Champion Pass Guide: Manu Kone & Adam Wharton — All Rewards Explained (July 2026)

A new Champion Pass has dropped in Kickoff Tactics, and this month’s headline cards are France and AS Roma midfielder Manu Kone and England and Crystal Palace defensive midfielder Adam Wharton. As always, we’ve broken down the full 40-level reward trail, what free players receive, and whether Premium is worth the money.

What Is the Champion Pass?

The Champion Pass is Kickoff Tactics’ seasonal premium pass. It features a 40-level reward trail that you progress through by playing matches and completing in-game objectives.

There are two tiers of reward:

• Free — available to every player at no cost, just by playing
• Premium — unlocked with a one-time purchase of £8.99 in the UK (pricing may vary in other regions)

Purchasing the Premium pass gives you access to both the Premium and Free rewards at every level. Free players only receive the levels explicitly marked as Free.

Premium pass holders also receive a golden name and avatar frame for the rest of the season.

The Two New Cards

Manu Kone — 4 Cost | 4 Power | MF

🪙4 ⚡4

MANU KONE France

Cards can't be played here next turn.

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“Cards can’t be played here next turn.”

Kone is a zone-locking control piece. At 4 cost and 4 Power he’s not winning zones on raw stats, but his ability is pure disruption; drop him somewhere, and your opponent simply cannot play into that zone on the following turn. That single line has big implications for how the next turn plays out.

The most obvious use is planting Kone in a contested zone where you believe your opponent is setting up cards to play in. You force them to redirect elsewhere, or hopefully concede the zone to you entirely. He’s best used in the mid-to-late game when zones are filling up and your opponent has fewer options to reroute. The earlier you play him, the more escape routes they have.

He pairs naturally with any strategy that benefits from dictating where the game is played. If you can funnel your opponent into zones that suit you, Kone becomes a threat multiplier beyond just his 4 Power.

Adam Wharton — 5 Cost | 7 Power | MF

🪙5 ⚡7

ADAM WHARTON England

Each turn you play exactly 2 cards, this gets +2 Power (except on the first turn).

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“Each turn you play exactly 2 cards, this gets +2 Power (except on the first turn).”

Wharton is a snowball card with a strict condition. At 5 cost, he starts at 7 Power — pretty solid for a midfielder — but every turn you play exactly 2 cards, he gains another +2.

The key word is exactly 2. Not 1, not 3 — exactly 2. That makes him a deck-building constraint as much as a card. You need a hand and cost structure that reliably lets you spend exactly 2 cards per turn without being forced into 1 or 3 by circumstance. That means avoiding low-cost spam (which tempts you to play 3+) and avoiding situations where you’re stuck with only 1 playable card in hand.

He rewards disciplined, structured play. If you can maintain the 2-card rhythm, he can become one of the highest-power midfielders in the game for his cost.

Full Reward Trail

Free Rewards Summary

Don’t want to spend any money? Here’s everything a free player earns by completing all 40 levels:

Packs: 3× Upgrade Pack, 1× Standard Pack, 1× Prestige Pack

Currency: 425 Coins, 125 Cash

Five packs in total plus a solid currency haul just for playing. The Prestige Pack at Level 38 is the standout free reward — it’s the rarest pack tier on the trail and well worth grinding toward.

Premium Rewards Summary

Purchasing the pass for £8.99 unlocks the following on top of everything in the free trail:

New Player Cards: Kone (4 Cost, 4 Power, MF) + Wharton (5 Cost, 7 Power, MF)

Duplicate Cards: 25× Kone + 50× Wharton (for immediately upgrading both cards)

Avatars: Kone Avatar (Level 8) + Wharton Avatar (Level 36)

Cosmetics: World Card Back (Level 26) + Golden name and avatar frame for the season

Additional Packs: 1× Basic Pack, 2× Standard Pack, 2× Premium Pack, 1× Upgrade Pack

Additional Currency: 600 Coins, 270 Cash

Combined totals across all 40 levels (Free + Premium):

Is the Champion Pass Worth £8.99?

The case for buying:

Both cards this season reward smart, structured play rather than brute force — and that’s exactly the kind of depth that tends to age well in a card game. Kone’s zone-locking ability is the sort of effect that becomes more powerful as the game’s card pool grows and zone-contested strategies become more common. Wharton, at his ceiling, is an elite-power midfielder who costs 5 — that efficiency is hard to find.

The combination of the two also opens up interesting deck space: Kone operates best in a control shell, Wharton in a disciplined 2-per-turn structure, and those two goals aren’t mutually exclusive. A midfield of Kone + Wharton could give you disruption, snowball potential, and raw stats across multiple zones.

The case for skipping:

Wharton’s condition is a real deckbuilding commitment. If you prefer flexible, reactive play where you adjust how many cards you play each turn based on what the opponent does, Wharton will frustrate you — missing the condition even a couple of turns caps his ceiling significantly. Similarly, Kone at 4/4 isn’t winning zones on power alone; he’s a tool for players who enjoy outmanoeuvring opponents, not simply outstatting them.

Free players still walk away with a Prestige Pack, two Standard Packs worth of Upgrade Packs, and over 400 Coins for just playing normally.

The verdict:

I think Kone will prove to be a more popular meta pick than Wharton, and is an interesting control card. As the game evolves, perhaps a Control structure will become meta-defining, and Kone would be a likely candidate to be included within it.

I believe Wharton’s ability will prove to be too specific to be useful most of time. In the late-game, you are often looking towards your strong 6/7/8 cost “finishers” (Leao, Bellingham, Messi, etc), so playing 2 cards on those later turns feels like quite a rare and weak gameplan.

That said, the Champion Pass always provides great value with it’s Premium features for committed players. If there is at least 1 interesting new card within it, which Kone provides here, then I believe it’s a worthwhile purchase.

How to Unlock the Champion Pass

1. Open Kickoff Tactics and tap the Champion Pass banner on the main screen
2. Select Champion Pass Premium
3. Complete the purchase (£8.99 in the UK)
4. Premium rewards unlock immediately as you level up the trail

Progress is earned by playing matches and completing season objectives.

Planning a deck around Kone or Wharton? Head to our Deck Builder to put your squad together and share it with the community. Let us know how you’re using these cards in the comments below.