With a new year starting it marks the half-way point in the domestic season for leagues around the world and an opportunity for a Winter Refresh.
This promo gives a Rating Refresh for a number of high performing players and injects new cards for those that have recently transferred clubs.
It's almost a month past when we expected this event to go live - instead we've been treated to a new promo in 'What If' and it looks like FUT Birthday could be coming next.
With Icon Swaps 2's second set of tokens arriving next week, could it be time to drop these upgrades in?
Here's what we know in FIFA 21's Winter Refresh Promo Event.
- What Is It?
- Release Date
- Card Design
- Winter Refresh Team
- Predictions
- Ratings Refresh
- Investments
- Icon Moments
- SBCs
- Objectives
- Packs
What Is Winter Refresh?
The Winter Refresh promo is one of the biggest promotions of the year in a number of ways, shaking up ratings of high performing players, bringing tonnes of newly transferred cards, and also giving us a glimpse of the best icons in the game, Icon Moments.
Typically arriving around early February, this promo is certainly one you don’t want to miss!
Winter Refresh Release Date
We were expecting Winter Refresh to start on the 26th February 2021.
But, it seems EA have forgone this event for the first time in years.
Last year in FIFA 20 Ultimate Team, Winter Refresh arrived in mid-February, with a release on February 14th, lasting for 1 week until February 21st.
We're still expecting player upgrades to come in at some point, so perhaps the promo isn't going ahead but the Ratings Refresh section is?
Winter Refresh Card Design
So far, we haven’t had any news on the Winter Refresh card design, however, this concept that can be found over on FIFARosters looks somewhat similar to the design from FIFA 20, with a slightly updated look for FIFA 21.
click to enlarge
+ 4Winter Refresh Team
One of the big new additions to Winter Refresh in FIFA 20 Ultimate Team was the Winter Refresh Team that was released as a proper promo team, instead of the Winter OTW squads from years past.
This worked very well I think, due to Winter OTW cards only having half the season to prove themselves and receive upgrades. With this format, transferred cards were given a new lease of life with game changing upgrades that made them very usable from the get-go.
In addition to newly transferred players (such as Eriksen, Ibrahimovic and Bruno Fernandes), we saw some other cards receiving boosts to help “improve your FUT club by filling either a position gap, aiding team building, adding depth, accessibility or new options within their league or nation in FUT.”
Be sure to check back closer to the release of Winter Refresh for our full prediction!
Predictions
Check out our Winter Refresh Team predictions:
- Alejandro Gómez > Sevilla
- Martin Ødegaard > Arsenal
- Morgan Sanson > Aston Villa
- Arkadiusz Milik > Marseille
- Moussa Dembélé > Atletico Madrid
- Ozan Kabak > Schalke 04
- Takumi Minamino > Southampton
- Jesse Lingard > Man Utd
- Willian Jose > Real Sociedad
- Sami Khedira > Hertha Berlin
- Mesut Ozil > Fenerbache
- Luka Jovic > Frankfurt
- Timothy Fosu-Mensah > Bayer Leverkusen
- Sebastien Haller > Ajax
- Fikayo Tomori > Milan
click to enlarge + 4Ratings Refresh
One of the biggest parts of the Winter Refresh promotions in years past have been the rating upgrades that get implemented in the game to highlight players that have had impressive starts to the season or have been in fine form.
Whereas in previous years upgrades had been given out to a number of higher-level players that had exceeded even their high expectations, in FIFA 20, rating upgrades were only given out to 50 players who stood out the most along the first half of the season.
Last year, the focus was on players who have had the biggest upgrades (+3 OVR or higher).
While this meant we missed out on plenty of players that could’ve got +1 or +2 rating upgrades, we still saw some very desirable cards, such as a +3 on Timo Werner, a +3 on Jamie Vardy etc.
It’s worth noting, that these upgrades only applied to new base items found in packs, however, certain existing in-form items had rating upgrades to keep in line with the performance-based upgrade system.
click to enlarge + 4Investments
In this guide, we’ll be explaining how you can look to make coins in 3 key areas, these being:
- Investments into transferred items - mainly cards that can be utilised in League SBCs
- Investments into upgraded players - mainly cheap cards that can be used in SBCs that now receive a higher rated, more expensive item.
- Investments into special cards, i.e. IFs/MOTM and other performance-based cards that may receive upgrades.
Your best bet is investing in special performance-based cards as they will receive an upgrade.
click to enlarge + 4Icon Moments Released
The final big release throughout the Winter Refresh promo was that Icon Moments cards were finally released.
Being the highest-rated and most desirable version of all the icons, the excitement for this was tangible, and we should expect a release of these cards around the same time this year in FUT 21.
Other Winter Refresh Expected Content
Despite being just a week-long promotion, we can expect some other content to be included in the TOTGS release to supplement the team in packs. This will include:
- New Players
- Winter Refresh Themed Player SBCs
- Winter Refresh Themed Objectives
- Upgrade & Pack SBCs
- Promo Packs
New Players
Given a load of new transfers will have taken place, all of these will be reflected in-game, and any players that weren’t in the FUT database back in October, e.g. Edinson Cavani, will be added during this big update.
Winter Refresh & Other Player SBCs
Player SBCs will be another staple of the promotion to compliment the squad of players already in packs. Last year we only saw a Flashback Mats Hummels released, however with all the SBC content coming in FUT 21, we can expect a bit more on this front.
Winter Refresh Objectives
Expect to see Winter Refresh themed objectives released on the first day of the promotion, lasting for a week, as has been the way with all of the promotions released so far this year. This will likely feature a lower-rated but usable player that you can obtain for free by completing gameplay-related objectives.
Upgrade & Pack SBCs
Accompanying the Player SBCs released throughout Winter Refresh, be on the lookout for other pack SBCs themed around Winter Refresh and some of the big January transfers that go through!
Promo Packs
With a Winter Refresh Promo team in packs, we’d expect to see a load more promo packs released into the store throughout the event, with lightning rounds on the first couple of days of the event at peak times.
For more articles like this, take a look at our FIFA 21 page.