This article is a transcript of an interview recorded on November 3, 2023.

Intro

My name is Jake; my best friend saw Sorare early before the boom via a podcast. We joined during the Gary V. boom. We thought we would just win thresholds, which was a big mistake. I wish I would have gone directly to try to win big cards. I think that delayed me a whole year. I’m from the States, so I knew I wanted to do MLS; it's just easier to focus on. And I spent about a year trying to grind thresholds, which I really regret.

I tried to win cards in my second season by consolidating my gallery. I won Global All-Star twice and U23, and it really started to snowball. I had 100 Rare cards.

70% of my gallery value has been winnings, and 95% of the winnings were all MLS, so I heavily focused on MLS. I have won 203 rewards and 3 first places, which I am very, very proud of.

I gained a following in the MLS Discord because I would give out Limited cards. My gallery name is Zardes Fan Club, and I gave out Limited Zardes cards during my first few wins there. It was like “If I podiumed, I would give out a card” and I had people wishing me podiums as I was giving out stuff for the community. I chose Zardes; I don’t know if you know anything about him. He is like a very poor-raising player. He is black. He got a lot of hate because he was in the men's National team for the US, and he also grew up in a town very close to the town where I grew up. He has a picture-perfect family and is a great guy but gets so much hate just for existing. I kind of got into that mode of hot takes and giving up these Zardes cards, and when I was giving up these cards, I was putting them in the center of the Hall of Fame, which spread out like that. I just gave 30 cards at some point or something like that.

I started a hate list that got really popular on the TrippinB show. I keep a note of people I hate through Sorare, and people think it is hilarious. I can send you the hate list, but just for you to have a preview, it’s almost 33 names. I’ve got names like the Dortmund physio, youth development programs, and referees on here, so just like that, people find it really funny. And yeah, that’s about it.

Boris: I am happy I’m not on the list. Where can I find this list?

ZardesFanClub: I will send it to you via Discord.

Here is the list:

• Kyle Beckerman
• Bruce Arena
• kacper przybylko
• luis amarilla
• Diego llanez
• David Ochoa
• Jackson Yueill
• Sebastian Lletget (love his girl though)
• Austin FC
• Hernan Losada
• The turf in Mercedes Benz arena
• Genk's Physio
• Miguel Berry
• Dortmund's physio
• Caleb Porter
• Carson Galaxy youth development
• Freddy Montero
• Don Garber
• Jozy Altidore
• Kevin Cabral
• Raul Ruidiaz
• Opoku
• Charlotte
• Shinyashiki
• Swiderski
• Bronico
• Afful
• Cordoba
• USWNT frauds that sued
• Aaron long
• Fagundez
• Abdulrahman Al-Jassim
• Gregg and Jay Berhalter
• Samatta
• The Qatar assassin that killed Grant Wahl
• Vanni Sartini
• The rest of Vancouver Front Office (standing by while a oppressor oppresses is standing with the oppressor)
• Reynoso's wife
• Whoever approved the jerseys in the dallas minny opener
• Rigoni
• Urruti
• Barrios (pending)
• Takoaka (pending)
• Opta employee who gave gyasi a BCM vs MTL in 2nd game if season
• Graham Zusi
• Ema Twumasi (pending)
• Gazdag
• Earth day
• VAR on morris goal CLT/Crew
• Franck Boli
• Ruan
• Spec on camera in DC NSH game
• Arneu Tenas
• Phils
• Vladimir Ivic

Boris: I need to be more active on Discord. I see that you won a lot of good rewards. When you joined, how did you approach the game?

First strategies and budget management

ZardesFanClub: When I started, I was very focused on winning the thresholds, and I saw it from a very practical way. I wanted to make money on every card and have a year later the return. But quickly, I abandoned that. I play because I want to win rewards, and I watch the games with my friends, and we want to win cards.

So I decided to buy cards even if they were at their peak values just because I thought they were going to go on a hot streak.

I would say that I am pretty unique in a way that I don’t really look at my valuation. I don’t look at the trend of how prices are going. I am very addicted to youth national team players, to the US men's national team, I like to watch the U17, so I get them when they are cheap. But yeah, I just really want to play for fun. I think that if I worry about every dollar and am excessive like the first year I was on the platform, it just is not fun. Now I get so much excitement. It has been a great 3 years ride. I used to play daily fantasy football and tried to make a job out of that, and I really burned out so I never wanted to make this a job. If this goes to 0, I’m gonna be ok.

Boris: I see that you have not done that many transactions compared to other managers I have spoken to. How was your approach regarding the divisions you want to play? You said you had lost some time playing thresholds and after you decided to focus on winning cards. So my question is: how did you manage to win a lot of rewards without doing a lot of transactions?

ZardesFanClub: Well, after a year, I had accumulated so many of those thresholds and $100 cards that I sold them off. Then, combined them to have an America lineup, a U23 lineup, and a threshold lineup at the start. I knew who to pick; I wanted a goalie + defense stack. I still have those cards. Andre Blake, and Dallas FC, the one I won the most was Diego Palacios, I won 30 cards with him, and I got him on January 5th, 2022. So, I just rode what I got. I like to stack a mid with a forward of the same team, so I got a goalie and a defender of the same team, I got a midfielder and a forward of the same team, and then a few of the extras who are generally a midfielder I know well. I stuck to that formula. I picked the goalie and a defender with the best matchup, the same for the midfielder and the forward and then I picked the best card for extra. I don’t need to swap a lot of cards when I know exactly what I am looking for if that makes sense.

Boris: It’s pretty impressive, I have to say. When you arrived, what were your criteria for buying? Only America? Did you plan to play long-term?

ZardesFanClub: I love the idea of the game. I was there for the long call immediately. I did not withdraw any money; I just put it back into the gallery. I decided to stick with MLS. I know that if I learned one league very well, I would be better off reading what other people say about Asian leagues or stuff like that. I would instead just learn one thing, know everything about it, and have a bigger advantage.

I bought low on all these cards that I won with. I bought Diego Palacios for 0.05, and now he is also 0.05, but there were times in between when he was so much higher. I bought Luciano Acosta, one of the first cards I bought, and he skyrocketed. He was in three of my podium lineups.

I go for an eye test. I don’t go on SorareData; I watch him play during a bunch of games. The players that caught my eye are the ones that I would buy. So a lot of people look at the data. A player might be doing well in SO5 but that does not mean he is doing well in real life. So I think a lot of people make that mistake, they see the graph, they see green dots, when I don’t really look at that at all. I look at this for lineup-making because I want players with high variances. I want to recognize them on the field.

That’s why a lot of the players on the hate list are just bad at soccer. I like to own players that I like to watch.

Boris: So that’s why you mainly focus on MLS.

ZardesFanClub: Yes. I wake up and watch Genk sometimes because I want to play in Europe by stacking a team. I also watch Milan so I can align Cristian Pulisic. I have a very first Loïs Openda 2018 mint. It is a card I looked back on when I wanted to play U23. I don’t know how it is now, but back in the day,, U23 had a significantly lower points range. I am very happy to have that card.

Boris: It's good when you check the total value of rewards that this card brings you.

ZardesFanClub: Yes.

Boris: What about selling? You don’t sell much. If you buy and keep the cards, how do you sell them? When do you swap? How do you make evolve your gallery? What are the main evolutions? And what’s next?

ZardesFanClub: That’s a really good question. Why do I shuffle? For example, I just shuffled my goalies within the last month.

My big checkpoints, I think, are the off-season after my first year on the site when I could consolidate my gallery until up to just the 3 best lineups I could make at the time. And then I went from there. I did that again in the off-season after that even though prices were lower, I still kept solidated. I sold off all my Limited. So I sold 50 Limited or something like that. It was too much to follow, having 20 lineups. It was too much. So, I sold all the Limited to start doing Cap 240. So that was a big change, consolidating into the Blues and getting rid of the Limited. So now I am focusing on getting more Blues for the next MLS season. That would be my evolution. I just switched one of my goalies looking towards the future in terms of which goalie is going to do the best for next season. So, I sold who I don’t like anymore as a player/human and then got the guys I wanted. I watch all the time so I know the things I look for. That sounds crazy, but I like players who point a lot to their teammates where they want them to go, or they point where they want the ball, I like players who are really arguing with the refs. I like players who put their arms up when their teammates don’t look at them, because it is just a kind of mentality thing. I like divas like Rafael Leao. I know you have European readers so I think he is someone who illustrates the kind of players I want because he is such a diva. Like nothing is ever his fault. That’s why I like Reynoso, because each time he is dispossessed, he considers it’s been a fault that the ref has not called, that kind of thing. McGuire, I really want his Super Rare recently because when Orlando scored, he was not even the one who scored, but he stood over the ball in the net and just screamed at the opposing fans (laughter). Just stuff like that that seems silly but brings the enjoyment out for me. So when I see stuff like that, I want them in my club.

I would take a loss on my rewards, but I like to trade for somebody I want. If I win 1 ETH worth of cards in a Game Week, I’m okay with getting a guy I want worth 0.7 ETH and taking a 30% loss, but in my mind, it’s like I just won the card that I like, if that makes sense.

Boris: You were speaking about goalkeepers. That’s why I want to focus on goalkeepers. You have traded a lot of goalkeepers. Let’s say that you changed and you bought a lot of cards but you have traded multiple goalkeepers. In my case, I buy a card of a GK and I don’t sell that much. Do you think it’s a mistake to keep a GK, and why do you need to change often? The second question is, when I checked the cards per position, you have much more midfielders in Rare, than the other positions. Do you think that for every game week, is it useful to change the players often, or there are certain players you keep no matter what is happening?

ZardesFanClub: There are cards I keep no matter what is happening. In order to win or place high, that is what I am after, you need a goalie who is going to keep a cleansheet and you need a defender with him that lines up. So, I have the goalie I have because I can pair them with a player I like and I only need one outcome from them and that outcome is: they keep a clean sheet.

Basically, my goal is, instead of having a lineup with 5 cards and needing to have 5 different games with 5 different outcomes to happen for me to win, I can stack a GK and a DEF, that represents one real-life outcome I need, a clean sheet, and that’s 30% of the time. And if I stack a midfielder and a forward, I only need 1 action like an assist or a goal. And then I play an extra, which is almost always a midfielder. Which is why I have more midfielders, and that’s like my best card that is unattached. MLS is not Bundesliga where Kimmich is scoring 80 every week. I have to play the matchups, and that’s one of the reasons why I do very well in the summer, that’s because it’s just around MLS and all the other clubs like Bayern don’t play. So I pick these midfielders if there is no star forward, so if they are doing basically just a one man show because 30% of my lineups are composed with a midfielder as an extra.

Boris: Why midfielders?

ZardesFanClub: When I think about outcomes, I think about 5 card stacks that might hit once or twice in the season. If you stack cards from Philadelphia, you are gonna probably get 3 or 4 very high finishes. But I think you can get more by taking just the defense and the goalie when they are in a good clean-sheet matchup, and that does not necessarily mean the forwards are gonna all click. If they have a match-up where they play against Toronto, that sucks, but Toronto can score and ruin the clean sheet. So even though I have 5 cards, I rarely play them all together.

Why is a MID the extra? It is because I have the most consistent high scorers who don’t have a very clear forward partner to stack along with, if that makes sense. So, I keep using Reynoso as an example, he is a one-man show, and everyone else around him is bad at soccer, so I don’t want any of those cards, but he scores so high. I also normally clicked Captain on those extra slots. Hany Mukhtar is another one where everyone around him is not great, but he will score. So in order to win, I think who needs to go off for this lineup to do well or to place highly, and the answer is generally this guy who generally hits high greens, gets a 90+ or whatever, so I clicked captain on him. And I think that’s why I have more midfielders.

Boris: This is clear. It is super interesting because you play different divisions. How do you prioritize? Is it based on Game Week? Or at the beginning of the year you go for this division in priority?

ZardesFanClub: I pretty much enter the lineup in the same exact order. I do the lineup builder on SorareData, I go straight to U23, I play the best lineup I can, and then I go to Champion America, I do the best lineup I can, and I go to All Star, I do the best lineup I can, then I do the Cap 240, and then I see what is left over. I might go for America Rare Pro. If I don’t then I go to Cap 270 before going to America Rare Pro. I also do America Kick-Off a lot. I go through my goalies first to give myself the matchups because that changes where I go through the middle or end of my lineups. I have been entering nine lineups lately. I would do by GK and DEF stack first, just to kind of see, what I am looking at matchup-wise.

In the future, I might go for more FOR + FOR as an extra; it is just based on who has the best matchup.

Boris: What roster construction and strategy would you recommend for someone who wants to compete in the America Division?

ZardesFanClub: I would pick to actually win two defensive stacks so I can play the matchups a little bit, and then I would pick 2 midfielders and forward stacks and try to get 4 cards to fill the extra spot. So maybe one defender, just in case, a couple of midfielders. It needs money to get started, don’t try to cheap out. Buy the cards that are going to win you cards. 2 goalies, 2 defenders, 4 mids, 2 forwards, and then an extra DEF, MID, and FOR. That’s what I would go for. I said buy, but there is a guy who picked some random Scottish team, and he got second place and almost won Challenger Europe; those cards are cheaper, and in theory, you can also start rolling from there.

When you get your first winning, don’t buy another player who is not a backup for the goalie you have. That would save you a lot of hassle. Spend whatever it is on the backup. You can listen to TrippinB's podcast, Major League Sorare, on the SorareTV YouTube channel, and you can also join the Major League Sorare. That’s definitely my plug.

Two years vision and wishes

I would like them to figure out a way to get more users, like clearly acquired new paid users, because I feel they are declining. I am not exactly sure how to do that. I think there are people in the community with great ideas, and I would value their feedback, which I think they do. I would want them more to cater to the guys who are spending $100,000 on a Unique more than the free-to-play just because those are the ones who will sustain the platform. They will make basilbot and PawelTrader happy because they are just so crucial for the market. Sorare needs to drag them to the upper divisions. Keep the Rare and Super Rare managers.

If I am starting out and I see the people above me, if I am free to play and I see people in Limited having success, I will try and go into Limited cards. If I win with a Limited card and see people with Rare cards doing well, I will also want to make that jump.

It is so fun to win a card, but when the card is worth $4, and you are never going to win a Mbappé or a Kimmich, it takes you away. So, I would love more competitions that allow you to win more than T5s. They are not necessarily capped modes, but there is room to be creative, have a better progression, and keep those quote-and-quote whales happy.