Gaming
Games
The Complete Guide to FUT Draft
How to build the best FUT Draft team and earn big prizes.
FIFA fans are always asking for new ways to play the game, and one of the most successful additions to the formula in recent years is FUT Draft mode. Playable against the AI or online, FUT Draft is a pay-to-enter mode where you build a custom XI from a range of player picks, then play up to four matches, earning tradeable packs based on how far you make it along the gauntlet. Success or failure will ultimately depend on your FIFA skills, but a good team can make all the difference. Follow our guide to maximise your potential!
How does FUT Draft work?
You need 15,000 coins, 300 FIFA Points, or a FUT Draft Token to play
© EA
FUT Draft is a pay-to-enter mode, which means you need to pony up 15,000 coins, 300 FIFA Points, or a FUT Draft Token to play. (The latter is a rare reward from packs and occasionally Objectives, so keep an eye out.)
Once you have paid the entry fee, the game offers you a choice of five formations, chosen at random from the many available when building teams elsewhere in FUT. After choosing something that suits your style of play, you choose your captain from five possibilities. After that, you work your way through the team, bench and reserve slots, filling them out using player picks for each position. The idea is to try and build the most effective team possible, hopefully with good chemistry to boost their in-game performance.
Once you've finished drafting, your team is locked in. You can swap players' positions around within the squad, but you can't change formation, alter Chemistry Styles or apply position modifier cards. (You can tweak Custom Tactics, but only for your chosen formation.)
Then it's onto matchmaking. You can play up to four matches, and once you are knocked out (or if you win all four!) you collect rewards, chosen from a pool of different pack types. In some cases, you may also receive a FUT Draft token to play again.
How to build the best FUT Draft team
Choose your formation before anything else
© EA
Your first important decision is formation, so make sure you consider it carefully. What kind of formation normally suits you? If you're used to playing with two attackers up top, it's probably worth prioritising that. If you tend to need a pair of holding midfielders to keep control of the centre of the park, that's also pretty important. Back three, four or five is probably least important, as all three are pretty workable in FIFA 21.
When it comes to choosing players, we have several self-imposed guidelines that have served us well over several versions of FUT:
- Start up front - Goals decide games, so you need strong attackers. We usually begin our drafts up top to give us an early idea of where we may want to focus.
- Keep your options open - As soon as a good player pops up, it will be tempting to focus on that league or nation to try and shoehorn them in, but keep your options open for a few picks, especially if really good players from other regions pop up. For example, Mo Salah may present himself at RW, and then your CM player pick offers up base Wijnaldum (who gets the Liverpool chemistry link) but also Team of the Year Joshua Kimmich. If this happens early on, take Kimmich. You're bound to be offered another decent Premier League midfielder, but that may be your only TOTY option.
- Prioritise chemistry - It's all very well having a team of brilliant special cards, but if they have terrible chemistry then your gameplay will probably feel slow and disjointed. Once you have made a few choices, it should be clear which directions the team can go. Try to keep your options open, but start to focus on building good chemistry once you have 3 or 4 players in place who you want to play with. Ideally you want your full team to have 100 chemistry.
- Icons are your friends - It probably goes without saying, but Icons are brilliant in FUT Draft because they get full chemistry with absolutely anyone. They can sit contentedly between different leagues and nations, allowing them to play together happily. Whenever you're offered an Icon, seriously consider taking it, even if it looks a little unappealing compared to the other options. Better to have a 100-chem team with a mediocre Icon in defence, for instance, than a 76-chem team with two high-end defenders on 5 chem each.
- Pay attention to Chem Styles - If you can't decide between two players, look at the Chemistry Styles they have on the card. Chem Styles are doled out pretty randomly, and any cards with pace-boosting styles (especially Hunter, Shadow and Catalyst) will be noticeably faster in-game, especially as not all your opponent's cards will have speed boosts themselves. A basic Chem Style isn't the end of the world either -- in a full-chem team, a basic Chem Style boosts a lot of stats by +5.
- Look out for the latest promo cards - Whenever EA adds new cards to the game, they pop up in FUT Draft pretty quickly, so it can sometimes be a good idea to ignore the base version of a promo card when it pops up in hopes of getting the promo version later. For example, we turned down gold Mbappe in a draft last week and picked up TOTY Mbappe a few choices later.
How to set up your FUT Draft team
Custom Tactics can help you once you're locked into a team
© EA
Once you have chosen your formation at the start of a FUT Draft, you are locked into it throughout that series of matches. In regular FUT squads, you can use Custom Tactics to set up alternative formations for use in-game, but this isn't allowed in FUT Draft for obvious reasons. So you better get used to that 5-2-2-1, soldier!
Fortunately, you can still tweak other aspects of Custom Tactics. If you are more comfortable playing with a higher depth or width in attack and defence, you can tweak that. We generally leave things on Balanced and defaults, but we do reduce the number of players in the box for corners and set-pieces from 3/5 to 2/5.
Player instructions can salvage teams lacking an ideal setup
© EA
Depending on our formation, we also apply some Player Instructions. Full-backs and CDMs are generally told to Stay Back While Attacking, while wingers and CAMs are given the Get Into Box For Cross instruction, ideal for getting on the end of those overpowered R1/RB + circle/B driven crosses. If you have a particular playing identity that you like to sculpt from these options, go nuts.
Before you head into a match, make sure you organise your substitutes bench, too, so that you have the best available players from your pool of subs and reserves. Don't be afraid of using subs, even at kickoff, if it will give you a boost in key positions. Many a successful draft has been forged on the back of swapping a 75-rated CAM -- plugged in purely for chemistry reasons -- for a Neymar or Mbappe once the game loads up.
How to get the best FUT Draft rewards
It's a long path to the best rewards
© EA
We're sorry to say that the only way to guarantee good FUT Draft rewards is by winning matches. Even then, you're at the mercy of pack luck to see whether your rewards will make the grind worthwhile. 15,000 coins doesn't sound like a lot, but if your rewards are a Gold Players Pack and a Premium Gold Pack, the odds aren't in your favour.
With that said, there are certain times of year when FUT Draft can pay for itself more often than not, even if you struggle for more than one or two wins. During promotions that rely on a lot of 'crafting' -- endlessly plugging common or rare gold players into upgrade packs -- the demand for suitable cards sometimes increases and raises the floor price on those card categories. Team of the Year (each January) is a good example -- the demand for golds meant commons were selling for 750-850 coins minimum, while rares were going for 1000-1100. At those prices, even a bad set of FUT Draft rewards is likely to recoup and potentially exceed the cost of FUT Draft entry.
Don't be dissuaded from playing if you don't immediately win
© EA
Really though, we do not recommend playing FUT Draft (or any mode, frankly) purely for rewards. Think of the rewards as a bonus. Otherwise, you will drive yourself crazy fighting for packs that offer very little in return. Enjoy the gameplay, and if you don't, then take a break and try something else. Good luck out there!
