It takes just 2 clicks to bid and win a Sorare player card at auction — it’s that easy…. but who should you buy?!
In Part 1 of my Sorare Beta Review, I looked deeper into the different scarcities of Player Cards (Rare, Super Rare & Unique) and outlined their in-game power, how they can be levelled up with XP and also different strategies we’ve seen from beta-testers over the last couple of months.
Today, I’m going to give you an overview on Sorare Auctions — specifically how to search and buy any scarcity of card at Auction and then share with you some of the early strategies and factors you may like to take into consideration when using the Transfer Market.
Player Auction Basics
To see all players currently for sale, click on the ‘Transfer Market’ tab. You will then be presented with a chronological list of players available to purchase. Underneath each card image, you will see a current price and timer showing how long until the auction finishes.
Currently, all Sorare auctions start with a fixed ‘minimum bid’ price that varies according to their scarcity:
- Rare Player Cards — 0.01 ETH
- Super Rare Player Cards — 0.10 ETH
- Unique Player Cards — 1 ETH
The default next bid is set at the current bid price +10% and the auction timer will always reset back to a minimum of 60 seconds to prevent last second sniper bids!
Scouting Players (Filters)
During the beta-testing, we’ve enjoyed access to around 500 licensed players to buy/sell and play with. Over the summer months as the game gears up towards the public launch it is expected that new leagues and clubs will be on-boarded that will increase this number significantly.
Every few weeks there have been incremental improvements to the UI, a lot of which have been related to the Transfer Market. There are all sorts of filters that you can use to find the player(s) you are looking for including filters such as: ‘Percentage of time played this season’ and ‘Player balance between fouls committed and received’.
These statistics are provided courtesy of OPTA and are in sync with the way in which players score points for you in the SO5 Tournaments and I’m sure as time goes by we’ll see the introduction of more in-depth filters to delight the Fantasy Football gamers for who these stats are vital for!
Player Subscriptions — Add to Favourites
Each player and team has an ‘Add to Favourites’ button that allows you to subscribe and receive email updates whenever a new or existing card of that player is put up for sale.
So, if you can’t currently see a version of the player card you are after for sale, simply subscribe for updates and wait for the email notifications.
Player Auction Statistics
During testing, a regular week would see 111 new player cards auctioned and the only challenge during this time was to agree on the expiration times for so that it was fair to players in different time-zones!
There are now just over 1,500 player cards in circulation from season 2018/2019 with the overall distribution in-line with the different scarcity types. Broken down this would mean a typical auction week will contain 100 Rare Player Cards, 10 Super Rare Cards and 1 Unique Player Card.
The Auction schedules are announced on Discord every Monday and the Super Rares and Unique are disclosed to everyone by way of a Sorare TOTW (Team of the Week) giving time for users to plan ahead for what are ordinarily the most desirable card auctions.
Player Auction Feedback
Beta-testers have praised the straightforward nature of the auction house. With so many games using Dutch auctions to squeeze more ETH from players FOMO — Sorare auctions have more predictability in terms of player card final prices and this allows for users to be able to plan and budget with more confidence.
A popular feature that has been requested and that is expected to be rolled out in the not too distant future is the ability for users to place their top bid (similar to how you would bid on eBay). This will also help those that would prefer to be asleep when the player they are after is coming up for grabs!!
Other feedback from new users wishing to play SO5 was that they would prefer to be given the option of a starter pack so that they can play the game without the need to buy at auction — only using the Transfer Market to add an upgrade to the squad of players they start out with. Again this is something that the developers have acknowledged and are planning to have in place ahead of the public launch later this year.
Player Auction — Points to Consider
As you may expect, normal variables such as player age, ability, reputation and club that will influence the final selling price of a player card at auction.
Beyond this, there are numerous additional factors that might come into play when considering whether or not it’s right for you to bid on a particular player card.
Upcoming Fixtures
This week has been a great example of this. We are at the end of the European season and the Belgian League finishes their season with 2 final play-off matches to determine the last qualifier for next seasons UEFA League. Yesterday was Kortrijk v Charleroi with the winner (Charleroi) now playing Antwerp on Sunday.
Ahead of both games, the new players being auctioned were predominantly players from the teams playing, and the weekly Tournaments would be scored on players in-game performances in these matches.
So, I would expect almost all auctions this week to be influenced by the above with users facing the conundrum of buying the players needed to compete for the top prizes (1 ETH + 1 Unique card on Wednesday and 2 ETH + Super Rare cards on Sunday) or listing your own players from the teams involved for other users to buy from you.
Your Rivals Players
Another factor you might wish to take into consideration ahead of a potential bid/purchase is to see who else owns other versions of the player.
Recently, I was aiming to compete for a Monthly Prize and there was one particular player that my closest rival had the Unique version for that was scoring points for fun. I felt it was best for me to acquire a Super Rare version of this player rather than try to find a different player that would match these players points.
Conversely, if one of your rivals has assembled a very strong team of Super Rare cards and a Unique version shows up at auction, you may view paying a slight premium to try and win this card at auction can be justified based on the potential tournament prizes that the card would make you stronger for.
To help with these examples — Unique cards score about 3x more than Super Rares and Super Rares score about 3x more points than Rare card equivalents. I’ve covered more about the different scarcities and their in-game strengths in Part 1 of my review.
So, expect to be bidding against other users that are making offensive and defensive purchases in the auction house — often with the same plan as you!
Total Player Card Supply
For the most popular players in the game, the total supply of their Super Rare cards is likely to influence your auction decisions. With only 10 versions available it is wise to decide early on whether you are planning to own a Super Rare version of a player and then keep an eye on how quickly they sell or are won. A good player could easily be selected multiple times as prizes after a good performance and so don’t bank on later versions becoming cheaper — they may not even get to auction if they are all selected as prizes.
Once all versions of a player card are in circulation, the future valuations are determined by their current owners which often means needing to pay a premium to convince the current owner to part OR having a player of interest to offer as trade.
First Edition / Short Prints / Collectors Cards
Certain cards at auction might not instantly stand out as being valuable or attractive, however, I would encourage you to always dig beneath the surface to see if the seller is missing something!
In this first season with such a small amount of player cards in circulation, you will likely find players that only have a few versions created. With only 1% of the cards being Unique, remember that a players Super Rare version will be the best version you can obtain for him too.
In the database there are players who have gone on-loan and arrived on-loan during the season — there are also players that have taken longer to source licensed images for that only have a few versions produced!
The market does tend to value the First Edition 1/100’s and 1/10’s a bit higher too and there have recently been some ‘Special Edition’ Rare cards produced as a thank you from the developers to the Beta Testers — so do your homework on every card as there is always a history behind each card and potential hidden value!
Pricing Trends
Despite only playing with a relatively small sample of players, the prices players have sold for have fallen into consistent ranges. There have naturally been a few exceptions for example when a top player is being sold ahead of a new Tournament and then on the lower end when the expiry time has meant only a few users are online to contest the auction.
With that said if you are starting out and want to build a nice team of Rare players, I would be confident you can pick up your first SO5 team for at or just under 0.15 ETH.
If you wanted to build an SO5 team of Super Rare players then I would recommend budgeting for around 0.75 ETH and if you want to build a team of Uniques then you will need to increase that budget up closer to 10 ETH (the average sale price of a Unique card so far is 1.67 ETH each).
Auction Summary
I’ve covered what I see as the buying basics in this review, however, as we all know there are 2 sides to any transaction and so the above discussion points should also be considered from the standpoint of the seller.
As the game continues to scale, I would expect to see many sub-markets being established within a 24/7 market place.
If you are after a player that isn’t currently for sale, the latest UI upgrade now shows on the main auction page which user owns a particular card and so there is always the option to try and negotiate directly with the owner (the best way currently is to find the owner via Discord).
If you want to discuss anything related to the Transfer Market or Auctions, I’d encourage you to join or post in our Discord Community where you can gain a number of different opinions to help you with your future buying and selling decisions.
Good luck and happy bidding!
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