While Ones to Watch is no good for cheap beasts, it’s a good way to make coins in the game if you play your cards right.
These dynamic cards fluctuate hugely in price based on the player and team’s performances – and this year presumably based on their country’s, too. You can see this in the price graphs on FUT comparison sites, where a star striker will rise in price leading up to a game, then skyrocket when they score or sink without a trace when the team goes behind.
The best way to make money out of the cards is usually to buy them during neutral periods, hold them, and then sell in the hype. For example, Liverpool’s Darwin Nunez has had a slow start to life on Merseyside with two league goals in his first seven games. After a disappointing 3-3 draw against Brighton and with tough fixtures on the horizon, his OTW price – just three days after release – is hovering around 70k coins. A wily speculator might choose this ‘low’ moment to grab one, then look to sell it just before Liverpool’s next game kicks off, especially if Nunez is in the line-up. A more reckless investor might even hold it through the game in the hope he scores, but the risk is much greater.
One thing to look out for with OTW cards is when the upgrades are already ‘priced in’. Everyone knows Man City are going to win 3/8 games to get Haaland his first OTW upgrade, for example, and that is part of the reason for his astronomical in-game price. Don’t be fooled into buying players who will obviously get those three wins in the hope that they will rise when the time actually comes around. In all likelihood, that will simply lead to lots of people trying to cash in at the same time, driving the price down.
Ultimately, Ones to Watch cards are predictable in some ways and unpredictable in others. The unpredictability is what makes them fascinating, but understanding those predictable peaks and troughs – buying when they’re down, selling in the hype – is how you can reliably make coins out of them.