FIFA 22 players slam “pointless” performance cards after Headliners announcement

Nathan Warby
FIFA 22 performance-based cards

Performance-based cards have become a staple of the FIFA series, and FIFA 22 continued the tradition with the likes of Ones to Watch and Player of the Months. However, just as the first lot of Headliners hit packs, fans have labeled these types of cards as “pointless.”

FIFA Ultimate Team has always prided itself on the way it ties into real-life football, and FIFA 22 continues that trend. From the regular Team of the Week to big promotions like Ones to Watch, EA SPORTS loves to reward those who are performing well for their clubs with big upgrades.

In the past, this has taken moderately-rated SBC fodder and turned them into FUT Champs-dominating titans. It also makes the game feel like an extension of the real sport, rather than a simple imitation.

However, after the announcement of the Headliners promotion, FIFA 22 players have slammed EA’s approach to performance-based cards this time around. They feel the developers have missed a trick, and they are becoming irrelevant.

FIFA 22 Headliners Team 1
The Headliners promo has sparked some concern in the FIFA 22 fanbase.

Headliners are special cards that stay one rating above a player’s highest-rated in-form, and can also be upgraded if their team wins four games in a row. But this wasn’t enough to win over the FUT community.

Reddit user DynamyttKidd believed that performance-based promos are “dead,” and the upgraders are “pointless” when you consider how many special cards release in a season. “By the time they win 4 games we’ll have probably another 2 promos with juiced players, making them all irrelevant,” they said.

They also mentioned that these cards are relying on EA themselves to award them with a TOTW, which the devs haven’t always been consistent in doing.
Other fans responded noting that it isn’t just the promotions that are suffering. They also pointed out that Player of the Months cards are becoming less and less viable in-game, other than a handful of exceptions.
“POTMs are dead too. They are either very expensive (and rightly so) meta cards like Salah, CR7, Vini or they are a card we wouldn’t use in Managerial Masterpiece,” said one player. Calhanoglu could win back-to-back Serie A POTMs and he will still be worse than gold Dybala who is like 15k.”
This has led to a situation where series favorites like Ousmane Dembele, who hasn’t performed strongly, have more useful special cards than those who are lighting up their leagues.
Team of the Year is on the horizon, which may help appease fans for the time being. But they will be hoping to see more useable performance-based cards as we enter the latter half of FIFA 22’s lifespan.

About The Author

Nathan is a Games Writer at Dexerto and Charlie INTEL, primarily covering FIFA and Call of Duty, as well as general gaming news and guides. After leaving university with a degree in Sports Studies and a master's degree in Magazine Journalism, he took on a role as a local news reporter before moving into games media. You can contact Nathan by email at nathan.warby@dexerto.com.