EA Canada uses a range of colours that will be well known to players to determine each footballer’s quality, rarity and value in Ultimate Team, its Panini sticker-inspired trading game mode for the FIFA series (although the sticker/card stuff is apparently last-gen thinking – EA Canada tells me cards are now known as “items”). fifa coins Colours run through bronze, silver, gold, black (in-form), red (Man of the Match), blue (Team of the Year) and more recently white (the Xbox-exclusive FUT Legends). For those who achieve professional footballer status in the real world, however, there is one more rung to climb. They alone qualify for a teal card.

Little knowledge of these teal-coloured trinkets exists online. Professional football players have occasionally tweeted about their upgraded item and chatter on the official forum periodically turns to a topic that has gone largely unacknowledged by EA. The company is normally quick to highlight the popularity of its game with sports stars, but for whatever reason it has remained tight-lipped about simple stuff like who is eligible, which stars have a teal item and how they got them. After much harrying and digging, though, we finally have some answers.

Different to what happens on other game modes, the players aren’t automatically updated throughout the season according to their appearances in real life. Some may receive In Form cards, but most players remain with the characteristics they were given at the start of the season. In Ultimate Team, upgrades are made through the release of new cards in determined periods. The first one happens within the transition of one FIFA to another looking to reflect the player’s evolution between two seasons.

The second one, in February, rewards the players who stood out the most along the first half of the season with the release of new (improved) cards. That’s exactly these 134 winter upgraded players cards that were released now. There are some rules about these UP cards that you should know: Upgrades apply to new non-inform players found in packs. Non-IF players in your Club will not receive an upgrade. If an upgraded player’s new OVR rating equals or surpasses his existing first in-form’s rating, his IFs will be upgraded respectively.

If an upgraded player’s new OVR rating does not equal or surpass his existing in-form’s rating, his IFs will not be upgraded. (Ex: Depay has been upgraded from 78 to 79 OVR, therefore his 80 OVR IF will not receive an upgrade). While such exchanges could take place in previous iterations of the game, these items are “non-transferable” in FIFA 14 according to EA Sports. They usually have a 95 overall rating, and to put that in perspective, bear in mind there are only four regular gold player cards rated 90 or above in the whole of FUT. Cristiano Ronaldo, for example, was rated 92 when the game shipped.

However, if an upgraded player with an existing IF gets upgraded across fifa 16 points Quality tiers (eg. Silver to Gold), his lower-quality IF will not be upgraded. This preserves the in-form’s high value. (Ex: Harry Kane has been upgraded to a Gold, but his two existing silver IFs will not receive upgrades and will stay Silver.) If you already own the in-form version of an upgraded player in your Club, your IF will be upgraded.