Team of the Season is well underway in FIFA 22 Ultimate Team, with a host of brand new cards joining EA's flagship mode.
Whilst TOTS represents a spell of excitement for us all, there's a case to be made that it's not all filled with milk and honey.
From further market crashes to making all other cards feel useless, is Team of the Season the worst promo in FIFA Ultimate Team?
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TOTS Woes
Don't get us wrong, Team of the Season is an exciting way to complete a FIFA cycle, with a number of insane cards arriving, giving you the opportunity to bolster your squad.
However, TOTS arrives and immediately makes all other promo cards feel futile.
Why would you keep hold of your 90 OVR Declan Rice from the FUT Birthday promo when you can have his TOTS card for virtually the same price?
Of course, Team of the Season is designed to reward the best performing players with the highest cards in the game, but right now that reward comes at the expense of the other major cards we've seen released in Ultimate Team.
Market Crash
FIFA 22 Ultimate Team's market has been the worst we've seen in years, with prices raising eyebrows not too long after release.
Ultimately, insane promos at the start of the game are cited as the problem, and Team of the Season only perpetuates that issue tenfold.
Whether it's 90+ cards being used for fodder, or Prime Icons being available for a little over 100,000 coins, Team of the Season has certainly caused a major plummet in Ultimate Team's marketplace.
Take Mehdi Taremi for example; his 93 OVR Team of the Season card is currently selling on the market for a little over 50,000 coins.
The imbalance and instability in the market creates a graveyard filled with spectres of the past, such as the likes of Messi and Ronaldo who now sell for less than 80,000 coins.
With a broken market comes another problem, everyone possessing insane teams.
190s Everywhere
Ultimate Team - by its very name - is a mode where people build their ultimate team, comprised of the best players available on the market.
However, with it only being May - and FIFA 22 still having plenty of time left in its run - we're now at a point where people have utterly ridiculous teams.
There's no such thing as an easy game in FUT anymore, with most players having a team with 100 chemistry and a 90 team rating.
Not only does this create an imbalance of power amongst players, it also makes FIFA 22 Ultimate Team feel formulaic, with every team posing the same challenges i.e pace, power and clinical finishing.
With only one type of playstyle effective in this year's game - sprinting with the fastest players - Team of the Season has only served to perpetuate this issue, with far too many players receiving major pace boosts in order to make them appealing to FUT players.
An Easy Fix
We're not advocating that Team of the Season is scrapped - quite the opposite.
Instead, we feel that Team of the Season should better reflect the already existing landscape in Ultimate Team.
How about instead of giving major boosts to all of the players featured, you re-release some of their highest rated cards.
Does Declan Rice need a special blue card makeover, or could his FUT Birthday card be put back into circulation?
Team of the Season could also come later in the cycle, waiting until the end of June in order to prize another month out of FUT's competitive sphere.
Ultimately, Team of the Season is a fun way to conclude a FUT cycle, but we can't help but feel that EA has jumped the gun when it comes to oversaturating their market with insanely rated cards.