It will take more than a pandemic to stop EA Sports cranking out FIFA games, and if FIFA 21 is anything to go by, the disruption has been a creative unblocker! There’s a renewed emphasis on varied attacking, with player-controlled “Creative Runs”, and a much wider variety of goals being scored, including net-busting headers.
FIFA 21 Ultimate Team (or “FUT” to its millions of friends around the world) is much the same as ever, but a few critical changes have brought new life to EA Sports’ biggest game mode as well. Fitness and training items have been removed, which sounds like a small change but makes a huge difference, while the addition of co-operative mode means you and a friend can finally tackle Squad Battles and Division Rivals together.
Of course, the focus is still on piling up coins and building an amazing team. If you want to do that effectively, make sure you follow our guide to FIFA 21 Ultimate Team!
Finish your Division Rivals placements
New for FIFA 21, Division Rivals now has “Placement” matches. Ostensibly this is there to help you find your way to the correct skill rating and division. But for anyone starting out, the most important news is that you get a massive lump sum of coins for completing the five simple placement matches. You’ll get more if you rank higher, but you can always climb divisions quickly if you finish below your natural level, and there are coin bonuses for reaching promotion thresholds too, so get those placements finished and bank your coins!
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How to build a good FUT team
At the start of a FUT cycle, you won’t have many coins, so it’s a good idea to steer clear of popular leagues like the English Premier League and German Bundesliga, where even mediocre players are often overpriced. Italian Serie A is often a good starting league, full of cheap beasts. Focus on buying the best attacking players you can. Speed and shooting are important stats, but it’s also a good idea to look at weak foot and skill moves — 4* for one or both is a good look, and 2* and below is best avoided. Then build around those attackers.
Now here’s the important bit: once you have a team you quite like, stick with it for a while! Not every player will dazzle you immediately, but if they look good on paper, they will probably come good with practice. Resist the urge to buy and sell players over and over, because each time you sell something in FUT, you lose 5% in tax, which can quickly drive down your coin total if you’re not careful. Once you’ve built up a better understanding of what you like and identified some good new players to buy, then make your move.
The best Chemistry Styles in FIFA 21
You should also make sure you’re applying good Chemistry Style items to players in your team, as this can make a huge difference to their in-game performance. The “Finisher” Chem Style, for example, boosts shooting by 10, with some individual stats going up by 15! Add that to a card like Gabriel Jesus and some of their stats max out.
You can preview the in-game impact of Chem Styles using sites like Futbin, but a general rule of thumb is that Centre Backs (CB) and Central Defensive Midfielders (CDM) benefit most from Shadow, which bumps up speed and defending attributes, while attackers often appreciate Hunter, which buffs speed and shooting. The fastest attackers may not need the speed boost, though, in which case you can try Deadeye, Finisher, or another Chem Style that upgrades shooting and another area like passing or dribbling.
How to make FUT coins quickly
There’s a cottage industry out there now focused on how to make coins in FIFA 21 Ultimate Team, so if you want to keep up to date with all the latest info, we recommend finding some YouTubers you like, or even a FUT trader Patreon, and paying close attention. But of course, there are also some basic ways to make money that should work for everyone. For starters, meta players are generally cheapest on Mondays after the Weekend League finishes and most expensive on Friday and Saturday when players are building their Weekend League teams. You can take advantage of this knowledge to buy low and sell high.
Another good thing to learn about is Squad Building Challenges (SBCs). FIFA 21 Ultimate Team receives new SBCs every day at 6pm UK time, and each one requires specific kinds of players and rating levels to complete. This drives up the prices of anyone who matches the criteria. Keep an eye out for new SBCs and their requirements, then scour your club for players who fit the bill and see if their price has gone up. If so, sell sell sell! It’s also a good idea to hang onto any players rated 84 and above and sell those when premium SBCS go live. Icon SBCs are set to launch in late November, and we expect them to require multiple squads full of 84s and more, which will permanently drive up those prices.
Good Luck & Have Fun!
The best advice we can give for FIFA 21 Ultimate Team is just to get out there and enjoy playing the game. Remember that you don’t have to grind Objectives, Division Rivals, Squad Battles, and Weekend League all the time. Pick and choose the things you want to do, and make sure the ends justify the means. FUT is a long cycle and it’s easy to burn out. With that said, good luck building your team, and may the pack luck be with you!
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Henry Stenhouse was formerly a Ph.D. physicist before being born anew in the fires of game journalism. An unashamed Super Smash Bros. fanatic, he’s still waiting for the rest of the editorial team to accept his daily challenges for an Ultimate showdown. Other genres of interest include FPS, RTS, and western RPGs. You can follow him on Twitter at @Fernoface
