Saint Patrick's Day

Saint Patrick’s day is fast approaching and if you pay even the slightest bit of attention to the market, you’ll be able to see that prices are already beginning to skyrocket for Irish players. Why is this though? What are people stockpiling these players for? What should we be expecting? What happened last year? 

Well fear not, as all these questions and more will be answered within the following article!

Saint Patrick’s Day

Saint Patrick’s Day is a religious day in Ireland that celebrates the life of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. The celebration takes place on the 17th of March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick. The event is celebrated across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

What the event consisted of last year

Last year saw the release of select Republic of Ireland players with exactly the same stats on a green card design.

These were available in both packs and via an SBC. Special packs were released within the store throughout the event, to ensure that supply of these players remained consistent.

Alongside the players, EA also provided us with SBC’s that gave players the opportunity to obtain a rather large amount of coins. These were featured around the “luck of the Irish” concept and gave players the chance to win a “pot of gold”. The challenges themselves were available in different tiers, each with slightly higher requirements but with a higher potential prize pot. 

The challenges themselves required Republic of Ireland players and/or one of the special green Irish player cards.

How we can best prepare for the event

So first up let’s take a look at what was relevant last year and the sort of prices we saw them reach:

Green Irish Players: As mentioned before, these were packable and obtainable via an SBC. Obviously we cannot prepare in advance with these, but if we see a change to the SBC structure they may become a viable investment at the time!

Republic of Ireland Players: Anybody who currently monitors the market will be able to see that hype has well and truly set in and that obtaining a gold Republic of Ireland player for under 1,000 coins is near impossible. During hype around the event last year, we saw these players reach highs of 5-6,000 coins, so potential is definitely there. If investing though take the time to mass bid and snipe if you can, anything for around discard is a fantastic choice and selling in hype before the event is also a viable option to reduce risk!

Higher Rated Gold Players: Although these weren’t vital last year, there is no harm in preparing for a change this time around! Just like any other SBC picking up the few players required is just the start, you also need the surrounding players in order to match rating and rarity requirements. If we are investing in 82 rated players for discard, 83 rated players for around 1,000 and 84 rated players at about 2,000 then we leave ourselves with a secure and safe investment. Even if we don’t need these cards for this event, FUT birthday is just around the corner and we will be prepared a long time in advance!

Now, let’s take a look at what possible investments we could be making that are slightly outside the box. If we are going down this route we need to remember that this is a riskier choice and that nothing is guaranteed!

Northern Ireland Players: Although last year only required Republic of Ireland players, Northern Ireland also celebrates and recognises this event. These cards have hardly moved in price and hence we are provided with a slightly different investment opportunity. If this comes up as a requirement we are flying, the lack of hype means that people won’t be stock piling these cards and if they aren’t needed, we bought for discard so no harm is done!

Gold Players to Link With Irish Players: Chemistry is always important when completing an SBC. Take a look at which league the majority of these players are in and invest in gold cards that build around them. Premier League would be a fantastic starting point here and this ties in with the above gold card investments perfectly.

Special Cards: A bit of a long shot here, but it provides a double investment as FUT birthday approaches. Think about which type of special card is most likely and also take into account the league, nationality and rating too.

Did the players or challenges provide value for money?

The special Irish players that got released were fairly low rated for this point in the FIFA cycle and added no stat boosts either. Now when we couple this with the fact that demand for these players is usually fairly low, we suddenly find an abundance of these cards available on the market. The fact that these players were also obtainable via an SBC ensured prices remained grounded and were at or very close to discard. Of course, this year things may change, but last year these cards weren’t really viable as an investment.

The actual SBC’s were a little strange, it was something that we had never seen before on FUT and hence initial hype and excitement was in full flow. People very quickly started to realise that they were simply losing coins, they were literally gambling X coins in an attempt to gain more. As you can imagine, demand quickly started to dry up and prices soon followed with the decline.

The chances of you actually making a profit from the SBC’s were slim, yes some people hit the jackpot and managed to turn a great profit, however they were few and far between. If history repeats itself and we see the same challenges, unless you are feeling super lucky, I would advise staying clear.