Substitute Trading

What is Substitute Trading?

Substitute Trading is the idea of making coins because people are replacing previous cards with new cards. The sudden change in demand creates a low for previously owned cards and a rebound allows an area for profit. This trading method is recommended for out-of-pack Special Cards. 

This trading method requires a bit of market “feeling” and an understanding of the current market situation. For beginners, I recommend watching and tracking cards before trading with them. 

When does it happen?

Substitute Trading starts with FUT Players changing a card from the club because new content replaces it, and then most people just throw the card on the market without thinking much. That starts a downtrend on the specific card and people list their cards lower and lower. This can even go on for multiple hours.

As an example, if we get a new strong Striker SBC then other Striker cards can take a hit as people replace the previous cards with the new strong Striker card. 

Finding the right card

The next step after the content release is finding the right card. This can be tough because this concept needs a lot of individual judgment on the specific scenario and there isn’t a set rule to follow. That is also the reason why this method is slightly more advanced but also more profitable if you manage to hit the right card. There are still a few indicators that I want to show you. 

One of the indicators is to look for illogical substitutes. That means if a 3/3 RW player gets released as an SBC for 140k and there’s a 5/5 RW from the same league going from 150k to 100k then it doesn’t make sense to see the better card at a cheaper price and we can expect the 5/5 RW to rebound. The rebound can even be after the 3/3 SBC expires. 

Another way to find good substitute trades is going by the leagues. It's common to get cheap but off-league SBCs that hurt certain areas of the market, however, most people stick with the top 5 leagues in terms of squad building and we can anticipate a rebound for the popular leagues again. 

Huge drops are another indicator of a potential rebound. This is the toughest indicator of all because this requires a lot more understanding of the market. Sometimes cards are expensive because they are the only option for a specific league or nation and if they get an alternative then we could see a permanent price change without any rebound. Although this risk exists, it's fair to assume that most cards that had a drop over 50% are usually rebounding at least a bit in the following hours or days.  

There are no exact rules to follow other than these few indicators. It's all about who gets released and which cards get hurt. And then it also depends on what stage of the game we are at and what price each card is. As you notice, there are many variations and possibilities and that’s the reason we keep this as general and simplified as possible. 

Buy time

After finding the right card it's also important to find the right time to buy. Sometimes the buy window is larger, sometimes it's smaller, it depends on the situation and the current market. I will keep an eye on the market and help out if I think there’s a solid buy window but this guide is more about why we do these calls. 

A good indicator for the bottom price and a potential buy window is small recovery steps. That means, if you see the first 5-10 cards slowly getting bought again, it's likely that the cards already reached the bottom and now go up again. From my experience 6/10 times, this is a solid way to find the right buy time. This still needs a bit of practice and experience, especially knowing what relists can create on the market. It's very common to see smaller recovery steps getting ruined by relists and then you are stuck on the downtrend. 

Alternatively, big gaps between the listings usually show us that a rebound could happen too. If you see a 100k card going on undercuts with 5-20k steps each time and without more than 3-5 cards per price point, it’s a good sign that there could be a rebound. It's a tiny bit trickier as the market keeps moving and sometimes you can't count the undercuts. 

Sometimes we even skip some potential substitute trading because these indicators are not clear enough or other things are showing a less likely rebound potential. Similarly to previous parts of this guide, this needs more understanding of the market and that’s why we keep this very simplified with two indicators. 

Rebound

As soon as the rebound starts you can already look to sell your card. There's no exact way to know the peak rebound price but it's recommended to aim as close as possible to the previous price before the content release.  

If a card reaches the previous price before the content then it makes sense to just sell and move on. It's very unlikely that a card extends the previous price while getting a substitute. 

Sometimes rebounds are also very short and prices start to drop again. That’s due to the panic of missing out on the bottom price and people buying into the rebound. As mentioned above, it's impossible to exactly know the right time to sell and it just makes sense to sell whenever you are happy with the current rebound. There's never a guarantee for a rebound and sometimes it’s best to just take the coins while they are there. 

The riskier option would be holding the card and waiting for a consistent price after a few hours or maybe a day. The risk here would be a short-term rebound followed by another downtrend or strong reviews for the new content which would start another round of changes and less demand for your card. 

Summary

- New content replaces old content

- Aim for cards with more value than the new content

- Watch out for signs of a rebound

- Selling after or during a solid rebound