FIFA 22 Ultimate Team: Shapeshifters promo marks the start of FUT silly season


The shapeshifters promo is set to land soon in FIFA 22 Ultimate Team, marking the start of the FUT silly season.

With Team of the Season out of the way and the road to FIFA 23 already started, things are about to get wild in FIFA 22.

With 90+ OVR rated players set to arrive week-in-week-out, has Ultimate Team reached the point of madness?

The Beginning of the End

It's always sad when a FIFA cycle comes to an end, and it's even more devastating when you realise the full impact of that statement.

With Team of the Season now out of the way in Ultimate Team, the start of a crazy period of promo cards is set to begin.

The shapeshifters promo will start it all off, with a maximum OVR Messi already rumoured to arrive in the full squad.

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MAXIMUM MAN - Messi will receive a huge boost in the Shapeshifters promo

Whilst some may enjoy the whacky nature of FUT's upcoming content, we can't help but feel that EA may be running out of ideas as to how to end a game's cycle in a satisfactory manner.

Silly Season

The next few weeks of FUT content will bring a host of weird and - sometimes - wonderful promos to FIFA 22.

We're expecting a number of summer-based promos to arrive, replicating the likes of Summer Heat and Festival of FUTBal - both of which we've seen in previous years.

Without a major continental competition taking place this summer, EA can no longer rely on Team of the Week to pull them through their dry period, meaning that burden will fall onto the shoulders of the Friday promo.

If you're a player that enjoys the realism that FIFA offers, these next few weeks may not be your cup of tea.

Lessons From Previous Years

Previous FIFA instalments offer us some insight into how the next few weeks will look in FUT, from crazy position changes to huge individualised stat boosts.

FIFA 21 brought us 'Summer Stars', a promo that was mainly centred on the stars of both the 2020 European Championships and COPA America.

Whilst we aren't expecting a promo of a similar vein this year, you can almost certainly expect to see numerous players reach the high 90 mark in their overall rating.

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CRAZY CARDS - Festival of FUTbal could return in FIFA 23

A further saturation of the market could lead to more insane prices for top-rated players, once again leaving FIFA 22 in a perilous position as it enters its final few months.

Future Plans

FIFA 22 has been an intriguing FIFA for EA Sports, and you can be sure that FIFA 23 will be the same - with it being the last time EA will work with football's main governing body.

EA need to learn lessons from this year's game, implementing change in FIFA 23, or EA Sports FC.

There's merit to the argument stating that Team of the Season should end FIFA's cycle, but instead, it acts as a mid-point that causes further crashes in the market.

The last few months of FIFA usually end in people frivolously departing with their much-loved cards in order to grab a quick bargain, and that feels like a betrayal of Ultimate Team's purpose.

We all want to build our dream squad in FUT, but the arrival of these outrageous cards risks making all of those hours - and sometimes money - feel utterly pointless.

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