need to come in in order to keep the prices up while the constant inflation of new player cards tends to push prices down. Skill for sure matters in this regard and it's advised to take profit on players that do very well as it rarely lasts while the other way around picking up players that are injured or benched can yield great returns in case they get back in the team and do well. I do expect a combination of more players entering the tournaments with the better player cards becoming more affordable. This will likely make it harder to win in all tournaments aside from the Cap240. It also remains the question how long they are going to be able to keep the capped prize payments in ETH up as the concept of buying a player once and using him for years to come doesn't tend to be scalable. So I also expect Cap 240 to eventually get more difficult requirements somehow.
Conclusion
Even without any earning aspect, Sorare really has given me a lot of fun last season and right now I would say is an excellent time to get in for those who are somewhat interested. A very limited budget already gives you a full team to submit in the Limited Cap 240 League where skill and knowledge certainly is a big factor. So plenty of fun for currently a small entry cost and the potential to actually make a profit is worth the gamble. I would however not bet the farm on this game and keep the investment to a point where it's ok in case it all becomes worthless.
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So if player retires, then what happens with its card?
It still has some value as players want it for their collection since it helps to increase that score for extra bonus %. Generally, you don't want to have players that retire. Near the end of their career, they tend to get cheaper and cheaper which offers an opportunity to build a cheap team with good performance.
The game does need a mechanic that prevents players to earn to infinity, even now With players lasting an entire career I doubt it's properly sustainable. All these things you have to watch out for when playing with the aim to make a profit. For these games it is always the case that not everyone can make a profit. Most players I would say get carried away with the Pay2Win aspect getting tempted to buy more expensive players to compete in the ranking instead of playing the value game.
The Cap 240 Tournaments are great for this if you are able to stick to thel as they give a fixed return and it easily can be calculated.
It won't have utility. There are some players like David Beckham (PSG card) where his card was turned into a Legend card which allows for utility in Legend leagues. But nothing conclusive at this moment.