Team of the Knockout Stage Is FIFA 19’s Worst Promo Yet

While we’ve been treated to more promo events in FIFA 19 that in any previous game, they’ve been wildly inconsistent in terms of quality. The likes of Future Stars and Headliners were new, exciting, and drowned us in stuff to do, but others have been boring and repetitive.

Scream cards returned back in Halloween but the boosts that cards were given were poorly represented by the face card stats, and Players Days saw the release of Prime Moments Icons that culminated in one of EA’s worst individual decisions yet. The recently released Team of the Knockout Stage is the worst promo yet, though.

First things first is the team that has been released into packs. Of course, the players are spectacular quality-wise. A 99 Messi, 98 Ronaldo, and 93 Van Dijk are incredible cards that would get into almost anyone’s team.

That being said, they’re cards we’ve seen tens of times already and they’re nigh on impossible to pack. It’s Messi’s sixth special card of the season and Van Dijk’s eighth and neither of them are even their best purchasable card. This is the same case for most of the squad and it’s just dull.

Future Stars was fun because it was players we’d never usually see otherwise, rather than plus ones of players we see all year every year. If I was to pack one, that would all be forgiven though.

The individual player SBCs aren’t any better either. Mathias De Ligt, which arrived on the first day is three ratings lower than his Future Stars version that you can buy and sell again if you wanted and the Guedes card is just a little average when we’re so close to Team of the Season.

Yesterday’s Luka Jovic SBC though, is the worst of them all. It is the same rating as his Future Stars card, untradeable, and more expensive.

Yes, you get packs in return too, but you can sell the FFS card once you don’t want it anymore or he inevitably gets a TOTS card. With the SBC, you’re stuck with an untradeable card that’s worth no more to you than the cheapest 88-rated card on the market.

The Weekly Objectives players, which can be earned by playing, are underwhelming too. A month ago, during FUT Birthday, we had the opportunity to unlock multiple 87, 88, and 89 rated players that were high quality and fun position changes.

If they didn’t fit your team, it was still worth your time to get them because they were high enough rated to be worth putting into Icon SBCs. The two 86s and one 84 we’ve been given for TOTKS are simply not worth your time.

We’re a few weeks on from Carniball and FUT Birthday, the power curve has climbed further, yet we’re being given lower-rated cards to earn from playing. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Finally, we come to the other content that usually surrounds a FIFA 19 promo. We’ve been getting daily SBCs once more, most of which have been decent value (aside from the one that asked for an 82 rated squad for one 81+ UCL Rare player), but upgrades SBCs have been almost completely absent.

It took until yesterday, half way through the promo’s run time, for us to get the first one, and it’s the worst we’ve ever seen. You need to exchange six rare and five common golds for one of four rare golds.

Compare that to the standard gold upgrade SBC, that asks for just 11 common golds for two Rare golds, and it’s terrible value. You get to pick from four players, yes, but you get the number altogether and they’re likely to be no better. You need to hit an 85-rated player in every one for it to be worthwhile.

Team of the Year, Headliners, and other FIFA 19 promos were great because we were bombarded with upgrade content. 81+ upgrades, league-specific upgrades, and better value pick packs have all been released in the last few months, but we’ve seen none of them during Team of the Knockout Stage, and it’s not clear why.

Maybe EA Sports are just trying to keep the game ticking along with Team of the Season expected in the next week or two and the SBCs/packable players are just designed to rinse the game of coins. Either way, it’s disappointing and makes me a little worried as we get closer and closer to what tends to be the most exciting promo of every FIFA.