FIFA 20 is primed for release on September 24, with fans around the world counting down the hours before it hits their consoles.
One of the most popular modes in the game is, once again, sure to be Fifa Ultimate Team, in which players build dream teams consisting of their favourite stars.
Since FIFA 18, there have been icon cards available which allow players to include selected stars from the past in their squads. In FIFA 20, there will be 89 such players, including 15 new stars, each of whom will have four individual cards representing a different stage of their career.
As such, attributes of the Icons will vary from card to card, while certain cards will only be introduced into the game after several months.
Here’s exactly how FUT Icons will work in FIFA 20.
Base Cards
The base version of each Icon will typically represent a period in their career in which they will still honing their skills and working their way to brilliance. As such, these cards are typically the weakest for each Icon.
EA will make these cards available in packs and via the FUT Draft from the release of the EA & Origin Access Trial through until mid-December. Once that deadline has gone, these players will no longer be available in packs, although it will be possible to trade for them.
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Mid Cards
These cards are typically stronger than the base cards as they represent the Icon pushing towards the top of the game. By this stage, the Icons were typically among the elite handful of players in the world and have ratings that reflect that.
The availability of these cards varies a little to that of the base cards. While it will also be possible to secure mid cards from the release of the game, these will be on offer in packs and via the FUT Draft for two months longer, extending into February 2020.
Prime Cards
FUT players will favour these cards over both the base and mid versions as these represent the Icons at the peak of their powers. With that in mind, the ratings will be higher than the previous versions.
Fans will not be able to get their hands on these cards until mid-December, when they are released into the game via packs and the FUT Draft. Once they have been released, they will remain in the game until the end of FUT 20.
Moment Cards
Moment cards will be the platinum-standard for FUT Icons in FIFA 20. These do not represent a particular era, but instead, focus on a historic performance in which they established themselves as an all-time legend of the game.
While these will be the most sought after additions to anyone’s FUT squad as they will be the highest-rated version of an Icon in FIFA 2020, they will not be available until February 2020.
Icons who were in previous versions of FIFA will not necessarily have the same Moment version as they had in those prior games.
Icon Swaps
EA SportsEA Sports has announced that it wants Icon cards to be more accessible to a wider range of players and one of the strategies to achieve this it has come up with is the Icon Swap.
There were will be three Icon Swaps throughout the year, in which players have to complete certain objectives in order to receive tokens in return. These tokens can then be traded for Icon rewards during a Swaps release.
During an Icon Swaps release, there will be 20 individual Icons available, though these are untradeable. This will consist of a range of Icon versions, though if one player has been used in one Icon Swap release, they will not appear in any others.
Each Icon Swaps release will have a unique number of tokens assigned to it, with each individual Icon requiring a certain number of tokens to redeem. These tokens will not roll over between releases.
The first release of Icon Swaps, which offers players in Prime before they are otherwise available, takes place on October 11 and runs through until December.
Details of the two subsequent Icon Swap periods will be made available in due course.