In 2024, Challenger was introduced in Round 12 and ran through to the end of the season. Prizes were limited, with All-Stars awarded for first place each week and smaller prizes for second and third. Because of this, Challenger became a competition where most were throwing darts and playing PODs to snag a weekly win. As such, I don't think we should read too much into strategies from the 2024 season.
We don’t have a full season of data to analyze from last year, but looking at the weekly scores, a competitive score for the top three was typically around 3,550 points. With significantly bigger prizes on the line in 2025, I expect the average score to be slightly higher, as more people put resources and effort into this comp.
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Challenger Competition Details
Salary Cap: $16,500,000
Restrictions: Maximum of 6 special cards
Prizes:
Weekly:
1st: 750 GDS Funds
2nd: 150 GDS Funds
3rd: 75 GDS Funds
4th-10th: 9 Player Rare Pack
11th-20th: 3 Player Rare Pack
Seasonal: 1st-10th receive 1x 2025 Prize Card
Finals:
1st: 300 GDS Funds + 1x 2025 All-Star Card
2nd-3rd: 9 Player Rare Pack
Why Challenger Is Set to Shine in 2025
For me, Challenger will be the most exciting competition in 2025. It’s the format where card multipliers and selecting the correct multiplier for the right card will be the most important.
Classic (how I won in 2024) is more straightforward—you play one special card and manage your salary cap. Open is simple too—play the best card with the highest multiplier you can find. But in Challenger, we really get to experiment with our teams. The allowance of six special cards creates endless possibilities, which will make this competition more varied and fun.
Strategy: Keys to Success in GameDay Squad Challenger
Challenger is the home of the All-Star card, and if you want to compete consistently, you’ll need to collect a solid selection of these. Without them, you're starting with a x0.9 multiplier handicap—effectively about 100 points across the team. While this isn’t insurmountable, it does put you at a disadvantage.
All-Star cards are currently much cheaper than they were in 2024 and are still available in All-Star Packs. So for this article, I’ll assume you’re building a team with a full set of All-Star players. ont worry who i have put in here or where. Except Tim Taranto. see why here.
This leaves $12,300,000 in your cap, or as I discussed in the Classic Strategy Guide, x0.1 per $100,000. Accounting for each slot filled by a $500,000 Bronze card, you’ll have $4,300,000 remaining. This is a huge amount of cap space and gives us plenty of flexibility to build strong teams.
While Platinum and Diamond cards will make up the bulk of competitive squads, I want to stress that Gold, Silver, and even Bronze cards will still have their place in 2025.
Here are a few potential strategies I’ve developed based on our limited data for the keys to Success in GameDay Squad Challenger in 2025:
The Budget Strategy (Inspired by Budget Direct if you want to sponsor the article hit me up)
If you like to spread risk,and ensure you whole team, this might be for you. My plan here is to play an all-Platinum team, one Silver card, and one Bronze card. This uses the entire cap and ensures a balanced team that can stay competitive week-to-week.
You could go even further, downgrading some cards to Gold or Silver instead of Platinum. This strategy keeps you in the running for weekly prizes while minimizing risk.
The Warren Buffett (The Buffett)
Before Warren Buffett became the value-investing guru, he loved “cigar-butt” stocks—cheap stocks with just enough value left for one last puff. In GameDay Squad, we can use the same approach with undervalued Diamond cards.
This strategy focuses on:
PODs with high weekly upside.
Exploiting the GameDay Squad market for mispriced cards.
For example:
Jack Sinclair ($40) – Likely a top-7 defender.
James Sicily ($29) – Coming off a down year but has massive upside.
Adam Treloar ($30) – Consistent as ever.
Tom Liberatore ($4.99) – An absolute bargain.
By playing undervalued Diamonds and filling gaps with Gold or Silver cards, you can target weekly wins while staying under budget.
The BOBS (Blokes on the Ball)
This strategy is all about going all-in on the best cards available. I plan to stack my midfield with the highest-ceiling Diamond cards I can find and use low-cost Bronze cards to round out my forward and defender slots.
This approach works because the midfield typically provides the highest scores, so investing heavily there gives you the best return. Meanwhile, Bronze cards, which are cheap and easy to acquire (especially via Discord coins), can help you stay under the cap.
Two trends I think are going under the radar in 2025 is the value of diamonds in challenger and bronze cards. You may have seen that I recently used my Discord coins to purchase 62 Bronze Player Packs, I plan to repeat this post the player update. This gives me enough flexibility, ideally pulling the right ones, to fill out my starter, classic and challenger teams with key players while saving resources for my high conviction players. The second key trend I see is the undervalued nature of Diamond cards in Challenger. With so many cheap Diamonds in the market, now is the time to stock up.
The BOBS strategy is perfect for those chasing the $750 weekly prize. Go hard on your best cards, and fade the weaker ones as much as possible.
Conclusion: What’s Your Strategy?
Thanks for reading! Are you a Budget, Buffett, or BOBS player? Let me know in the comments—I believe all three strategies are viable, giving everyone a chance to succeed in GameDay Squad Challenger this year. Be sure to use our BOBAFL code if you sign up to score some free packs.
Cheers,
Goal Practitioner
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