The addition of the Sorare Collection Bonus to the gameplay has been met with mixed reactions although it’s hard to deny that more and more managers put bigger focus on the new feature.
And why is that? Can the bonus points really affect your long-term success on the platform? Or is collecting cards just an additional expense you can do without?
In this article, we will explain thoroughly what the collection bonus on Sorare is, whether it’s worth building your collections, and how big of an impact the collection bonus score will have on future leaderboards.
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Sorare Collection Bonus Overview & Rules
Having been introduced in May 2023, the collection bonus is one of the newest features, and, like many others, its primary goal is to make the gameplay more engaging and strategic.
So how does it work?
To put it short, Sorare managers are now being rewarded for building collections around their favorite teams. The more cards of a specific team you own, the bigger the collection bonus – and the more additional XP points each card in that collection will have.
However, the number of points the cards in the collection will contribute to the overall score of the collection will vary depending on many factors.
Let’s now have a closer look at these factors by examining The Collection Bonus rules.
#1 New Season, New Collection
There are separate collections for every season. This means that the licensed clubs on Sorare might have more than one collection.
For example, at the time of writing, Borussia Dortmund has two collections available – one for the 2021/2022 season and the other for the 2022/2023 campaign.
Consequently, this means that the bonus points will only be distributed amongst the cards from the same season.
It’s hard not to notice that by implementing this rule, Sorare wants managers to keep buying new cards in every season.
#2 Different Scarcity, Different Collection
You cannot combine cards from different scarcities. This means that every scarcity, starting from Limited and ending at Unique, will have its separate collection.
Please bear in mind that the collection bonus points are not applicable to Unique collections. Since there is just one Unique Card released per season, assembling collections with the maximum bonus points would be near impossible.
Rule #3 – Player Transfers Don’t Matter
The team logo on a player’s card defines team collection eligibility; for example, if a player card in your collection album changes clubs, the player card (with the prior club logo) will only apply to the previous collection, not to a collection including the new club.
Rule #4 – Not All Cards Are Equal
As already mentioned, the number of points each card in your collection contributes to the overall score collection score might differ.
Each card gets:
- Guaranteed 10 points score as long as it’s in your gallery
- Additional 10 points if it hasn’t been listed in the manager’s Marketplace for the past 90 days
- Extra 20 points if you’ve been its first owner (in other words, you have acquired it in the New Card Auctions marketplace)
- Extra 20 points if it’s a special edition card (for example, a Rookie or Player of the Season Card)
- Additional 30 points if the card’s serial number is #1 (in other words, the first minted card for a given scarcity in the season)
- Extra 20 points if the card serial number matches the number on the player’s shirt
Taking the above into consideration, the maximum card score is 110; meaning you’ve bought the card on the New Cards Auction marketplace, you haven’t listed it in the last 3 months, it’s a special edition card, it’s the first player card released in the season, and the cards serial number is the same as the player’s Club number.
Usually, it’s only possible to combine the last two options if the player in question is a goalkeeper.
Rule #5 – Listing Cards = Losing Points
In case you decide to list one of the cards on the marketplace, the points this card contributes to the collection score, as well as the additional XP bonus of the card, disappear.
The good news is that the loss of points doesn’t have to be permanent and as soon as the card is unlisted from the marketplace, its bonus points are back.
The same rule applies to trade offers.
Rule #6 – No Duplicates
Each album is limited to one card per player. Duplicates of players are not permitted in albums.
If you have several player cards that are eligible for the same collection, the card with the highest Collection Score will count toward your overall score.
Rule #7 – Collection Bonus Checkpoints
There are five checkpoints on your way to maximizing The Collection bonus for your players.
Each collection starts at 0 and has a maximum point threshold of 750 (the total of your collection points can go beyond 750 but it won’t impact the XP bonus for your players)
- 35 points – all the cards in the collection will receive an additional 1% XP bonus
- 100 points – all the cards in the collection will receive an additional 2% XP bonus
- 250 points – all the cards in the collection will receive an additional 3% XP bonus
- 500 points – all the cards in the collection will receive an additional 4% XP bonus
- 750 points – all the cars in the collection will receive a whopping 5% XP bonus
The above means that apart from the XP bonus you can accumulate for your cards by regularly using them in your lineups, you can now get an additional 5% bonus on top of that if you reach the last milestone in the collection game.
As an example, some of the cards in my Celtic Collection are already at the 16% bonus (see below).
Whether collecting cards is worth it or not is up for debate. Before answering that question, quite a few things need to be taken into consideration.
This leads us to the next section of this article.
Is it worth collecting Cards?
Now that you know everything you need to know about the Sorare collection bonus, you are probably asking yourself a question: is it worth collecting cards?
Although from the moment Sorare was founded in 2019, it has always been advertised as a card-collecting fantasy sports game, only a small percentage of people really paid attention to collecting cards from the same teams (unless they were supporters of those teams).
That’s because, apart from owning those cards for personal satisfaction, there was no real incentive in doing so. That is probably why only the true collectors and geeks were completing their digital card albums long before the introduction of Sorare’s newest feature.
However, it would be naive to say that collecting won’t have a huge bearing on the game going forward.
If you are serious about competing for the highest prizes in the game (eg. winning competitions, finishing on the podium, or winning top rewards), you have to take into consideration that additional XP bonuses provided by The Collection game will often decide the winners – at least in the lower scarcity levels.
Because of the entry-level pricing, it is predicted that the competition most affected by Sorare Collection Bonus will be the Limited Division, and to some extent, the Rare Division.
Considering the cost of cards, It is unlikely that many many managers will be reaching 5% bonuses with their Super Rare collections.
Hence, the answer to the question will purely depend on the division you are targeting and of course, your gaming budget.
For me personally, the addition of the collection bonus has led to a considerable strategy shift since my main focus is the Limited division.
Sorare Collection Bonus Strategy
As time goes on, probably there will be more and more legit Collection Bonus strategies floating around.
However, the one that clearly stands out for me as of 2023, is to focus on building your collections around your top players.
Since I’m a Celtic fan, I have built a Celtic collection throughout the 2022-2023 campaign without knowing about Sorare’s plans to reward collectors. So after the feature was rolled out, all I had to do was buy a few more cards to score the 5% additional XP bonus. A no-brainer, really.
However, going forward, my goal is to maximize the XP potential of my top-performing star players. Players that actually can win me rewards on a weekly basis.
And to do that, I will be hunting exclusively for cards that can increase the collection bonus of the album in which my best players are situated.
Let’s now look at a real-life example.
I’m a lucky owner of Erling Haaland’s Borussia Dortmund card from the 2021-2022 campaign. Since I’m considering Haaland to be one of the best cards to have in the next decade or so, my priority is to eventually reach the 750-point threshold that would guarantee me an additional 5% bonus for the Norwegian.
Unfortunately, since it’s an older card, my only option is to buy the cards for the collection from the Secondary Market which can be overpriced (since that season’s cards are no longer minted) and it also means I cannot get the 20 bonus for being the card’s first owner. This effectively means that I’ll have to collect most of the Borussia players from that season to reach the maximum bonus.
It’s quite a challenge but with time and patience, I’m planning to fill up the whole collection. Having a 15% bonus Erling Haaland is well worth it, in my opinion.
I’m applying the same strategy for all the star players in my gallery.
