Who are the must-have players in the World Cup Card Battle game?

BEIJING (China) - With  FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 action heating up in China so are the digital battles in the FIBA Basketball World Cup Card Battle game, which was launched ahead of the event.

Available on Facebook, Facebook Messenger and WeChat, the game pits basketball fans one against another in a quest to earn new cards to assemble the most formidable lineup in the World Cup and climb the global leaderboard.

There have been a lot of outstanding performances across the eight host cities, but some stand out from the crowd as the leaders of the statistical categories. Let's have a look at some must-have cards in the Card Battle games.

Points: Ra Guna

If you need a scorer then Ra Guna of Korea is clearly the man as he has totaled a tournament-best 50 points in the first two games. Dar Tucker of Jordan and New Zealand's Corey Webster are both nice second options, having poured in 22.0 points a game with Dennis Schroder of Germany and China's Yi Jianlian both having tallied 43 points after two contests. 

Rebounds: Hamed Haddadi

Ra shows up right near the top of the rebound category if you need help there as his 12.5 boards per game are second to just Iran's Hamed Haddadi with 13.5 rebounds per game. Ersan Ilyasova of Turkey, who was just behind the top five in scoring, ranks third in rebounds (12.0 rebounds per game) while France star center Rudy Gobert is fourth, tied with Tunisia's Salah Mejri at 11.0 rebounds each game. 

Blocks: Rudy Gobert

Sticking with the big men for blocks, Gobert is the man to beat in this stat at 3.5 per game while Mejri shows up here as well with 3.0 - in a tie with Germany's Maximilian Kleber. Fourth on the blocks list is Poland's Mateusz Ponitka, who gives you great value here since he is a shooting guard with 2.5 swats a contest while Czech Republic's Ondrej Balvin and Italy's Jeff Brooks both have 4 blocks so far.  

Assists: Joe Ingles 

Another example of unexpected stats from his position is Australia's Joe Ingles as he leads the competition in assists with 9.0 per game as a small forward. The rest of the leaders in this category are more traditional backcourt guys: Dominican Republic's Gelvis Solano is even with Ingles (thanks to his co-tournament high 11 assists against Germany). Canada's Kevin Pangos is third with a total of 16 assists while Venezuela's Heissler Guillent and Schroder both have 15 assists. 

Steals: Vitaly Fridzon

The steals leaderboard has some different names, topped by Russia's Vitaly Fridzon (3.5 steals per game), followed by Dominican Republic's Luis Montero, Senegal's Maurice Ndour, Jordan Nwora of Nigeria, German Daniel Theis and Tayavek Gallizzi of Argentina all averaging 3.0 steals per game. 

FIBA