 Hey guys, it's Nate, AKA The Foot Accountant. Welcome back to the channel. We got some big-time news today about icons and SBCs and what is going to be happening with FIFA 20 icons. And I need to discuss a few things with you guys about these pitch notes. Of course, it is FIFA 20 season. Webapps out today, EA Access is out today at some point, so I hope you guys are getting on those. But this is information that's really going to come in key down the road. Obviously people aren't thinking about icons right now because they are starting the game off, they're starting the beginning of the game. Nobody has the coins and nobody has the ability to go out and spend millions and millions of coins. At least not many people have that ability. Some people are opening packs and they have those coins. But not many people have that ability to mess with icons just yet. But EA released these pitch notes today and I want to mention a few things to you guys about these icons. They're going to change the market. It's going to change icons entirely this year. Now, what they're trying to do with this, what EA is trying to do with this implementation of new icon sets being in packs for a certain amount of time and then icon SBCs going away, they're trying to make icons more attainable for the average, more casual player. They're trying to make icons cheaper and more attainable in that way. And if they make the icons attainable through grinding the game instead of through an SBC, in their logic, which this makes sense to a degree, it's easier for people to do in-game challenges against the AI, against the CPU, maybe a couple online game challenges to get these icon tokens that we're going to talk about, which you would then turn in for an icon. It's basically foot swap, but it's icons. And I want to talk about a few of those things in this video and what is going to make them interesting. But first, I want to talk about the timeline that they put out for these packs. I know you guys have probably seen or read this yourself, so I'm not going to read through the entire document. I'm just going to highlight key points that I think are very important for our upcoming year of FIFA. And the first thing that I want to look at is the timeline. But also, look at this timeline just for the way it is. Whoever graphically designed this at EA, there's some subliminal messaging in here from the get-go. If you look at it, the gap between Early Access, Access, October, November, literally the actual space of the gap, they're trying to make this look like prime icons and moments icons are going to be in the game for the majority of the game. If you look at how long this arrow is right here, prime icons, this makes it look like prime icons are going to be active in the game for like three quarters of the game, which is definitely not true if you look at this calendar. From Early Access until the middle of December. The middle of December is basically the middle of the game. So you're going from September to the end of the month. So let's just say the beginning of October, you have all of October, November, and December. So it's three, basically four months where you have no prime icons. And then after that, I mean, you do have the prime icons, but the moments are the real big issue. I should have been talking about the moments. The moments, they look like moments are out for like two thirds of the year. If you look across this whole entire timeline, moments are kind of like just past halfway, but they come out basically in March, the end of February and in March. That's when those moments cards come out. And it's just, this graph is a little bit misleading because it makes it look like the prime and the moments, just based on the size of the graph. It looks like they're out for a long time, but they're really not, man. The primes, okay, they're out the middle of December, team of the year on, cool. But we're used to those being impacts all year long. And the moments cards are basically going to be released at the same time as they were last year, late February. When the game has already taken a downturn into team of the season, before team of the season, people step away, take a break from the game, team of the season comes back, it gets hype again. So basically these moments cards are going to be useful for the latter part of the year again, like they were this year. There could be a couple exceptions, which I'll talk about in a second. But this timeline, to get down to the gist of it again, at the beginning of the game, you're going to have a lot of people looking at the base and the mids because they're the only versions available. And that's going to create some interesting things on the market. Some of those mid icons are going to be very inflated compared to years past. I'm thinking of guys like Hullet, I'm thinking of guys like Vieira, Eusebio, Cruyff, R9, Ronaldinho, some of those guys. Especially if there's some position change. If you only have the base and the middle to choose from, some base cards have different positions in some of the middles. That could create a very interesting balance and price for some of these cards. Maybe some players base cards will be more valuable. Maybe some players mid cards will be more valuable. So you have to kind of look at that. It's going to be on a per icon basis for those. But the mids and the bases are actually going to be more expensive, I think, in years past, because there's going to be so much more demand just for those two specific icons. Now I guess you could say, since there aren't any primes and packs, maybe that will increase the supply of some of the mids and the bases. Yes, Packweight is something we're going to have to discover and to see how it looks like with this new way of icons. But icons are not packed alive. If you pack an icon, you're going to see yourself in the same lucky, even if you open tons and tons of packs. So we're going to have to see how those prices are affected throughout the year. All of these will be available in foot draft during the same period that they are out in packs as per this information right here, yada yada, icons and SBCs. This is the second part that I really want to get into and this is the most important part of this video. They are getting rid of icon SBCs basically because they couldn't make an SBC that was inside the threshold for all of these cards in years past. And they didn't like how it pinched foot economists right there showing up, didn't like how it pinched the market, which I understand that. And side note, a lot of people made a lot of coins around icon SBCs last year and with the fact that there are not going to be icon SBCs in the game, there won't be individual icon SBCs. You will not be able to go on FIFA Ultimate Team, go into the SBC section and complete a 8 or 10 part SBC to get yourself Prime Root Hold It. You will not be able to do that. The only way you'll be able to get individual icons is through the icon swap promo, icon swap objectives and we'll talk about that at the bottom. But at first, they're getting rid of icon SBCs. I've had a couple people ask me, can I still do Hold It SBC? No, there will not be individual SBCs. And that's the part where I don't like it. Because so many people were looking forward to grinding towards Zidane, towards Ian Wright, towards Hugo Sanchez, towards Drogba. So many people were looking to grind towards that moments card or the Prime card via SBC. And they're not going to be able to do that this year. In some sense, they won't be able to as they would in years past. It's not just available out there and you have to put the coins or you have to grind to get the monetary resources, the coins to be able to complete that SBC. Now it's just you have to complete objectives and it's like foot swap, which changes things a lot. So the first thing that I notice here that makes a big difference to me is the discard value of some of these icons. They reduced it from 102,000 to 63,000. You might be like, okay, that's, oh, oh, voice crack, my apologies. You might be like, okay, that's a decent drop in price. But when have you ever seen icons at a true discard value? Never because they've always been required. Even at the beginning of the game, people buy icons are going for like 200,000 coins when they're not required in SBCs. Because people are putting them in their teams and they're using them in early game. At the end of the game, they become SBC fodder, they'll hold a higher level of price because there's so many icon SBCs out there require those to be put in. That's now going to be gone and it's all going to be purely based on the demand of the market for how good that card is. An icon for 63K, I don't think people understand how cheap that is. 63,000 coins for a very quality player that links to anybody in your team. I'm not saying that a lot of cards are going to get to that 63,000 range, but I can see by the end of the year, maybe a guy like right mid Okocha, maybe more of an unused icon like Giggs or Schmeichel or Lehman or some of the goalkeepers that aren't the most valued. Not too many that are in this set, but some other ones, the baby versions for sure. You're going to see those probably somewhere under 100,000 coins and that's going to be crazy. Even maybe early at the very beginning of the game, you might see some icons that are really cheap and that's just crazy to me because that's going to be a big dynamic this year. We don't have any sort of demand holding those prices up in terms of the icons and the lower tier icons that nobody plays with, they just turn in for SBCs, but it's also going to have a massive impact on high-rated golds and informed investing. Think about this in past years. Why were high-rated golds? Why would they maintain a certain price range? We always saw 86-rated cards on footprint kind of chilling between, I guess I can't really show you now because footprint has switched over to FIFA 20, but they've kind of ranged between 15 and 20,000 coins. You kind of bought and you did a club stock when they were 15k, then they rose to 20k because an SBC came out and you sold them. What's going to keep those cards consistently at a certain value range this year? Not these SBCs. So there's going to be a lot more fluctuation, I think, in the high-rated golds. They're not going to stay at a level all the time and have kind of like a constant floor area where they're going to stay at, where there's a certain level of demand holding them up because those SBCs are going to be gone. So that is something that I'm very interested in and it's not going to be as easy this year to just go out and buy pages upon pages and go unassigned on golds and discards at random points throughout the year when icon SBCs drop because there are no more icon SBCs. So that's going to be very interesting. I think that's going to hurt some of the traders out there that are really reliant on going all in on investments like that because they literally are banking on that consistent level of demand being there for a lot of their cards and then another SBC comes out and makes those cards pop and they sell. But if that consistent level of demand is not there, instead of having this and then some spikes and then coming back down, you're going to have more of this because it's going to depend on every single SBC that comes out that requires informs, it's going to go up. But in that meantime, there's nothing holding that value there so that value is going to drop. It may not drop super-duper low because people will notice, okay, this 84-rated inform is 18K. That's pretty cheap. I should buy it. Yeah, you probably should. But we're going to have to relearn the fluctuations in the ranges for some of those informs and high-rated gold cards this year because of that. All right, that's plenty of talk about the investing side of things. I needed to say that because I haven't heard a lot of people talk about that and that's very important with these icon SBCs. Now, for the last bit of the video, I want to talk about icon swaps. This is how you're going to attain untradable icons in FIFA 20. But I first want to notify you on what EA is stressing to you guys on how you're supposed to get your icons because every single time they've talked about icons in this document, this version will be available in packs. This version will be available in packs. Oh, down here, we're going to talk about the icon swaps alongside being available in packs and for purchase on the transfer market. So they obviously want you to buy these icons. Why? Why don't we just... Why don't we have the ability to grind them like in years past, what was wrong before with people making a few coins off of informs and off of gold cards and people spending coins on the game when they would have to actually maybe spend FIFA points to get coins back after they did an icon SBC? I don't know, but icon swaps are here and that's what we have this year in FIFA. You're going to be completing player token objectives, which I presume are going to be a part of either a token like season objective or some type of weekly or whatever objective. So we're going to have icon swaps that we're going to have to pay attention to this year and that's another... That's going to be very important because a lot of people want icons in their team. Drogba, Zidane, hold it. A lot of cards like that, people wanting their team and this is going to be the only way they can get them this year. So we're going to have to pay attention to these. There's going to be a lot of demand and a lot of probably trading points on the market for some of these objectives. You know, if you have to do an objective where you have to play with 12 Brazilian players and have a squad rating of 84 overall and to play like 5 games in squad battles and win them. With that kind of squad, that's going to be some big time demand for those types... Whatever the requirement is, in that case, Brazilians. There's going to be a lot of demand for those cards because people want icons and people are going to want to do these icon swaps because there's only three different sets of swaps throughout the year. There will be three icon swap sets released throughout the year. Each icon swap contains at least 20 individual icons. There are 89 icons individually. Keep that note in your head. Player tokens can be redeemed for select guaranteed icon packs during each swap release as well. So along with the icon swap and I'm going to put this on the screen now. I'm sure you guys have seen this. I'm going to set one, which runs through October 11th through December. And I'm assuming two December means at the time frame when they're going to put out the second set of icon swaps and prime icons are going to move into packs. But I do want to mention these guaranteed icon packs. So basically what that mentioning is there's also going to be more. It seems like they said it a couple times. There's going to be more of the guaranteed baby, guaranteed middle or the guaranteed prime icon SBC. That's going to come out at multiple times during the year because it says player tokens can also be redeemed for the icon SBCs during each swaps release. So every single icon swap that we have icon swap one, two and three, we're going to have some shape or form of a guaranteed icon pack. And again, those are the packs that people went nuts for last year, the guaranteed baby, the guaranteed middle or the guaranteed prime icon SBC. Those packs were available via foot swap last year and in years past. And I think they were available via SBC at some point as well in the game. So that's going to be something that we have to pay attention to as well because people are going to be all about that SBC. If they can just put their coins into an SBC and then get another chance at another icon that they especially a prime version like a drug ball or as a Don. And if that's repeatable, I would think that it's not, but you're going to be able to use your tokens in that SBC as well. So it's almost like you can use your tokens whether that SBC is tokens only or yeah, because it says the player tokens can be redeemed for select guaranteed icon packs. So some guaranteed icon packs might be a regular SBC with coins you have to turn into a squad. Other times it might be you have to use your icon swap player tokens. So that's kind of a gamble if you turn your tokens in for that pack. You're not going to be guaranteed a person in particular that you could get back. And then after that, if you continue saving for an icon that's in a swap, you're obviously going to know who you will get. So this is the first set of icon swaps. And there are some big time names in here. Drogba and Wright are two very new icons as well as Hugo Sanchez and Pirlo. There are some big names in here that a lot of people are going to want to use, especially Wright, Drogba and Pirlo that this next thing I'm going to tell you might make you a little bit mad. And this is this is the interesting thing right here. If an icon has already been released and an icon swaps released it will not have any other versions released in a future icon swaps release. Since we have Drogba's middle card in this icon swap number one there will not be another chance to attain an untradable Didier Drogba via icon swaps for the rest of the game. For the rest of the game you will not be able to get Didier Drogba via grind method. This is the one that you will have to get. If you want the Prime Drogba, you're going to have to either pack him in a guaranteed Prime SBC Pack pack him tradable or buy him off the market. Which of the options is very feasible and most feasible in those three? Buying him off the market. I think that actually some of these cards, especially like Drogba Prime maybe like maybe another form of Ian Wright and maybe I think Pirlo that's not Pirlo's Prime so Pirlo's Prime card depending on how good it is in game but especially Drogba's Prime card for this SBC set I think that card price when it comes out in December is going to be very very high because nobody is going to have that card. A lot of people are going to have the middle Drogba because they want to use Drogba rightfully so but people want the best version of each card and the only way to get the version of that card particularly as a brand new icon on the game you're going to have to buy him or pack him that's literally your only option you can't get him in an SBC like you used to be able to and that's I think the flaw of this system is that you're not going to be able to get the top top tier I understand what EA is doing it makes sense right here the beginning part of the year you know this is going to help a lot of people who have RTG teams and especially that are lower down that are maybe getting their first icon this year because of this whole new setup they're not going to have to play against Prime icons from the beginning of the game it's only going to be bases and mids yes there's icons, tons of people out there are going to have icons but it allows people to get other icons in the game and it kind of makes sense right? we're in the base and the middle part of the game and as we progress in the game our teams get better but there is our hardcore user base like us people if you're watching this video you are a hardcore FIFA fan a lot more hardcore than the average casual fan that makes up the majority of this game doesn't have any idea that FIFA Twitter FIFA YouTube or FIFA Twitch is a huge thing and they're just here to play FIFA because they love the sport of football and they want to get a Jogba on their team and they want to get the best level of Jogba that's where that's where this gets really tricky because some of those cards are not going to be available except for the best versions are not going to be available except for in packs and on the transfer market so that's my biggest problem with this now we do have some big time questions that are remaining that we have to have answered the first question is what will the icon swap is going to take to unlock these players let's say there are 20 different tokens that I have to unlock from October 11 until the middle of December when the icon swap ends if I get 20 tokens is Didier Jogba going to cost me 18 tokens and then like this little baby baby Schmeichel down here is going to cost me 2 or am I going to be able to get 20 tokens is going to cost me 12 and I'm still going to be able to get a couple other icons that I can use in my team that's the thing like if I'm only able to get 1 or 2 icons out of this that kind of sucks to be honest even if they are top tier now I realize that there are 5 prime tokens in this icon swap set that will not be in packs for a certain amount of time until they become attainable or after they become attainable in this icon swap Haji, Zeneti, Keen and Rui Kosta are all prime icons that are included in this set so they have a couple primes that are in here to try to get you to do this and maybe you can get a prime icon before prime icons actually come out in packs type of thing but it's some of those guys in there are just not the most hype but this is an okay first set you do 1, you get an icon in your club you get maybe 2 or 3 depending on how the tokens all work out and how hard it is to get the tokens and then you can keep building up from there so it basically just kind of slows down a lot of people's process of well if you really want this card you're going to have to buy it on the market and actually if you really want this card the card that everybody wants is the prime until the moments come out you can't even get that until this time period so prime icons are relevant for the rest of the year kind of but then moments come out and then one thing I want to mention on moments this video is and this is a very cool point this is a thumbs up EA on this one I'm not entirely sure where it says it maybe it's right here the moments yeah moments whereas the mid prime and base tell the stories of an icon's career this version is truly memorable historic performance elevated to make them one of the all time greats all foot 20 icons will receive a moments item all of them we have it confirmed here it is confirmed here by EA Sports that all 20 icons will receive a moments item thank you EA we appreciate this clarity and we appreciate this communication I should have said that first because the fact that we have this information right now laid ahead of us with dates and everything is awesome so foot economist Yashir your name's on the front of this GG thank you so that's good all 20 or all foot 20 icons will receive a moments item this is the cool one as an icon can have many moments throughout their story career their previously released moment version in foot 19 won't necessarily be the same version in foot 20 that's kind of cool because one card that you had last year might not be the same this year and I like that I like that because it's cool it's different and it adds a level of just um I don't know it just adds like a level of it's almost like I don't know just something that is changing something that is like just based on real life based on that player and this kind of leaves the door open to them to create a story around an icon moments card to get a cool in game image however the rights work for that but that's cool I like this um but yeah so overall the timeline for the icons I'm okay with it it's okay I think it's going to create some problems on the market but it's okay the icon swaps I have a lot of questions with because I'm very curious to see how attainable it is and how many icons we're going to be able to get out of one swap and then um yeah so if I had to rate this icon thing out of 10 I would probably rate this at like a uh I almost want to say 7 but I feel like that's too much too much credit I feel like it's going to be a 6.5 out of 10 because I think towards the end of the year people are going to start to realize and even kind of in this time frame right here they've used the base and middle icons for like 2 or 3 months and like man I had to prime for a month by now last year this kind of sucks I think that's where people are going to get tripped up and some people aren't going to like it and then also people aren't going to like how much they're going to have to pay for some of these prime and moments icons when they actually do get out on the market I especially think of Zedan for this because so many people want Zedan and their team um and I would venture that Zedan prime card would be a part of icon set 2 icon swap 2 which would come out in December I'm assuming that that swap would pertain of maybe a couple middles but primarily all primes and even some moments um when that one would come out so that's my guess for that but I've rambled for way too long in this video some information around these icon swaps is interesting and it's more of information it's going to really benefit us down the road and we're going to continue to talk about this all year but I love icons I love trading with icons and this changes some of that as well so I'll probably make a separate video on how this makes icon trading different in FIFA for the tradable versions uh so stay tuned for that one but again it is FIFA day baby get on your EA access get on the web those should be out very soon today make sure you keep posted to my twitter to EA's twitter to get all the information that you might need thanks for sticking with me for this long video where I rambled about icons and talked about a lot of things um and you'll definitely be hearing more from me about this icon situation in the near future if you enjoyed this video smash thumbs up on it comment down below if you have any questions and subscribe to the channel if you're new it's been Nate the Foot Accountant catch you guys later peace