FIFA 23 - SUBSTITUTE TRADING

Substitute Trading

What is Substitute Trading?

Substitute Trading is the idea to make coins because people are replacing previous cards with new cards.

This 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.

How it starts

Substitute Trading starts with 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 leads to a massive undercut scenario with people going lower and lower.

As an example, if we get a strong Striker card 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 most general rule is to look out 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.

As mentioned above, other than that it requires some understanding of the market. There are no exact rules to follow, 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 prices each is. As you notice, there are many variations and possibilities so I don’t dive deeper into this anymore.

Buy time

The trick is to find the right time to buy. Sometimes the buy window is larger, sometimes it's smaller, really 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 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 out the right buy time. Don’t be too scared if you have to overpay a tiny bit (ideally below the tax cost) from the bottom price.

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 the rebound could be stronger. 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 several reasons but most of the time it’s the uncertainty of finding the right buy window.

Waiting for the Rebound

We also recommend checking for alternative rebounds while waiting for your card. It helps to understand the whole situation more and it also gives you insights into your trade. If you notice that other substitutes are already rising then it's more likely that your cards are also going to rebound soon.

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 throughout the past years, it's usually right between the previous price and the bottom price.

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 this 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.

Summary

- People swap cards for new content

- Finding the right undercuts

- Noticing a potential rebound

- Selling after or during a solid rebound