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EA's latest entry in the longstanding football series, FIFA 23, returned with FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) mode. The ever-popular card trading mode allows you to collect players by opening packs or buying them on the FUT market. The goal is to build your ultimate team, which you can then pit against others online or in single-player modes.
FIFA has featured Ultimate Team for a few years now and reprises similar mechanics. But for someone who is just beginning their FUT journey, it can be overwhelming. When you are just starting, you may need a little guidance, so read on for some FIFA 23 Ultimate Team tips and tricks.
Updated June 20, 2023, by Andrew Scariati: As FIFA 23 approaches the end of its life cycle, this year will mark the final edition of FIFA Ultimate Team before the series is rebranded to EA Sports FC. With FIFA 23 now available for free on Xbox Game Pass, you can jump into FUT and begin opening packs to build your team.
Play Moments Mode
A new addition to FIFA 23 is Moments. In this mode, you can complete specific scenarios to earn stars.
With the stars you earn, you can buy player packs to upgrade your team.
One of the great things about Moments is that the initial scenarios are all about how to play the game. Although they are simple tasks for veterans, they're easy to grind out to get quick stars for packs.
Moments offers a great way to get into the game while also being able to get rewards, too.
This is an interesting mode that EA has added in and looks to be a good addition, so you have something other than coins to work towards.
Complete As Many Objectives As You Can
In Ultimate Team, you can complete different objectives, which are there to help guide you through the game while also rewarding you with packs and coins upon completion of each objective.
Within the Objectives Menu, you have a few options in terms of objectives you can work towards.
When you open up objectives, you will first see your daily tasks, which are a mixture of different things to do in the game — like winning a match in any mode, scoring two goals, making 50 passes, or assisting five times.
Daily Objectives and select other tasks reward seasonal XP and are worth doing to gain incredible seasonal rewards.
There are other more specific objectives like scoring with only silver players or on a specific difficulty, which will be harder to do but more rewarding.
Another objectives tab is Milestones. Here you'll find tasks to complete that will also reward you with player packs.
The objectives are varied, like scoring goals with specific player ratings like 74+ or buying three transfers from the market, among others. These challenges are great to complete if you want more coins or player packs as they are more widely on offer for these objectives.
The final tab is the Foundations tab, this is where all the starter objectives are to help guide you through the fundamentals of FUT and make sure you know all about the game mode and how best to play it.
You can also find your Season Progress in the Objectives Menu. This shows what level you are at for the season and how much XP you need for the next level and reward.
Complete Squad Builder Challenges
Squad builder challenges (SBCs) are put in place to help you unlock packs while also getting to grips with building a team. It will help you understand what the chemistry of a team is and how to filter through your players.
SBCs will outline specific objectives to pass the challenge, such as having a certain amount of players from the same country in the squad.
Once you have met certain specifications, you will give up the players in the squad in trade for a player pack from the game. So do not use players you want to complete these as they will be gone once traded in.
To easily search for eligible players, you can use the Squad Builder feature. This will allow you to search by specifics like league, country, rating, etc.
After you have completed the Foundations Challenges taking you through the basics, you then unlock the Upgrade Challenges.
These will allow you to trade in teams of either Bronze, Silver, or Gold players to upgrade them to better-quality players. This is a great way to increase the potency of your team and get a high squad rating early on.
Do not get rid of or sell off all your players early on. Even if you are not using them, you can wait to get rid of them when doing the upgrades in the SBCs.
Don't Feel You Have To Play Online Right Away
One of the major things for FUT is the online play against others, to prove you have the best team. When you are just starting, it can be best to avoid the online modes straight away, as you can not set the difficulty you come up against.
Your best bet is to play the single-player modes; these modes still let you win coins and get rewards, but you play AI at the difficulty you choose. This makes it much easier for you to get used to FUT and then take your team online once you feel ready to do so.
Play Squad Battles To Build Your Team
The most rewarding single-player mode in FUT 23 is Squad Battles, as the flexible time frame and high-tier rewards are exceptional when first starting.
Squad Battles allow you to face teams built by real people, but controlled by AI and have a scaling point system that rewards you for playing on a higher difficulty.
Your goal is to amass as many points as you can over a seven-day period in up to 40 matches to earn placement in one of the five tiers:
- Top 200
- Elite
- Gold
- Silver
- Bronze
Each tier is separated into sub-tiers, with one being the highest and three being the lowest.
If you play on World Class difficulty or above, you should reach the cut-off for the "Elite 1" within 25–30 matches. If you play on a lower difficulty, you will likely need to play a maximum of 40 matches in a week.
At the end of the period, your rewards will correspond to your given tier. Aiming for Elite 1 is very reasonable and will offer you three main rewards:
- A special promo pack.
- Two Rare Players Packs
- 10,000 FUT Coins
These resources are exceptionally important tools that will help you build your team in every possible way. The rare promo pack will likely include a high-rated player that will likely slot into your starting 11 or bench.
The two Rare Players Packs often contain fodder for Squad Builder Challenges or the chance at rare cards. Lastly, the FUT coins offer flexibility to buy players or consumable items for your club.
Focus On Team Chemistry
You will learn this if you complete the SBCs, but if you don't, then you need to understand Team Chemistry.
It's self-explanatory, the higher the chemistry, the better the team clicks. If you have low chemistry then the passing and movement within the team will be disconnected and poor.
But if you can get the chemistry high, your team's passing and movement during matches will be more fluid, giving you a better chance of winning.
It can be easy to just put your best players on the team and hope for the best. However, singular players will not guarantee you success. Having a well-balanced team is going to be more beneficial to you.
However, in FIFA 23, developers have now introduced Player Chemistry too. This means you can have a bigger influence on how your players connect, in their positions.
This feature was available in the previous iterations of FUT, with lines connecting each player, and changing color from red to green to symbolize chemistry.
It now has three diamonds on each player — these will light up if you have a connection with a close teammate in your position, allowing you to have up to three chemistry points per player.
Chemistry is built by having players from the same country, team, and league. You will gain a chemistry point for each similarity they have.
You cannot put players out of position, or they will always have zero chemistry (this is shown with an exclamation mark). You can change them into that position, but you need a consumable to do so.
Don't Rely On Loan Players
You can use loan players in the game that only have a certain amount of games they can play.
However, it can be easy to rely on them as they are usually high-rated players. If you rely on them too much and build a team of loaned players, you are going to be in for a shock once the contracts run out, and you are left with a normal team.
With normal players, you can add contracts to make sure they can play for the team. Loaned players, on the other hand, are done when their contracts are done, and they cannot be renewed.
Be careful putting too many loans in your team at once, and make sure you have a good backup once the contracts run out.
Transfer List Extra Players
When playing the game, you will get some players and packs that are untradeable. This means you cannot sell them on, but you can trade them in when doing squad builder upgrades.
If you get players you can sell (tradeable), you have a couple of options. You can either Quick Sell for a set amount the game offers or add them to your Transfer List.
When adding them to the Transfer List, you can set the auction start price and also put a Buy It Now price, as you might on eBay.
This means you have a better chance to get more money for the players, as you can set the start price higher than the quick sell price and other players can bid on it, you could even end up with double what you get for quick sell.
The only downside with trading is that it can take longer for things to sell than with quick selling. If you need fast coins and cannot wait, quick sell may be your best choice.
Practice Online With Friends
If you are looking to just play with your friends on FUT, Friendlies Mode is your feature. This allows you to play against your friends and show off your team without having to worry about any downsides.
Friendlies mode does not use up your contracts or cost anything to play. It is just a mode for using your custom team and having some competition with your friends.
Download The Companion App
If you want to keep an eye on your team and keep it up to date without having to log into your console or PC then you should consider downloading the FIFA Companion App.
The app allows you to make changes to your squad and also deal with any transfers you may be looking at or selling.
With the Companion App, you also have the option to do your squad builder tasks instead of having to always do them in-game. This is great should you be on the move but still want to keep an eye on your team and improve it.
The app gives you the freedom to enjoy playing actual games and competing instead of always having to make changes to your team. It can be easy to spend ages in the game moving your team around, doing tasks, and making transfers before a ball is even kicked, so the app takes care of that issue.