With the World Cup in Qatar kicking off, it is time for FIFA Ultimate Team to go into overdrive. With constant daily content updates and lots of objective grinding to help you earn those sought-after rewards. Players of FIFA 22 may be aware of the Icon Swaps events that happened periodically throughout the year. The World Cup swaps event this year, in FIFA 23, is bigger and better with more players and rewards to earn for your Ultimate Team. If you need a quick update on what to expect from the World Cup in FIFA 23, EA Sports has posted an article highlighting the key content coming this World Cup season.
What is World Cup Swaps?
World Cup swaps is an event that allows players the ability to earn some of the best rewards in Ultimate Team by simply playing the game. Players can complete objectives, squad-building challenges and grind seasonal experience to receive an in-game currency called Swap Tokens.
FIFA 23 Swap Token, Mohammed Al Qarni
How Do I Earn World Cup Swaps Tokens?
Throughout the event, there will be a total of 50 tokens to acquire. 1 Token is awarded to players for simply logging into Ultimate Team during the World Cup event. Another 2 Tokens are awarded for completing the seasonal experience ranks 5 and 18; you should earn these tokens passively simply by playing the game during the World Cup period. If you want to get these fast, I suggest completing the weekly bronze, silver and gold objectives to maximise your experience.
Week 1 challenge to help you earn Seasonal Experience
Within the Objectives menu, under the tab Milestones, players will find two objectives filled with World Cup Swaps Tokens. The FIFA World Cup Swaps Week 1 objective and the FIFA World Cup Swaps Showcase I objective. These two objectives can appear tricky as they state that you need 6 World Cup Players from each competing nation to complete. But, not to worry, these players are simple to obtain, and I will tell you how best to maximise your time doing this.
How to Earn World Cup Players for the Swap Token Milestones
Under the Milestones tab, you will see a list of 4 objectives named FIFA WC Player Milestones. Each of these 4 milestones has 8 competing nations at the FIFA World Cup. Each nation has a simple challenge. Score a goal with a player from this nation. Once completed, you will receive a pack reward that contains 6 World Cup Players from that nation.
This may seem like a lot of games and goals to earn your 6 player packs, but it can be done in as little as two squad battles games. Not only that, but you can also earn a Swap Token whilst doing this.
To do this, create a squad of players from all the nations competing at the World Cup. You will need 11 different nations in your starting team, plus 5 additional substitutes. This will total 16 nations you can score within the match. Yes, that does mean that your goalkeeper must score. This can be done on beginner difficulty, so the goals should not cause any problems.
Here is an example team used to earn 11 World Cup Players. Simply add subs to the bench from different Nations to reach 16
Repeat this process with the additional 16 nations to receive your 32 six-player packs ready for Milestones. It should be noted that you will likely miss being able to complete Qatar as there are no base players in the game from Qatar. If you find yourself at 31/32 completed nations, do not worry. You will get many more packs later and hopefully, earn that Qatari player sooner rather than later.
How to Earn the Swap Token at the Same Time
If you want to earn the swap token at the same time, you need to complete one of the games on semi-pro. Specifically, the game in which you have a Japanese player in your team. The FIFA World Cup Swaps Showcase I challenge you to assist 7 goals with through balls using any players from Japan in Squad Battles on minimum semi-pro difficulty. This is where you can earn your swaps player if you are brave enough to score the 16 goals on semi-pro. If not, you can easily earn this Swap Token later and focus on getting 32 goals scored on beginner. Now that you have your World Cup Players it is back to the Milestones and earning those Swap Tokens.
How to Complete the Milestone: World Cup Swaps Showcase I
Hopefully, you could complete the Through Japan challenge during the earlier squad battles matches. If not, you can do it here whilst completing another challenge.
Here is the FIFA World Cup Showcase I Objective in-game
Play 8 with Spain
Play 8 with Spain is the next challenge in the Swaps Showcase Milestone. This will require you to build a squad featuring 6 World Cup Players from Spain.
You should have earned the Spain essentials pack from the previous Squad Battles games that contain the 6 players you need for this challenge. You do not need to have exact positions just make sure you have six World Cup cards in your starting 11. Additionally, you can add a Japanese player here to assist with through balls for the Through Japan Challenge if you have not finished it yet. Craft your Ultimate Team, go into squad battles and complete 8 matches. There is no requirement to win.
England’s Winning Formula
Finally, England’s Winning Formula requires you to have a team featuring 6 World Cup Players, this time from England. Craft your Ultimate Team, head into Squad Battles on Semi-pro and earn 6 wins. After completing this challenge, you will have finished the World Cup Swaps Showcase and earned yourself 3 new Swap Tokens.
How to Complete the Milestone: World Cup Swaps Week 1
Like the previous Showcase Challenge, you will need to create teams containing 6 World Cup Players. This time, however, you will need to play online in the FIFA World Cup Swaps Live Friendly. Luckily for us players, this event is set to Golden goal. Whoever scores first wins.
There are 8 nations to complete within this challenge, each requiring 6 wins. That means you will need to win 48 matches to earn all 8 Swap Tokens. There are two important things to note with this. One is that you have lots of time to complete this, and two, these are not full matches. Typically, most games are over within the first few minutes, so grinding these out won’t be as time-consuming as it may appear.
The FIFA World Cup Week 1 challenge
The best way I can recommend completing this challenge is to make a copy of your main ultimate Team; remove your goalkeeper, defenders and as many midfielders as needed to make 6 empty positions, and fill those positions with 6 World Cup Players from the required nations. It does not matter if these players are in the correct position. This can be completed with left-backs or strikers playing as goalkeepers, merely make sure you have 6 World Cup Players and then your main team attackers. The main reason for doing this is Golden Goal. We are not playing full matches in this challenge. You want your best players in front of the goal to get these wins fast.
After completing these 48 games, you will have earned another 8 swap tokens. Assuming you have achieved rank 5 in the seasonal experience passively doing these challenges, you should now have 13 swap tokens.
What Can I Do with Swap Tokens?
Now that you have your tokens, you are probably wondering what can I do with them. Well, if you head over to the Squad Building Challenges tab on Ultimate Team you see an additional section named Swaps. Within this section, you will see several packs containing players and some with pack rewards.
You do not need to spend your tokens now. You can wait until the end of the World Cup event and spend all the Tokens you have accumulated throughout the whole event. The higher tier rewards offer some of the most lucrative and sought-after cards in the game, with 40 tokens earning you a very nice World Cup Icon Patrick Vieira.
Here’s what 40 tokens gets you. World Cup Icon Patrick Vieira
The rewards you choose here are up to you. Some players may suit your ultimate more than others, or you may find the packs are your best option. Browse around and spend those hard-earned points on what you need. You may find the World Cup Icon Player-Pick pack more enticing than the Vieira Icon, if you want to test your luck. Additionally, you do not need to earn all 50 tokens to purchase good swaps rewards, there are valuable rewards for just 20 tokens. For example, you can receive three 84+ x20 packs, earning you 60 84+ rare cards for your Ultimate Team.
If you would like to keep up with more gameplay-related news about FIFA 23, you can read about the overpowered lengthy running style and the best 11 players for making the most of it in-game.
