I’m the first to admit that I don’t really know what i’m doing when it comes to Ultimate Team. I’m having a really good time with it at the moment, but I’m not really making any money. Thankfully Danny from FIFAMonster has written a post that might be able to help.
It has been a strange time on the Fifa Ultimate Team market, player prices are jumping around everywhere, and what seemed to be good investments, turn into disasters. Everyone has noticed the price drops, it is a huge thing to take in to consideration if you are trying to build your Ultimate Team. I remember back in December, I bought a Neymar for 15,000 (below average market price), hoping that his price would rise. It turned out that his price not only didn’t rise, it plummeted. His average price is now under 9,000 – not a massive loss, but it was totally unexpected. I decided to research this further, and find the reason that player’s prices drop this much half way through the year, here is what I have learnt:
Why player prices have been dropping:
There are a few factors that have contributed to the player prices dropping, the most important probably is the massive increase of people buying packs:
- Increase of Supply:
During the winter period, many more people than normal have opened packs. As every economist will know, an increase in supply, will lead to a decrease in price. Players are becoming less rare and therefore their market price has dropped. Not great for people who have spent lots of money on very high priced players. So if you were someone that bought lots of packs during the winter, it was partly your fault that prices crashed!
- TOTY packs and IF cards:
When an in-form card of a player comes out, understandably people would prefer to have this card instead of the original, because it is better. This in turn means that the original player’s price will drop dramatically. Take Iniesta for example, before TOTY his market price was 250,000 , after this his price dropped to under 200,000 as everyone rushed to the packs to find the higher version. It has since risen slightly, showing that buying players just after their in form version is released can yield high profits.
How will the price drops affect you?
The majority of cards that you have in your club, have dropped in price by at least 5%. The players from TOTY and TOTW however, have increased by an average of 10% since their release, due to people not knowing their market price. If you have any players that have recently had an in form version released, their prices will drop.
It is extremely hard to predict whether your card will drop in price, perhaps the only way is by watching the trends on Ultimatedb.nl. You may be annoyed, but remember back to Fifa 11 where this all happened at almost the exact same time of the year. Perhaps the prices even dropped by less, I can remember really struggling to even sell players, because they had become almost worthless.
How can you maximise your profits?
The drop in prices will affect players with less money more than those with more. If you have little money, you will find it hard to start trading and making profits, as prices are all over the price. If you have lots of money however, you can take advantage of the price fluctuations, and cash in on players when their prices peak. Always check the player prices before you sell, this will ensure that you are not being ripped off.
- Buy low, sell high.
Obvious really, but I see many people ignoring it. It is easy to sell players cheap, but that will not do you any favours, wait until their price rise.
- Buy in form players as soon as they are released.
Their prices are proven to rise by alot after they are released. If you get a player for 60,000 just as they are released, it is likely that their price will be around 80,000 in about a week. Buy as many of them as you can, if you can afford it, you may just get lucky and rake in 100,000’s of coins.
- Buy regular players when IF’s have been released.
As you will have learnt, player prices drop after an IF card has been released. It is likely that their price will increase later on. Remember that you need to buy the players after their prices have dropped, buying before the drop would be plain silly! If you see the player’s prices rising slowly after a drop, this is also a good time to buy, there is no better way to make profits than buying when a player’s price is rising!
You can follow FIFA Monster on Twitter, and visit the site at FIFAMonster.com
