FIFA 21 Ultimate Team guide: 7 things you need to know

Lastly, there are drafts. Instead of using your own squad, you get to draft a squad of players and play for rewards. Once you lose, your draft is over and you forfeit all the cards you drafted. You can a single player draft against AI or an Online Draft against other players. You get significantly better rewards for the Online Draft.

FIFA 21: A beginners guide to FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT)

One of the biggest appeals of FIFA 21 is its Ultimate Team mode, which players commonly refer to as FUT. In FUT, you collect cards that represent different professional players and use them to form your own team to compete against AI and other people. To get the best squad possible, there are some things you need to know. We’ve compiled a FUT guide with tips and tricks to get a good team together and beat your opponents.

Ultimate Team game modes

There are several types of games you can play in FUT with your squad. Squad Battles put you up against AI-controlled teams where you can choose the difficulty and gain rank for rewards, Division Rivals is the rated PVP mode where you will go against other players, and Friendlies allow you to play unranked games against other players (often with custom rules).

If you do well enough in Division Rivals, you can earn enough points to play in FUT Champions, which is a weekend league where you earn rewards based on how many games you win during the league. You can get exclusive cards for doing well in Champions.

Lastly, there are drafts. Instead of using your own squad, you get to draft a squad of players and play for rewards. Once you lose, your draft is over and you forfeit all the cards you drafted. You can a single player draft against AI or an Online Draft against other players. You get significantly better rewards for the Online Draft.

FUT coins guide

FUT coins are the in-game currency for FIFA. You can use these to buy players and other items on the Transfer Market. FUT coins are essential to your success, as you need them to assemble the squad you want. There are three basic ways to get coins.

Playing games

You will get coins for playing games in Ultimate Team. This generally awards around 400-700 coins in Squad Battles, Division Rivals, and FUT Champions (unless your opponent forfeits the game early). In Friendlies, you always get 325 coins for completing games.

Keep in mind that you won’t get any coins if you forfeit the game or leave early, and you can get penalized for doing it often.

Opening packs

Certain packs in FUT are “tradeable” and you can sell the cards in these packs on the Transfer Market for coins. To do this, go to the player options and select “List on Transfer Market.” From here, select “Compare Price” to see how much the player sells for. Price it accordingly and then list it if you don’t plan to use them in your squad.

There is a lot of luck involved in buying packs. You might get Neymar or Mbappe or even an icon worth over a million coins, but you will most likely get nothing worth a lot. So, be careful about buying packs. This is where FIFA gets its pay-to-win reputation: serious players spend lots of money on tradeable packs to get enough coins for all the best cards.

Rewards

You will earn weekly rewards for Squad Battles, Division Rivals, and FUT Champions. The better you do, the more rewards you will get. In addition to coins, you will also get tradeable packs as rewards, which you can open and sell players from.

Getting FUT players guide

From the Transfer Market

First and foremost, you should NEVER spend your coins on gold packs. Save them for the players you want in your squad. Getting the best players is extremely expensive, so you will need a lot of them, and buying packs almost never pays off. You should buy players from the Transfer Market.

Finding how much players cost is easy. Simply go to the Transfer Market, search for the player you want, and then browse the selection. You should get a good idea of how much the player goes for. Save up until you have enough and then buy the player you want. Make sure not to just buy the first one you see, as there will often be a cheaper option.

From packs

The only other way to get the players you want is by pulling them in a pack. While you can rely on packs for cheaper players to begin your journey, you need to get extremely lucky to get high-value players. Nevertheless, it is worth opening every pack you can get to increase your chances.

There are a lot of ways to get packs without spending money, although many of them won’t be tradeable. You can earn them through doing objectives and Squad Building Challenges (SBCs). Objectives give you challenges that you will need to complete while playing matches, and SBCs require you to submit squads of players for rewards.

Set up your team and play

Setting up your FUT squad involves more than just getting good players. You also need to set up your formation and custom tactics. Be sure to check out our top formations for FIFA 21 to help get them set up!

Once everything is set up, it’s time to get out there and start playing. We recommend starting by practicing in Squad Battles and learning the basics of the game before moving on to Division Rivals. Be smart with your coins, and enjoy the game.

If you really want to get serious, there’s even a phone and web app you can download to take your team with you!

FIFA 21 Ultimate Team guide: 7 things you need to know

FIFA 21 Ultimate Team finally delivers an injection of freshness to a mode which has stagnated in recent times. Opening packs is still a priority in FIFA 21 – and as a result, SBCs are a bit broken, sadly – but there’s plenty of freshening up elsewhere. New Icons include Eric Cantona and David Beckham, and in a masterstroke fitness cards have ascended to footballing heaven. Need to know what else is new, now PS5 and Xbox Series X have landed? GR’s FIFA 21 Ultimate Team guide explains all.

1. You get a personalised stadium

(Image credit: EA)

The full set of FIFA 21 stadiums is still usable in Ultimate Team, so fret not if you still want to run out at Old Trafford, Anfield or the Bernabeu. But the default ground you start off with is a smart, generic model that you customise to your liking as you play. Every element from seat colours to lighting to team chants to club anthem can be switched up as you earn or buy new items. And over time, you can upgrade the stadium’s full architecture, eventually playing in a venue that’s comparable size wise to those legendary arenas mentioned above.

2. Fitness cards are gone

(Image credit: EA)

For eons, Ultimate Team die-hards have bemoaned the need for fitness cards, which meant either faffing around in the transfer market or building a second ‘fitness squad’ in order to keep your prime XI in match-ready condition. Finally, they’re gone. Training cards, where you could improve an individual players’ stats by 5%, 10% or 15% for one game only, have also been ditched, meaning there’s no more need for coaching items either. It means most pack openings are much more streamlined, with cards related to your stadium (TIFOs, chants etc) replacing those lost.

Don’t worry though, FIFA 21 Chemistry Styles are still a big element of FUT. You can see how all 22 work by clicking that link and being taken to our guide.

3. There are 101 Icons in total

(Image credit: EA)

As you’ll see from our FIFA 21 Icons guide, there 12 ‘new’ old faces this year, and all are profiled in detail should you wish to click that link. If not, below is a quick list of the fresh additions. They take the in-game legends total to 101, with Pele, Diego Maradona, Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane among the priciest. David Beckham was a surprise addition to FIFA 21 in November 2020.

• David Beckham (England)
• Eric Cantona (France)
• Davor Suker (Croatia)
• Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany)
• Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon)
• Ashley Cole (England)
• Petr Cech (Czech Republic)
• Philipp Lahm (Germany)
• Xavi (Spain)
• Fernando Torres (Spain)
• Ferenc Puskas (Hungary)
• Nemanja Vidic (Serbia)

SBCs are a bit bust

(Image credit: EA)

Some sad news, here. Since their inception, Squad Building Challenges have been a brilliant means of making in-game coins in addition to having fun by working out daily or weekly puzzles. They’ve been nerfed this year, likely in order to prevent people profiting from them. Many pack rewards are untradeable, while the player card rewards which made League SBC sets so essential are gone altogether, diluting their fun entirely. Essentially, to prevent 5% of FUT players from making coins, the other 95% have to suffer a watered-down game mechanic. That’s a huge, and indefensible, shame.

5. Everything moves faster

(Image credit: EA)

FIFA 21 features of little likeable elements when it comes to expediting gameplay. Pre-match build-up is cut to mere seconds, celebration times are shorter, there’s no more ‘walkback’ animation online after a goal is scored, and replay durations have been cut down. Even jump-cuts when the ball goes out of play for a throw or corner feel snappier. A small point, but a crucial one in net-based games when time wasting so often causes tempers to fray.

6. Co-op gets a makeover

(Image credit: EA)

Again responding to years of fan pleading, FIFA 21 co-op play has been completely re-tooled. From that new, cleaner home hub you can press R2 (on PS4) to see which friends are online, then X to invite them to a match or Options to trigger the Co-op Lobby. Add a team-mate to then jump straight into Friendlies, Squad Battles or Division Rivals. EA has even added an extra match-making option for those keen to avoid being pitched against solo players where possible.

“In Division Rivals we’ve built a toggle that enables you to opt-in against co-op players, or to play solo only,” explains creative director Tyler Blair. “[As a co-op player] our matchmaking finds you a co-op game, and if that isn’t possible we’ll find you a game against a solo player who is willing to go up against a co-op pair. We’re always aiming to provide a great gaming experience that you’re [specifically] looking to play.”

7. Other small tweaks make a big difference

(Image credit: EA)

Community events are a cool new addition to FIFA 21 Ultimate Team: they see rewards unlocked each time a collective XP tier is reached. Team events work similarly, although for those you align with one team for a specific time period – a choice of Everton, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs, and Manchester City say – then score goodies for your group of players’ overall performance. Nothing to complain about here: all additional FUT objectives are welcome when it comes to scoring XP, or fresh packs.

Another key change to note: Division Rivals matches are no longer limitless – only your first 40 count towards the weekly rankings. However, the weekend league remains the same. “For FUT champions, the plan is to continue to run at 30 games. Since making that change it’s struck a good balance between the time available and the number of games that can be played,” says Blair.

Most importantly for those of you planning an upgrade to PS5 and Xbox One X: all your progress on current-gen automatically carries over to the next. The same is true of FIFA 21 Volta. For more on how it all works, check out our FIFA 21 dual entitlement guide.

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How to earn coins and build a good squad in FIFA Ultimate Team

With coins, everything is simple – FIFA 23 provides a lot of tools and modes for obtaining them, which we will talk about in this guide, and you can always replenish the stock with the help of a professional one and buy FIFA coins SkyCoach.

This is a service that helps players greatly simplify their gameplay and get really valuable currency or items without the risk of getting banned and other sanctions from the game administration.

With sets, everything is a little more complicated due to several gradations of quality and different costs, as well as difficulties in obtaining game packs, but we will analyze them as part of the current guide.

Game sets

Sets are game cards of random football players that can be bought for FIFA coins, or obtained for various activities.

There are several types of sets in total, which are divided by their value, reward and cost to purchase and open.

• Bronze
• Silver
• Gold
• Special, or Idols

Bronze sets are a great way to create your first playable squad. Considering that initially you get not standard players of the selected team, but random performers, it is better to strengthen the game squad gradually.

Bronze sets are the cheapest in terms of the number of FIFA coins needed to exchange.

When you get a strong enough and played lineup for your level, then move on to silver, and then to gold players.

Of course, you need to strive for special sets – they allow you to get the best players of our time, which cannot be obtained in any other way, except perhaps through the transfer window from other gamers, but the price will be appropriate, since you need to take into account rarity and uniqueness.

Game modes and their value for beginners

Squad Battles

The first and in fact the most optimal introductory mode. You use your game team to play against lineups assembled by other gamers, but under the guidance of artificial intelligence.

You can adjust your opponent’s difficulty level and play against them to train and test your squad while earning victory points that will be calculated at the end of the week and converted into in-game rewards and FIFA 23 coins.

Moments

A special mode in FIFA 23, during which you need to strictly follow the game task in the form of approach and implementation of the proposed game situation.

You must have the right selection of players and very accurate fulfillment of all conditions in order to complete the moment with three stars out of three possible and receive the maximum reward in the end.

Draft arena

The mode during which you collect your composition based on the cards that are offered to you for each specific position.

Your task is to choose performers and play matches against AI, or live players. You will receive a reward when you get 4 wins in this mode.

Division Rivals

Division Rivals is a separate mode that is also a separate qualifier for the weekend tournament.

A balanced format where you play against players who are matched exclusively by your divisional placement and matches are played in a standard format of 90 minutes of playing time, no extra time or penalty shootouts with a potential draw.

Based on the results of the week, you will receive final points depending on wins, losses and draws.

If you manage to score 1250 points, you will qualify for the playoffs.

FUT Champions Playoffs

This is a qualification and a chance to get into the weekend league where you can earn player packs and FIFA coins.

You will play 10 games against random opponents without being tied to divisions.

There can be no draws – each match will be played with overtime and a penalty shoot-out if required to determine the winner.

For each win, you will receive 4 points, for a loss 1. Your task is to get at least 4 wins to get the right to calibrate to the weekend league.

Weekend League

The finale of all your efforts and the final stage of all calibrations and games in the division.

You will have 20 games and a segment of tasks that you will progress through if you win. Each next stage will be much more difficult to pass than the previous ones, but it is here that large sets with good players and a large supply of FIFA 23 coins are mined.

Transfer window

If you have a good budget in the form of FIFA 23 coins, you can always try to buy a ready-made football player, rather than trying to get one from kits.

Of course, the more valuable the player and the higher the skill level, the more other gamers will ask for the right to own this performer.

The same principle works in the opposite direction – if you got a player who is valuable in the gaming community, but does not carry much significance in your team, then you can put it up for sale, having previously monitored potential prices from other players, so as not to sell the player too cheap and not overprice, not being able to realize the performer for too long.

Football matches

Of course, you should not forget about the basics and meaning of playing FIFA Ultimate Team – these are simple matches.

Firstly, such fights bring the experience of personal meetings against live players and the development of their own tactics and general confidence in their actions, which definitely affect the result and promotion in the divisions.

Also, each full-time match will bring you and FIFA coins, depending on the outcome of the match. For a win there will be the highest reward, for a draw the average between win and loss and for a loss you will still receive consolation coins

Please note that the division system is designed to select the best opponents for an interesting level of play.

If you can’t cope with your current opponents and often suffer defeats, then you will be transferred to a weaker division very soon, until you update the line-up and gain experience in playing better and more consistently, and as soon as the first series of victories appear, you will start progressing in divisions quite quickly.

FIFA 23 has a pretty good matchmaking system and you won’t often face opponents who are here by accident or have not been calibrated, but have a squad and experience far superior to this division.