Haibo's World Cup SmashCard Picks

With the final group stage games getting played, we are nearing the World Cup Knockout Round! And with it - the next SmashUp game - 2026 FIFA World Cup Knockout Bracket Challenge!

And with a new game - you know what that means - new SmashCards! With the release of the World Cup bracket game, we’ve created 15 new SmashCards to be played on teams and the entire bracket. You can see the full set of SmashCards by clicking here.

I wanted to go through and talk a little bit about each card. The cards this time are divided into 2 types - Bracket Cards and Team Cards.

BRACKET CARDS

Bracket cards apply to the entire bracket. In fact - it applies to the ideal perfect bracket - NOT your bracket! So it doesn’t matter if you miss on your picks - the bracket cards will apply as if you picked perfectly. Since the entire bracket has 32 games, that means each bracket card has a chance to hit 32 times! That’s why these are expensive and you can only really play 1 (or 2 if you use your entire budget on just 2 bracket cards). There are 7 bracket cards to choose from. Let’s take a look at these!

Cushion Squeaky Bum Time Fox in the Box Clean Sheets Chip Shop On the Yellow Brick Road Hopefuls

Now most of these are pretty straight forward. For example, Fox in the Box gives you 1 point for every match that ends in a penalty shootout. Again - there are 32 total games, so if EVERY game ends in a penalty shootout - you would get 32 points from the card! Now that’s highly unlikely that every single game ends in a shootout so if you look over the past few World Cups, you should expect to see about 10-11 matches ending in penalties so that would translate to 10-11 points from the card. But you never know! That’s what makes these cards fun!

In particular though - I want to highlight 3 cards that may be a bit more detailed.

Hopefuls

I really like this card! I would personally play this card. Historically there have only been 8 World Cup winners ever and Italy didn’t qualify (and Uruguay may not depending on the group stage). With the expanded field to 32 teams instead of the usual 16, that means 25 or 26 teams have never won the World Cup before. That means MOST matchups - you should expect this card to score you points. And you will certainly get a good amount of points in the Round of 32 since most matchups are between teams that have never won before. Overall, I really like this card.

Squeaky Bum Time

This is a high risk / high reward card. Winning in extra time (and NOT going to penalties) doesn’t happen that often, but if it does - you get 3 points per game. This has the potential to score a ton of points if there are a lot of ET games (again - NOT penalty shootout). A good high variance play that can vault you to the top!

On the Yellow Brick Road

This card gives you 1 point for every 10 yellow cards. In the past 3 World Cups, there have been an average of 60 yellow cards given in the knockout rounds (which is 6 points) - but that’s with a knockout round of 16 games. This year, there’s double the number of games and so far through the group stages - seems to have been more physical as well. We’ll see if that continues into the knockouts but not a bad card to try out.

TEAM CARDS

The other group of cards are Team cards. Instead of the entire bracket - you play them on a specific team. Every game that that team goes through - you get points for - but if they lose early and get knocked out, then that card no longer applies. In this tournament, there are 5 rounds, so the maximum number of games a card can get played on is 5 games - but if they get knocked out in the first round, then you only get it once. So play these cards on teams that you think are going to make a deep run in the tournament! Because you get less games these cards are applicable for - they are cheaper and you could play as many as 5 team cards if you wanted! But it’s your budget - mix and match between bracket and teams however you want! There are 8 teams cards. Let’s take a look at these!

Usual Suspects Underdog Parking the Bus Tiki Taka Scattershot Enter the Thunder Dome Bottle Job Turn the Screw

Most are pretty straight forward again. Let’s look at Usual Suspects and Underdog. This is based off the current FIFA rankings. If you play Usual Suspects on Argentina (ranked 1) and they end up winning the title - you would get 5 points (since they had to play 5 games to get there and you get 1 point per game). If you think Bosnia (ranked 64) is going to win it all and they do - you would get 10 points from Underdog at 2 points per win. But if they lose in the first round, then you get nothing! There are 2 cards in particular I want to highlight.

Bottle Job

This is a super fun - but incredibly risky card. You are basically picking the team that’s going to lose in the championship game. If you call it right - you get a huge reward - 20 points! But picking the right team is tough! At just $2,500 budget though - might be worth giving it a shot!

Turn the Screw

This might be the single highest variance card in the game. Basically, you get points for each match based on the shot differential (NOT shots on goal, just total shots). For example, in the group stage, in the Spain vs Saudi Arabia game, Spain outshot Saudi Arabia 22 to 3. That means you would have gotten 19 points from this game alone! Imagine that happening over 5 games and this card could single handedly win you the whole thing! But if you look closely - it can go negative too! In the 2022 World Cup - an extremely strong, potent offensive team in France made it all the way to the finals - which meant you got the full 5 games. If you played this card on France in 2022 - you would have gotten NEGATIVE points. That’s right - even though they won most of their games and took Argentina to penalties in the final, they were outshot overall by their opponents. So this card has extreme variance and could just as easily sink your entire bracket. Choose wisely if you’re going to play this card!

Make your picks and pick your SmashCards before games start on Sunday 6/28 and good luck!