Building a strong Ultimate Team is not that easy – after all, it’s hard to get good cards. But after 6 years of FUT, MeinMMO author Max Handwerk has actually put together a team in FIFA 20 that is really strong. What was different this year?
This is my FUT club: When looking at German professional football, it quickly becomes clear that many clubs have their founding date in their name or crest. The emblem of Borussia Dortmund, for example, proudly displays “BVB 09”, referring to its founding in 1909, while Schalke 04 dates back to 1904 – just to name two examples. So, the clubs have been around for over a hundred years. Thus, it’s reasonable to refer to tradition in the title.
In the title of my Ultimate Team club, which was founded in February 2014, however, there is no number. After all, it is only six years old. Besides, “Lazy Dogs 14” just sounds much worse than simply “Lazy Dogs” – because that’s what my glorious FUT club is called. As you can see, this has little to do with professional football.
Unfortunately, this also applied to my FUT squad for a long time. Because: Over the years, I avoided investing money in Ultimate Team. I generally play without purchasing FIFA Points, which makes it quite difficult to secure strong cards in Ultimate Team. Often, the packs you earn simply don’t provide what the team currently needs.
This year, however, everything went a little differently. I started FUT in FIFA 20 with the goal of getting at least two to three players with ratings over 90 into my team by the end of the season. Now I look at my team and see: No player is below the 90 rating anymore. In FIFA 20, my Ultimate Team is stronger than ever – how the hell did that happen?
In FIFA 20, everything was different
My current team includes many players from the good Weekend League rewards of the events “TOTSSF” and “Summer Heat“. These need to be viewed separately, as both events generally provided good opportunities to acquire strong players.
But even before that, my team kept gaining new members. The main reason: I fully focused on untradeable packs and players this year. I quickly abandoned the idea of acquiring the absolute top cards on the market. Consequently, I hardly sold any players on the market to earn coins and correspondingly bought few players. Instead, I looked at: What can you get if you primarily focus on SBCs and tasks?
Here are the results: Of course, I still don’t have crazy cards like Icon-Ronaldo, which will probably never happen. But for example, Icon Swaps 1 gave me a free icon in Roberto Carlos, who recently stood in my starting lineup. The Brazilian kept things tight at the back and played over 700 games. Later, it was Puyol that you could get from Icon Swaps.
In addition, there were good SBC players like POTM Vardy and later POTM Werner. The fast striker scored goals for months until he was recently replaced. Otherwise, I always looked at SBCs that are worth it. While many SBCs aren’t worth it, some stand out with a good price/performance ratio.
Besides Icon Swaps, there were always weekly objective players who could improve the team. Scream-Özil, for example, came into play early and was extremely worth it. However, as the game progressed, it became increasingly difficult to secure objective players, as more and more strong players from the upper leagues were dropping into the divisions to complete the tasks more easily. There might be a need for a revision in FIFA 21 – perhaps in the form of a tournament mode.
Speaking of tournament mode: The Weekend League and its rewards also contributed to making the team stronger than before. However, two points are important here that already existed in FIFA 19.
- Firstly, that you qualify through Division Rivals and not through tournaments. Before the Rivals existed, I never managed to qualify.
- Secondly, that the Weekend League has 30 instead of the previous 40 games. No idea how one is supposed to manage 40 games when 30 is already tight for me.
In the Weekend League, I usually finish between Silver 1 and Gold 2 – not necessarily high, but enough to get some good rewards. Those, in turn, are at least suitable for SBCs.
My FUT 20 conclusion: Despite all the positive experiences this year, it is still clear: Those who do not invest money in FUT find it hard to get good cards. This remains a problem. Especially when looking at cases like the young man who lost all his study money on packs.
However, I must say: For the first time, I felt in FIFA 20 that I could build a good team without spending money. Thanks to Icon Swaps, thanks to weekly objectives, and thanks to SBCs. I hope these features will be further developed and improved in FUT 21. So that the weekly objectives might become fairer to complete, or SBCs offer a better value than they often do still.
