PHANTASIA
“Fantasy sports brought to Solana”
It is not a shocker that fantasy sports have become one of the most speedily growing and lucrative online industries over the past two decades, with a current market size of about US$18.6 billion and expected growth of $48.6 billion in a couple of years to come.
From my research, the 2020 pandemic has further strengthened this sector’s outlook with more than 59 million people actively participating in gaming in the United States of America, Canada, and other major geographical regions.
Are you new to fantasy sports and you’ll need me to lay some emphasis on what it is?
Fantasy Sports are online competitive games where the ‘manager’ can put together a virtual team of real-life sports players. Fantasy points are then earned based on real-life statistics, and managers put up their teams against other managers’ teams. Like real-life professional team sports, the players manage their roster by adding, dropping, trading, and selling players to keep their stats up to date.
I am a very big fan of fantasy sports and I must tell you that they are addictive. I have been playing some fantasy sports such as Fantasy Premier League which can be assessed on their official site or you download the simulation app on your mobile phone(available for iOS and Android users) and Football Manager which is available on a variety of platforms. I am a core PC gamer so I have the game installed on my gaming laptop.
I have also tested one of the fantasy sports on blockchain called DeFi11 which is a DeFi-powered gaming ecosystem for fantasy sports, NFT virtual world, Marketplace, and P2P prediction built on Ethereum.
Walkthrough
While the above-mentioned fantasy sports are amazing, Phantasia has caught my attention due to the number of features and advantages this innovation has over the rest of the fantasy sports I have seen so far. There is a whole lot to talk about and I will care enough to make sure I don’t miss emphasizing any key point in this article.
The fact that Phantasia has brought in the innovation most fantasy sports players are craving to see has made it mind-blowing:
— A Play-to-Earn model where users earn their native token $FANT, for winning contests and taking part in quests as there are multiple game types to give users a vast number of options in competitions.
— To improve users' experiences, fan cards are NFTs that can be sold on Phantasia's marketplace and unique arts will also be generated for in-game utility and profile customization. These NFTs will also be used to award future NFT drops to holders. Three types of NFTs can be earned: Skins, Badges, and Mascots.
In addition, Phanatics(Phantasia’s NFT) is 8888 unique NFTs that would have over 10 million combinations. The NFTs are assured to have a good utility. Also, just like some people buy NFTs to show off to their followers on social media, Phanatics can display or show off in contests. I think this is going to be an added advantage to boost one’s reputation in events.
WEBSITE AND ROADMAP
Phantasia’s official web app is welcoming. I didn’t need to evaluate further to have that instinct after reading the description “The Future of Fantasy Sports” that this is a very good project. It came to my mind that this is a unique development not only in the Solana ecosystem but also outstanding in the crypto space in general.
After reviewing the roadmap on the site, I conclude that it is realistic. The first milestone which is to release the prototype to a few beta testers to test the platform to give suggestions for improvements and report bugs has been accomplished.
I am one of the beta testers of Phantasia. I will provide steps on how to apply to be a beta tester and also walk you through how to navigate the app but before then, glance through the WEBSITE.
BECOME A BETA TESTER
Below are the Beta tester whitelisting procedures:
— Join the discord community: This is the first step to be whitelisted as an early beta tester of the fantasy sports app. I suggest you join the discord community and navigate to the #rules section and read it. You may also decide to navigate to the #announcement to view the recent happenings in the community. If you are new to discord and you’re finding it hard to navigate, please use the YouTube tutorial video below as that would guide you.
You can proceed to the #request-beta section and appeal to be a beta tester. The community managers are always active so I guarantee you will get a reply as soon as possible and you will be whitelisted and a unique sign-up code will be assigned to you.
Check the list of members under “Beta User” and confirm you are under that section as you will also appear to be on purple.
— Sign up on the site: Once you have the code, navigate to the site and click the sign-in option at the top right corner.
As a first-time user, proceed to sign up by clicking register.
You will be required to use the code given to you by the community manager as your username with your desired password. You can choose to ignore uploading a profile picture but it would also be a good form of identity or recognition by other players and friends. Proceed to sign in. Congratulations, you are now a beta tester of the project.
WEB APP TOUR
The first page after a user signs in is the lobby. An additional feature I like about the user interface is the fact that it has both dark and light modes. So choose the appearance you are comfortable with. The lobby is where you see the list of ongoing and future events. There are only leagues available in the early beta testing stage, NFL and NBA.
The NFL which is stands for National Football League is an American football league which consist of 32 teams divided equally between National Football Conference(NFC) and American Football Conference(AFC) while the National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America.
Asides from the fact that you get to filter the contest available by the type of league, you can also get to filter by the price of the $FANT token available for each contest, number of participants, and NFT contestants only.
Looking at each contest tab, you get to see the name of the contest, the number of participants that have joined the contest so far vs the total number of participants that can join the contest, the type of contest, time and date of the contest, the fee for joining the contest in $FANT and the total number of matches for that contest. You can see all these details in the image below.
At the top left corner of the site, you can switch to the “my contests” section to see the contests you have signed up for. I am anticipating an update that users can see past contests and details about them irrespective of whether they took part in them or not as that would also be a key feature to help in analyzing upcoming contests suitable for them and the strategy to use for these contests.
Before I proceed to enter a contest and show you how to take part, you will need to connect your SPL wallet to the web app. Currently, the supported wallets are Slope, Phantom, and Sollet web wallets.
N/B: Be careful not to fall victim to black hats when recovering or dealing with pass phrases to wallet domains or extensions as there are so many fake domains which their domain names could be unnoticed due to very close similarities.
The NFL Sunday Friday contest is a multi-user contest which means only the highest scorer is being rewarded. If it were to be a 50–50 type of contest, more users would be given a chance to win. An outstanding difference between the multi-user and 50–50 contest is that no NFT is rewarded in the latter, only the $FANT token is.
Furthermore, if a total of 200 participants take part in the 50–50 contest, the first 100 with the highest score would be rewarded. What if the total number of players in a 50–50 contest is odd, for instance, 19 participants? Only the top 9 people with the highest scores will be rewarded.
Now that you know the two types of contests present in Phantasia, I will proceed to highlight the major sections and lay emphasis on each side so you understand what each section entails.
Just as the name implies, the Available Players section above is where you get to see all the players you can select to be part of your team. Each player has a suitable position they play in the field and they are being attached to them after the index numbers. Using your middle mouse scroll button, you can scroll down and see more players.
If you are having a hard time finding any player of your choice, you can decide to filter them by the position they play or preferably, use the search bar above. Each player’s projected fantasy points, opponent’s rank, and salaries are also displayed. Once you decide to add a player to your team, click on the green ‘+’ sign to do so.
I want to believe that the reason why the budget is fixed is that this is the beta version of the Phantasia fantasy sports web app. Players selected from the Available Players section get into their respective positions here.
Due to the structure of the game, it is impossible to select two players with a certain position. For instance, you cannot select two players that have QB. Let’s see what happens when we try to do that.
As you can see, I filtered the players by the position “QB” and tried to get in two players with the same position and it returned an error message. You cannot also select more than 9 players.
Also, you should notice that each selected player decreases the total budget given to fill up your squad. The ‘FLEX’ position player can be an RB, WR, or TE.
Select the matches in the match pool and see the players available for those sets of selected matches in the Available Players section. Note that only players available in these selected games will be shown as available.
Once you are done with your choice of selection or filled up the spaces, proceed to click the Finalize Roster button. There will be a pop-up for giving your team a name which is also showing your squad for a review, the leftover budget amount, and your projected points.
Using my nickname as my team name looks weird but then….
After that, head to the My contests section and view the event.
Additional information on the registered contest is that you get to see the top performers of the contests. You can also edit your previously selected squad. On the right-hand side, your position in the contest is displayed alongside the position and points of other participants in the contest.
Select a contestant to view their team details which are below your team details. The screenshot below shows that I selected Ray to view his team details.
If you do not understand the scoring system in NFL, refer to the Docs and read the brief description about the scoring system. I would refer you to this article for additional details.
Click on any player to view the player’s personal details.
The leaderboard can be downloaded as a Comma Separated Values(CSV) file to your computer simply by clicking the small white icon attached to the Leaderboard shown in the screenshot below.
If you are not comfortable playing with the leaderboard, you can hide and display it with the small arrow button shown in the screenshot below.
After a few games, the zeros changed and the points were given. The top performing contestant, My Imaginary Friends with the most points, has 123.14 points in the screenshot below.
“I have the least point presently. I don’t really have an idea about how players in the NFL perform even though I understand the concept of the game. I am more of an EPL fantasy player. I hope to perform more when it is added on Phantasia. In the meantime, I hope I have walked you through thoroughly how to navigate the platform with ease.”
If you encounter any bug(s), do well to report here and stand a chance to earn some $FANT. Do well to fill the suggestion form if you have any too.
Nevertheless,
There are certain reasons developers put into consideration when building protocols on different chains. They could consider certain criteria such as the category of people that use the network, the speed of the network, the fees, and other advantages of the network to their project. I have carefully analyzed Phantasia to know a few reasons they choose Solana.
WHY SOLANA?
The fact that the team chooses to build this project on the Solana ecosystem makes them very observant. I might not get to know all the reasons for this decision but I will state two outstanding advantages of this decision.
— Speed and Low Cost: One of the main reasons I couldn’t keep up with playing DeFi11 on Ethereum is because of the insane gas fees charged for performing any slight activity and many gamers would be discouraged. Even though other blockchains' fees are affordable, Solana is outstanding and the transactions are not only fast but very affordable and unnoticeable for any individual to use the platform with ease.
— Device compatibility: There are several online blockchain games that would require you to use an average gaming PC for them to run smoothly or require you to install certain driver plugins on your browser. A lot of people still use low-end PCs to date and it would also be time-wasting to be installing certain drivers on new devices from time to time.
Other problems I had with some of these fantasy sports are RAM and processor management. They occupy too much RAM and make the PC lag and to my greatest surprise, Phantasia has changed the narrative. I tried running the web app on a low-end PC and I attached a screenshot of the PC’s performance below.
WRAP-UP
Phantasia is not only an incredible gaming platform that puts all the best ways to enjoy Fantasy Sports at every fan’s fingertips but also an outstanding innovation in the blockchain ecosystem at large and as blockchain technology, NFTs and cryptocurrencies continue to move into the mainstream, gaming becomes a natural touchpoint for first-time users.
However, Phantasia is one of the best applications that is building the foundation for digital ownership and monetization and most importantly, offers a high level of trust and fairness to all the users or competitors using the platform assuring them a high level of data security with no room or manipulation of any kind.
I am glad to be given an opportunity to be one of the early users of this platform and so far, I am thrilled by the success of this project and how far they have come, but this is just the beginning. I believe this is a huge opportunity to create one of the earliest blockchain sports entertainment giants, bringing Phantasia on Solana to more football fans, and top football organizations and introducing the same proven model to other sports and sports fans worldwide.
