FIFA 13 Ultimate Team Coin Making Tips

FIFA 13 Ultimate Team Coin Guide - My Best Tips

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There's no secret way to make a lot of coins extremely fast on Ultimate Team. There's many guides, but most are just general knowledge and trading tricks that are out dated. The 'auction house' market moves too fast for these recycled guides. In order to make coins and keep your UT healthy and wealthy you need to understand the market - what prices people will be willing to pay for your cards, and what prices you should expect to pay yourself.  My friends keep seeing my coin pile or player quality grow, asking how many packs I just bought, but I don't waste my money, I simply accumulate them faster than they're able to. 

I'm going to be continuously updating my collection of knowledge which I've gained from being highly successful at FIFA Ultimate Team over the last couple years. Below are a collection of all these tips and quick guides I've made; they should help any player, from beginner to already experienced squad managers, build the most successful and most profitable Ultimate Team.

See also:
Lower your squad rating for easier matches & fitting into tournaments
FIFA 13 Skill Moves
Making the best squad - finding the best players for your Ultimate Team

Making a wealthy UT squad - Getting Started

Helpful tools:

There's two tools that you're going to need to become familiar with if you're not already; the official EA sports FIFA 13 Ultimate Team web app, and online tools such as futhead and the Ultimate Database.

If you haven't already, increase your Trade Pile and Consumables

The first thing you should do when you're going to start trading and making coins in Ultimate Team is to increase the size of your trade pile and consumables. If you don't know how to do this, from the main FIFA menu, select EAS FC.  Sort items to only show Ultimate Team.  You need to level up your EA level to unlock these boosts, and gain coins to buy them. By far the most important to buy are the increased trade pile size, consumables, and even watch list:

• Consumables Increase: Level 2, 500 coins. +25 consumables size. (From 50 to 75)
• Trade Pile Increase: Level 12, 500 coins. +10 trade pile size. (From 30 to 40)
• Watch List Increase: Level 20, 500 coins. +20 watch list size. (From 30 to 50)

You can also buy boosts to change your squad name, increase the number of squads, or even unlock a temporary coin boost of up to 1000 free coins per match.

Buying and selling smart!

It's no surprise that in order to make money you want to buy items for as low as you can, and sell them for as high as you can. Unfortunately most people don't know how to do this correctly, and they lose out on a lot of coins they could have made or not spent. The following sections will explain the way I buy and sell players, as well as a number of great tips for buying and selling.

BUYING your players for the cheapest price possible

Before you start buying, know the price you should be paying.
When buying a player especially, make sure you know the players market price (the average price he goes for).  To do this, I:
*look up the player online for the average price for my system
*do an auction search to try to find the lowest buy in now price for the item
*set the maximum price to the lowest BIN price you just found. Sometimes I add a few auctions that will be bid on to my watch list, to find out the price the player is usually bid up to
*search the auction for players in your formation, and compare it to the cheapest players from ALL formations. I was building a silver 4-3-3 squad, and I couldn't find a single auction for a particular player for less than 8000 in my formation. But there were auctions in other formations going for only about 1000-2000 coins. Now I either can decide to wait for an auction in my formation at a reasonable price, or buy the card for as cheap as I can, and buy a formation modifier. I knew a 4-3-3 card would cost me 2-3k, always consider this!
Now I know the price I'd be happy paying for the item. Believe me, it'll be a lot lower than the price you'd pay if you just went in and started buying without knowing the prices.
Now you can start buying. Be patient, look for fair buy it now prices, or try to win an auction. Usually you can win an auction for a better price than using a BIN, however for cheap players the BIN is great.

Winning Auctions

This is what I do to try to get the best prices from auctions:
-I add as many below-market price auctions as possible to the watch list, and only bid as high as I told myself I would - see above to help you figure out the price you should be paying for an item
-when I can I always wait til the last seconds of the auction to try to win the item, rather than bidding up the price before you need to. Ideally I bid as soon as the timer hits 16 seconds (any less and the timer will reset back to 15 seconds). I do this because not only is this the last possible time to bid, but also because the timer starts flashing at the 15 second mark, which could cause the previous highest bidder to not realize he got outbid if he's also still watching the auction. It's not a big deal to do this, but it's the best way to keep the auction prices low, and to give yourself the best chance of sniping the player in the last few seconds.

Also, look for auctions with no bids, with a reasonable starting price.  For example, there may be a lot of Fernando Torres cards on auction, with the lowest BIN prices at 20-23k. Most auctions were being bid up to 19-21k. I saw an auction with a starting price of 18k, and no bids. I put a bid on him and won without having to compete with anyone, and I got him for lower than pretty much all the other auctions I saw. Look out for these!

More Buying Tips:

Always narrow your search results as much as you can so you can compare prices easier.  Make use of the maximum and minimum price values too. Use this to find the best prices!

Buy at peak times, when a lot of cards are on auction. This will keep prices down for those big players.

Buy big players as tournaments end. If a BBVA tournament just ended, more people will be selling their Messi cards than buying them, causing the price to go down. 

Also, when buying players, consider the contracts and fitness they're at. If there's two players, one at 100 coins more but has 90 contracts compared to 2, it's clear what the better investment is. Always pay attention to this!

The formation plays a big role in the price of the player:
The 10 most popular formations for the Xbox 360 in order of average price:
4-1-2-1-2
4-3-3
4-4-2
4-3-2-1
4-4-1-1
4-2-3-1
4-2-2-2
3-5-2
4-5-1
4-3-1-2

The 10 most popular formations for the PS3 in order of average price:
4-1-2-1-2
4-3-3
4-4-2
4-2-2-2
4-2-3-1
4-5-1
4-4-1-1
3-5-2
4-3-2-1
4-3-1-2

Selling Tips - How To Price

Selling items can also be an art. The items you sell are going to be the main way your club makes coins, so you want to know how to price your items to get the best possible final price for them.
Again, the first step is finding the market price for the item you're selling. If it's a player, look him up online for a general price. Then search the auction house for that item, adding auctions to your watch list if necessary. Make sure you look at the items that actually have bids, and compare a few final selling prices of a couple auctions if possible. You can then set a price slightly higher than the market price, and also add a buy it now just slightly higher than that.

Here's an example: let's say you see a few auctions finish at 2200,  2000, 2400, 2300 and one player sold for the buy it now at 2600. This means the current market price for this player in this formation is probably around 2300-2400. But you want to get more than this, since you're a good trader. In this case, I would start my auction at 2700. This way, no matter what when the player sells, I know I'll be happy with it's price. It's also close enough to the market price that it will still sell, although it may take a couple listings.  I'll then add a buy it now of 2900 (instead of 3000, which is less likely to sell).  Many buyers will see only a 200 coin difference, so they will just buy the item right away. So I got 2900 for my player, which is almost 20% more than the market price. No, I didn't get rich selling this one player, but if you always sell your items this way, you can always expect to get the most coins possible for them, and you will be making money much faster than everyone else who don't effectively price their items.

ALWAYS make use of the buy it now feature when you can. It's a great way to increase your income. The best buy it now prices are just high enough above the market price of the item, but still reasonable enough that it still has a chance of being bought. In my example, the 200 coin difference is the 'convenience factor' of the buyer being able to own the item right now. The starting price was already 2700, which I would be happy if it sold at. Then by adding a buy it now, I'm not only increasing my chances of the player selling (impatient buyers won't wait for your auction to end), but I'm also increasing the average amount of coins I'm expecting to get for my player. Win-win!


Another quick tip, I like to sell most of my items every hour, since most types of items are usually only bought in the last few minutes. But if I'm going to bed or going out for a while, I'll set the auction for 6/12 hours. You can try for higher buy it now prices when you do this, too.

Also, when selling big players or teams, it might be worth while to wait for a tournament to be released which would use those players. For example the most recent tournament needed Brazilian/Uruguayan players, and I had a Brazilian team which I was thinking about selling. When I put them on auction they sold extremely fast, and I got 1.5-2x the price I paid just a few weeks ago for them.

Making Coins and keeping them!

Make a few Thousand Coins in a Couple Minutes

This money making method is no secret, but it's been my favourite way to make steady income, and increase my club value. Yeah, it's the bronze pack method, but you should learn how to do this correctly.
A normal bronze pack costs 400 coins. It contains 12 items, usually 3-4 of which are consumables, which are sold for 150/200  Unless they're rare, contracts won't be bid up to 200, but it's actually fairly likely someone will buy it now for 200. You're already making your money back off this alone, and there's often more to find. Fitness cards I sell for 300/350. If you are lucky and get a rare fitness card, you just found 2000+ coins for free. 

These are the sellable cards you'll find in your packs: 
-contacts and rare contracts
-fitness and rare fitness
-rare staff
-rare stadiums
-rare healing 
-rare training
-funny coloured ball
And of course, certain players:
-80+ pace
-players from the BPL
-players from highly supported clubs - Manchester, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern, Dortmund, ect
-really bad players (41 rated goes for most, I'll sell anything rated 43 or 44 or under)
-good players (good pace with 60+ in their important stats to their position, especially with nationality matching league [Italian in Serie A/B], and also especially when rare). English and Brazilians go for the most. Also pay attention to their formation to judge prices


Having your trade pile completely filled, auctioned every hour, adds up very quickly, and it only takes a couple minute once you've gotten a hang of it. On my best days when I get good packs and my items sell fast enough I can make up to 20k coins from only a few minutes throughout the day. Whenever I can I leave the web app open and as close to every hour as I can remember I'll re-set my auctions. Most cards, with particular regard to consumables, only usually sell in the last couple minutes of the auction, so if you have the dedication I'd recommend only setting your auctions to more than an hour unless you're not going to be able to check back in a while.

Here's an ordinary pack, three contracts selling for 150-250, two fitness cards selling for 300/350.. that's 1000-1400 coins made from buying a 400 coin pack. It adds up!

Trading for Profit

I call this 'merchanting', it involves buying an item, and then selling it for a higher price.  This can be very difficult to do, as it can be hard to buy players at a low enough price to make profit off of it. Always remember that there is an 'EA tax' on every item you sell of 5%. In other words, for every 100 coins you sold, 5 coins of which will be lost.  This can cut down on profit margins, and make it hard to make significant money this way.

The richest people in the game seem to be those who are the best traders, and are able to control their own little market. Find your own secret market: maybe you could find a player who you could buy, modified in some way (position, formation) and sold for significantly more. Maybe there's an in-form player you could invest a lot in, hold onto, and sell for a lot higher. 
As I've said, the best way to make money in this game is to simply know the market - know what you can buy for and what you can sell for. The unfortunate thing is I can't tell you what to buy and sell. If I did, everyone would be doing this and it would not be profitable any more. If you can find your own trading tricks, it could be your best way to make coins in FIFA Ultimate Team.

Investing

Investing in Ultimate Team is difficult, because the majority of players depreciate in value over the life of the game.  Once again I can't tell you how to do this exactly as there's no big secret. And if there was, it wouldn't be a secret after I tell everyone, and it wouldn't be profitable anymore. There's a few ways to do this though, many of which have been quite successful for me.
If you're looking for a large investment, no question the best thing to buy is an in-form player.  These are the only players who don't steadily depreciate over time, since no more of them are entering the market.  This year I made roughly 100k coin profit from buying Juan Mata in-form, using him on my main squad for roughly a month, then selling him. My friend thought I was silly spending ~400,000 coins on a right midfielder, but he was awesome to have on my squad, and it was even more awesome when I went to sell him and I noticed how much he went up in value.  Be careful investing in in-forms though. If a second (and better) Juan Mata in-form came out, or even another strong RM in the BPL (this card was by far the best RM in the league when I bought him), the value of my card would have likely dropped quite a bit.  There's always risk vs reward, so when you're investing, always look for ways to reduce risk, and maximize potential reward.
Like all players, the prices of in-forms fluctuate. Keep an eye on prices, try to buy them when they're cheap, and sell them when they're high. As I already mentioned, look out for the newest tournaments when trying to get the best prices.

Other than in-forms, look for players who have recently been transferred, or better yet try to find news of big-name transfers, and invest in the player before the trade happens, and before the new card is released. They'll be no more cards of that player in that particular league or team, so it should definitely go up!

Buy big name players before big games.  If Barcelona has a Champions league final in a couple weeks, Messi should be bought now and sold then for a good profit.


My other favourite, more small scale investments have been during happy hour...

Happy Hour

Always try to take advantage of happy hour, even if you're not buying packs yourself.  Everyone is putting up their loot from packs on auction at the same time. More supply means cheaper prices for just about EVERYTHING. Remember that these auctions will start ending one hour after happy hour goes live - look for your cards then. Always try to find ways to take advantage of this, here's what I have done in the past:

• invest now, and sell the cards at a later date. Some happy hour's I've been able to buy rare gold contracts at 150-200 coins (!!). I filled up my entire trade pile and consumables, and sold them for 700+ each just a few days later. 
• invest in your club. During happy hour I bought a lot of staff cards, for the boost they give to consumables. I have around a 50% bonus to every contract I assign to a player, meaning it's costing me a lot less to keep my players on the pitch. Decide for yourself if this investment is worth it.
• have an eye on a player? Now might be the perfect time to buy him.
• DON'T sell a lot during this time, especially gold items. You won't get nearly as much for your goods as you would usually. If you open a few packs, store what you can in your club and sell them at a later time.

Always check to see what kind of packs are being offered during this happy hour, it'll determine what you'll expect to get good deals on. 

DON'T Bleed Coins on Consumables

I was watching my one friend play, and he couldn't even afford keep his squad on the pitch.  He was only getting a few hundred coins per game, and he had all of his players needing new contracts, or becoming too fatigued to even move.  Here's a few tips to keep your players happy and healthy on the pitch:

• buy RARE contracts. They usually only cost a little more than the normal cards if you shop around, and provide more than twice as many contracts as normal cards. Much more bang for your buck.
• Don't buy fitness cards. Instead, invest in a good but cheap substitute squad. Or even put your tired players on the bench and play a game with a full squad of random players you find in your club. Fitness cards can cost 300+ coins per player and only last a few games. Over time it's much better to have substitutes that you can use rather than losing this much money per player every few games.
• If you need fitness cards, morale, or bronze contracts, buy the normal 400 coin bronze packs. Not only will you find the card you need, buy you'll also likely make your money back or even profit from selling the other consumables or players in the pack.

DON'T BUY PACKS!

At least, not with coins. If you have the money to blow on FIFA points then go for it. Gold packs are a huge waste of coins. For 5000 coins, all you get is one rare card. This is usually a contract or a player which trades at less than 1000. It's very rare to actually make your money back from buying packs. If you're desperate for a boost, invest in some FIFA points and buy the special packs on happy hour, which usually contain more rare players and increase your chances at in form players.



Hopefully my experience with Ultimate Team has been able to teach you something, and you'll be ready to start watching the coins flow in. Having a wealthy squad means you'll be able to get the best players, keep them in shape, and win more games. Good luck out there!