Trading
 

I have delayed writing this article as prices in the Auction House have been depressed since the release of the Team of the Year (TOTY). It would appear that the chance to obtain TOTY players in packs resulted in a mass sell off of player cards to fund pack purchases. The result of this was that player trade values were much lower than previously and this presented a few difficulties for those of us trying to make additional coins by trading

In the last few days though, the market has appeared to return to normality. Although prices are not reaching there pre TOTY levels (with a few exceptions) the increase has been sufficient for the smart trader to make a profit.

When we first started building our coin fund, we were looking for players that we could use the quick sell function to sell at a small profit. However this process is slow but necessary in order to build or coin fund to allow us to move to the next stage.

We are now going to look for players that regularly sell for higher than there quick sell value. Because of this we are taking a risk that if we cannot re-sell the player at auction, we will make a loss. Because of this, it is vital that we do our research to ascertain the correct market value for the player before we start to buy.

When we were bidding on players at below the quick sell value, you will have noticed that there were players that we would regularly be outbid on. These are the type of players we should be looking at to start with as we know they regularly sell for more than the re-sell value. I will not be naming individual players to go for as that would very quickly distort the trade price making this advice less effective, but I will advise on the types of players you should be looking for.

Ideally you will have built a fund of around 20,000 coins to trade with, however if you have more coins than that, you can start going for higher value players where greater margins can be made (although the risks are greater too)

To start with I would be looking at Gold Rare cards rated high 70’s to low 80’s, full internationals, with high profile clubs. Attacking players also tend to offer better trading opportunities, although these are just some loose guidance to help you find trading opportunities. Once you find a potential opportunity, I recommend watching a number of auctions on that player to find the range of prices the player sells for.

You need to find a player with a good range of prices as we are looking to buy at the lower end of the range and sell for more. We also have to take into account the 5% EA deduct from every Auction House sale. If we sell a card for 1,000 coins we will only receive 950 coins as the other 50 will be deducted.

So having watched a player, we can see the range of prices. For example, we may find a player that always sells for at least 800 coins, but will often sell for more, and regularly sell for over 1,000. This presents our trading opportunity

Although there are factors that influence player value such as formation or number of contracts, there are sufficient gamers that will buy there player they want irrespective of formation, and this is where our potential to make a profit arises.

We have found our player and decided that his lower value is 800 coins. We now do a search on the player and bid on every card available at 800 coins (depending on the player I sometimes don’t bid on players who have no contracts left as these can sometimes be harder to sell). We bid on every card at 800, and if we are outbid that is not a problem.

With a fund of 20,000 coins we could make 25 bids of 800 assuming there are that many cards available in the auction house. If we have done our research correctly we should win a handful of these auctions. If we win most of them, we have clearly overpaid for the player and will struggle to re-sell at a profit. Likewise if we do not win any of the players, we have undervalued that particular player

Assuming we win say 5 of the 25 auctions, we have probably got our pitch just right. We should then list these vehicles at the Auction House at a higher value. Again look at the cards that you have been outbid on to see what price these should be re-listed at. If you list them too high, they may not sell, but you can always re-list slightly lower until the do go.

For our 5 cards that we bought at 800 coins, I might list them at a start price of 1,000. If a couple sell but the rest don’t I wouldn’t worry too much, just re-list them at the same price. Even if it takes three or four auctions, I would expect them to sell eventually.

As we may have to list these items more than once, I would only put them on a 1 hour auction, as this allows us to re-list quickly if they fail to sell first time.

Although we have a start price of 1,000 it is possible that they could sell for more than that but assuming they all go for 1,000, that would be a profit of 150 per card after EA deduction, and a total profit of 750 over the five cards.

As you can see, if you find the right players, this is a much more effective way of making coins quickly, providing we choose the right players in the first place.

Want To Try A New Formation?

Everyone has there own favourite formation, but do you know if a different set up could improve your game? You may be surprised to find that it is possible to put a decent side together relitavely cheaply. I am an advocate of the 4-1-2-1-2 formation, but on FIFA 13 the 3-5-2 formation is becoming very popular. To find out if it was any good I set about putting a team together.I decided on putting a team together from the Portugese League. As this is not my main team I did not want to be wasting any coins on it, so I set about bidding for gold players for 300 coins (600 for rares). As you can see below, I have built a team playing 3-5-2 with 100 chemistry, the total cost of the starting 11 being 4650 coins. The beauty of building the team like this is, after playing a few games, if you decide the formation is not for you, the players can be sold through the quick sell function for a small profit. Or if you do like the formation, you can carry on building the team from a solid foundation.

Formations & Chemistry

A high team chemistry is vital to a successful team in FUT. However, depending on the formation that you play, it can be expensive to build a 100 rated team. Some sites may advise you to play a less popular formation as the players tend to be cheaper. I don't think that this is the right approach though, as if you are more comfortable with a certain formation you wil find this far more effective even if you use slighty lower rated players.

One of the most popular formations is 4-1-2-1-2, however you can still build a reasonably strong team of high 70's players with this formation by only spending 300 coins (or 600 for rares) on each player. Chemistry is achieved in a number of ways, each player can achieve a maximum chemistry score of 9. This is made up from the links with the players connected by the lines on the team selection screen. Player chemistry can be increased in any of the following ways

1) Playing in the correct position
2) Playing in the preferred formation
3) Playing alongside players from the same nation
4) Playing alongside players from the same league
5) Playing alongside players from the same club
6) Playing for a manager from the same nation

Underneath each player there is a formation icon and a boot icon, the boot icon represents position. If a player is in the right position or formation these icons will be green. If in the wrong position they are red. However, there is an in between status as sometimes the icons will be orange. With formation this can be a way of getting cheaper cards into your squad. A centre back prefering 4-4-1-1 will be comfortable in a 4-1-2-1-2 and therefore the formation icon will be orange. The same applies to a forward whose preference is to play in a front two. A 4-3-1-2 player will have an orange fomation icon playing in a 4-1-2-1-2.

Although you should try and build a team with high chemistry, you don't have to aim to get 100 (although you may need this to enter certain cup competitions). I always aim for a chemistry level of  at least 85 and anything else is a bonus.

To do this I theme my teams by building them from one league and then ensure that players are utilised in the correct position. This provides a good base for chemistry.
if there are some cheaper players in your squad you should try and obtain as many of these as you can with the correct formation. This will allow you to maintain a high chemistry even if you star players have been obtained at a lower price as they do not have the correct formation. As you build your squad you may wish to swap these players for ones with the correct formation as and when your coin fund allows, but these players can provide a boost to your squad as you are building it

This guide is aimed at those who are new to Fifa Ultimate team, but hopefully there will be a few ideas and tips that experienced players will also be able to use. As a new player to Ultimate Team, you may find yourself at a disadvantage so it is the aim of this guide to give a few pointers to help overcome this.


Many of the websites and forums on Ultimate Team have the same re-hashed information so it is the aim here to offer you something different to help create your Ultimate Team


The key to success in Ultimate Team is in being able to put together a squad strong enough to compete. There are many ways to do this but if you don't want to spend cash or rely on luck when getting packs, then the best way to generate coins to buy the players you want is to invest a bit of time buying and selling player cards.


Although this can take a bit of time I believe it is more effective that buying packs from the FUT Store. Although the offers may vary, the standard premium gold pack costs 7500 coins and contains 12 items. On average this will be 3 players and the additional 9 items will be kits, badges, contracts and other consumables. Many of these items you will never use, have a mimimal quick sell value, and are unlucky to fetch a significant amount in an auction. Of the players you do recieve, occasionally you may get a top quality card with a high value, but most of the time you will recieve cards that could have been picked up for just a few hundred coins in the auction house. 7,500 coins for three players that you could have picked up for about a quarter of that doesn't appear to be such a good deal.


So is there an alternative?


Well I think there is. Trading can be a slow process but is a much more effective way of buiding a strong FUT squad.


I started playing FUT at the end of October and in just over two months I have amassed over 1 million coins whilst still being able to build some very strong teams.


Obviously, you do not need to earn a million coins, but you can build a strong team with that amount of coins so I set that as a target to prove that there is no need to rely on the FUT Store packs. Over the course of this blog I will be sharing the tips and tricks that I used to build that coin fund.


Getting Started - Coin Making

Before you enter the auction house for the first time you will need to have already earned a few coins to make it worthwhile. The best way to do this is to play some games. Even if you get beat, you will earn extra coins for scoring goals, winning corners and tackles, and many other achievements. Ideally you will want to have around 3,000-5,000 coins before you make your first bids in the auction house.

FUT players are split into three bands, GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE, these categories are further split into STANDARD, RARE and IN FORM

At first I am going to look at bidding for GOLD players therefore it is important to the quick sell value for these players as I am looking at players that can be bought and then sold via the quick sell option for a small instant profit. The table below shows the quicksell values for all gold player cards


                                                       Standard         Rare                In Form

75	GOLD	300	600	9150
76	GOLD	304	608	9272
77	GOLD	308	616	9394
78	GOLD	312	624	9516
79	GOLD	316	632	9638
80	GOLD	320	640	9760
81	GOLD	324	648	9882
82	GOLD	328	656	10004
83	GOLD	332	664	10126
84	GOLD	336	672	10248
85	GOLD	340	680	10370
86	GOLD	344	688	10492
87	GOLD	348	696	10614
88	GOLD	352	704	10736
89	GOLD	356	712	10858
90	GOLD	360	720	10980
91	GOLD	364	728	11102
92	GOLD	368	736	11224
93	GOLD	372	744	11346
94	GOLD	376	752	11468
95	GOLD	380	760	11590
96	GOLD	384	768	11712
97	GOLD	388	776	11834
98	GOLD	392	784	11956
99	GOLD	396	792	12078

When starting with a low amount of coins, the best way to start trading is looking at gold cards in the high 70's as these can usually be bought for 300 coins and instantly sold for a small profit. As the table above shows, buying a 76 rated card for 300 coins will only make aprofit of 4 coins. However, an 80 rated card would be an instant profit of 20 coins. The trade off is that you are more likely to be outbid on the higher rated players. At this point we are looking at making as many bids as our coins will allow, utilising the quick sell function to free up the coins to make further bids. The key to increasing coins at this stage is to make as many bids and as many sales as we can to build our coins to a level to move to the next stage of trading.