Sorare NBA, the fantasy basketball game that will suck you into a black hole, and you won’t be able to live without it

Welcome to the Sorare Basketball blog

First, you should know that playing this game can end your social life and that you will end up knowing more about the NBA than David Thorpe himself.

If you are a basketball fan, of legal age and, for you, a screen is not a part of your laptop, you’ve come to the right place.

So make yourself comfortable because from now on I’ll start explaining what this game is all about with a brief Sorare NBA tutorial.

I’m not interested in your explanations…, I want to play Sorare NBA now!

If you’re not the type to read an instruction manual and your body is telling you not to beat around the bush, sign up for free here and receive a gift.

By registering via this link, you will a Limited card when you by 5 at auction.

Enter, satisfy your curiosity and wander around the platform. If you find yourself more astray than the people in the series Lost, come back here to continue reading.

What is Sorare NBA?

Sorare NBA is a fantasy basketball game, which – like in other fantasy sport games – you compete with players of your choice and, depending on their performance in real life, you obtain points that allow to you win prizes.

The only requirements to play are to be of legal age and want to have fun.

But there are special features that make Sorare NBA special:

The basketball players’ cards are virtual

In our digital world, we were late in taking advantage of technology to dispense with paper (although it is happening with money or newspapers) and our cards to make the leap to virtual.

So, your favourite NBA players’ cards are NFTs (non-fungible tokens) hosted on the Ethereum network, the world’s second most important cryptocurrency.

Are you digitally useless? Don’t worry if you don’t understand a thing about cryptocurrencies, because if you want to buy a card, you can do it with your credit card. The platform itself will act as a custodian, so you have full control of your players’ cards.

Just like the cards you have had in the past, these virtual cards can be bought, sold, collected and used to play Sorare NBA (where you can win prizes in further player cards).

Do you long for those little bits of cardboard that used to get folded and crumpled, not being able to go to bed without flicking through the NBA album of Jordan and co.? Then perhaps this game is not for you. Or is it?

They are rare

In general, the value of things is determined by the price someone is willing to pay for them. One of the things that makes that value go up is scarcity. The scarcer it is, the more valuable it is. One exception is intelligence, where things rather work the other way round…

In Sorare NBA, cards are issued in limited numbers, which makes some cards more valuable than others. A maximum of 5000 Limited cards (yellow), 1000 Rare cards (red), 100 Super Rare cards (blue) and 1 Unique card (purple) are issued (per player per season). The Common cards (grey) are not limited and are only valid for free play.

As you might expect, Unique cards are the most coveted, especially those of star players. To give you an idea, in the Sorare football game, on 30 January 2022 a whopping 265.10 ETH (around €690000) was paid for Erling Haaland’s unique card.

Who’s behind all of this?

Sorare was founded in 2019 in France and has been growing ever since. At the beginning it licensed the Belgian Football League, today it has agreements with the Spanish LaLiga, the German Bundesliga, as well as many others from various continents (MLS, J1 League, K1 League, etc). In total there are more than 300 clubs.

Over 2 million registered users in some 185 countries make the platform a consolidated and constantly growing site.

It also has the rights to MLB (Major League Baseball) and the NBA (National Basketball Association).

After closing its latest $680 million funding round a year ago, the company has reached a valuation of $4.3 billion.

Investors include Softbank and participation from Atomico, Bessemer Ventures, D1 Capital, Eurazeo, IVP and LionTree, as well as Benchmark, Accel and Headline. Famous faces from the world of sport are also involved, such as footballers Mbappe, Griezmann, Piqué and tennis player Serena Williams.

You could win some cash (or not)

In addition to the free competition, you can choose to participate in the Limited, Rare, Super Rare or Unique card leagues, where you can win cards of the same type or higher.

To do so, you will have to acquire the NFTs within the platform itself through auction (Sorare’s way of releasing new cards) or on the secondary market (where other users put theirs up for sale).

This opens up a range of options and strategies to grow your capital, either by winning prizes (cards) for doing well in the leagues or by trading (buying/selling) them. The typical “buy low, sell high”.

How does Sorare NBA work? Is it safe?

Although we have seen that there is a prestigious company behind this game, we always have a nagging worry that it might be a scam, especially given the bad reputation of projects that use cryptocurrencies.

You can rest assured. this is not a pyramid scheme or any such scam. If you decide to buy, you are acquiring NFTs that can be used to play fantasy basketball or simply collect them, and you can sell them at any time.

The players’ cards are yours

Every time you buy a player you are acquiring an NFT (non-fungible token). Without going into the technical details, the NFT is held by Sorare so that you can participate in their competitions. You can always take it out of the game and place it in a personal wallet. Therefore, you are its owner and the one that controls what is done with it.

NFT tokens can be used in a wide variety of ways, as, in addition to participating in Sorare’s own fantasy games, there are third-party games that also use them.

Not to mention the collector value they have. As they are unique and rare, they can become valuable to collectors over time, just like cardboard cards do. Who’s to say that in 10 years’ time your NFT isn’t wort a small fortune?

You’re in charge of the money too

In the game you can see the value of the cards in euros or in ETH (as you prefer). To deposit, simply take the card out of your wallet if it is in euros or transfer ETH to your Sorare wallet.

For now you can only withdraw in ETH, but don’t panic, there are free neobanks with rechargeable debit cards in ETH. So you can spend your money wherever you want. In the near future it will probably also be possible to withdraw directly in euros.

In any case, cryptocurrencies are here to stay, so you’d better get used to how they work before you get caught out…

The NBA fantasy game

It’s the axis around which the entire Sorare universe revolves and the most fun part. Getting into the shoes of an NBA coach is priceless and you will find out how you can spend hours and hours analysing players and teams to put together a winning quintet.

To get an idea before you start, here is a brief summary of the dynamics of the game.

Basketball players’ cards

As mentioned, there are 5 types of cards:

• Common that are grey (these are not NFTs, they are not rare, you receive them for free when you sign-up and they allow you to play without spending a penny and can make you win limited cards).
• Limited that are yellow. Each season a maximum of 5000 are issued of each player.
• Rare that are red. Each season a maximum of 1000 are issued of each player.
• Súper Rare that are blue. Each season a maximum of 100 are issued of each player
• Unique that are purple. Do I really have to explain this one?

When it comes to scoring, there is no difference between card types, except that each scarcity has an extra bonus ranging from 10% to 40%. Then there are the certain leagues that only allow one type of scarcity (although in some leagues 2 are combined).

Each card has the following data:

How do I get them?

As soon as you sign up (you only need an email address and phone number), you’ll be prompted to choose a card among 5 NBA stars.

You are then randomly assigned 19 more Commons, to reach a total of 20 players. Remember Common cards have no monetary value, they cannot be bought, sold or traded. You only receive them upon registration or as prizes.

The other, not Common cards (Limited, Rare, Very Rare and Unique) are obtained in one of four ways:

• Buying at new card auctions
• Buying in the transfer market
• Buying by making another player a private offer
• Free as a prize for your team’s ranking

Because it is the first season, once it is over, the cards can still be used in the game as long as the player continues to compete in the NBA. It doesn’t matter if he changes teams, his points will keep summing up even if the picture shows him in the previous club’s jersey.

If he leaves to play in another league, on the other hand, we will have to wait and see if he returns to the NBA or if Sorare signs up other basketball leagues in the future. Once the player retires, he will obviously no longer score in fantasy league and his value will be purely as a collector’s item.

What do they cost?

Whatever you wish to pay for them. No more, no less. However, as guidance I can say that Limited cards start at €0,5 at auction and Rares at €5. Of course, the price will depend on the points the player obtains on matchdays, the better he does, the more expensive his card will be.

In addition to the auctions, you can also buy cards on the secondary market. There, users set the prices of their NFTs. You can even send them a low offer and then haggle.

Be wary of suspiciously cheap cards. The players may be injured or be perpetual bench-warmers.

How do I reload my account?

You can do it in two ways:

• Depositing money (euros, dollars, pounds, etc) from your bank card or bank account.
• Transferring ETH to your Sorare account’s wallet.

Sorare NBA revolves around the Ethereum network as NFTs belong to this network. Therefore, their economy is based on this cryptocurrency. However, you can choose whether to visualise prices in ETH or in euros, for example. The platform automatically converts.

How are players scored?

As with all fantasy games, player scores are calculated based on the actual statistics of each player in their respective games. Below I’ll show you the scoring table:

Acción	Puntos
Points	1
Rebounds	1,2
Assists	1,5
Screens	3
Steal	3
Ball loss	-2
Triples	1
Double-double	1
Triple-double	1

If a player has more than one match in a Game Week, his highest score is tallied.

Game Weeks

Sorare NBA uses a two-weekly schedule running from Monday to Thursday and Friday to Sunday (4 and 3 days respectively). It starts 10 minutes before the first game and finishes at the end of the last game.

It is, therefore, important to know which games each player will play – to see if he has more than one (improve chances to score as the better result is tallied) – and against which opponents (easy or difficult teams).

Tournaments

Each Game Week you can participate in the various tournaments. They are usually classified according to the scarcity of the cards and are shown in the following table:

If you look at almost every tournament there are two modes: Contender and Champion. They differ in the CAP (maximum number of points allowed from the sum of the lined-up cards) and that in Champion the most valuable card (called MVP) does not count in the tally.

Don’t panic, we’ll look at it in more detail later on…

Also, as the season progresses, new tournaments are added (Special Weekly for example) just like in the football section.

To make it easier for users to sign-up for the various tournaments, Sorare NBA will allow, for a limited time, to field 2 Limited cards in the Rare’s tournament, 2 Rares in the Super Rare’s tournament and 3 Super Rares in the Unique’s tournament.

Prizes

The best part of the game is when you look at the ranking (updated in real time throughout the day) and realise that you have won a card! Because the prizes in this game are NFTs that you can use to strengthen your team or sell (or trade) and accumulate ETH to reinvest or withdraw your winnings.

The prize table varies from day to day and can be viewed in advance. Depending on the tournament you participate in you will obtain cards of the same or higher scarcity and the quality of the cards will also depend on the position in which you are ranked.

The higher you rank, the better your reward card. It’s as simple as that. In Champion tournaments the rewards are lower, but better (with higher scarcity cards for the top ranked).

Sorare NBA’s idea is to give out 40% of the cards issued as prizes.

How to choose your line-up

Once you have chosen the tournament you want to participate in, you will automatically see the eligible players with their rating (average over the last 10 games). The data, therefore, varies with their performance (whether good or bad) and that will influence whether or not they can be fielded.

In Contender the sum of the 5 cards can’t exceed 110 points. Moreover, and until further notice, there are no position-related restrictions on the court, you can play 5 pivots if you want…

In Champion the limit is 120 points, with the exception that the most valuable card is not included (it is the MVP). Therefore those 120 points will have to be reached by the sum of the other 4 cards.

Another thing to keep in mind is that cards from the current season have a 5% extra bonus (all of them currently) and that Rares have an additional 10%, Super Rares 20% and Uniques 40%.

So even if you can play 2 Limited cards in the Rares tournament, it will better if all 5 cards are Rares because of the extra bonus %, assuming your budget stretches that far.

Tips to get off on the right foot

Pass to Curry, who can shoot from anywhere, ha ha ha… Good old Stephen’s cards aren’t exactly a bargain, so we’re going to look for other, more affordable tactics.

Here are a few tricks that might help:

• Look for players from teams that can play in the playoffs (so they’ll be good for more games).
• Look for players with abnormally low averages compared to their overall average.
• Line up those who have more than one game.
• Determine which teams are better in offence and defence
• Look at the NBA injury report before lining up
• Buying at auction is often cheaper than from other users
• Have a “pool” of low-scoring players to be to fill out line-ups

Let’s go for it!

Congratulations on getting this far. You’ve got all the cards in hand to get really into this diabolical game, hahahaha… At least you’ve assimilated some basic knowledge that allows you to get going without making a fool of yourself.

All you have to do now, is register… And good luck!

NOTE: This blog explains the operation of the Sorare-NBA fantasy basketball game for which you must be of legal age to participate. At no time should it be taken as financial or investment advice.