I’ve been playing a fair amount of Ultimate Draft in FIFA lately. Maybe it’s because I’m not too bothered about the recent promos, or I’m still locked in a state of paralysis over what to do with Cafu. (Please don’t be mad about me packing Cafu by the way, my luck quickly evened out when my Mid/Prime Icon player pick gave me both versions of Jari Litmanen, who doesn’t get near my Liverpool past and present team. I opted for Hernan Crespo instead, fodder is fodder.)
What I’m saying is, nothing is drawing me to the main game modes. I get my eight wins in Division Rivals, I very occasionally compete in Weekend League, and dive into Squad Battles for Icon Swaps. But in my limited gaming time every week, Draft is rarely on the cards. Having played it more than ever before over the past few weeks, I believe it could be the best aspect of Ultimate Team - and it’s definitely the least predatory.
My latest team was completely and utterly broken. I don’t love Draft because I have a squad with Ronaldo (Brazilian), Maradona, Zidane, and Gullit alongside Team of the Year Ruben Dias, a special Mo Salah card, and the FUT Birthday Roberto Firmino, but it helps. This team would cost me 12 million coins to build, not including the bench (Salah and De Bruyne on there add an extra mil by themselves). I dread to think how much real money I’d have to shell out on FIFA Points to get this team. If I sold every single player in my club I could probably make a quarter of that value. Sure, I’d have mid R9, but he’d be playing alongside Jay Spearing and Caoimhín Kelleher.
It’s incredibly fun to play with a squad of stacked players, but the time limit on them - Draft is a five-round knockout competition - forces players into more expansive playstyles than they’d usually employ. I don’t want to play sweaty or pass it around the back when I’ve got Maradona waiting to attempt a 30-yard screamer. Some people do, but I find it’s fewer than in Rivals, FIFA’s casual PvP game mode.
It’s fun when you get a bad draft too, though. The draft before my dream team was awful - I made some rookie errors in building it and ended up without full chemistry, and had a couple of common golds starting too. But I still made it through two rounds and got to try out Prime Ronaldinho - when else would I get the chance to do that?
If you’ve got Zidane and Gullit in the middle of the park, you’re in for some sweet matches, win or lose. It’s just exciting to try out these legends! If you’re stuck with John Stones and Kurt Zouma, though, don’t fear. It can be fun being the underdog, too. You know that your opponent just had better luck than you, they’re not necessarily one of the best players or have spent the most money to build their squad. Sure, they’ve got Prime Moments Cruyff up top, but Łukasz Fabiański has never shied away from a challenge. After all, there’s not a lot on the line, and a bad draft can create as memorable experiences as a good one. In this example, Fabiański actually saved a penalty from Cruyff, and will therefore be immortalised as a Goals FC legend despite the brutal 5-1 loss.
From the Ronaldo highs to the Zouma lows, draft is often a more level playing field than most other game modes - friendlies excepted. Team building relies on a little skill and plenty of RNG, but even a crap team can do well. That’s the magic of the FA Cup. I mean, Ultimate Draft.
There’s too much randomness involved for Draft to become the premier mode for FIFA esports, but I can’t help but feel it would be more fun if players had to build a team live and deal with whatever hands they were dealt at FIFA events. Perhaps as an interlude between the biggest matches, or as some kind of exhibition match between avid FIFA players Diogo Jota and Trent Alexander-Arnold? Would either of them dare replace gold Jordan Henderson with the Eric Cantona they just pulled, or would their fans tear them apart?
Ultimate Draft is a chance for more casual FIFA players to use some of the greatest cards, and level the playing field between those who spend a ton of time and/or money on the game and those who cannot. It’s also refreshing to have a mode not reliant on buying packs to pull the best players. There are packs available as rewards and winning more matches gives you better packs, but other than the affordable 15,000 coin buy-in, there’s no gamble involved, and certainly no ‘surprise mechanics’. Ultimate Draft removes the grinding, the gambling, and the buying from FIFA - to the extent that I’m surprised EA still supports it. You can buy in with FIFA Points too, so I guess that’s the logic.
If you want a more chilled out Ultimate Team experience after a particularly stressful Weekend League or just when you were thinking of opening your wallet for a chance at Prime Moments Fernando Torres, open Ultimate Draft instead. I can’t guarantee that Torres will be there - or any Icon for that matter - but it’ll be a lot more fun.