Winter Refresh is on the horizon in FIFA 21 Ultimate Team, and with so many cards receiving both upgrades but also transfers, there are plenty of coins and investments to be made.
In this guide, we’ll be explaining how you can look to make coins in 3 key areas, these being:
- Investments into transferred items - mainly cards that can be utilised in League SBCs
- Investments into upgraded players - mainly cheap cards that can be used in SBCs that now receive a higher rated, more expensive item.
- Investments into special cards, i.e. IFs/MOTM and other performance-based cards that may receive upgrades.
So if you’re looking to make coins over the coming weeks, sit tight and be ready to take some notes, because Winter Refresh is a great time to make some serious money!
Transferred Card Investing
As we’ve already seen this year, investing in players that are set to receive new, transferred cards in FUT can be very rewarding.
When a card is transferred in FUT, it can take a little bit of time between his transfer and his new card being released into FUT, during the time an investment opportunity can be taken on his current card at his “old” club.
When a player is transferred, the newly transferred card takes the place of the former card at his former club, meaning there is no more supply of that card onto the market.
If the original card is a card that is useful in League SBCs for example, being a vital component in a certain team from a big league, this card will rise in value as the supply dwindles for the desired item as people continue to submit him into League SBCs, causing a rise in price.
Be on the lookout for low-end golds that have transferred that haven’t yet received transferred items, but will have future value due to requirements for League SBCs!
Upgraded Gold Card Investing
Similar to the way transferred card investing works, we can use the same theories when investing in cards that get upgrades instead of transfers.
When a gold card gets an upgrade, the pre-upgrade version is replaced in packs with the upgraded version, meaning there is no more supply of the lower-rated card.
If the card in question is popular or required in League SBCs, there is a chance that it can rise in price, if the upgraded version is more expensive due to being higher rated (i.e. 83+), making the card more valuable for high rated SBCs.
This can be an effective way to turn some decent profits with high returns on investment, however, be careful, as some upgraded cards may not get as big a boost as expected, meaning there’s a chance that prices of current cards to increase.
Special Card Investing
Special card investing can be one of the biggest profiting areas during the Winter Refresh season, with certain special cards, particularly performance-based cards such as In-Forms, Player of the Month and MOTM items receiving extra boosts depending on the upgrades given to the base items over the course of the reshuffle.
Special cards only get upgraded when either the overall rating of the new base card exceeds the overall rating of the special card, or if certain stats of the new base card exceeds stats on the higher-rated special card, as stated in EAs In-Form Winter Refresh Upgrade Criteria from last year:
- If an upgraded player’s new OVR rating and/or face stats do not equal or surpass his existing in-form’s rating, his IFs will not get an upgrade.
- If an upgraded player’s new OVR rating and/or face stats equal or surpass his existing first in-form’s rating, his IFs will get an upgrade:
What this may mean, is that for certain items, special cards may not be impacted. Say for example an 80 rated player gets upgraded to an 82, given that the next special card from an 80 goes to an 83, the 82 rating on the new base card wouldn’t exceed that of the special card, meaning no upgrades.
An example we can look back to from FIFA 20 was Timo Werner, who received a boost from an 83 to an 86 base card in FUT, which resulted in some upgrades to some of his special cards.
In the run-up to the Winter Refresh event, Werner’s in-form cards saw plenty of hype before the potential upgrade, with his 85 IF rising up from under 100,000 coins to 145,000+ just before the event on PS4.
A similar % rise was found on his 86 rated IF, which was invested in beforehand, and went from around 135,000 to over 200,000 coins on PS4 before his upgrade.
It’s well worth noting, that once the upgrades were actually released on February 14th, the value of these cards fell a lot, due to lower than expected upgrades and tonnes of investor hype, so make sure you sell in the hype.