Madden 20 Ultimate Team: Dominate MUT with these tips & tricks - Key ratings, best solo challenges & more

Published: Feb 10, 2020, 4:11 pm Updated: Sep 25, 2020, 5:23 pm

Madden Ultimate Team has grown into an all-conquering beast over the last ten years. It is not only the biggest mode on the game, but one of the best game modes on any sports title.

The number of formats you can play, the number of players available, the presentation of it, and most importantly the personalization, make it so diverse and accessible. However, that can be a bit overwhelming to new players. Where do you start?

That’s where we come in. Here are some key tips and tricks to get off to a good start and have success on Madden Ultimate Team.

Key offensive attributes

You’re not going to be able to play very
well if you don’t have the right players, right?

With so many versions of most players available, and so many chemistries, offensive and defensive systems, and personal preferences, it’s impossible to tell you which specific players you’re going to want.

Obviously, in general, the higher the overall, the more likely they are going to be impactful for your team. However, going by overall only can leave you begging for more coins and venturing into the awful ‘pay-for-play’ arena.

So, there are certain attributes that you
can look at to help find the right players for your team.

Throw Accuracy and Throw Under Pressure

PINPOINT: Throw darts with your QB

It is easy to get caught up with throw
power or scrambling ability when you’re looking for a QB, but on competitive modes
you could find those attributes come at a cost.

On competitive settings, there is little more annoying than a pass wildly missing your target for no apparent reason – it happened purely because players have to miss occasionally and the computer arbitrarily decided it would be that moment.

So, to combat that, prioritize high accuracy QBs. Being accurate will minimize missed opportunities and avoidable turnovers. It will also mask some shortcomings with throw power, because you don’t need to be able to sling the ball all the way downfield, just hit the right spot.

READ MORE: The best safeties on Ultimate Team

Pair it with throw under pressure, and when
a free blitzer comes through, or a superstar ability adds pressure, it is less
likely to ruin your play. You can be under a lot of pressure in MUT, and TUP
will help massively.

Break Tackle and Elusiveness

WOOP: Break ankles and go beast mode with your ballcarriers

When it comes to ball carriers, there are certain attributes that are a given to be desirable. For example, you’re obviously going to want fast players, so I won’t tell you to target fast players. However, pairing these two attributes with speed, or any others, is a recipe for success.

Elusiveness and break tackle when paired
together are incredibly frustrating to play against. Elusiveness means runners
are slippery and hard to get a clean tackle on – think Alvin Kamara, Christian
McCaffrey type runners. Break tackle is a player’s ability to run after contact
and break the tackle – Mark Ingram, Marshawn Lynch type guys.

High ratings on these two can take focus
off individual attributes like juke move and trucking, for example, and can
mask some perceived slowness – if they’re fast but don’t break tackles they may
not be that good.

Catching and Catch in Traffic

HANDS: Can your players reel it in when getting hit?

Catching is obviously important, but it is especially important because it impacts both catch in traffic and spectacular catch. So, if you have two players, one with 80 catching and 85 catch in traffic, and another with 85 catching and 80 catch in traffic, you may think the first is better in traffic. But, because his catching is lower, it still means there is a higher chance he drops the ball in any situation.

Catch in traffic is crucial because you’ll always need players making tough catches. If you can get pass catchers with high catching and catch in traffic, you could enrage opponents with the plays your players make, while their players drop passes if they’re contacted.

Key defensive attributes

Playing defense can be so difficult with
the quality of player cards and the quality of people controlling them. So,
these are the defensive attributes that will put your team in the best position
to succeed.

Play Recognition

IQ: Shut down opponents with immediate play recognition

Play recognition is an often overlooked
rating but can have such a huge impact on your defense. If you’re controlling a
player, it doesn’t particularly impact your play, because the player’s
reactions and recognition are only as good as yours.

However, you still have 10 more players on the field. Players with high play recognition give you such an advantage in limiting an opponent’s success and creating big defensive plays. Play recognition will help combat play action, identify running lanes, identify route concepts and read the QB.

Play recognition can mask shortcomings in
speed, acceleration, zone and man coverage, and block shedding, because the
player can identify the play early and move to the right spot before everyone
else has.

Block Shedding

SWIM: Shed blocks with ease to make tackles

Though play recognition can mask some
shortcomings in block shedding, it isn’t going to every time and block shedding
itself can completely ruin an offense.

Running plays, kick returns, punt returns
and run after the catch all rely on some level of blocking. Some more than
others. If you have defensive players at every position with high block
shedding, you’ll be able to disengage blocks quickly and minimize all offensive
gains.

Tackling

WRAPPED UP: Lock down your opponents with secure tackling

A lot of your success on defense can be decided by your ability to tackle. Sure, it’s exciting to go for hit power and cause fumbles, which there is certainly a time for and is valuable, but consistent tackling will be more helpful more often.

Just as break tackle and elusiveness is
massive for the offense, if you can rely on your players to wrap up ball
carriers at the point of contact, and not slide off ballcarriers, you’ll be
able to neutralize run after the catch and big running plays.

There is very little more annoying than offensive players breaking tackles upon tackles and gaining inexplicable yards when they should have gone down. Good tackling players solves that issue.

What should you play?

There are so many ways to play on Ultimate
Team. Be it on solo challenges or online, there is an overwhelming number of
options and it can be very hard to pick which ones to focus on.

These are the best bets to get you the best
rewards in the most playable way.

Solo Battles

TIME EQUALS MONEY: Solo Battles are quick games that offer high rewards

Solo battles have been one of the most
welcome additions to MUT.

Each week there is a featured opponent and a number of other opponents. The games are solo, you’re playing against the computer, and you can pick the difficulty – the rewards increase the higher the difficulty you choose.

Each game, win or lose, earns you points. The points accumulate and put you in a rank, with each rank earning tiered rewards at the end of the week.

The lowest rank, amateur, will earn you 1,000 coins and a Hail Mary pack, and if you get to be the best player in that week you can earn up to 280,000 coins, 2 Hail Mary packs, 2 Midfield packs, 2 Redzone packs, 4 Touchdown packs, an 89+ OVR player, and Weekend League Event entry.

There are a lot of points between those spots, which means a lot of potential awards. It is one of the fastest and best ways to earn lots of coins and open a lot of packs.

Madden Club Championship

Madden Club Championship is great because it
doesn’t have a ton of steps or challenges but it has pretty good rewards.

The first four weeks of the challenges are locked on pro difficulty and arcade style, and all you have to do is win a three-minute quarter game against each team.

Each game is worth 1,000 coins and one
star, and you earn a Midfield pack or quicksell item for earning two stars,
seven stars, 12 stars and 16 stars, and then an 82-87 OVR Club Championship
player with 19 stars and a NAT 89-91 Raiders’ Legend at 20 stars.

All in all, it is a good haul for little hassle.

Theme Builders

These challenges need to be unlocked, team by team, by adding a collectible to the team’s Theme Builder set (earned through challenges, rewards, packs), and then require you to play through each team’s regular season schedule.

Each team’s challenges will earn you six player items, 9,600 coins and 50 training points. Importantly, the players you unlock are each team’s Theme Builders power up. By the end you will have an 86 OVR player from that team.

Like most MUT 20 challenges, you set the difficulty and the higher the difficulty, the more stars you’ll get. For various star totals there are additional rewards, all of which are varying level players from a team of your choice.

What’s great about these is you can go through it all on one difficulty, if you’re new to the game or not as confident, but when you are better you can go through again, on a higher difficulty, to earn the rewards you didn’t get the first time.

The amount of players you get makes this worthwhile.

Level
Challenges and NFL
Epics are also good solo challenges to play when you’re getting started and
as you advance through the game.

Other tips

Here are some other tips and tricks to
making the most out of your time on MUT.

Stay clear of packs

PAY TO WIN: The worst part of Madden Ultimate Team

If you aren’t a content creator or don’t
have the disposable income, don’t spend your coins or money on packs. They are
not worth it. The chances of you getting your coins or money worth in each pack
is far too low.

With the coins, it is far better use
watching the auction house for bargains and the specific players you’re after.
Plus, you can earn enough packs from challenges to satisfy the lottery aspect
of a pack opening. And, seeing as you didn’t pay for those, any coins you make
from them, or training points, are straight profit and can be used towards the
players you want.

Find your style

THE FLOCK: Pick your favorite team and role with it

Seeing as there are so many options, you have the ability to create a team that is fully your identity. However, with coins fairly hard to come by, it is important you don’t waste them. This means it will benefit you if you can establish what you want your team to be early on, then you can focus on that identity and use all of your resources on that.

By the time you’re done with MUT, your team will be a straight masterpiece and a true reflection of your team building dreams.