For the last 4 weeks Sorare managers have enjoyed battling it out for prizes & bragging rights in a revised SO5 Fantasy format. Have you optimised your team(s) to take advantage?
When football and sport around the world came to a grinding halt last month, fans of fantasy sports and games looked odds-on for a period on the sidelines too.
Introducing SO5 Replay Tournaments
Replay Tournaments stay true to the main principles of the flagship SO5 Fantasy rules, however, as there are currently no live games to score from, each tournament now, is a replay of a random Game Week from the 2019/20 season.
The first Game Week of the current season was Week 19 (28th July) and the final Game Week of the traditional SO5 Fantasy game play was Week 48 (7th March). Player scores from the games played over the randomly selected week are then used to determine the winners within the same League and Divisional structures normally used (All-Star, Under 23 etc).
SO5 Replay Tournament Differences + Benefits
- Replay Tournaments are now held twice per week
- Increased prize pool (opportunity to win 1 Unique card each tournament)
- All licensed teams are eligible (even if they joined later in the season)
- Player cards score using their current power multipliers
Without the need to rely on live matches, the team have generously decided to run Replay Tournaments twice per week. There is a traditional Friday deadline with results announced on Mondays and a Tuesday tournament deadline with results announced on Thursdays.
The prize pool for tournaments has increased and managers now have the opportunity to win 2.5 ETH (distributed across all Divisions), a Unique card (Winner of All-Star Division 2)+ many high value Super Rare and Rare cards.
Players from teams that joined the platform during the season are all eligible for selection, giving a lot more possibilities for team creation. Previously, the earlier Game Weeks were only contested using players from the Premier League and Jupiler League, whereas you can now also use your Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Primeira Liga and Premier Liga players.
Your cards will also benefit from their current Power Multiplier which for the higher Divisions can be significant. Earlier in the season you might have had a player score 10 points with a multiplier of 30x for a total of 300 points. Right now, some of the highest strength Unique cards have multipliers of 80x and higher, which means if that same week was selected where they scored 10 points, this is now worth 800+ towards your team total.
How To Play SO5 Replay Tournaments
To enter and play Replay Tournaments, you simply submit your team(s) in the same way you would enter any Sorare tournament.
- Go to the SO5 Fantasy tab
- Click the current ‘Open’ Game Week
- Select and compose your teams in the tournaments you wish to enter
Replay Tournament Strategies
The first step to success in the Replay Tournaments is to own players that have consistently played and scored well over the course of the season.
The second and more challenging step is to try and create teams from these players that perform well on the same game weeks.
Finally, depending on the depth of your collection, you can decide whether to go for glory with similar teams across different tournaments OR use the different tournaments to hedge.
Identifying Ideal Players for Replay Tournaments
I’ll just share a few examples that can help you on your way here, but if you’ve played Sorare for even just a couple of weeks, you will have probably found your way and will recognise all or most of these players!
Goalkeepers: Look for Clean Sheets + High % of Games Played
Hendrik Van Crombrugge (Anderlecht)
Simon Mignolet (Club Brugge)
Odisseas Vlachodimos (Benfica)
Defenders: Clean Sheets, Minutes Played (Goals + Assists are a bonus)
Konstantinos Laifis (Standard Liege)
Igor Plastun (Gent)
Simon Deli (Club Brugge)
Midfielders: Goals, Assists + Minutes Played
Hans Vanaken (Club Brugge)
Pizzi (Benfica)
Luis Alberto (Lazio)
Attackers: Goals, Goals, Goals!
Ciro Immobile (Lazio)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus)
Jonathan David (Gent)
Dieumerci Mbokani (Antwerp)
Please note that these are some of the most obvious players from each position and so, if you have recently started your Sorare career, then you will quickly find out that the demand for these player cards far outstrips the supply and this is reflected in their price (if you can find them on the transfer market).
Ways to Create an Optimal Team
If you look back over the Replay Weeks that are possible to be selected, you will notice things like the Jupiler League in Belgium started 3 weeks before Serie A and La Liga. You will also see the differences in when the main European Leagues take their winter break. So, it’s not just about owning the right players, it’s about composing teams where the players have the best chances of playing on the same weeks.
Avoid DNP — Jupiler League
The most cost efficient players to compete with are those from the Jupiler League. There are more cards in circulation of the main players, but more importantly, the Jupiler League fixtures feature in the highest percentage of Replay Weeks.
When players don’t play or their team doesn’t have a fixture, then they will score zero and be classified as DNP (Did Not Play). The best way to consistently feature amongst the prizes is to try and field a full team and miss the dreaded DNP’s.
Take this team as an example; Mignolet, Laifis, Vanaken, Mbokani, David. Not only would this team be cheaper to assemble than a team of Oblak, Telles, Alberto, Immobile, Ronaldo, this team of players have the added advantage of playing on weeks where maybe Ronaldo, Immobile & co don’t even play.
Take into consideration — Monday Night Games
There is nothing worse than having a good performance wasted when a player enjoys a strong performance but their game falls outside of the fixtures for the Game Week.
This can be highlighted best in Portugal where there are regular Monday night games. Players like Telles, Fernandes, Pizzi and Carlos are great cards to own for Replay Tournaments but they do have quite high DNP percentages due to a number of their games being played on Mondays which aren’t counted.
Hedging Strategy — Safe (Jupiler) + Speculative (Other!)
So, if you have the luxury of a collection that allows you to have a lot of good options, you can go one step further by using some of the Divisions to field the safer Jupiler League player combinations to try and achieve success + then use other Divisions to create more speculative player combinations that would still perform well BUT carry the higher risk of the Game Week resulting in all or most of your team getting a DNP.
Strategy to Target a Particular Game Week
If you are a Sorare Manager with a smaller or specialist collection of cards, you may wish to build your team around a specific Game Week.
Over the course of the season there have been some real stand out weekly performances from players like Arnautovic, Vlap, Rezaei, Insigne, Harit etc. that might not have the consistency of some of the players mentioned previously BUT, if you have them on a team when their Game Week is selected, you stand a great chance of winning.
Do make sure you aren’t relying on just 1 standout performer though. You will need to check and select suitable players to play with them in order to make the most of when your Game Week hits.
How long will Replay Tournaments be played for?
Whilst the latest news suggests that the Bundesliga, Premier League and Ligue 1 could be set to announce a way for them to complete their respective seasons, it remains unclear how long we might have to wait to watch live football again.
Fortunately, the Replay Tournaments will continue to run until games are set to be played again. Under the current SO5 rules, a minimum of 3 licensed teams are required to have a fixture in order to have a validated live Game Week, and so as we start to get more concrete news from each league, we can start to predict when the last Replay Tournament will be and with this information have more fun and activity on the transfer market!
Replay Tournament Summary
When live football stopped in March, it would’ve been understandable that we would also have to be patient and wait to resume SO5 Tournament play when football resumes.
Instead, Sorare have adapted and created a new set of rules that offer the ability to compete and win prizes twice a week and over the last month, I would estimate most managers that have been open and reacted to the changes have enjoyed the regular taste of winning valuable new cards for their collection.
This format allows for casual managers with great cards to win consistently as well as managers who spend more time crunching data to form cleverly crafted teams of players that score well together.
If you are a manager that has opted to stay true to a longer term strategy and have perhaps not been as active in the transfer market, I still believe you have the ability to win cards each week, but the reality is your collection is probably not growing at the pace or value of other managers who are making changes.
With that said, if Replay Tournaments continue for another month (which still looks to be most likely) then there will be continued opportunities for new managers as well as those that have been late to adapt.
If you would like to discuss a possible strategy together, drop me a message on Twitter or find me in the main Sorare Discord channel
—
Ready to compete for weekly ETH & the games best player card prizes?
