658: Flat Promo But Cool Icons!

[00:00:00] Hello Footies and welcome along to your Tuesday Club Dosage of Foot in Review. My name is Nathan and I'll be here over the next probably 45 minutes or so. You always run over because it's me and my very good friend Shaq Attack on the session today. So if we ramble on we apologize in advance. First things first Shaq, how are we doing today now that you know the madness of team of the year has gone on, the dust has finally settled. How are you feeling?

[00:00:26] I'm doing fabulous Nate. Thank you for having me on. And it's getting a little bit of fun doing this Tuesday Club show, the two of us. We're missing the dulcet tones of Wimby but I think we're doing a pretty decent job holding the fort while he's away with his journey and his career. Post team of the year, I think it's the day after team of the year finished, I think I just had a bit of a, I just could breathe. It felt like I could breathe. I didn't have to worry about spending every single waking minute on 80 to 20s.

[00:00:55] So it just felt really nice that I didn't have to worry about that. But I think going back to like Monday and Tuesday now actually kind of missed the grind, missed the grind. The opportunity of packing a once in a lifetime card, a card that'll see you through to the rest of the year. That's gone. Anytime you open a bank, I don't even care about the specials anymore. I just couldn't care.

[00:01:15] Yeah, I totally get that. I mean, the guys did a very good job on Friday. They obviously discussed their team of the year experience and obviously went into depth about this new promo, which we're into future stars, which we'll kind of move on to ourselves with our own views. But, you know, team of the year, the guys said it on Friday, but the amount of specials that a lot of the community had was unheard of in terms of this promo.

[00:01:40] Having played it at the end of the, you know, the promotion itself, has it improved your gameplay experience? Has it improved your, obviously your team will no doubt have improved tenfold, but also the teams that you're coming up against. How has it adjusted and affected like your FC25 kind of grinds after it? I think a lot of people seem to have packed something or the other. If they haven't packed anything, they've actually upgraded their teams by doing either a KDB or definitely everyone's got it done.

[00:02:10] That's for sure. But a lot of people have completed KDB. I've come across a lot of Mbappes. I've seen a lot of George Best as well. So there's a lot of fodder that was floating around that people have actually used up. And so the teams are obviously slightly higher level than they were. And also the team of the year cards are not that expensive. Like to go out and buy a Shaw who's like five, 600 K's, not that much. So a lot of people actually do have a lot of good cards in their teams. The teams have really evolved.

[00:02:35] And it is, it's really hard to put it because sometimes you come across someone with a really good team and you just, sometimes the team doesn't really make too much of a difference, to be honest. It just makes a slight amount of difference. But I think it's, at the end of the day, it's down to the player as well. So you still, you still can beat them. You don't, you can beat someone who's got a really stacked team as well. So it's not too much of a worry, but yeah, the teams have definitely improved from what they were pre-team of the year. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:03:04] I mean, even like you say, even if people don't have team of the years, everyone seems to have like a Mia Hamm top rated up front. Or there's always like the actual power curve has hit the moon, if you like, especially for being what we had just in February now. So I don't remember the teams that you face at this stage being so stacked across the board. It's quite nice, obviously, without flexing, having some good luck on my side.

[00:03:29] It's nice being able to have that team, but I don't feel like it's given the lucky ones that advantage. I'm not saying, you know, I want my team to overpower everyone because I still like the competitive side, but it's definitely a different feeling. You know, usually if you have one team of the year in your team, you're thinking, oh, you know, I'm onto something good here. Whereas, you know, people have four, five, six, some of them even have seven team of the years in the team, which doesn't now feel like it's quite as unique. I don't know if that's what EA were going for.

[00:03:59] Obviously, we discussed in depth last week about, you know, the patch and the shares and the sort of player base. So I don't know whether that's had something to try and entice people in with these shiny cards. Future stars aside, how do you see then FC 25 moving forward? Obviously, we discussed the play styles and how they might adapt, you know, maybe having some random parents, I think we probably could say, in terms of the play style pluses they give.

[00:04:26] But now that the ceiling is really high for February, we've still got, what, seven months, eight months of the cycle to go, seven months of the cycle to go, not even halfway through yet. So how do you see it kind of taken off from here? I think one of the things that clearly EA are focusing on, which is a good thing, is on evolutions and trying to, I think they're trying to put this seed in everyone's head that the easiest way to evolve your players is through Evoing them.

[00:04:53] And I think they will start ramping up with some of the evolutions. And I think we're getting evolutions, sorry, we're getting play styles and things that are coming for evolutions that come through pick and packs and objectives. So I think they're trying to funnel some sort of engagement through that channel rather than just having cards in store and the pack or SPC, which is a good thing overall. When it comes down to the play styles that we have on the cards, I think so far, obviously, team of the years

[00:05:23] are only the ones that have three play style pluses. But again, as we've discussed before, the three of the play style pluses are not the best of the best. Some of them have decent, two of the play style pluses are decent, but the third one is not really the best. So what I see is from here to team of the season, I have a feeling that, I just have this nagging suspicion that before team of the season, I have a feeling that EA will put three play style pluses out and team of the season may just be four play style pluses

[00:05:51] because I can't see them just holding off for the next two and a half, three months with just having two to three play style pluses. I don't really see that. And I think to sell more packs during team of the season, they might have four play style pluses. So I don't know where to go from there, but it's a wait and watch of the space. Yeah, absolutely. So it's probably a good place to talk about the evolutions in a bit of detail. So for those of you, well, pretty much everyone listens to this, I'd imagine I are aware that we've got the, it's one of 15 players potentially to choose from.

[00:06:21] The guys mentioned on Friday, you know, they weren't the most popular players. They might be a couple of cult heroes or whatever, but there's not really for the wider game base, that player that you like must have. Firstly, how do you feel they've done with, you know, having a wider race? You don't have an attacking defender midfielder. You've got multiple players that can play multiple positions. Are you a fan of this approach? And do you think it's here just for future stars?

[00:06:48] Or do you think this is them testing the water for potentially further down the road? I'm really, there's some parts of it that I really, really like. And there's some parts of it. I feel quite restrictive for the fact that the part I really like is the fact that they've given us 15 random cards. It's not really cards that, you know, everyone's going to just choose this one card and try to Evo this one card. And even if you look online, there's not a single person that says you've got to do, you have to do this card. Sure.

[00:07:17] If you have affiliation to Arsenal, you probably do the, the, the winger from, from Arsenal. That's probably, I think the most popular one, just because he's from Arsenal, he's actually playing in the first team. So it kind of makes sense for a lot of Arsenal fans to get carried away and do him. That's fine. But the rest of the cards are pretty unknown players. So it leaves it quite open. And what I would have preferred in this section is for EA to give us the option to choose any single card that we like. Even if you have a card, for example, if you choose to have an 85 rated card,

[00:07:46] as soon as you do this, this cosmetic Evo on that, that, that card, it brings them back to an 80 plus, 80 rated cards. So everyone's stock standard, you start from the same, same starting point. So it would have been nice for us to choose our own clubs choice, choose a menu, for example, or choose anyone that we want to use from our own clubs. I mean, I'm just talking about Man United, but you could probably choose any club that you want to represent that you can choose a player from there and try and Evo, Evo then. That would be, would be better in my opinion,

[00:08:16] but the actual progression, the evolution part, the actually evolving this player, trying to add the play styles. And I think having the option, like if you and me chose the same player, we could still have a different outcome of the same player, which is kind of cool. That's, I like that. Yeah. I think that's a great, great thing from them. You know, you and John obviously are quite aligned in your thinking boss man, John, cause he kind of said the same thing and that would make more sense. Cause you know, the,

[00:08:44] the lesser clubs or the less meta players could get a chance to sell a really cool card. I think the thing with that is we know that body types are huge in the game at the moment. So you could choose, you know, you could have a say an Erlen Haaland, who's a big bulky strike. It would still give him ridiculously good play styles. And that card would be unstoppable. So I think, I think that's their way of almost protecting the curve in the game a little bit. I think if you opened up too much, but they could even sort of tweak things themselves, but I don't know how it works, you know,

[00:09:13] behind the scenes and the coding and such, but I, I'm a fan of it. I think that this is probably only here for future stars. Cause we've seen, even before you both were a thing, you kind of had these future star evolution paths before it was officially dubbed it. Evils. And where you had, I think there was a Mendy at one point and there was, was it a stupid and a few years ago we had as well, which they brought out. So I think this could potentially just be a future stars thing, but I'd love to see it rolled out wider.

[00:09:42] I think it would make gameplay a lot more different as well. It would make it a bit more unpredictable because you, you don't really know what your opponent's card has or what they can do, which I love that idea. I think it's, we, we get to this part of the game where most people have, you know, everyone pretty much is using Zidane card. Lots of people using Kanati. Lots of people still using Mendy. Everyone's got Mbappe apart from myself. So they do have like, we're starting to see again, people fall into that same sort of pattern of using the same team and same players. So, and obviously the same formations on the whole.

[00:10:13] So I think that it's a really cool way to bring a little bit of, of unpredictability into the game. I'm a big fan of it. Like you say, I do think that if it could have opened up differently to more players, that would be really cool for either for lesser teams like yourself, you know, Toby Coley is bursting on a team onto the scene for United. He's probably one of the very few shining lights for a terrible season. That would be quite cool to give him a really cool card or, or Ahmad who's, you know, he's going to win the Ballon d'Or this year. Cause he's the only player in the world that's actually any good.

[00:10:42] So I'd love to see something like that, but I do like the premise. I think they've actually executed it pretty well so far. Let's go on and talk about the rest of this promo while we're on that thing. Cause I'm not sure about your feelings, but this is a total damp squib for me. I'm still can't decide whether it's the high of team of the year and so much to do in terms of gameplay, grinding menu, grinding the feeling of getting either the, you know, the blue flares or even the blue and silver flares when you get an honorable mention,

[00:11:10] cause there's still a few decent ones in those packs. But I mean, without looking at foot then or foot GG, I could barely tell you any player that's in this, this team, apart from the Italian center back, who I seem to have had four times already. I've only been opening packs yesterday, so I don't know how that's happened, but he's haunting me, but it just feels, and it always happens after team of the year. Cause it's such a high and such, it's quite tense, isn't it? Like, like you say, with the effort that we've put in and the players, and you can kind of say almost like what's at stake for the players that you pull,

[00:11:40] but it just feels flat at the moment. Exactly. I think after team of the year, it's really hard to maintain the momentum as well. And I think, as you said, if I don't look at foot GG or foot band, the only car that I can think of that's in packs is, probably best. And maybe, uh, Jabby Alonso because we all got a free Jabby Alonso, who's great, by the way. I really enjoyed that card. That's a card that I'm trying to, um, eye out for my squad. Cause I really enjoyed that play style plus combination, the way he was, um, bossing the midfield for me and giving those through pass.

[00:12:10] I really enjoyed that card, but apart from these two cards, I can't tell you another card that's actually in packs. And you know, when I get, when I actually open a pack and I pack someone, I think one of the guys that you could Evo up to, uh, he's in the popular Evo is right. Now in the team, I can't even tell you his name right now, but I saw the flare and it just didn't bother me. I just thought, yeah, it is what it is. I couldn't care if it's even Yamal or Hendrick wouldn't excite me at all because the excitement that we had last week is really hard for us to get

[00:12:40] that same excitement back for even backing that the best card in the promo this time around. So it's a funny situation, but I think EA has handled it fairly. Okay. So far, it's a bit strange from a content point of view, but I think it's, this week's going to be a little bit of a confusing one where there's things happening. I think a lot of people are just trying to use the cards that they've backed over the past week and not really trying to upgrade. So yeah, it's a funny little time. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you're obviously forgetting Lenny Euro as well, who, who is, Oh yes. We all want the back,

[00:13:09] but totally get that. Even some of the evos that are ongoing, they don't really bite my hand off to say, I must do that. I think, you know, I'm blessed that my squad's very good, but you look at some of these players and we're at the stage now where a lot of the promo players don't improve, not even just your first 11, but a lot of them don't even, you know, make the squad. You talked about Xavi Alonso there. I got him from rewards. I saved my rewards, right? No, I didn't. I got for the 84 times five. Sorry. On,

[00:13:39] on Friday night. And I packed him and it was a bit meh. I've now brought him in because I'm changing formations and playing around a bit. And he is good, but it's, it's not like an instantaneous, Oh my word, he's amazing. Obviously, if you get a Cruyff or if you do the best SBC, then that's slightly different. Well, maybe not best with the team. So some of us have got, you know, lots of people had that team, the revolutions have got decent pulls, but some of these players are immense, but there's the large majority of them out there. I just feel and don't add a lot.

[00:14:08] Apart from the fact you see a nice shiny flare at times. Um, but that's, that's by the by. I think that you have, you know, we, we praise them a lot and we criticize them a lot, obviously, but I think they're in a sticky situation every year after team of the year, because it's a very, very hard promo to follow. And if you can't get it right, and you're either mackering the player curve for the entire year, if you go too hard, but you're also kind of switching people off. Um, just on that, we'll,

[00:14:37] we'll take a wee side tour. We do have a question into our mailbag. As we always say, one of the perks of the discord is you can, uh, write in and ask any questions, um, as, as we go. Uh, so SP J seven has asked, what's your general thought on the gameplay right now? Last week's pod reckoned the less fluid gameplay was due to service being overloaded by team of the year, but if anything, it seems worse now that team of the year is over. Evil friendlies and rivals are almost unplayable for him since the season

[00:15:06] rolled over as a different game. Shaq, what's your thoughts on the state of the gameplay just now? I think one of the things I found even yesterday while I was trying to tinker along was the fact that there was some games, that I just couldn't, that was literally unplayable. I just was finding it that I couldn't get close to my opponent. I couldn't really dribble. I couldn't scale with my players. I have a team of all five, that's close up top and I just couldn't scale around them. And I turned the console off when they did something else,

[00:15:32] came back maybe a couple of hours later and turned it on and it was smooth as butter. And I could just do whatever I wanted to do. It's almost like I was playing two completely separate games. So I think the server overload is something that is probably affecting the gameplay at this point in time. I think the only advice I can give people is that if you're finding that your gameplay is bad, try not to push through. I think one of the things I told myself this weekend after the grind that we had with team of the year was not to play champs.

[00:16:02] So I told myself, I don't want that headache of playing champs. I just wanted to get my evils done. I wanted to work on getting some player of the month Mbappe, SBC done and do those sorts of things rather than try and force myself to try and play champs just for a few packs or picks that wouldn't mean much. And yeah, I've really enjoyed not doing that and just playing a bit of rivals and playing a bit of friendlies and not really being frustrated with the game as I was last week. I think when I was trying to play and trying to get all the best packs possible for team of the year.

[00:16:30] So I think this server load is still quite heavy. I think there's still a lot of traffic on the servers, but once I think people started to dwindle down and settle down, I think the server should come back to how they were pre team of the year. Yeah, absolutely. I can't say it's been dreadful for me. I had one game in champs where I obviously played a hacker who decided he could control all my players. So I literally couldn't do anything. So he ran through and scored and I quit out, but that's the way it's actually been, been fine. I was lucky enough.

[00:17:00] I think on Friday just to do all my rivals games anyway. So I was all done with that. So I've not ventured back there, but I do think that, you know, I don't know whether I'm not speaking for SBJ himself, but I do think that this online chat of a shadow patch has actually put that into people's heads. I don't know whether people are overthinking the state of the game. Now, because a few streamers have said it's definitely been patched. We've seen that EA have released an update. It came out this morning when I loaded up anyway.

[00:17:30] So this updates out. They have said they're not touching gameplay because of the positive feedback. So in my mind, that solidifies the fact that hasn't been a shadow patch because they've, they've categorically stated that because of the good feedback, nothing else is getting changed just now. So I don't think they, I don't know the rules, but I couldn't imagine they'd get away with saying we're not touching it since the last update and they've already done the patch. So I think that in my head, that completely annuls any idea of a shadow patch. I think like,

[00:18:00] like we stated the last few weeks, people like it's a heavy server and people are getting used to the new gameplay, which was, it was inevitable. It wasn't always going to stay the same as it was because you know, the players have got better. The users have got better and the formations have slightly tweaked to counter those, that gameplay. So I, I haven't seen a major difference since we last kind of spoke. I just think it's heavy service. I completely agree. I think it's just heavy service. One of the things that I, I've really particularly noticed for the past maybe week or so is the fact

[00:18:30] that if I play, I have cross play on, I play people from Xbox, I play people from PC and there's certain games where the guys that I'm playing against, I really are almost feel like they're one step ahead and yes, they might be better than me. Yeah. That, that could be definitely true, but also it's almost like I'm just playing catch up. I'm constantly playing catch up and they're smooth and they crisp and every, every single movement goes, whereas I'm, I can't even do a ball roll. And then I look at the end of the game. I'm playing against a PC player.

[00:18:59] Sometimes when the servers are heavy, for whatever reason, the guys on PC have this buttery smooth gameplay and my gameplay is tremendously bad. So, but again, if I play guys on PC and the servers are not as, as busy, it's quite fine. It's quite an even contest. So I think just, just if you find exactly, as I said, a couple of minutes ago, if you're finding the gameplay to be heavy, just don't keep persevering. Just take it, take time off and come back again. And also I read somewhere that the connectivity, again,

[00:19:29] I could be completely wrong on this, but the connectivity is based on when you log onto the game, it connects you to a server. And that, that server is a server that has low volume traffic. You'll have a decent gameplay, but for whatever reason, if you have multiple servers that you have access to, if you get connected to a server, that's already has a huge amount of traffic. Yes, you're going to have heavy gameplay. So all you have to do is probably just restart your console or restart the game. And you probably have a chance to connect to a different server, potentially. That's a, that's a great shout, Shaq. That's a good one. I mean, like you say,

[00:19:58] PC seemed to be a lot smoother throughout the whole cycle. So that's maybe why I'm not getting these frustrations as, as you guys does. And I know Dan did, well, obviously when he joined us before on the, on the Tuesday club, moving on to, we'll not go fully into the content because I don't think there's a hell of a lot to really write home about. Before we get onto one specifically requested by the gaffer, I just want to voice my frustration and annoyance. 84 times five has disappeared. What is going on there, Shaq? Like what,

[00:20:28] why have they removed that? And is it just to annoy me? It was a really odd thing. I think as soon as the 82 20 is finished, I just thought we'll have a break, which is the norm where we have a break for a couple of days because the new promo, I thought we'll have a break for a couple of days and we'll come back into, you know, 84 five starting on the, on, on, on the Monday going all the way till the weekend. Again, up to Friday is what I expected, but we've got 84 five straight away. And I thought that's a bit strange. And I also found it strange that I was only there for 48 hours.

[00:20:57] So it expired. I'm finding it really odd. And I just something, there's something tweaking in my head about having some sort of, I have a feeling that exchanges or something is coming out because it doesn't make any sense. It's if you look at the content today, it was pretty dire and dry. And if you want to keep the people engaged, I think it's almost like we are constantly looking for the next dopamine hit. So as a community, I think we all are waiting for the exchanges to come out. That could be something that we can look forward to.

[00:21:26] And potentially we could have the exchanges coming back soon, which is why the 84 five's have been removed. That's the only, that's the only logical deduction I can make. Yeah. Let's hope they come back. And if they come back this week, Shaq, we'll have a wee bit on next Tuesdays. And I think it's a show sort of talking about our best approach to grind in the game, not just for the, you know, the specials, but to try and replenish the club and trying to see the best way forward for that. One thing they did release, which originally I wasn't a big fan about, but Dan kind of talked me into actually,

[00:21:56] it makes a lot of sense and it's, it's probably better. 78 times, 78 plus two of three player pick. How do you feel about this? Cause I don't think we've ever really seen this as a repeatable pick. I really, I do like the big, but I just, I, I was trying to grind Mbappe today. I was trying to get the last few squads of Mbappe and I started, you know what, instead of trying to buy the cards out of the market, let me spend a hundred K to try and do these picks and let's see what comes out. And honestly, I think I just wasted a hundred K. I,

[00:22:24] the best pick that I gotten all those picks was one 89 and maybe a couple of 84s, 85s in it, maybe one 86, but that's it. Rest of it was all 83, 82, 81, 83, 82, 81, and maybe a couple of 84s as well. So it wasn't the best return that I was finding and it wasn't consistent return. I think if you have an 80 plus pick or an 83 plus, 83 plus pick is way too high. Even an 80 plus pick would be slightly better than the 78 plus pick because some of the options that were coming through weren't really flash hot.

[00:22:53] And I think it's, it's cheap enough, but six, five res, it chews through your res in your club before you know it, you're running out of res and you have to buy some more res with the market. So, um, it's not consistent. And that, that was my only feedback. There's the fact that it's not really consistently giving out fodder. Yeah. Do you like the premise of it? Cause obviously I think we've had, is it five of 10 or whatever it was, we've had sort of random variations of this as a, a one-off pick, but we've never really seen this as a repeatable.

[00:23:23] Like, do you think this is a good way forward? Theoretically, maybe if they put up to two or three eighties or something like that. Absolutely. Because the first pick I did today of this, um, 78 plus pick, I got an 84, sorry, an 85 and an inform. And I thought this is going to be a great day. I'm just going to complete them bar pages by doing this SBC. And that was, yeah, I probably peaked too early and I never got anything good after that. Yeah. I totally get that. I mean, I've done a few,

[00:23:52] I think I've got a Bruno 87 rated. And after that, it was pretty much juke central for a low rated fodder. Um, moving on to the one that the boss man has requested. We talk about, I believe he's, uh, he's an acquaintance of our, our boss man. I believe that, you know, you've got a soft spot for him. Shaq. I certainly do. That, that volley against Aston Villa lives rent free in my head. I never forget. We are talking of course about Robin van Persie future stars. I mean, his, his dynamic image is pretty cool.

[00:24:22] He looks a bit 12 in it. Um, he's coming in about 665 K, uh, four star skills, five star, uh, weak foot. He's left footed, obviously. What's your thoughts on this price ways and the card itself? This, there's some cards in the game of ultimate team that just never can live up to how you expect them to be or how good they were in real life. You can never emulate them in the game.

[00:24:47] And I think van Persie falls in that category where there's something that's good about him, but again, there's something that like his finesses would be amazing. This he's got a finesse plus, which is amazing. He's got the first touch plus, which is amazing. Great play styles to have, but without even trying him, I had just had this irking feeling that he will not be moved. Even though it's got 90 plus dribbling. I don't think he'll move as well as you would think so. As you would expect a van Persie card to move.

[00:25:16] I think Dennis Bergheim is another card where he's nothing like any version of Dennis Bergheim. He's never liked the version of the Dennis Bergheim that we remember growing up. I think there's some cards that just struggle. And I think van Persie is one of them. I mean, I think he's slightly overpriced as well. If he was under maybe four, 500k, 400k, I probably would have given him a shot as well, but it's slightly overpriced. What do you think? Yeah, I'm with you on there. As much as I love him as a player, I just, I can't seem to find myself wanting to spend the fodder. I mean,

[00:25:46] strikers, my club, not just strikers, but attackers were stacked. I mean, we've got, like in my club, I've got, Cantona doesn't get on. I've got, Raitan now doesn't get in the pitch really. Ooh, that's rough. Still got Vinny. I've done that. Team of the year, Evo and Buemo is 94 rated and stat wise is cracked. Doesn't see the pitch at all. He's not even in the bench. So it's not one that I need. I mean, there's some positions that I'm dying for. We've just had Vieira, but you know,

[00:26:14] an actual pure center mid would be tremendous, or even a full back would be sort of more wanted. Like that's being selfish. Cause obviously the state of my squad. But at the same time, like even being a United fan or, I know Arsenal fans don't like him anymore, but being a Feyenoord fan or a Dutch fan, like I don't think this is one that, you know, for 660 K it's not going to last you more than a couple of weeks. Cause realistically something else is going to come out or even some of

[00:26:43] these potential lower rated cards will probably feel and play a lot better in game. I think. Yeah, I completely agree. I think this guy's got everything though. I mean, he's got a five star weak foot as well too. I just wanted to double check whether he got five star weak foot, but he does. And he's got things in the right place, but I still think, I mean, if you still have the fodder, unless you really are a massive fan, there's other places to put your fodder in. And yeah, it sucks because I really love and Percy as, as he's, yeah, it's just a special connection with certain players that we have,

[00:27:13] even though they played just a couple of seasons for your club. So, but yeah, it is what it is. Yeah. And talking about places to put fodder, this, this was a hot topic on Friday. It was a, is he worth it? Will he stay in your team? Is it, you know, far too overpriced? It split the host down the middle. I think on Friday, I'm not touching it because I can't buy cards off the market. So I don't think I'd be able to grind it, but Shaq, your thoughts, your process behind completing this player of the month card.

[00:27:44] Look, player of the month Mbappe. For me, I had enough fodder to complete. I think I, I think I did 95% of the, of the, of the SPC through just through sheer fodder that I had from the 80 to 20s. And I haven't really engaged in a lot of icon SPCs. And as I was telling you earlier, before we started recording, we tend to collect a lot of specials in our club that we don't necessarily will ever use. We keep them for an Evo for the, for a rainy day, or we keep them for a special SPC at some point in time. And I thought to myself, this is the SPC.

[00:28:13] This is this rainy day SPC that you want to put everything into. And I just chucked everything in the club. That's on the first team. I think I have maybe 10 extra special cards, like a, a copy menu and certain cards that I have some sort of affinity, just as a, I just don't want to throw them in an SPC. There's only 10 extra cards out of my first team that I've kept behind. Everything else has just been chucked into Mbappe. And let me just tell you something right now with the SPCs that we have on offer.

[00:28:41] One SPC that I think will stand the test of time. Yeah, sure. He's got a trickster plus. That's let's just keep park that aside for now. He's got a trickster plus. He will last in your team, either as left winger or striker, all the way to team of the season. It's Mbappe. He doesn't need to have any play style. He'll still be fast as he will still be able to score. He's got advanced forward. And with trickster plus, if you, uh, you've, have you used Lauren James? Yes. She's my right winger. There you go.

[00:29:11] So trickster plus, I know tricks of silver does close enough to trickster plus, but there is something special about tricks to plus. Some of the things that you can do. And when you get into the zone and you start using those skills, it really, it really ticks off your opponent. Well, you're not trying to take them off, but you're just getting that. You're just having some sort of fun at the game. And the game is meant, you're meant to have fun in the game. So I find, I think this card is a very unique card.

[00:29:39] I don't think we'll ever see another Mbappe with trickster plus as a play style plus. So I'm happy with my choice and I haven't tried him yet, but I'm pretty sure he will be an Mbappe. Yeah. He will do Mbappe things. My big disappointment for it is that it was only one play style. I think at this stage of the game, you're wanting the second one, whether it's, you know, the rocket, I keep calling it the rocket, but the rocket one or a finesse or something, you know, if I had something else like that, I'd be more tempted to try and throw my whole club in and see where I'm at. But I just feel like,

[00:30:09] like you said, tricks is brilliant. And it's actually, when you say you're not trying to tilt the opponent, you kind of are, because the more you kind of do it, the more they're likely to step out. So it's not about winding the player up per se, but it's about using it to get somebody to step out to you. So you've got that space to get past them. And obviously Mbappe being that quick, we'll be able to exploit that space or be able to, you know, it's passing, it's not phenomenal. It's okay, but it'll be able to get the ball away quick enough to, to get that space. Cause obviously I'm using James and Salah both have tricks of loss.

[00:30:39] That's two of my front three. And then Henri has the silver trickster. So all three of them are, you know, they transition really smooth. So I'm a big fan of the trickster. I think I said, I'm sure I said it last week. It's got a lot of unnecessary hate because it's not one of the OP ones, but once you start kind of grasping it, I think it's a really cool place out to have. And it does open up that, that fun element, but I just, I, I'm still firmly in it's, it's too much. It's about a mil too much, or they needed to have a second place out and it could have been sensational. But then again,

[00:31:08] if you want a sensational card available for everybody. But if you think about it, like if you, if you break it down, so he's got one place out plus. Yes. But his more expensive card, Thunderstruck card also has one place out plus. And that's five, six million, five and a half million. If I'm not mistaken, let me just double check. I think the Mbappe, correct me if I'm wrong. Mbappe, Thunderstruck is 6.1 million. So, and he's got one place out plus.

[00:31:34] And the one below this version has got one place out plus as well. And that's 2.6 million. And that's a 92 rated card. So this is a 93 rated card and we've just got a lot of fodder. So yes, it could have been priced at maybe 3.5 million, which to be fair was what it was priced at. And I think fodder just rose as soon as he came out, which has taken him further up. So I think the price did right. And this has gone up because of the scarcity of 91. I think the biggest issue is a 390 rated squads. That's the biggest issue.

[00:32:05] If you'd remove those three 90 rated squads, I think this would be perfectly priced. Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you there. Just cut it down a little bit. But I, like you say, I think moving forward, some of these play player of the month, because I think the Liga F one came out, didn't it? Saicedo. It's a very mad card. It's coming in at 50 K and it's definitely a 50 K card. I think it's fast, decent dribbling, decent passing, but nothing, you know, unreal. So I think that's probably shows you that they do need to start looking at

[00:32:33] the way that the game's going in terms of boosting these player of the months, I think going forward. Otherwise, these are just going to be a tip the box exercise to a, get them out there because they've got the obligation to, and B, it may be slightly cheaper for, I'm not saying 51 for an 87 rated card is cheap now, but when we're going forwards, you know, if they've got an 89 rated card for 50 K, you might be thinking that might be the best way to do it. Excuse me. But no, that, that kind of touches on, on our sort of, you know, the content and the future stars. Shaq,

[00:33:02] just before we kind of wrap things up, how are you expecting FC to develop in the next few weeks in terms of, you know, promos? I think, is that, I think there's a team too for future stars, if I'm not correct, or it's grassroots one as they called it. So in terms of the promo, but also just in terms of SBCs and then finally the market. Number one, I think I'm really, like we've discussed, I'm really enjoying this future stars evolution concept.

[00:33:32] I really want to see it through and make my, my chosen, I can't even pronounce my Italian midfielder Pisali. Yeah. Take the Pisali. I think that's his name. Take the Pisali to all the way to an Evo status. That's, that's what I'm hoping for. And I'm really looking forward to that grind. And once that's done, I think there's something special about the grassroots. Nate, did you ever play back in FIFA 14, FIFA 15 days? I played the game, but I didn't play ultimate team.

[00:34:00] And it was COVID to probably tell them a team. All right. So I think there's a lot, you will start to notice a lot of nostalgia factor. That's going to start bubbling through in the community from the grassroots. If it, if it's exactly what we think it is, I think that promo might just hit, might just hit the nail on the head because I think people like me, I have really fond memories of some of the cards that have been rumored to be coming out in that particular promo. And to be fair, that's the one promo I'm really looking forward to. I mean, after team of the year,

[00:34:30] I'm glad that we have a small little break to actually, you know, wind down a little bit before we get geared up for that promo. I think that promo with, I think the advent of, I think there's a, there's potential talk of Maradona returning to FUT. So there could be Maradona coming back. You could have the likes of Doombia, Gervinio, and the Barbo. Those three names are so synonymous with, with, with ultimate team that I think a lot of people have a lot of really positive memories when back then, when you could just use gold cards in your club and for the whole year.

[00:35:00] So I think if they can somehow mimic the same vibes that we have from back in the day, it will just be a knock it out of the bar kind of promo. That would be really cool. And obviously, even though I wasn't playing ultimate team at that point, I'm well aware of the trio, the Doombia and Gervinio trio. So they're kind of like folklore for those of those of you involved in, in ultimate team. So that would be really cool. Do we expect there to be a, an upturn in menu grinds? You think obviously we've,

[00:35:29] we've spoken this. There's a few whispers and I think it's, it does look likely that the exchanges are on the horizon. Nobody seems to, to know how quickly they'll be back, but exchanges aside, do you think there's going to be a more sustainable and more profitable, not just, you know, coin wise, but club wise profitable grind coming up? Or would you expect how future stars is to kind of be, be it for the next few weeks? I do think, I'm really hoping that exchanges do come out.

[00:35:57] I think there needs to be some sort of menu grind coming out as well. But also the other thing is we probably, I think the icon SBCs that we have on repeat, it's one of those things where we've had too much of it. It's a good thing, but I think it doesn't feel any, it doesn't feel as special anymore when you could do unlimited of something. It just doesn't feel as special. So I don't really know if EA have backed themselves up into a corner where they can't really go above and beyond than what they have right now.

[00:36:26] So it's a tricky one that, so I don't really know what they do from a content perspective, but I think having the exchanges out will start allowing people to, I think if exchanges come out this week or the week after, I think you would see a lot where people started to consider Ponder doing Mbappe, for example, or completing best or doing a couple more of the icon SBCs, because there is no way in hell I can think of an icon SBC that I don't really have anything in my club to do an icon SBC. I don't, I've done quite a few and I've backed nothing. So I don't really have the urge to grind,

[00:36:56] but you put an exchange SBC back in, I will start grinding the club again just for, just to collect, just to get my club back in order. It's got nothing in it, but I think the one caveat I just want to give about the grassroots football promo, I don't know if you remember a couple of years ago, we had a foot birthday promo that had a couple of FUT legends like the SS wine and I can't remember who else there was. There was, I think, was it MNEK? No, I don't think it was MNEK.

[00:37:24] There was a couple of legends of FUT that would, they tried to rehash and rebring out. And it wasn't really as well as it didn't really work as well as they hoped it would work. So that was sort of El Sharao and stuff like that. Haven't they? He was like, obviously a silver card when he was everywhere in first teams and they brought out a few specials of him and he's, he's never, and even to be fair, like the Varane SBC we had this year was very good at the end of the era. But I remember even gold Varane was untouchable. Like you couldn't pass him.

[00:37:54] And this one's been good, but he's not been, you know, elite in every, every player's team or club. So I think you're right. I think there's been something to say about, you know, sometimes you leave the past in the past or sometimes make sure you focus that you make these cards as, you know, memorable as they were. Or otherwise, you know, if you go half and half, it's, it loses its effect and its momentum almost. Exactly. Exactly. I think they need to go all out where these cards that are coming out need to be all 90 plus rated.

[00:38:22] We don't want any more 88 rated cards or 86 rated cards with one play style. Plus it's just, it's not going to cut it. So I just hope they handle that with care because there's nothing worth it. Nostalgia brings across a lot more emotive feelings as opposed to just a regular card. So people like me are getting hyped up. So even if the card is not perfect, I will be a little disappointed because of how I remember it, even though I could remember it completely incorrectly, but yeah, it's something to look forward to at least. Yeah, absolutely. And just,

[00:38:52] just while we've got our, our discord resident market expert, obviously you've, you've touched on the markets, obviously gone really high. Can you just kind of give us a little bit of info why that is falling to you with the air and obviously what you expect over the next week until we kind of record, obviously you can't see exactly what you're going to do, but what do you expect over the next few days? I think one of the things that you probably would have noticed as well is I think I expected this as well,

[00:39:19] because I sent a thing in a group chat as well, giving, giving you some ideas of certain players and asked you what's going to happen in the next 48 hours. I think just before team of the year ended. And I had a sneaky suspicion that team of the year cards wouldn't really do well outside out of packs. And I was quite right. They just didn't, they, it's not like they tanked, but they just didn't go up. And I think a lot of people start to wonder as soon as, I think a lot of investors bought up team of the year cards, expecting them to go up. And I think as soon as they went out of packs,

[00:39:48] they started to shoot up and people started getting four more. They started buying these cards, remembering last year. And then within a couple of hours, people just realized that a lot more people have packed these cards and all the investors started to sell up. And before you know it, team of the year started to become cheaper than they were, then when they were in packs. And I have a feeling that with all this content coming through and the grassroots football and the evolutions that are coming through. And as long as we have avenues to keep keeping our club up to date and

[00:40:17] keeping new cards in our clubs, I think cards like team of the years may struggle. I won't say they'll crash, but I don't think they will be flying like how we had last year with the lack of supply and also the, how great they were compared to the other cards on offer. So I have a feeling the market as a whole won't really be skyrocketing anywhere from now on in, but I don't think it'll crash either. I think it'll just maintain a steady momentum. There will be some cards that get really, start to become really valuable because of the fact that they're not

[00:40:47] really plentiful available in plenty, but I think they will just maintain the prices that they are in right now. And even if you look at the theme of the year icons, none of them actually shot up. They just stayed exactly the same price as they were. Yeah, that's quite unusual. They usually obviously take off a little bit, some of them are so than others, but it's, it is a strange one. It does make you wonder, but obviously, as you're saying, the price of Mbappe went up a lot, a lot, a lot. So are you expecting, you know, gold fodder,

[00:41:17] or not even just gold fodder, but fodder to be high, not just like, you know, usable cards, but in terms of the fodder market? I think the fodder market is going to stay high as long as Mbappe is attainable. I think as you go along, I think if you have exchanges that come out in the next couple of days or so, I think till then, the gold market will, the fodder market will stay quite healthy because I think a lot of people are still arming and eyeing about Mbappe. Some of the people have started it and trying to keep up with the pace of trying to complete this mammoth SBC. So I think the fodder market,

[00:41:46] unless something major comes through, the fodder market will stay high. But if the exchanges come through, I can see a fodder market starting to slowly crash itself down. But again, the higher rated fodders, the 89s especially, will be propped up because you need the 89s to actually give you the best bank for buck in your exchanges. So it's a, it's a very interesting couple of days over the next couple of days, couple of days to see what happens with the, with the market from an exchange point of view. But if you don't get exchanges,

[00:42:15] I have a feeling the fodder will slowly start to trickle down because there's no, there's no people who start losing hope of completing Mbappe. And, and yeah, we will start to see 91s back at like 50k, hopefully. Absolutely. Yeah. It makes, makes some of these SBCs a little bit more obtainable, even the, the best or those that are still hoping to, to do KDB or whatever, it makes that a little bit more achievable. And then if you spend a night K for an 89, like if I'll give you an example, Gareth Bale SBC, when you did the SBC,

[00:42:45] you probably spent about 2.1, 2.2 million worth of fodder, for example, roughly he's at 2.9 million right now. Yeah. And if you said that now to folk that completed them at 2.2, would you do a lot of people say, no, 2.9 is ridiculous. I'm not doing it. Whereas, you know, the low twos, it's mental how that little sort of tweak affects that. Correct. Correct. So no, that's a good point. Now, Shaq, obviously we have our Tuesday specials.

[00:43:12] So if I can just play with my little keyboard, because I really want to get the sound in, we are going to firstly look at... Player in Review. An ode to our good friend, Daniel Wimbush. Shaq, do you have a Player in Review for us today? I don't necessarily have a cheap Player in Review, but I think a player that I really want to review would be someone,

[00:43:41] a card that we all have tried recently is the Jabi Alonso card that I talked up at the start of the show is I've really, really, really enjoyed his, this particular card. I've really, this is a card that I really want to go out to the market and buy for myself. His incisive passing, his play styles, plus his other regular play styles. He's got even bruiser and things in the defensive aspect of it. I really, I really enjoyed using him in and around the midfield. And I think he's the kind of prototype

[00:44:10] that I'm trying to make my evolution card that kind of feel like in game. So, he's very cheap. He's only 280k, outk, and he's quite cheap. I know you don't rate him as much in your squad, considering you have all the riches available to you, but I've really enjoyed using him. Yeah, no, he's a good one. Like you say, I've dropped Valverde to put him in. I'm looking to play him as a CDM, so I'm not quite sure how that's going to work. Valverde doesn't have CDM play style rules, so I'm going to give him a go

[00:44:39] and see him next to Paddy Vieira and see what's what. But a very good one. My one, because my team hasn't really changed, I'm trying not to do the most expensive ones, but I'm going to just quickly touch over Danny Carvajal. He's the team of the year. It's nearly 1.2 mil. What a right back. Best right back in the game for me. He is unreal. Defensively, you can't get past. He's obviously got 95 defense. The thing that surprised me most is his finishing. His shooting face start at 78 is finishing's 80.

[00:45:09] But when he's playing as my marauding fullback, he gets into really good positions and the way that he shoots across the goal is just unreal. Very, very good card. I know not everyone's got 1.1, 1.2 million laying around, but if you do need a right back, you've got a few coins there. He is unreal. Even the Cafus can't get near him, in my opinion, at the moment. He has two arms. Obviously, these cards will get souped up specials and will come, but right now, I think this is hands down the best fullback on the game.

[00:45:38] So highly, highly recommend. He's made by whole play. A lot more solid in defense and a lot more fun attacking as well. So his 94 pace helps too. He's four-star, four-star. So he's got pretty good play styles and the long ball pass I love because he can switch out John Ray on the Diag with ease. So I'm a big fan of long ball pass. So I think that's a cracking one. And also, Shaq, our final Tuesday regular.

[00:46:08] formation focus. I probably hit the wrong one. I thought it was formation in review, but I don't seem to have found that. So we're going with formation focus today. Shaq, what formation are you currently using? I'm using, unfortunately, I've gone back to the dark side of using 4-1-2-3. Oh, sorry. 4-2-1-3. 4-2-1-3 is what I'm using right now. But I try to dabble in using the 3-5-2 in the cup. And I think,

[00:46:37] I really think there is some potential in using the 3-5-2 correctly with the right players and the right structure in it. I think I'm going to try and tinker through the 3-5-2 and try and use it next week. And I'll probably have something for the show. Hopefully, if I'm successful, I want to do a champs run with the 3-5-2 where some of the things that I could get away with doing, I know it's friendly, but some of the things I was doing, I don't think my opponents had any answers for that. So, fingers crossed. I think a 3-5-2 is something I'm really looking to tinker.

[00:47:06] You're a very brave man, especially with everyone seeming to have Salah and Mbappe, whoever, Lauren James on the wings, you are very, very brave. My one, I'm actually sticking with my 4-3-3. I've dabbled with 4-2-1-3 and I'm kind of toying with that just now. And I've also tried the 4-3-3 with the two CMs and the one cam. But the flat, I think it's the second variation I'm still using, the flat one is so much more reliable

[00:47:35] going forward and defensively as well. I've got one CM on box-to-box, one Roman playmaker and one on holden. And it seems to be a really nice balance that you're defensively solid enough, but obviously, you've got enough going forward too. So, trying to tweak the players that I've got to see if it hits the need a little bit more. And I'm also trying to play around to the 4-2-1-3, but do my own version of it because I don't like doing what everyone else does. However, I think having two CDMs in the cam is probably a very good way to go

[00:48:05] to make it a bit more solid, especially against these ridiculously impressive attackers that we've got and the way the game kind of plays as well. So, still trying things out. I tried the 4-4-2, but I just couldn't get used to it at all. Really want a 4-3-2, but I don't have enough cams that are effective. I've got too many good wingers, so it's a weird one. So, I still keep changing it. I've only got another two months left on the game. I think Baby's due two months yesterday, so I'm into my last two months

[00:48:34] of this sort of regular gameplay. So, I'm trying to make the most of it. But I'm sure next week, we'll have both tried to tinker around and do our best Claudio Ranieri impressions, so we should have something a bit more fresh. Shaq, in terms of content for today, I think that's us. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we sail away into, I was going to say the sunset, probably a sunset for you, but into here, it's very bleak, dull, rainy, drizzly Scotland. I think the one thing I just want people to gear off next week

[00:49:04] is I have a review on a card that probably, in my opinion, is slightly expensive. It's in the 2 mil range approximately, but I have a feeling that this is the best card in the game. So, I will give you a thorough review on this card next week. I'll just tease it here. Come back to me next week. Oh, you've got to give a few more hints without telling us who it is. Well, his dynamic image has blonde hair. That's all I'm saying. Oh, this is intriguing. For anyone listening, put your messages on the postcard,

[00:49:33] drop it into the social feeds, drop it into the Discord. I want to know who you think that Shaq is referring to. For myself, I just want to say take the time to recover after Team of the Year. It is a bit of a lull, like we've said, but I am, you know, I'm missing Team of the Year, but I'm still quite happy it's not there because, you know, I couldn't focus on much else apart from Team of the Year. So, enjoy it. Make the most of it because I'm sure that the time will come around very soon that we're all addicted to that, the phone app or the web app

[00:50:03] or the console trying to grind our little hearts out. So, make the most of it, but, you know, also join the Discord. I haven't plugged it enough today, but, you know, our Discord is still there. We still offer, obviously, foot coaching as well with the latest technology and coaching. So, if you, you know, especially at the moment, I know people do sometimes spend money on packs, but at the moment, nobody's probably spending money on packs because there's nothing much worse worth packing. But if you are struggling against these

[00:50:32] ridiculously good cards, give us a shout, reach out to John or myself or whoever. You know, we're really happy to kind of try and help people improve with the fundamentals of the game. That'll see them through further iterations. So, just a wee plug for that because I'm terrible at remembering to do that. But, Shaq, there is now only just one thing left to do. Drop it. We are going to drop it. Drop it. F-U-T

[00:51:00] F-U-T F-U-T F-U-T F-U-T T Give it a few F-U-T F-U-T Marc proposed