FIFA 23 Shapeshifters Upamecano Player Review - Cop or Flop?

Team of the Season has passed us so we look onto the next promotion, Shapeshifters. We have seen a lot of teasers across the week but were also unsure on what to expect for this promo. Early on we were teased with the return of the Premium Player type which gives much better chemistry than usual, as they act similar to Hero items. Upon seeing the team, however, I am left slightly disappointed. Don’t get me wrong! There are some cracking cards there. But the inclusion of Icons has been a bit of a letdown as some of the positions haven’t been very creative. Take Socrates, typically a CAM card but has shapeshifted to a CM? 

But amongst all this in the SBC section comes a card with a bit more creativity and it is none other than Dayot UpameCAMo! That’s right, a 95-rated Upamecano card that’s base position is a CAM but can also play CF & CM.

I made a similar point previously when reviewing the Shapeshifters Silva card in that for me, defenders in attacking position feels very alien. While I like the fun twist, in-game it still eats at the back of my brain that this card should not be attacking.

You can check out the card here!

This card actually comes in at a fairly decent price at around 450,000 coins which in the scheme of things really isn’t too bad. A French item playing for Bayern Munich that’s position changed? Smells like money to me, but actually not badly priced to props to EA for that. 

I played in the 433(4) formation and as mentioned this card can play CAM/CF/CM. I wanted to go off of base value of which is a CAM but did feel it worth checking out how he performs at CM. Shadow seemed like the obvious Chemstyle to go for here giving him that slight pace boost and defensive boost for situations where he was fighting in the midfield. 

How did he perform in-game?

+ Strength was of course fantastic on this card, as you would expect for a Defender turned CAM. But he held his own really well against the opposition.
+ He felt very quick in-game. I expected him to feel quite stiff and slow to start but he really wasn’t.
+ Positioning on the card was really good too, he moved all over the midfield covering all bases. He felt like a really strong box-to-box midfield option which I wasn’t anticipating.
/ Shooting for me was really inconsistent. He had an absolute rocket of a shot on him but I found a lot of the time the finishing wasn’t quite it. Often he would miss absolute sitters for me.
- Dribbling on this card was probably the most disappointing. I really expected it to feel a bit better but for someone who does a lot of left-stick dribbling around players, he just didn’t feel very agile on the ball.

Shapeshifters Upamecano Cop or Flop?

As mentioned earlier, the pricing on this SBC seems pretty good, which I think when considering any SBC, that part takes up at least 70% of the decision-making. But of course it’s ideal that the card can at least perform well… 

The SBC seems pretty well received amongst the community as well. Which seems obvious because we as a community scream out for these type of fun cards in the game. Let’s hope there is plenty more to come!

I was quite surprised by this card because initially, I thought… Surely this would be better suited as a CDM. But dribbling issues aside the card actually performed pretty well in the attacking midfield. So for me, this is a card I recommend picking up. Price isn’t bad, performs pretty well in-game and is a fun change to the usual cards we’ve used all year. How can you go wrong?

Verdict: COP