What Are NBA Top Shot Flash Challenges?
Challenges are an opportunity to show off a specific selection of moments that allow fans to earn exclusive prizes on NBA Top Shot. Flash Challenges are a new type of challenge that operates and are completed based on the stats and events of NBA games, similar to more traditional fantasy sports. Recently, this new challenge type has been an exciting and successful addition to the NBA Top Shot ecosystem. Flash Challenges have kept Top Shot users engaged in the marketplace during the rollout of Series 3 and given participants a way to collect moments tied to player performance.
How Do Flash Challenges Work?
Flash Challenges provide a gamified form of collecting for Top Shot users and NBA fans. NBA Top Shot has set up these challenges multiple days per week for collectors to create showcases with specific requirements or moments to be included.
Not all challenges are created equal or based on "normal" fantasy-relevant stats like points or assists on a given night. Challenge requirements have ranged from creating a showcase of the top five offensive rebounders on the night, to players who made the last field goal of the first half, and players with the most free-throws attempted.
The Flash Challenges are short by nature, most needing to be completed within 24 hours. This allows collectors some time to put together the right moments for a showcase, but a short enough window for Top Shot to provide multiple challenges in a week.
How to Get Involved in Flash Challenges
The best way to stay updated on upcoming Flash Challenges is to join the NBA Top Shot Discord server or follow their blog for information on the specific requirements of the Flash Challenge that day. Tiebreakers for Flash Challenges are specifically spelled out on the Top Shot blog. If a player who would qualify for the challenge does not have a Moment on the site, the next qualifying player would be included. Check this Discord for the exact players needed for that night.
NBA Top Shot has made it simple to participate in Flash Challenges through their Showcase Builder tool. Go to the collections page and you will see all of the available challenges. Click here to see the current challenges. Each challenge will show a timer with the time remaining to complete the challenge.
After you've read the requirements you can then click "Create My Showcase" to get started. The Moments are then listed and as you click through, the interface will show you Moments that you own that already qualify for each spot, or if you have no moments from that player that qualify.
Examples of Flash Challenges
The standard Flash Challenge will showcase 5 or 10 players with relevant stats from the previous night's slate of NBA games. Some of the challenges reward collectors with packs, while others reward successful Flash Challenge participants with a newly minted moment.
Klay Thompson made his highly anticipated NBA return on Jan. 9, 2022. Collectors were asked to create a showcase of 9 moments with a theme of 3-pointers to represent Klay's career. The moments were a mixture of rare 3-pointer Moments, Klay Moments, and Moments from the leading 3-point shooters on that night of action. The reward for this challenge was a Klay Thompson Metallic Silver FE Moment, and 4,390 challenges were completed.
On December 29, 2021, NBA TopShot introduced a two-tiered Flash Challenge. The Flash Challenge on this night included an easy and hard version. The easy track required collectors to create a showcase of moments of the top three field goals made leaders on the night. The hard track required moments of top five field goals made leaders on the night, but collectors had to use Top Shot Debut Moments. The prize for the easy challenge was a Series 2 Base Pack and the hard challenge received a Series 2 Rare Pack.
Feedback from the Community
Users who have been participating in the challenges enjoy speculating on which players are most likely to be part of the challenge on a given night. The challenges also give more utility to Moments in previous series or sets. Giving out prizes in the form of Series 1 and 2 packs also allows newer collectors access to Moments they may not have had exposure to in the past, with the upside of getting some highly valuable moments.
Some Top Shot collectors have provided negative feedback on the challenges as it creates one-off demand and liquidity towards certain moments that would otherwise have no demand in the marketplace.
