Welcome to the first installment of Filmstudy.tips’ guide to fielding a competitive Madden Ultimate Team roster while spending as little real world money as possible. Today we’re going to set the stage for general concepts that will help you be successful as the game drops and from time to time we will post updates with specific methods that track these general principles.
Here are 5 concepts you can look for throughout the season to generate coins with minimal effort:
Filter Arbitrage (Quick Flips)
In Ultimate Team, the auction house has a maximum viewing capacity, under any filter, of 100 items. It also shows you the 100 or so items that have the least amount of time remaining. I say “or so” because oftentimes it will only show 85-99 items and not 100 exactly. Just because it shows less than 100 doesn’t mean you have filtered down to see every possible listing, the system just arbitrarily shows less than 100 items at times.
This means that if the pre-game access promo has 82 hero set pieces and you set your filters to 82-83 + pre-game access, you will see approximately 100 cards to choose from in order to build your pre-game access champions. This is commonly the highest bought filter for these items because this is also what users will see when they view the set pieces needed directly from the sets page, where many users quickly buy cards to complete sets.
If you take a minute to learn all of the specific cards, you can quickly add in additional filters like position or division, and filter down so you see every card listed, including the lowest priced cards that many aren’t seeing due to the filters. An easy way to check if you’ve filtered down all the way is to look at the most recent listings. If you see listings that are 23 hours+, there is a good chance you’re in the right filter.
When cards are being bought and sold very quickly, usually when new content drops, there is opportunity to buy cards and flip them between these filter settings. You may often see recent purchases listed where cards are randomly being bought for 20%-30% more than the majority of the other cards being sold and this is the reason.
Investing in Future Set Pieces
Historically, MUT has had predictable content drops with repeatable set requirements. Take advantage of this. Weekly promos like Collector’s Series, Team of the Week and Legends have all required 5 heroes to build a new champion. Seasonal promos like Team Builders have typically required 3 cards that were 2 overall less and 1 that was 4 overall less (ex. 2 80s and 1 78 to create an 82 Team Builder). Look for opportunities to stockpile these future set pieces prior to the announcement of predictable promos. Team Builder’s will most likely be the first opportunity. The 82s were going for approximately 100k on day one last year so stockpiling 80s and 78s when they start to slip below 18k and 5k respectively can be a good strategy.
LTD Flipping
LTD flipping tends to be hit or miss, but the competitive Madden community knows better than anyone when a card will be gamebreaking or a must for the competitive circuit. These must have LTDs can often see a significant price increase once they are out of packs. We will keep an eye on the market and try to update the community when we see an opportunity to hit big on a short term LTD investment.
Ironically, LTDs with initial low interest and low pull rates can also see a price spike as the community rejects the pack offers as unappealing and buyers wait for cards to drop further. Once the FOMO hits, the cards can moonshot (ex. 2026 88 Lavonte David Game Time which opened at 700k, fell to 550k and was up to 1.1m 3 days after release).
Market Crash Opportunities
Throughout the year, there will be moments where EA drops so much content and so many offers that the market crashes. I always hear the same thing when this happens: “the market will never recover”.
It always does. Future set champions will almost always be 500k+ and Team Builders and Team Diamonds will always restore the market. Invest heavily when you see these opportunities. When Blitz dropped last year, we saw 88s fall to 18k and languish there with no real demand for a few days. Within 2 weeks, these 88s were selling for 45k once team builders dropped a fresh set with 90 overall heroes. Be a bull in a bear market and invest heavily when you see the market crash.
Set Building
The sum of the pieces are often worth more than the pieces themselves.
Anytime you have items you need to liquidate, take a quick scan of the market. It rarely makes sense to sell set pieces without completing a set. If you pull a couple hero’s, look to grab 3 more and complete a champion set. Not only will you realize profit on the additional 3 hero’s you bought, but you’ll gain progress in the promo field pass by completing base and champion sets. When selling champions, post 1 hour listings and aim for the highest price you see on previously sold items for the last 10 minutes, within reason of course. Champions tend to sell at a high rate so be patient and don’t list it at the lowest price possible.
