Madden NFL 20 (Ultimate Team)

"Y'all tripping wit the covid y'all need to release all of the cards and quit playing we spent all that money to wait on these 4 cards come on. E. A."

- Snoop Dogg tweets regarding MUT 20's lack of 99 OVR cards

Madden NFL 20 is an American football simulation game developed by EA Tiburon and published by EA Sports. Released on August 2, 2019 for the mh:awesomegames:PlayStation 4, mh:awesomegames:Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows. This page only covers the Ultimate Team (aka MUT 20) mode of the game.

Why it Wasn't an Ultimate Year
NOTE: This only applies to the Ultimate Team mode of Madden NFL 20, not to the other modes of Madden NFL 20 or to other Madden Ultimate Team years


 * 1) This mode is somewhat pay-to-win, but players can build a 99 OVR team without buying points with real money.
 * 2) Lack of major gold 99 content, although Ultimate Legends continued to be released until the last week of June, major promos such as Position Heroes, Movers, or Summer Blockbusters were leaked but ended up being cancelled, leaving many of today's best players at an in-season level.
 * 3) Only four of the 2019 First Team All Pros got a gold 99 card, in which, Lamar Jackson, Julio Jones (via a Golden Ticket), Michael Thomas, and Christian McCaffrey are the only First Team All-Pro Players who have a gold 99 card/Power Up Expansion.
 * 4) Also, this is the first year in MUT where certain NFL legends like Deion Sanders, Rod Woodson, or Ray Lewis not get a 99 OVR card after they got 97 OVR Ultimate Legends in late February, which only go to 98 in their power up or can be made a 99 OVR with chemistries.
 * 5) *Also, some legends such as Marcus Allen or Brian Urlacher only end up with a 96 OVR Ultimate Legends card without a Power Up Expansion as a result of the early end of Power Up Expansions.
 * 6) Unlike the previous years, you no longer earn coins for improving your team OVR or winning a certain number of Solo Challenges.
 * 7) Hurricane Dorian has caused a delay in the release of the Ultimate Kickoff program despite not directly impacting Central Florida, which is where EA Tiburon's headquarters are located.
 * 8) Rookie Premiere, which is usually the last promo in MUT seasons that usually comes out in early July, was released a month early on June 12, which eventually caused the aforementioned cancellation of the late season promos such as Position Heroes.
 * 9) The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the late part of the season, which eventually forced EA's employees to work-from-home and caused the eventual downfall of content, leading to a lack of gold 99 cards for most of today's best players.
 * 10) The NFL Combine promo was watered down, some notable players who were good at the combine did not get a card in this program.
 * 11) * Also, while Chris Johnson aka CJ2K is usually the master, this year, Deion Sanders is the master for the Combine program.
 * 12) Power Up Expansions, while being somewhat praised, only upgrades 6 players per week, being released every Tuesday until the final release on July 7, 2020. However, some of the choices for gold 99 Power Up Expansions were questionable as these choices did not satisfy the community (eg. Some deserving top current-day superstars like Aaron Rodgers, Jamal Adams, or Bobby Wagner end MUT 20 with their highest card being a 95-96 OVR card while average/undeserving players like Nickell Robey-Coleman, Lamarcus Joyner, or Eddie Goldman get a 99 OVR Power Up Expansion).
 * 13) * Most of the Power Up Expansions at 99 OVR usually has 3 or 4 of them being retired legends/theme diamonds (eg. Several top tier superstars like Ezekiel Elliott, Khalil Mack, or Marshon Lattimore not being upgraded to a gold 99 while some past players such as Victor Cruz, Dante Hall, or Brian Bosworth were upgraded to meet each week's requirement of 3 or 4 retired legends). This is most likely due to the amount of past players EA signed the rights to in order make the Theme Diamonds program and the insufficient Ultimate Legend weekends needed to upgrade some of the NFL 100/Hall-of-fame level legends.
 * 14) * Also, these expansions focused on current players who barely played in the 2019 season due to their real-life injuries or were average (eg. Jordan Reed, a tight end who missed the whole season due to a concussion, gets a gold 99 power up expansion while all-pro tight ends like George Kittle and Travis Kelce only has a 95-96 OVR card as their highest card in MUT 20).
 * 15) * Also, these expansions originally started at 98 OVR, but from June 2, 2020 onwards, the later Power Up Expansion releases were 99 OVR.
 * 16) Packs bought with coins have higher chances of pulling lower rated players, meaning that buying packs with coins is somewhat a loss.
 * 17) * Also, some packs are overpriced, such as the Ultimate Legend Fantasy Pack remaining at 180,000 until the final release of the Ultimate Legends despite the community wanting a price reduction on the aforementioned pack.
 * 18) ** This caused later Ultimate Legend cards like Sean Taylor's Ultimate Legend to be overpriced when they first came out.
 * 19) ** However, the release of the final Ultimate Legends permanently halved the prices of Legends and Ultimate Legends Fantasy Packs, as well as removing their limits.
 * 20) The PC version's auction market has a very low supply, making auctions harder to come by and usually are overpriced compared to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One's auction houses.
 * 21) Making a 99 OVR team is a costly process, as some positions have only a few 99 OVR positions such as some offensive line positions, Fullback or both special teams (Kicker and Punter).
 * 22) * After the release of the final Power Up Expansions, Fullback, Kicker, and Punter are the only positions whose gold 99 players are only Ultimate Legends Players.
 * 23) * Also, there are only two 99 right tackle options, which are Ultimate Legends Jonathan Ogden or Rookie Premiere Tristan Wirfs, but they are hard-to-find or are overpriced.
 * 24) * Also, you can use a few 97 OVR cards powered up to 98 OVR with the correct scheme/physical chemistries to chem them up to a 99. However, these players do not get the extra ability slot.
 * 25) John Madden can only be obtained with Series Trophies, which require a premium subscription, making Coach Madden locked behind a subscription paywall as a result of the required PlayStation Plus/Xbox Live Gold.
 * 26) * Also, his visual/model shirt is broken in gameplay, but you can use another coach's visual to hide Coach Madden while maintaining his chemistries.
 * 27) Golden Tickets, which made a return after being absent from Madden NFL 19 ' s Ultimate Team season are hard to pull from packs, but you can spend several hundreds of thousands-a million coins to buy them in the auction house.
 * 28) * However, the player can earn one for free through a Fan Appreciation Solo sequence, earning all stars in all Journey challenges or completing all the MUT Master objectives.
 * 29) * Also, three of the Golden Tickets were Michael Vick, Bo Jackson, and Reggie White who would eventually end up getting a 99 OVR Ultimate Legend with slightly lower stats.
 * 30) Physical Chemistries, unlike the previous years, now reduce some attributes at higher tiers, such as Sprinter reducing strength and agility by 2 points.
 * 31) Training bypass on cards are now limited to just certain Journey/Most Feared/Theme Builders 1 or Solo reward cards, with the training bypass for limited time cards being replaced by Series Redux, which was done to encourage opening packs.
 * 32) * However, an update on July 23 added training bypass to Peyton Manning's limited-time NFL Draft card and all remaining limited time Ultimate Legend cards released after the final Series Redux, starting from Mel Blount.
 * 33) Some cards that go into power ups are either hard to find or extremely overpriced, such as some Series Redux cards or any of the early-season 89/90 OVR MUT Superstar cards.
 * 34) * However, you can use a Power Up Pass to skip the expensive card(s).
 * 35) Jersey Numbers on players cannot be changed (for example, Randy Moss wore #81 with the New England Patriots or #18 with the Oakland (now Las Vegas) Raiders, when you can only use #84 in game). Also, Minkah Fitzpatrick, despite currently wearing #39 with the Pittsburgh Steelers, still wears his old number with the Miami Dolphins #29 on his power up.
 * 36) Many coin-making methods, such as the Alternate Playbook, the Night Train Lane Theme Diamonds 2 method or Gingerbread methods were nerfed through patches, such as the Color Smash Master (Barry Sanders/Ed Reed) sets now only being completable 3 times, having the power ups of Theme Diamonds 2 players appear in packs or the Alternate Playbook's quicksell reduced from 500 coins to 125 training points.
 * 37) A good majority of the modes such as Solo Battles, Weekend League are locked behind a premium membership paywall through PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold.
 * 38) The Final Ultimate Legend release was done on the last week of June instead of sometime during July, while the final Power Up Expansions were done on July 7, 2020, which caused an early end of new MUT 20 content.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Theme Diamonds, which was introduced in Madden NFL 19 with current day players, now feature fan favorite retired players whose careers are not as good enough as the well-known legends, helping theme teamers get their favorite player back in Madden after said player retired.
 * 2) Madden NFL Ultimate Team celebrated it's 10th anniversary through a MUT 10 promo, featuring 10 legends who had great Madden cards, however, these cards were limited and initially overpriced until a Series Redux was released for these cards.
 * 3) * However, if the player played all 10 solo challenges (having earned a 3 star rating on every MUT 10 limited-time challenge), they can redeem all collectibles to earn their choice of any MUT 10 player that is not auctionable/tradeable and will only quicksell for 65,000 coins.
 * 4) Also, the NFL celebrated it's 100th anniversary through a promo which features many NFL legends who were named to the league's 100th anniversary team getting 94-95 OVR cards.
 * 5) You can now change your card's front art, like for example, replacing Le'Veon Bell's New York Jets image to his core elite image in a Pittsburgh Steelers uniform (this applies to power up players who changed teams in the 2019 offseason, just by changing their front art to their core elite/gold art), or even equipping front arts of cards that do not go into power ups (e.g. Ultimate Kickoff arts).
 * 6) * Also there are premium arts that cost 500 Training, such as players who moved teams for the upcoming 2020 season (eg. Byron Jones having an art of him in a Miami Dolphins uniform after he signed with the Dolphins), or even the players who were named to the NFL 100 All-Time Team having their unique NFL 100 All-Time Team portrait art.
 * 7) Players that get Power Up Expansions now only needs training points instead of an overpriced wildcard, however, players that get this treatment could have their previous pieces skyrocket even more than when getting a new card, which would require players to use power up passes instead on the lower pieces if the card is overpriced.
 * 8) Great amount of in-season content, including promos that occurred during the season and playoffs.
 * 9) * These content were mostly released before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Florida, which forced many EA employees to work from home causing the eventual downfall of content after the NFL Draft.
 * 10) Unlike Madden NFL 19's Ultimate Team, powering down a player no longer charges coins when downgrading from a wildcard, but you still take a 50% training penalty like the previous year when powering down from a Training step.
 * 11) You can now enable secondary positions for certain power ups (eg. Khalil Mack, who is a LOLB (left outside linebacker) due to being in a 3-4 Chicago Bears defense, can be a defensive end on either side without losing his chemistries, which is mainly recommended for running an Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders theme team)
 * 12) Theme Diamond masters Kurt Warner and Dick "Night Train" Lane can now equip x3 team chemistry for the teams they played for or x1 team chemistry for any other NFL team, unlike last year's Team Diamond Master Ronnie Lott, who only gets x3 San Francisco 49ers team chemistry.

Tips

 * 1) If you have multiple PlayStation Network, Origin, or Xbox Live accounts, use the other accounts as farm teams, buy cards with the coins that you earned on the farm account, then add your primary account as a friend so you can trade the cards on the farm squad to your own account.
 * 2) Some packs/sets were profitable, like the Edgerrin James, Antonio Cromartie, and Victor Cruz Theme Diamonds 2 sets when their power up expansions came out, or the Buccaneers' Theme Diamonds 2 set after Simeon Rice's Ultimate Legend came out in which a player can use one of their farm accounts to do the set, sell the 95 theme diamond and the power up for extra profit (around 150,000-175,000 coins).

Reception
Madden NFL 20's Ultimate Team's content initially fared well as the season progressed, however, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to get worse, there was a significant reduction in content.

Many players criticized EA for putting out little content during the months of May and June, cancelling major promos such as Position Heroes, Blockbusters and Movers, and putting out Power Up Expansions mostly for players who struggled or were injured for most of the 2019 season or certain retired players whose careers were not as good as the hall-of-fame legends, which resulted in many top tier superstars ending with a 96 or lower OVR card.

As a result, on July 7, 2020, Snoop Dogg tweeted to EA to criticize the lack of content.

Videos
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