It’s hard to make a Telegram tap-to-earn game stand out these days, with countless Hamster Kombat clones vying for your attention. But using the license from a beloved Japanese anime and manga series—about soccer, no less—is one interesting way to shift the vibe for a Telegram tapper.

That is exactly what Captain Tsubasa: Rivals has done, with the tap-to-earn game racking up millions of players since its recent launch, likely thanks to the fact that a lot of people will be familiar with the brand. The Captain Tsubasa manga series, which follows the rise of soccer player Tsubasa Ozora, has sold over 90 million copies, with multiple shows, movies, and other games being based on the franchise.

Now the franchise has expanded with Captain Tsubasa: Rivals, a Telegram tap-to-earn game that shares a lot of DNA with mega-hit Hamster Kombat, but shakes up the formula with its familiar license and attractive artwork. Here’s what you need to know about the game and airdrop plans.

What is Captain Tsubasa: Rivals? 

Captain Tsubasa: Rivals is a tap-to-earn game on Telegram that allows you to tap on characters from the franchise’s rich history—and, in a very basic way, build a soccer team with recognizable players.

In reality, it’s little more than a Hamster Kombat clone where you tap on an image and use the in-game currency you get—in this case, balls—to buy upgrades that will earn you passive cash, quickly making the actual tapping part fairly redundant. Rivals doesn’t really do anything new as of this current version, but it has a different atmosphere and vibe from Hamster Kombat.

Wasn’t there already a game with this name?

The simple answer is: yes. The more complex answer is: yes, and things are about to get very confusing.

Captain Tsubasa: Rivals is actually a blockchain-based browser game with an NFT collection. It’s basically a Tsubasa-themed Top Trumps-style game, where you can upgrade or buy NFTs that have higher scores to win more. It launched in early 2023.

It has a linked token on Ethereum scaling network Polygon called TSUGT, which can be earned by playing the game. But that token is apparently separate from the Telegram game, and will not be the token that is eventually airdropped to players.

Officially, the Telegram game is called Captain Tsubasa: Rivals on TG—or Rivals on TON in some cases—but there’s bound to be some confusion when two apparently separate games basically share the same game, and will each have their own token.

How to play Captain Tsubasa: Rivals on Telegram

If you’ve played a tap-to-earn game before, then you know exactly what to expect here with the captain. You tap on the player in the middle of the screen, and each tap will give you a ball. Of course, you can spend these balls to upgrade how many balls you get from each tap, or how many times you can tap in one session before you run out of energy.

Or, if you prefer, you can spend your balls on upgrades such as new players for your team, coaching improvements, or stadium upgrades that generate passive income while the game is closed—for up to three hours. Given how much more lucrative this is compared to tapping, this is effectively the best strategy to get the most balls.

There’s also a daily combo reward that pays out 5 million balls if you purchase or level-up three specific upgrades each and every day. Our daily-updated guide will tell you the latest combo, letting you rack up millions of extra balls with little effort.

When is the airdrop?

Captain Tsubasa: Rivals launched with the promise of a future airdrop, and already provides the option to link a wallet from The Open Network (TON), but there is almost no details on when that will happen or how the distribution will be decided.

We do know that it will be a brand-new token that will be distributed to Telegram players, and not the existing TSUGT token that was created for the other Captain Tsubasa game.

TON is still the most likely network for the token launch, given the wallet connection feature and also the fact that most other major Telegram crypto games—like Notcoin, Hamster Kombat, and Catizen—have launched on the Telegram-aligned network. However, there are some signs that the developers could be considering other options.

A recent rebrand changed the game’s title in the mini app and on social media from Captain Tsubasa: Rivals on TON to Captain Tsubasa: Rivals on TG, though the official website still shows the former name as of this writing. The developers also recently got BNB-based funding from Binance, which could signal plans to launch on Binance’s chain.

That’s just speculation for now, but it’s something to look out for as the game proceeds closer to its eventual airdrop.

Edited by Andrew Hayward