Madden Ultimate Team is an awesome and addicting game mode.

However if you are just jumping in, it can be a little bit overwhelming, especially without any prior experience or sense of direction. I am a consistently competitive sim Madden player, and I do not pretend to be elite by any means.

But if there is one thing I know how to do it is how to do it is how to take a starting default team within the Ultimate Team game mode and build it up to an elite team.

When Starting Your Ultimate Team you will be presented with a handful of choices, many of which are purely cosmetic and alterable, but some will have an impact on the first of many decisions you have in making your team how you want it. The most impactful step you will make is choosing your team captain.

The team captain card is a nerfed, usually 80 or so overall version of a star player from an NFL team. Your team captain card will give you an instant star player at a respective position over the lower level bronze players your team starts with other wise. In addition to picking the player you will also be assigned the following purely cosmetic items matching that player’s team: home and away uniform, bronze coach card, offensive and defensive playbooks, and the team’s stadium. All of these items will serve as a starting point but can be easily bought for cheap or changed.

It is important when choosing your captain to focus on a difference maker position that has some semblance of cheap to find alternatives. People will usually rush to the big skill positions, such as, quarterback, running back, or wide receiver. Despite these all being solid options, they are all easily affordable to replace and find a more than suitable productive player at a discount. When picking your captain I would recommend a defensive secondary player, such as a cornerback or a safety. These positions are somewhat more difficult to find replacements, but will also come in handy when playing online against all the pass happy players.

Building your Ultimate Team and Coin Base

Once you select your captain you will have to play a few games with your team to build up a coin base to either buy a pack of new cards or investing in players in the market. The solo challenges appear to be a good choice to build your team up, but are actually too much of a grind in terms of the time investment to return enough in-game currency.

The only solo challenge tree that is actually worthwhile initially is the one which rewards an elite coach with an enhanced chemistry boost. The best option to build your coin base initially is either through the online games where you will get close to 1,000 coins a game with three minute quarters.

You will also unlock rewards along the way and if you make the playoffs, the potential for a division upgrade with greater rewards.

After you play a few games you will start to get itchy to buy a pack or a high priced, high overall player. The key however is to exercise patience and be the tortoise, not the hare when building your team.

As you play your first few games you will want to take note as to where your glaring weaknesses appear to be and note those positions. After you play about 5 games you should have about 5k coins available. As a general rule I like to save half and spend half.

One note on spending your coins: try to avoid packs as much as you possibly can. When spending your coins, do it on the players you want, and can still afford. Packs are a trap, they lure you in under the guise that you will pull a superstar player but the way they are set up is that the odds are hardly in your favor.

Packs contain a breakdown of 10 cards, with most of the players being bronze level. Only half of the cards included are players, none of which will help or improve your team. The gold player(s) which you do get are usually less than desirable 74 overalls masquerading as golds, and are only an upgrade if you are just starting out.

Simply put, by buying packs you are spending 7500 coins as a lottery ticket for one card.

The best way to use the “spend” half of your coins is on players you actually want and can use. This eliminates the guesswork from packs, and allows you to build a team how you want, without being at the mercy of your packs.

When starting your team and initially filling roster holes it is important to note that they 1) do not provide enough chemistry to be permanently worthwhile 2) are not good enough to be a permanent fixture on your team. Based on these factors I would recommend buying a player who can 1) immediately upgrade/help your team at one of those initial glaring position needs 2) can become redeemable or sellable at a potentially higher price than you initially bought them when they do become expendable.

Of course if you can find an Elite or Legendary player at a steep discount go for it, however initially the best consistent investments are the silver players with the "Top 100 seal" on them. These players are like the captain cards; in that they are lower attribute versions of the NFL superstars you know and love.

These players are in every pack and are largely considered a burden and unusable. As a result people sell them extremely cheap. Buying these players will allow you to fill pretty much every position on your team with a 79+ player. Best part is that once you move on they are all available to be collected, to exchange for a pack which possibly could contain one of those amazing cards.

When playing online these cards also come in handy for confusing your opponent, because if your opponent does not check the depth chart they have no idea that you are using 83 OVR Calvin Johnson and not the 93 OVR elite version. This can potentially create mismatches and opportunities elsewhere, both offensively and defensively.

Flipping Cards

When it comes to using the “save” half of your coins you will want to take part in the easiest and the most addicting way to earn coins: by sniping cards at a severe discount on the auction house.

This is where that other half of your earned coins should be going, at least until you build up a large enough bankroll.

Flipping cards is like flipping a house or a stock. Learn the market, find a deal, and resell immediately, or after the price has gone up; for a profit of course.

Flipping cards is an excellent way to build a team because it allows you scour the market for players to flip for a profit, but while doing so you may find more than a few solid deals to keep for yourself.

The market has become a little bit harder to snipe, but there are still many opportunities you just have to know where to look.

The best places to look include:

-Valuable cards in collections. Low rated but sell for higher amounts due to being in popular collection(s)
-New or promotional cards (i.e. fantasy or promo cards) the sooner they come out the better.
-Wait for promotions (around Thanksgiving or Christmas) when big spenders are buying a lot of packs. This will overflow the market and people will be unable to focus on the smaller not super desirable cards, but you will be able to swoop in and make some serious profit.
-Legendary players.

"As you move into this stage you will want to begin placing an emphasis on the chemistry associated with the players you select..."

Steps for trying to snipe a card include:

1) Filter the desired criteria as specific as you can without muddying the results when you sort.
2) From there you want to scroll over and sort buy it now price in ascending order and look for a large discrepancy in what the cheapest card is selling for VS the rest of the cards.
3) Buy the card and resell for slightly less than the next least expensive card.
4) It is to be noted however that when you resell the card EA will deduct 10% as a seller’s fee, so account for that when considering your profit margin.

Once you build your team up high enough you will want to more or less rinse, wash, and repeat the steps in the previous paragraphs as you continue to develop your team. As you move into this stage you will want to begin placing an emphasis on the chemistry associated with the players you select to make part of your team.

Chemistry

Madden 25 reintroduces chemistry, which was in previous installments, but really had no bearing. Chemistry this year is much clearer and less subjective in terms of its effect. Each player adds to one or more of the below chemistry attributes on that players respective side of the ball. The higher level of the card typically the higher the chemistry boost provided. The players you place on your team will continue to add chemistry to your team as long as you play them at the position designated on their card.

Below is a list of all of the chemistry options/settings included in Madden 25’s Ultimate Team. Included with each chemistry are the attributes which receive a boost as the chemistry boost climbs.

Offensive Chemistry with Boost Descriptions

• Short Pass – Pass Blocking and Catch in Traffic.
• Long Pass – Pass Blocking and Route Running.
• Ground and Pound – Run Blocking and Trucking.
• Speed Run – Run Blocking and Elusiveness.

Defensive Chemistry with Boost Descriptions

• Zone Defense – Play Recognition and Zone Coverage.
• Man Defense – Play Recognition and Man Coverage.
• Pass Rush – Block Shedding and Pursuit.
• Run Stuff – Block Shedding and Tackling.

With all of the possible attributes to choose from with chemistry, I would only recommend staying away from the zone defense chemistry attribute. I do not advise to avoid it due to the personnel available, but only because of how broken the zone defense in Madden is year after year; it is just simply not a smart investment.

When creating your team I would recommend choosing one offensive and one defensive chemistry to focus on. This will allow your team to remain balanced, and provide you the freedom of not going broke, as most players right now do not provide enough of a boost to make the dual offense/defense chemistry a feasible option.

The one downside with the addition of chemistry is that you are somewhat forced to choose to have all the players you want, or all the players you can stand which fit within your desired chemistry. It would have been nice if there was more freedom in terms of deciding which type of players provided which type of chemistry boost, to an extent.

On the bright side with most gold and elite players giving a chemistry boost of 8-12 chemistry, and the ability to spread the points across 12 players on each side of the ball it allows you to mix in a couple players you like for your system; or just want on your team, without leading to any unwanted impact on your team’s skill.

This guide is in depth starter kit for getting your Madden 25 Ultimate Team off the ground and onto the gridiron.

Any questions please do not hesitate to ask away in the comments section below or tweet questions to @ultimateteamhq. Please stay tuned for a weekly tips tricks and ranking feature I have begun working on for my blog to help serve as a guide to finding, building, and assist with making your Ultimate Team into a force.