5 Questions For YNWA

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few months, you will already be well aware of the incredible innovation that is BlackPool Troop Cards.
We here at BlackPool are very excited about this new inclusion to the ecosystem (along with their ability to reward our most loyal community members) and none of us more so than the man behind the plan, YNWA.

Most people will know YNWA from his absolute domination of the Sorare scene, but we took the time in this interview to focus in more on the theme of Troop Cards and answer some of the communities most asked questions in relation to the topic.

As always you can watch the full video linked at the bottom of this article, but for now, put on your team colours, sit back, crack a beer and enjoy as we provide...

5 Questions For YNWA.

YNWA please introduce yourself.

Sure, well hello, I’m Mark, also known as YNWA. I think most people know me for playing a football collectible fantasy game called Sorare which I’ve done pretty much 24/7 since February 2019. Last year I joined the BlackPool DAO whereby I represent them by playing the game Sorare and in my spare time… I support Liverpool, go and watch them at home games and then most other things in my life are revolving around football as well.

What are Troop Cards?

So, Troop Cards are Blackpool's very own NFTs. They are designed and produced for our community to engage and follow the success that we have in the games that we play and they provide a number of different perks - both in the BlackPool ecosystem and specific to the series that they have been created for. So in this case we are talking about series one - the genesis edition - which are linked to the success of myself in Sorare.

What was the inspiration behind them?

So, the inspiration behind the troop cards was wanting to give our community a way in which they could be involved in the success and the growth of BlackPool.

Last year I had the fortune of meeting some really talented artists that wanted to break into the NFT space. I met them through football connections - they design very very cool illustrations of footballers that are in the news. They work with the teams, they work with the players - and yeah - we just got round a table and we wanted to thrash out an idea originally that was going to be a sort of deck based card game.

But the idea just evolved, we just kept adding on and adding on ‘what if we could do this?’ ‘what if we could do that?’ and in the end we wanted to shape it in a way where people could collect certain cards that were linked to BlackPool, have certain benefits that were linked to ownership of these cards and almost play vicariously through some of the vertical managers that we’ve got.

And so this first series was, naturally, about footballers. We took on the idea of wanting to create things which were different to what we see in the marketplace at the moment - so there are many ways in which you can buy you favourite footballer or memorabilia relating to your team - but we wanted to look back in history and we identified what we think is a world eleven of footballing superstars and depict those in a way where there were various clues on the card so it was a way that - yeah we could engage more closely with our community and give them something as a badge of honor or something which they could collect themselves and cherish in line with how they see BlackPool succeeding.

How do you get a Troop Card?

Right so the big question: how can you get one?

Well there are a number of different ways you can get access to our troop cards. They have been designed in a way where we have three different scarcities that will appeal to people of all shapes and sizes.

So we have Common cards, Rare cards, and a Unique version of each of the footballing eleven. The primary way in which you can acquire acard is via auction, we’ve got a new marketplace on the BlackPool site which will allow you to view all of the cards, see what’s on auction and then find one which is suitable for yourself.

The next way in which  we will provide these cards is to our token holders. So each month we will be taking a snapshot of our token holders and will be rewarding based on certain metrics. So if you are a token holder then you may be in with a good chance of getting some of these cards dropped to you.

And last but not least, we want to reward those in the community that have performed and excelled and helped and stood out. So through our vertical managers we will be asking them for recommendations on pointing us in the direction of people that have done outstanding performance and for that we will reward troop cards to those.

What perks do Troop Cards Provide?

So, the perks and benefits. Well for me, I feel that the main perk for ownership of a troop card is that it gives you direct access to a yield that I am able to derive from continuing to be successful at Sorare.

So just to put things into perspective, I’m currently still the number one manager on Sorare in terms of all time earnings. In 2022 I’ve surpassed 280 ETH of prize earnings and the expectation is that that should continue for the foreseeable with the cards and collection I’ve got.

So what we’re going to do is each week we’re going to take a percentage of the yield - every time I hit a podium or a first place - part of that will be funnelled into a yield gauge in the same way that our token holders enjoy from staking tokens on our protocol. So you will be able to take your troop card, you will be able to stake it on our protocol and every time I hit a podium every time I hit a first place, part of that winnings will then go directly into feeding those people that are enjoying an ownership of a troop card.

But that’s not it! outside of Sorare we will also have a number of benefits across the BlackPool, Stake DAO and rekt ecosystem.

Every time we attend one of the main ethereum conferences worldwide there will be tickets to events, there will be many different ways in which we can use these troop cards. They will effectively be a raffle ticket for you and every month there will be something cool that we do where we will just literally pick some winners at random from our troop card owners and they will receive whatever benefit that is.

Last but not least, if you are an existing BlackPool token holder then there will be airdrops specific to the activity that you are already making within the protocol. So we will have dedicated troop cards that are dropped as a reward, as a thank you for the activity that you are already undertaking.

Once again we would like to thank YNWA for taking part in this interview, (although he didn't really have much choice).  It was extremely insightful to hear all the mechanics of this project straight from the source and we hope that it has helped to answer some of your questions as well.

As always, interested to hear your thoughts on things, so let us know on Twitter with the hashtags #fivequestionsfor or #TroopsCards and stay tuned for the next instalment where we will be speaking with another big name from the world of Web3 and eSports. Or as we like to call it, 3Sports.

Peace out apes.