Sorare Review & Sign Up Offer (2023)

First released in 2019, we have been playing Sorare for just over two years now so hopefully are well placed to write this Sorare review. Overall, it has been a great ride and 2023 has the potential to be very exciting following the launch of the Premier League in January. However we’ll try to highlight both the positive and negative things about the platform to give you an idea of whether it’s something you might want to get involved with. If so, we have a Sorare sign up offer (detailed below) which will help you get started with some free cards.

Note, this review relates to Sorare football. Both baseball and basketball were added to the platform in 2022 with more sports potentially on the way soon. Read this Sorare NBA review to find out more about the latter.

What is Sorare?

Sorare is a global fantasy football platform. Its gameplay is based on real on-pitch events in football competitions across the world including the biggest leagues and tournaments in Europe, Asia, North America and South America.

Managers need to collect cards (footballers) in order to enter fantasy tournaments which come in many different formats with each usually running once or twice per week depending on how much football is on. While all fantasy tournaments are free to enter, there are essentially two versions of the game.

One involves free “common cards” which have no real value. This is the best way to get a taster of the game and if you have no interest in spending money on Sorare, you can just play the common tournaments each week and compete for pride against your mates and other managers. There is no limit on how long you can play them for.

The other version involves cards that come in the form of digital collectibles and these can be bought, sold, exchanged and won by playing fantasy tournaments. These cards come in four scarcity levels – Limited cards (the cheapest with 1000 issued per player per season), Rare (100), Super Rare (10) and Unique (only one per player per season). Each scarcity level has its own tournaments so you can mostly compete against managers on a similar budget.

Sorare Sign Up Offer 2023 – Free Common Cards +1 Limited Card*

Join Sorare today & Claim your Free Cards!

Sorare is really easy to join and get going with no identity checks or tiresome forms to fill out. By clicking the link above, you’ll activate the latest Sorare sign up offer. From there you will be given a choice of sport and (assuming you choose football) the chance to select one of the five big European leagues (Premier League, LaLiga, Ligue 1, Serie A & Bundesliga). You’ll then be directed to a screen where you can pick your first 8 common cards.

You will get a fictional budget of 400 with each player costing typically between 40 and 70 points depending on their current form. Once you’ve chosen your 8 players, you then must choose 5 of them to form your lineup for the next gameweek.

Don’t stress out too much about this process as you can easily go back and redo your draft and team selection once you’ve had a bit more time to study fixtures and figure out which players are most likely to score well. It also doesn’t matter which league you initially choose as you can still complete drafts and enter teams for each of the other four main leagues. After this, you should have 40 common cards to start your Sorare journey with.

There is something to be said for spending at least a few gameweeks playing the common tournaments (which do offer a small chance of winning limited cards) to get a feel for Sorare. However, there is nothing to stop you diving right in and buying cards from other scarcities which can be found from the “market” tab in the menu or by simply searching for any player.

*Using this Sorare sign up offer above, you will also get a free limited card once you buy five cards of any scarcity on the primary market (individual card auctions and bundle sales). The sign up offer is also valid for both Sorare NBA (free card after your 5th purchase) and Sorare MLB (free card after your 7th purchase) but you can only claim a free card in one sport.

How does Sorare work?

It does take some time to get used to Sorare and to fully understand the different rules, gameplay modes and league structures. However it has improved considerably in recent months with a more logical progression structure and far more engaging free version. If you’re somebody who signed up to Sorare in the past but quickly lost interest, it may be worth giving it another look. Here’s a brief explanation of how the Sorare basics work:

The lifeblood of the platform is currently SO5 tournaments where managers enter teams of five players that earn points (from 0 to 100) based on their performances in real football matches. These teams must consist of:

• 1 Goalkeeper
• 1 Defender
• 1 Midfielder
• 1 Forward
• 1 Extra Player (any outfielder)

You can also nominate a captain in most tournaments. The captain usually earns a bonus which is currently set at 50% in the league-specific common tournaments known as Premier League Amateur, LaLiga Santander Amateur, etc. There are also small “XP bonuses” which grow the more you use a card. As a beginner, you don’t need to worry too much about these but they can build up over time and act as a differential in the event that you name exactly the same team as another manager.

At the other scarcity levels (essentially the paid version of the game), cards from the present season also get a 5% bonus but you can still use older cards in your lineups. For example a 2019/20 card can still be used in the 2022/23 or even potentially 2030/31 campaigns, even if the player has transferred to a different club or league – providing that club plays in one of the competitions that are covered on the platform. There are more details on this below.

The points score of 0-100 that every player receives is determined by the Sorare scoring matrix. It may be worth having a quick look through but you’ll get a better feel for which types of players score well the more gameweeks you play (there are two gameweeks per week for midweek and weekend action with team selection deadlines on Tuesday and Friday afternoons – European time).

Essentially it works in a similar way to other fantasy football style games. However it uses much more advanced metrics to calculate the score than Fantasy Premier League (FPL) for example. Everything from goals and assists to completed passes, clearances and even penalty area entries improve your player’s score. However cards, missed chances and lost duels are among the things that will decrease the score. Match data is provided by Opta.

Sorare Regional Leagues

While the gameplay is very similar, as you move from Common up to the Limited or Rare scarcity levels, you can get your hands on cards from a much wider range of countries with smaller leagues such as the Korean and Japanese leagues in Asia and Belgian and Dutch leagues in Europe also having full coverage.

Sorare’s league coverage grew considerably in 2022 and the addition of the English Premier League, the world’s most watched football league, now gives the platform a really complete feel with almost every competition and club featured. At the time of writing, there are 312 officially licensed clubs including all the top flight clubs in England and Spain (LaLiga joined in September 2021) as well as European giants such as Bayern, PSG and Milan.

At Limited, Rare, Super Rare and Unique levels, you can compete in regional tournaments where only players playing in the respective regions (outlined above) can feature. As well as the five regional leagues, there are also Global and Global U-23 tournaments where you can pick players from any country.

Capped Modes

In Sorare’s latest gameplay update, capped modes were introduced. In these tournaments, managers must select their teams within a certain budget ranging from 220 to 270. A player’s value will be based on their average points score (0-100) over the last 15 games. The five players you choose must have a total average score of the cap or under to be able to compete in these tournaments.

The idea is to facilitate progression as lower capped modes will require less valuable cards which will be cheaper to buy and it’ll be easier for new managers to compete with those with higher budgets. If you decide to move from Common to Limited, the Cap 220 will be the most affordable tournament to target. Many limited cards sell for just a few Dollars/Euros/Pounds so it won’t cost much to build a team that could potentially compete at this scarcity level.

Cap 240 Threshold Payments

The most attractive of the capped modes are the Cap 240 competitions. That’s because they offer Ethereum threshold payments as well as the potential to win cards (you win new cards as rewards in all the main competitions on Sorare if you rank high enough).

Ethereum is the in-game currency which is used for all card purchases on Sorare. However, ETH prizes are pegged to the US Dollar and the ETH amount adjusts accordingly. Indeed many managers simply value their cards in their own currency and Sorare provides the option to view all trades in FIAT (regular currencies) if you’d rather not worry about fluctuating ETH exchange rates.

If your team reaches a score of 250 in the Cap 240 tournaments, you will receive the following rewards:

These tournaments offer a good chance for managers who may struggle to compete for the top prizes, to simply target 250 points each gameweek and gradually build their ETH balance. This can help fund new cards as you build your gallery or be withdrawn and exchanged for cash in your own currency.

Likewise any cards you win on Sorare can be sold to other managers for ETH or kept and used in future tournaments. The higher you finish, the more valuable the card you will receive with larger ETH rewards also on offer if you reach the podium in any tournament, although this isn’t easy to do given many have thousands of entrants!

Sorare Review – Postives & Negatives

Sorare has built up an active and engaged community of hundreds of thousands of users, most of whom are passionate and positive about it. However, it’s safe to say that like many projects using NFT and blockchain technology, there are many sceptics out there and the onboarding of the Premier League will most likely generate a somewhat mixed media reaction.

If you’re only interested in the common tournaments, which require no investment and don’t even use NFT’s, there really aren’t any risks attached. It’ll be simpler to just join Sorare, select your players, experience a full gameweek or two and see whether you enjoy it.

If you’re considering putting money in and buying some cards from the other scarcities, then you may want to do a bit more research into Sorare and this section may help highlight some of the pros and cons:

Things to like about Sorare

Anyone, anywhere can use Sorare. You can use your local knowledge or interest in specific leagues to gain an edge and can be part of a global community of people passionate about the platform. Sorare have registered users from almost every country in the world and being a Sorare manager can open up all sorts of opportunities to travel and meet other managers and feel part of a big, football mad community.

At the time of writing (30th January 2023), there are just over 200,000 managers who own one or more blockchain cards (limited, rare, super rare or unique). In a global market of hundreds of millions of football fans, that figure could explode in the coming years and that should only benefit current users and those joining now.

The addition of the Premier League feels like a major milestone for the platform and historically any major developments such as that have often been followed by boom periods where cards increase in value.

You know exactly how many cards there are in circulation (everything that happens on Sorare can be viewed on the Ethereum Blockchain). The number that can be issued of any player is currently limited to 1111 each season across the four main scarcities (1000 limited, 100 rare, 10 super rare, 1 unique). This makes valuing players much easier and the whole platform much more transparent.

• It truly rewards football knowledge and scouting

With players in the MLS and J-League just as likely to earn points and win rewards as those in the Premier League or LaLiga, anyone willing to put some time into scouting players and researching teams, can find a genuine edge on the market.

• You don’t need a huge amount of money to get started

Thanks to the introduction of limited cards and particularly capped modes, it’s possible to put together a team that can at least compete for rewards in one of the limited tournaments for around 0.05 ETH (roughly $80 at the time or writing). You can start out on even less than that and try to trade your way up too. In time, if you recruit well, you will win cards which add to the value of your collection and gives you more options for trading and generating fresh funds.

Things new users should bear in mind

It’s important to understand that while you can view trades converted to your own currency, ultimately all business on Sorare is done in Ethereum. Like many cryptocurrencies, it is prone to wild swings in its value in both directions and that will have an impact on the value of anything in your wallet.

It can also impact the value of your cards, although there is not a total correlation between that and the price of ETH. For example, a big crash in the value in ETH will most likely see card valuations rise in ETH terms (atlhough still slightly dip in FIAT terms) while a big rise will have the opposite effect.

• Not all players & clubs are on Sorare

While the coverage has grown significantly and the Premier League joining fills the most obvious glaring hole that was on Sorare, there are still a few gaps here and there. Not all of the covered leagues (outlined above) have every single club or player, although pretty much all of the big names are now there. This is more likely to be a frustration if you’re a fan of a smaller club or a team outside the “big five” European leagues.

• The future of NFTs is the source of much debate

There are people who see NFTs as a huge part of the future world as we move further into the digital age. There are others who see them as a huge fad that will eventually die a death. Overall, the gameplay element and potential utility value gives Sorare a massive advantage on many current NFT projects and we’ve already seen it fare far better than most NFT-based gameplay projects over the past year which has been a very bleak time for the space as a whole.

Sorare FAQ’s

Is Sorare free?

All tournaments on Sorare are free to enter. However in reality, to enter most of them, you will need to spend money on buying cards. Therefore the only parts of the game that are truly free are the common card tournaments (Premier League Amateur, LaLiga Santander Amateur, Bundesliga Amateur, Serie A Amateur, French League Amateur). During the regular season in Europe, you’ll therefore be able to play in five tournaments each weekend as a free user and more tournaments will open up if you manage to win a Limited card.

Is Sorare gambling?

Sorare is a blockchain fantasy game where you use your digital collectibles to enter fantasy tournaments. The vast majority of countries do not classify Sorare as gambling. However it is likely to be subject to greater scrutiny over the coming years and has already been the subject of greater regulation in Switzerland.

Is Sorare legit?

Sorare has grown in a very short space of time and was valued at $4.3bn in 2021 after it secured record-breaking funding. Since then, it has opened an office in New York in addition to its existing Paris base and partnered with huge global stars including Leo Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Serena Williams.

In short, it’s very much a legit company but one operating in a new sector using a new technology whose future uses are not yet fully known or understood. It’s impossible for anyone to know how much or how little Sorare cards will be worth in two, five or ten years time.

Does Sorare use real money?

No, the cryptocurrency Ethereum is used for all transactions on Sorare. However you can still buy cards using a credit card with your money then converted to ETH.

Is there a Sorare token?

No, it’s an Ethereum-based platform. There is no special Sorare token.

Does Sorare have the Premier League?

Yes! After a long wait, the Premier League was finally announced and immediately launched on 30th January 2023. You can now buy, trade and sell cards from all 20 English top flight clubs.

Can you make money on Sorare?

Yes, there are lots of methods and strategies you can use to profit on Sorare. You can profit from simple trading (buying a player and then selling him for a profit) or by winning rewards in fantasy football tournaments. However there are currently limited ways to use your digital collectibles outside of Sorare, so most cards would be almost worthless should Sorare cease to exist in the future (there is currently no indication that this will be the case!).

How does Sorare make money?

Sorare makes money from selling NFT’s. New cards are minted and sold in auctions which provides it with a regular income stream. It doesn’t currently charge commission for trades between managers but this could be introduced in the future.

How do you value cards?

Valuing cards on Sorare is best done by using Soraredata which highlights the average valuation of any player or card according to the most recent trades. Players go up or down in value, as in real life, according to how well they play. Injuries or transfers to less dominant teams or stronger leagues may negatively impact on price. The scarcity of a card also has a massive impact on price, with Limiteds being the cheapest while Rares, Super Rares and especially Uniques sell for much more.

Can I sell common cards?

No, you cannot sell common cards on Sorare. You can only exchange them for other common cards with two trades permitted per gameweek in each of the league-specific amateur competitions.

What are custom series cards?

During the 2022 World Cup, Sorare issued National Series cards for some of the teams in the tournament. These can be bought and sold like any other but they are “collectibles only” which means they can’t be used in any fantasy tournaments. They tend to be very cheap as a result but be careful not to buy any by mistake as you won’t be able to use them!

What are legend cards?

Sorare has partnered with some legends of the game like David Villa, so you may see some legend cards of retired players knocking around. They can only be used in special legend tournaments with their cards scoring points according to the performance of players in their position at their former club.

How does Sorare compare to FPL?

There are plenty of similarities between the free, amateur version of Sorare and Fantasy Premier League and other fantasy football games. The concept is similar in that you pick a team, your players score points and you compete against other managers. However Sorare has vastly superior prizes on offer to FPL and is also a much more engaging experience overall with a more advanced scoring matrix where players can potentially still score really well, even without a clean sheet, assist or goal. 

At the higher scarcity levels, Sorare veers further away from FPL and is more akin to running a club where you buy and sell players and try to build a squad of players that can compete.

Can you name substitutes on Sorare?

No, unlike FPL, Sorare does not currently enable you to name substitutes. Therefore it’s important to make sure you pick five players who are ideally going to start. If your player doesn’t play at all, he scores 0.

How do I get started on Sorare?

We have a separate look at Sorare for beginners that may help you take those first steps on the platform. The process is fairly intuitive though. Sign up here to get your first common cards and you can then get ready for your first gameweek by picking your first Sorare lineup or lineups if you want to play all the major European leagues.

If you’ve any more questions about Sorare, DM’s are open via @SorareLaLiga on twitter or you can get in touch via e-mail. You can also find some useful Sorare tips and ask questions through the Sorare reddit community.

DISCLAIMER – This post contains affiliate links to Sorare. We aimed to give an honest Sorare Football review which highlights some of the pros and cons of their platform but please do your own research before putting money in. This is not investment advice & you should never spend money you can’t afford to lose!