Ultimate Champions is a fantasy game that uses blockchain technology to deliver a unique web3 experience through licensed cards, the result of a partnership with many of the world’s leading soccer and basketball clubs. Through NFTs, Ultimate Champions allows players to get closer to their favorite clubs and players while being rewarded in a variety of ways.
Ultimate Champions, the multi-sport blockchain game
Produced by a team of experts in blockchain, non-fungible tokens (NFT), video games, and most importantly, sports enthusiasts, Ultimate Champions is an innovative fantasy game that aims to revolutionize blockchain gaming as we know it.
Unagi, the company behind Ultimate Champions, was founded by Charlie Guillemot and Rémi Pellerin, 2 entrepreneurs with 7 years of experience in co-managing a game studio at Ubisoft that they built around successful free-to-play (F2P) games.
Quickly realizing the possibilities offered by blockchain, they decided to leave Ubisoft to create their own universe combining the best of sports and Web3. Their ambition? To make Web3 gaming accessible to as many people as possible.
The project has received strong support from Yves Guillemot, co-founder and CEO of Ubisoft, Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon (MATIC), Sébastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox (SAND), and Mario Götze, the German international footballer who plays for Eintracht Frankfurt.
The Ultimate Champions ecosystem currently revolves around a fantasy soccer game, with its centerpiece benefiting from partnerships with 35 top clubs including Arsenal, Wolfsburg, Bayer Leverkusen and French clubs ESTAC Troyes and Stade de Reims.
In an effort to expand and reach more and more specializations, Ultimate Champions has also set its sights on basketball, the second most followed sport in the world after soccer. As such, the fantasy game has already entered into a long-term partnership with Euroleague Basketball, Europe’s most prestigious interclub competition.
As a fantasy game, Ultimate Champions allows players to build their own team to advance in the standings against other players. This universe is realized through the virtual teams in question, which are composed of real players represented as NFTs with unique statistics modeled on their performance in the real world, with, of course, several levels of rarity.
Thus, by taking advantage of blockchain technology, Ultimate Champions promises to offer an inexhaustible experience: unlike a classic game where the time spent and the rewards earned are abandoned when you decide to stop playing it, this fantasy game guarantees the ownership of your assets. In other words, they have value both inside and outside the game.
A project that seems to please, since Ultimate Champions has received a financial support of 4 million euros from Binance Labs, the investment arm of the first cryptocurrency exchange platform in the world.
How Ultimate Champions works
In practical terms, your role in Ultimate Champions will be the same as a manager for a real sports team. Using your NFTs, you will have to set up an efficient strategy by composing a soccer team of 14 players (11 starters and 3 substitutes) by taking into account different parameters, whether it be the type of formation you choose or the organization of the players on the field.
A typical team is composed of a goalkeeper, 4 defenders, 4 midfielders and 2 forwards. However, you will have the possibility to define up to 7 different formations in order to customize your strategy to the maximum. The latter will be your first asset, as you will also have to order your team within a budget allocated by the game.
Once your team is set up, you’ll then have to compete with other players to rise to the top of the leaderboard and be rewarded with CHAMP and MGC tokens, the native cryptocurrencies of Ultimate Champions that allow you to obtain additional cards, among other things.
With League Mode, you can compete against other Ultimate Champions players for free and try to crack the weekly top 50 to earn an “epic” level card in addition to CHAMP tokens to build your team.
Ultimate Champions Team Building Interface Preview
The serious business will begin in the Tournaments section, the most competitive game mode in Ultimate Champions. These tournaments are divided up in different ways to add more excitement to the game as they test your strategic skills.
Throughout a tournament, you’ll be able to track your progress and keep an eye on your position in the standings.
For example, you will have to compose your team by respecting certain rules, such as age limits imposed on all your players or by using only “new” cards to participate. Furthermore, by acquiring “epic” level cards, you will be able to participate in increasingly selective tournaments until you can try your luck at reaching the most coveted Legend status.
There are currently two types of leagues in Ultimate Champions: private and public. Public leagues are those that are specific to the game and available to all players, such as those mentioned above.
Private leagues can be created directly by players. They are accessible via a code that is specific to them and will be necessary for any player wishing to participate.
Soon, many customization options will be added to private leagues, such as the possibility to link them to Discord rooms in order to enhance the community spirit of the game.
And in a play-to-earn logic, the more you play, the more you’ll be rewarded within a league
Overview of the progression system in a league with the rewards to be earned
CHAMP tokens, used to purchase in-game content, can be imported into your Ultimate Champions wallet from an external wallet. Alternatively, you can purchase them directly on the platform and use them to buy packs or cards on the dedicated marketplace.
As for the CHAMP token, it is exclusive to Ultimate Champions, unlike most fantasy games whose economy relies on already existing cryptocurrencies external to the game.
As such, the evolution of the CHAMP token is directly correlated to the evolution of the game. That is, as the game generates more revenue, the rewards for players will increase proportionately.
In other words, Ultimate Champions aims to reward players and CHAMP Token holders through a completely self-sustaining economy. Half of these tokens are dedicated to play-to-earn rewards, and the other half are dedicated to staking rewards.
A fantasy game that stands out
With many partnerships already in place with prestigious clubs, Ultimate Champions offers officially licensed cards, an innovative way to blend sports and Web3 while bringing fans closer to their favorite teams and players.
Also, note that as you progress through the game, your collection will become worth more points. And the rarer a card is, the more points it will bring to your collection, which will open the doors to many advantages such as access to VIP packs or to a staking system dedicated to CHAMP tokens with interesting returns (feature to come).
Beyond these advantages, any collector with a score above 100 will be able to try to be selected to receive airdrops. The higher the score of the collection, the more likely the collector will be eligible to receive valuable NFT.
Each soccer season lasts about a year, from August to July of the following year. Once the season is over, the top players in the rankings are rewarded with NFTs of increasing rarity, ranging from “epic” to “unique” ratings. In addition, each season has its own set of mints, so each player card will be stamped with the corresponding season when it is released.
For Ultimate Champions basketball, the principle is pretty much the same as for soccer, except that your team composition will have to adapt to that of a basketball court, i.e. with 3 defenders, 3 forwards and 2 centers.
Although the basketball section is still in its infancy, Ultimate Champions’ partnership with Euroleague Basketball already provides access to NFTs representing players from 38 international teams. Basketball season rewards will be announced soon, so stay tuned for upcoming Ultimate Champions announcements on their dedicated Instagram account
Ultimately, Ultimate Champions also presents itself as the perfect opportunity to introduce younger generations to Web3 through a new interactive way of consuming sports. It is also an innovative opportunity to bring fans closer to their favorite teams through a unique collection system
