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Everything you need to know about FIFA 22 Team of the Year
FUTWIZ's Jamodo breaks down the biggest promo of the FUT cycle...
Team of the Year is upon us in FIFA 22 Ultimate Team, bringing with it unprecedented hype and meta-busting cards that blow other promo teams out of the water.
But are FIFA 22 Team of the Year cards really worth getting excited about? Is it worth spending all your coins to get one into your team? And where in the name of all that is red, record-breaking and Egyptian is Mohamed Salah?!
Don't sweat it – FUTWIZ pro player Jamie 'Jamodo' O'Doherty is on hand to tell you everything you need to know...
What is Team of the Year?
When buying packs, the chances of packing TOTY players is very slim.
© EA Sports
It might be difficult to decode some of EA Sports' weird names for promo teams (for example, what on earth is a 'Versus Ice' card meant to be?) but with Team of the Year it's simple: these are the best 11 players of the calendar year 2021, as voted for by people who play FIFA. EA then takes those players, gives them massive upgrades and a nice card design, and sticks a small number of them in packs. Crack enough packs during the average promo and you'll snag at least a low-level special card, but Team of the Years are incredibly elusive, which adds to the mystique. Even long-time players may never have packed one.
Here's who is in the FIFA 22 Team of the Year:
Get more FIFA 22 FUT guides right here:
"It's probably the promo of the year where we have the most expensive cards in the game," explains Jamodo. "And that doesn't always mean it's the best for a casual player, because often it's the most inaccessible cards in the game when it comes to upwards of seven million coins for Mbappé, for example.
"But I guess it's always hype because in real life the Ballon d'Or, and the best XI, always brings debate and hype in real football, and that [excitement] then transitions over into FIFA where the community is all around it, excited about opening their weekly rewards in-game and having a chance of packing one of these big cards."
While some Team of the Year XIs pick themselves, this year there has been a bit of controversy over one high-profile absentee, something that Jamodo puts down to the way that player's specific strengths and weaknesses map to the game.
"It's always interesting... because for me, obviously when it's going to be voted for by us FIFA fans, we're going to want to pick cards we want to use in game, so we'll see an Mbappé in the squad instead of maybe a Mo Salah, who in real life I think should definitely be in a real-world best XI. But because in FIFA he doesn't have 5* skills like Mbappé or a 4* weak foot, generally you'll see the FIFA audience not pick those kinds of cards. It's probably important not to take it too seriously!"
EA does add a 12th card to the team for the second week of the promo, based on a fan vote in the game, but Jamodo doesn't think this will make a difference for Salah, as players are being asked to choose between him, Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo, and Real Madrid's Karim Benzema.
"Let's be honest here," he says. "It's just going to be whoever has the biggest audience and whoever's going to be better to use in the game who will win, so it's probably going to be Ronaldo." By the time you read this, the answer may well be known. Has there been justice for Mo Salah? Probably not.
Reviewing the FIFA 22 TOTY cards
Chelsea's Jorginho makes FIFA 22's Team of the Year
© EA Sports
Nobody would complain about packing any of the Team of the Year cards, but the very best players in world football don't always change much year to year, so there is a sense of déjà vu around what feels like Kevin De Bruyne's annual 96-rated TOTY card, for instance. There are some newcomers to the squad for FIFA 22, however, and those are the ones that that immediately catch the eye of FUT veterans and pro players like Jamodo.
+12 on a card is massive.
"Jorginho plays for Chelsea and his normal card is, I think, an 85-rated gold card and he has a 3* weak foot and 3* skill moves, so it's not really a usable card, and I don't think he has higher than 60 pace in-game and, in FIFA, pace is very important," he explains. "But the Team of the Year, it's a 97-rated card, so that's a +12, when normally an in-form [Team of the Week] boost would be only a +1 with +1 boost on all their stats in-game. So +12 on a card is massive. Someone like Jorginho, who would normally be an unusable card for pros, now has 4* skills and 4* weak foot and 90+ on every stat... Jorginho for me is one of those that's going to be an underrated card, because his boosts are massive, and I think he will be cheaper compared to De Bruyne and Kanté. Jorginho's someone that I will be using myself."
Jorginho's price certainly has settled a lot lower than his fellow midfielders, and despite their reputation as unpackable monsters, some of the TOTY cards are going to settle in the 1-2m range, which is relatively affordable for FUT fans who play consistently and save up their coins. Is it worth breaking the bank to bring one of these players into a team, though, as opposed to having a balanced team of cheaper players?
"My advice would be to always try and spread out the coins as evenly as you can," says Jamodo. "It depends on your play style as well. If you use Gold Lewandowski, for example, and you love the way he plays, let's be honest his Team of the Year is going to be a massive boost on that, and you're going to love it. But if you're used to using more nimble players like maybe a Neymar Jr., the low centre of gravity and 5*/5* for example, then maybe it's not even worth upgrading to a Lewandowski because that's not your style of play."
Another popular notion is to take one of the very versatile full-back players and bring them into another position on the pitch, and this is something that could work for TOTY cards.
"I was chatting to one of my team-mates at FUTWIZ the other day, Jacob 'NiKSNEB' Benskin, and last year he was kind of the guy who put Alphonso Davies TOTY in his midfield and started a bit of trend among the pro players," says Jamodo.
Moroccan PSG full-back Achraf Hakimi could be deployed in midfield
© EA Sports
"It's not unusual we see players in Ultimate Team actually better suited to playing a different position -- in FIFA 21 we saw it a lot with full-backs at centre-back -- and this year I would say Cancelo but even Hakimi as well; I'm very interested to see how he will go as a central defensive midfielder. When [a player's] stats are boosted that much, they have better shooting than most forwards, their cards are so well rounded, so they will definitely work better in a midfield. They give more to the overall team than being such a high-rated expensive card at full-back."
Using league upgrades to pack a TOTY
The odds of packing a Team of the Year are the lowest of practically anything released during the annual Ultimate Team cycle. If you go into the store during a lightning round and look at the pack probabilities on Ultimate Packs, which cost around £17 / €21 a pop, the odds are usually listed as less than 1% per pack. But that doesn't stop players trying to get hold of one by opening packs they have held back in anticipation, or by putting resources into Squad-Building Challenges that yield pack rewards.
Grinding out 'league upgrade SBCs' is a good way of hunting for TOTY cards
© EA Sports
One of the most popular SBCs for Team of the Year is the 'league upgrades', so called because FUT players exchange low-chemistry squads of non-rare and rare gold cards and receive a pack that guarantees cards only from a specific league. If someone wants to pack a Premier League TOTY card, then, it makes sense to channel resources into Premier League League Upgrade SBCs. Part of the fun is the grind that then ensues, recycling unwanted cards from these packs back into making more of them. But given that the pack weight is so low for even Ultimate Packs, what chance does the average FUT fan have of finding a TOTY in one of these upgrade packs, which have even worse probabilities associated with them? Is it worth buying up rare gold cards to try it out?
"I'll always say – even with these premium upgrades – whatever you're putting into it, you've got to be willing to lose," says Jamodo. "If you're selling your whole team that costs a million coins and expecting to get one TOTY back, you're probably more times than not going to be disappointed. So if you have some spare players in your club that you're not using, like non-rare golds, why not put them in and test your luck? But I wouldn't be throwing the kitchen sink at them and expecting a lot in return."
