Today I'd like to present you an underrated gem that has been on Hive for a while but sadly didn't get as much attention as it deserves since this game would even be fun to play without its play2earn mechanics.
I'm talking about the soccer manager "Rabona".
This guide will teach you everything you need to know about the game to get a head start without spending any additional money.
Table of contents:
- Overview about Rabona
- Getting started
- The type of managers you will encounter
- Defi manager
- Bot
- The impatient
- The inactive
- Active manager
- Help my contracts are running out
- Dept
- Signing players
- Which player stats are important?
- Making money
- Swap RBN for Hive
- Hive rewards
- Upcoming changes
- Referral link
Overview about Rabona
Rabona is a soccer manager game where you take the manager role of your very own soccer club.
Each season takes seven days to complete and each day you will have to play four matches against other teams. 15 Matches in total per season.
Getting started
After paying the equivalent of 5 USD in Hive to get your starter pack, you are brought to the dashboard section of the game.
At the centre of the page you will find a small countdown indicating when the next season is going to start.
Unfortunately you will have to wait until the counter reaches zero before you are able to play.
I highly recommend using the waiting time to read the excellent guide which is linked below the counter and execute the mentioned tasks before you begin playing.
The guide should contain everything to get you started so instead of repeating everything the guide tells you, I will be focusing on what to do after your first season ends and give you some tips about strategy.
The type of managers you will encounter:
While playing Rabona, you will basically encounter three types of managers that I'm going to explain in this chapter. The names were chosen by me so don't expect to find the terms anywhere on the net. ;)
Defi manager
The "Defi" manager is the type of opponent that you will meet about 90% of the time.
He plays Rabona passively and only logs in from time to time to see if there are some contracts to renew.
Rabona has an autoplay feature that jumps in whenever a manager forgets to submit a lineup. The Defi manager leaves the game running on its own.
Defi managers sign enough players to compensate for injuries and red cards.
Those managers are fine with reaching a mediocre place at the end of the season. Using this playstyle, you won't progress very fast, stay in your current league for a longer time and gain additional fans rather slowly.
But since you get a reward in liquid Hive at the end of the season after reaching at least league 2 they still earn a bit.
Luckily you have a big advantage when playing against a Defi manager.
Since the autoplay mode is completely predictable and always uses the standard 4-3-3 formation, you as an active manager will have a good chance to win a match against such managers.
As you can see in the table from the official guide the 4-2-3-1 formation gives you a strength bonus of 15% against an opponent that uses the 4-3-3 formation. Even more if you train your team in the 4-2-3-1 formation from time to time.
| 4-3-3 | 4-2-3-1 | 4-4-2 | 3-5-2 | 4-5-1 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4-3-3 | 1 | 0.85 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 0.95 |
| 4-2-3-1 | 1.15 | 1 | 0.9 | 0.95 | 1 |
| 4-4-2 | 0.9 | 1.1 | 1 | 1.1 | 0.9 |
| 3-5-2 | 0.9 | 1.05 | 0.9 | 1 | 1.15 |
| 4-5-1 | 1.05 | 1 | 1.1 | 0.85 | 1 |
Bot
As a new manager you might spot some managers whose team name begins with the term "npc_". Those are bots hosted by the Rabona team. Their purpose is to fill the gaps in case not enough new managers entered when the next season starts. So you won't have to wait another season to start playing.
Gameplay wise the bots are very similar to the Defi player type. Just pick a 4-2-3-1 formation against them and your chances to win are pretty high.
Bots seldomly manage to leave the third league since they are rather weak opponents.
The impatient
The "impatient" manager invests a ton of Hive into the game and swaps it for RBN. He immediately upgrades all buildings to the max level and signs lots of expensive superstar players.
Within the first season the "impatient" manager progresses to the next league with an enormous margin to the second place.
Sounds like the way to go right? Not necessarily.
Rabona is a game that only rewards in the long term. Almost all the income in the game is based on the number of fans your club has acquired.
As a beginner theses are just 11500. With every game you win, the amount increases a little. But the increase is still rather slow. Your main source of income comes from ticket sales. Without fans that visit their stadium the upkeep of their maxed out buildings is way higher than the income from ticket sales.
All the superstar players cost them even more RBN that is paid per match.
Those managers will rise a couple of leagues until they meet opponents of equal strength. The only difference is that the other managers have been playing the game for quite some time and managed to gain a fanbase big enough to pay for the high expenses.
In other words "impatient" managers pay the bills from their own pockets instead of using the tokens they earned in game.
Well, I met a few of them while playing. Since there was no way of beating them it was a very frustrating experience.
But since their playstyle doesn't generate any returns soon, some loose interest in the game and drop back into your league as easy pray.
The inactive
Most of the time those managers will occupy the last 4 relegation places of your league. They have stopped playing and are unable to submit a full team.
You will automatically win a match against an inactive player 2:0 as long as you are able to submit a full team be it directly or indirectly via auto play.
Inactive players are the main reason why Defi players can exist. No matter how bad you play, you will hardly ever relegate since the bottom places are already occupied by inactive managers.
Active manager
Yes, you guessed right. This is you. :)
In case you have read everything above, there isn't much more to say.
When planning your matches, always have an eye on the formations that you oppenent has played before. If they use the same formation all the time just pick one that is strong against it.
The only real threat are other active players that adjust their own playstyle depending on their opponent. But luckyly most other players in the lower leagues don't fall into this category.
Help my contracts are running out
After three seasons the first player contracts from your starter kit will run out and you need to acquire new players.
By following the following advise you will not get into dept.
Dept
But what does it mean to get into dept in Rabona?
In case you are not able to pay the bills due to bad management, you will not receive anymore Hive rewards until the dept is paid. Instead of transferring the rewards to your hive account, Rabona will automatically convert it to RBN in order to pay your dept. So be careful not to spend more RBN than you have. An other way to get out of dept is to buy RBN with Hive.
Signing players
You should keep your starter team as long as possible. 400RBN per player is insanely cheap. You won't be able to sign a player for that price again.
Always have an eye on the contract duration (CD) of your players in the "Team" menu. If it reaches the value of 1 you should take action. Though it is possible to extend the contract of a player, the price increase is so high that it simply isn't worth it. At least not as a beginner who is on a budget.
The market is also something you should avoid at the beginning since you have to pay a fee for the players in addition to their wages per match.
Another way of acquiring a new player is by scouting. You pay 20.000RBN and get a new player with random stats. This is pure gambling and usually a waste of money for a beginner.
While you are playing in the lower leagues it is best to sign a player in the "sign" menu.
Managers in the upper leagues have tons of RBN lying around and can afford to play the scouting lottery. Every player that they consider too weak to use or sell on the market is canceled and can be obtained in the "sign" menu. This usually happens at the mid of the season. At that time you will be able to sign contracts with fairly strong players for a good price. But don't wait too long, otherwise other low league managers will get them first.
When signing a new player, always have an eye on your income and expanses.
Try to eye it out by opening the "financials" menu and comparing the "result" of your last home match (where you made profit through ticket sales) and the last away game. Take the difference, divide it by 13 or 14 (11 player + 2-3 more to compensate for injuries and blocks) and you have the average salary of your new player. (in case you don't care about making profits ;) )
If in doubt better sign the cheaper player and save the money for later.
Which player stats are important?
I'm pretty sure all managers ask themselves this question. Luckily one of the developers shed some light about the topic on Discord.
Those are the stats that are most important for the specific position:
| Goal keepers | Defenders | Midfield | Attackers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goalkeeping | Defending | Dribbling | Shoot |
| Endurance | Passing | Headball |
Speed, defending and endurance are important for all positions and should be trained from time to time.
Since the stat increase of the training is applied to your whole team you should focus on training these three stats together with the formation of you choice and pick up new players with high values in their specific area. That way you won't waste your goalkeeping training on attackers and other positions that don't really need it.
Another thing you should care about is the vulnerability stat. This influences the chance of a player to get hurt during a match. Look out for players with a low value here. This is very important since a player that misses half of the season wont be of much help.
As mentioned in the official guide also have an eye on the players age. While the player is under 29 years old, his stats will increase. If he is older the stats will slowly decrease at the end of every season. Players in their mid thirties may also suddenly retire so keep this in mind before signing an old player.
Making money
Now to the fun part you have been waiting for. How much money can you make playing Rabona and how do I get it?
There are actually two ways to make money. The first is by selling the RBN tokens that you earned while playing and the second via Hive rewards.
Swap RBN for Hive
I think this is pretty obvious. You earn RBN by selling tickets, beer, bratwurst etc. to your fans. Rabona has a builtin market where you can trade RBN Tokens for Hive and vice versa.
But I wouldn't recommend doing so at the beginning for two reasons.
First RBN is not worth very much. At the time of writing 1 RBN is worth 0.00000007 Hive.
You need to play in league 1 upwards in order to earn enough spare RBN tokens. While you are playing in the lower leagues, you will need them to level up your buildings and get higher skilled players.
Hive rewards
Rabona has four leagues that you can participate in. As a new player, you will start in league 3. The only league that will not generate any Hive rewards. But don't worry, it doesn't take long to ascent into league 2. For me it was just three seasons. Could have been two if I had some advice.
As soon as you manage to ascent into the second league you will get a reward in liquid Hive at the end of every season depending on the league and position you finish the season.
A middle place in league 2 will let you earn around 0.5 Hive. Every league above will quadruple the Hive reward. So a middle place in league 1 will earn you 2 Hive per season and 8 Hive in the champions league on average. If you manage to finish at a higher rank the reward will increase. A second place in league 2 grants 0.746 Hive for example.
(Please note, this has been reduced recently since Rabona is in the proces of changing the reward system. Read "Upcoming changes" for further info)
Upcoming changes
The Rabona team has recently announced some changes to the reward system that will go live in the coming seasons and are going to reward active players even more.
It is planed to introduce daily Hive rewards depending on the number of matches a player has won. These rewards will be paid out at the next day and only if the player performs an active task like training their team or submitting a formation. In other words "Defi" managers will be forced to play actively. Otherwise, their unclaimed Hive rewards will be thrown back into the pool.
In addition, the seasonal rewards will be paid out in RBN tokens instead of Hive.
Referral link
If you are interested in joining the game please consider registering via my referral link.
That way you will get an amount of RBN worth 0.2$ right after registering and an additional 0.2$ RBN payment if you are active for at least two weeks.