Win £2-3k of prizes in the free-to-play Sorare Academy

Sponsored by Sorare

The Sorare Academy has now been running for five weeks and, last weekend, more than 3,500 of you entered teams. Head over there now to enter your team for the weekend before the 10am GMT Friday deadline and get a shot at one of 10 prizes.

Remember, we’re giving away around £2-3k-worth of prizes every weekend.

Here is last week’s winning team: congratulations JoeyM25! 

If you are interested in playing the full game, we’ve got some tips from guest blogger, McBrideAce. If not, feel free to ignore the rest of the article and just launch into the free game – a guide to which can be found below:

Fancy a crack at the full Sorare game?

McBrideAce has been a Sorare manager since June 2020 and has gradually built up his gallery to over 1,000 cards. He recently won one of the tournaments on the site and picked up none other than Lionel Messi.

Basics of buying cards

Cards can be bought from ‘new card auctions’ (minted by Sorare) or ‘manager sales’ on the site. You can purchase with Ethereum (a cryptocurrency) or with a credit/debit card linked to your account.

In the free-to-play Academy game we have removed the following bonuses for simplicity. But if you graduate to the main game, here are some things to be aware of. 

Each card has a bonus that impacts their score in tournaments. New cards carry a 5% season bonus and cards also get a ‘level bonus’ based on the card XP – experience points your players get for playing or training. 

If you have a team of five players, an extra 3% per card is 15% more points for your team. This can make the difference.

This is relevant to buying and selling. As the current season cards have a 5% bonus, they can often be easier to sell or trade. If someone has a smaller budget and is intending to buy and sell on, a lot of the time they favour a current season card.

One other thing to bear in mind is that if you buy a card from another manager the XP halves, impacting the level bonus. These fine margins can affect your performance in tournaments and can affect how easy it is to sell the card too.

Opportunities to buy

In my opinion, selling into demand (when someone is on top form) can be a good time to sell. Similarly, an opportune time to buy price-wise could be when someone is in poor form, at the end of his current season, or is injured or being rotated.

When players aren’t playing there is less demand – so you’re likely to get them for a good price – but this means there is also a risk that they don’t come back, get in the team, regain form or so on. Be careful with older players as they have less time left in their career or can struggle more with a serious injury.

The end of a season is also an interesting point to buy. Often demand and prices drop. Just be careful as transfer windows open because the 5% season bonus disappears when the player has a card minted for the next season. This means your lovely 7-8% bonus player becomes 2% or 3%, or 102-103 for a perfect score rather than 107 or 108. 

Final thoughts

Understanding the card bonuses and the nuances of the site will take time. Don’t rush in, avoid succumbing to FOMO and make sure you use the Sorare website to check prices. It can be hard but to make the most profit consider selling into demand or when someone is doing well, rather than dumping when their form drops or at the end of their season.

Here’s a checklist of factors to consider when buying and selling:

• Price – Has the player already risen a lot recently?
• Form – Has the player been playing well, average or injured?
• Card bonus – Is the card the current or previous season? How long is left in the season?
• Popularity – Does the player play for a big team, is he popular and collectible (like Messi!) or does his price just rely on good scores?
• Age – Good players under 23 can be very popular because they’ve got longer left in their careers and there are also under 23 only tournaments
• Card supply – How many cards exist for that card? Are they scarce or easily available?

Have fun and good luck with your trading!

And don’t forget to enter your team on the Academy for free, with a chance to win a card to start your trading journey. Make sure you don’t miss the 10am GMT Friday deadline.

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