Hi, publish0x folks!

I am pretty much new here. Recently I’ve started playing Sorare and because of that the amount of Sorare related information I consume has become bigger. Just yesterday, I encountered a post here, but it has comments disabled, so I was encouraged to write my own “answer” to that. I am grateful to all authors, who share and popularize this platform and blockchain games in total, since as it grows it becomes more and more interesting to play. Most reviews and intros are holding away or missing some minor part of information which you should be aware of, before you invest your time and money into Sorare.

This article is mainly my personal pain points and errors. I am aiming it for a players, who actually want to start playing on a budget and not that deep into football (soccer).

Time is an issue 

When you create your account, you get a short wizard-like tutorial on how to play and get your free common cards. These cards are not on blockchain, so those could not be traded and can be used only in Starter League Rookie. If you are registering on Tuesday or Friday, it is possible (with small chance, but anyway) that your tutorial crew might be enrolled in the first play week, so I would not advise you to register on those days.

Free as free speech, not as free beer

Why is enrolling in a game week so important? Most articles and youtube videos you see, say “You can create an account and play the game for free”, but only some of them rarely mention that free play - or Starter League Rookie is only available for 8 games.

Since Rookie games are such a limited resource, I would not spend it on experiments & tutorials, but plan ahead. The only way you could continue playing after 8 rookie weeks are gone is to invest money or crypto into the game. What happens after you played your 8 free games - you either sit in training and earn XP for your crew or your invest your money and buy required cards to continue.

Choose not favourite, but best options

During your registration, you will be asked to select your favourite teams. There are several different leagues in Sorare where you can play. Only one - Global All Stars comes with monetary prizes, but all of them allow you to win tradable cards. Before you do your selection, try to find out which region you would like to play: America, Asia or Europe. It is better to select all three “favourite” teams from one of the regions, since your first common cards will depend on it. 

Do your prior research

Before you register, check out which teams in your favourite region/league do have a star goalkeeper. For example, I’ve selected CSKA, because I've read an article on Russian Premier League and he was “upvoted” by most of the interviewed professionals. Another option I discovered there was Safonov, a young player from Krasnodar.

Another expensive position to fill is forward. So, for RPL i’ve checked the top 10 and found a name belonging to CSKA. There was a Krasnodar player as well, Markus Berg - but he is no longer listed in the team for this season. It is important to check do players have their cards in Sorare, because there are only 142 clubs. So CSKA was my initial choice. As well, I’ve found that in the top 10 there are 3 Spartak players, so I decided on choosing Spartak as my second favourite.

I didn’t know where to look, so I’ve selected Ajax as my third option, just because I wanted to diversify my risks, but didn’t want to go outside Europe. Probably, better choices would be Bayern Munich or Liverpool, mainly because it is easier to follow local news in German & English, than Dutch. But, I clicked Ajax just to get on board sooner and I was in. 

Your common pulls matter a lot

When you just start, I understand your desire to jump straight away, plug into auctioning & buying cards from other sellers.

But stop it right there. First, you need to evaluate your common cards. I use 3 sources for that: SorareData, SofaScore & TransferMarket. Even Sorare search can be useful, just to find out is player still earning you points taking his recent career changes.

• 1) SorareData has information on overall player performance, is it starter, how many points did it win for last 5/15/40 games on average. As well, you can see player stats - how many minutes does he play.
• 2) SofaScore - gives detailed information about player game: time spent, goals, passes and stuff. 
• 3) TransferMarket has information on player price, injuries and team movements, like being on loan. 

Using this information, you can probably build a plan for yourself, which games you would like to enroll your players in. Starter league gives you an opportunity (3 of 10k chance) to win a rare card. Do not risk losing it by putting a player that is scheduled for bench or away due to an injury. 

Group your cards based on their value and role and verify which weeks you could play. 

Resist the temptation to play

Each player scheduled in game week and playing in a league in special training is getting XP. XP gives a certain bonus to points won. It is tempting to put your first rare in your Rookie lineup, but most probably he would not score that much as your star Common card. Both cards will get same amount of XP even if one of them is in Special Training team. So resist temptation to put a rare player just to play, start with putting them into training and reevaluate your lineup later. 

Resist the temptation to spend money

Even if you bought your ETH back in 2016 and paid less than 300 USD, it is worth evaluating each purchase you do. When you register using someone's affiliate link (I’ve used mine in this article) you should see a special progress bar. It will encourage you to participate in auctions to purchase players cards. Be aware that usually auction cards are worth more than the secondary market cards, since they are bought for the purpose of Bonus Card redemption. Do not try to hit first possible players, evaluate what you need the most. 

Auction has a sniping protection, when you put your bid it will go up to 1 min, so if you are trying to snatch someone’s favourite, don’t wait till 3 seconds before cut off, place your bid 1 min 1 sec before auction ends for another sniper to not get your target card. 

Auction has no flexible step system, like eBay does. If you put 0.1 ETH on a 0.03 priced card it will become 0.1 ETH straight away. Auction always requires at least 10% price increase.

Famous last words

Let me finish my story here, but I am open to comments and willing to help and support you. 

Now it is probably the best time to join! Today, Sorare started to mint player cards of new scarcity - Limited.

Those are 1 of 1000 per season and they are meant to give an cheap way to play. If you use an affiliate link before August, 21st, 2021, you still will get a Rare card (1 of 100 per season) when you purchase your 5 cards from auctions. After August, 21st - registration reward will be a Limited (1 of 1000 per season) Card. 

If you feel adventurous to subscribe using my link - please, let me know and let’s keep in touch. Feel free to follow me here, on Sorare or ping me using Sorare discord.