Squad Battles may not be the most glamorous part of FIFA 21 Ultimate Team, but they are a straightforward and reliable way to get your hands on extra coins and nice packs. If you also get pre-order packs on Mondays, then you can wake up to quite a handy little bundle between those and the rewards for completing Squad Battles.
Squad Battles doesn't have to be time-consuming either. Here's our guide to racking up an Elite finish every week without breaking too much of a sweat.
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What are Squad Battles?
Let's start with the basics. Squad Battles are matches you can play against the AI to earn points that then translate into rewards distributed every Monday. The AI teams are supposedly sourced from the community, and range from bronze squads -- some with outfield players in goal, handily -- up to 'god' squads full of Icons. You can play up to 40 Squad Battles matches per week, plus the Featured and Team of the Week matches, and the more points you earn, the better your rewards.
Similar to Division Rivals, the amount of points required to unlock different reward tiers varies from week to week, as it is calculated based on the entire player base's performance in Squad Battles. What this tends to mean is that you need to play a lot of games to get good rewards in the first couple of months of a FIFA game cycle, but once players get bored of Squad Battles then the number of points required to bag decent rewards goes down.
In Squad Battles, you select the difficulty level of the AI before each match, and the higher the difficulty, the more points you earn. So if you can beat the AI on higher difficulties, you can make it to the more exciting reward tiers in fewer matches each week.
What difficulty should I use for Squad Battles?
The funny thing about Squad Battles is that Legendary, the second-highest setting in the game, seems to be the sweet spot for a lot of players. This is great news, because if you win convincingly on Legendary, then you earn upwards of 2,500 points for that match. If you rack up 15 wins at this level, that's probably enough to sneak into the Elite reward tier.
Lower difficulties are much less punishing if you really don't fancy your chances, and while the points payout will be lower, convincing wins in a dozen or more matches should still mean you get some decent rewards each Monday. We do really recommend giving Legendary a few attempts though -- you might surprise yourself!
What are the Featured Matches in Squad Battles?
While the majority of your matches will be played against random squads sourced from the community, there are two showpiece matches each week.
The Featured Squad is usually selected by a celebrity or footballer. At the time of writing, you can play against a squad picked by Sergio Aguero, featuring the likes of Neymar, Mbappe, Ruud Gullitt and, of course, a 99-rated special Sergio Aguero card. This can be a tough match, but it gives out more points at lower difficulty than regular squads, so don't be embarrassed about whacking it down a notch or three.
Once the Team of the Week is released on Wednesday evening, you can also play a featured match against that squad. This is also a tough team of good players, but generally it has terrible chemistry, which means it performs worse in-game. We find it easier to beat the TOTW squad on high difficulty than the Featured team. Again though, reward points are higher than normal across the board, so if you prefer to chill with a lower setting, have at it.
What are the Squad Battles rewards?
Similar to Division Rivals and FUT Champions, Squad Battles doles out a bunch of different coin-and-pack combos based on your reward tier. Depending on your performance, you'll be ranked anywhere from Bronze 3 up to Elite 1 and even into the Top 200.
The exact number of match points required to hit each tier will vary from week to week based on the number of people playing, but in general it becomes easier to achieve a higher rating over the course of a game cycle due to declining interest in the mode.
These are the reward tiers:
Bronze 3 - Premium Loan Player Reward Pack
Bronze 2 - Gold Pack
Bronze 1 - 800 coins, 2x Gold Pack
Silver 3 - 1,500 coins, Premium Gold Pack, Gold Pack
Silver 2 - 4,000 coins, 2x Premium Gold Pack, Gold Pack
Silver 1 - 7,000 coins, 2x Jumbo Premium Gold Pack
Gold 3 - 10,000 coins, Jumbo Premium Gold Pack, Prime Mixed Players Pack
Gold 2 - 11,000 coins, Prime Mixed Players Pack, Premium Gold Players Pack
Gold 1 - 11,000 coins, Premium Gold Players Pack, Prime Mixed Players Pack, Jumbo Premium Gold Pack
Elite 3 - 12,000 coins, Mega Pack, 2x Premium Gold Players Pack
Elite 2 - 15,000 coins, 2x Mega Pack, Premium Gold Players Pack
Elite 1 - 30,000 coins, 2x Rare Mega Pack
Top 101-200 - 65,000 coins, Rare Players Pack, 2x Mega Pack
Top 41-100 - 65,000 coins, Jumbo Rare Players Pack, 2x Mega Pack
Top 21-40 - 75,000 coins, Jumbo Rare Players Pack, 2x Rare Players Pack
Top 2-20 - 87,500 coins, Ultimate Pack, 2x Rare Players Pack
No. 1 - 100,000 coins, 2x Ultimate Pack, 2x Rare Mega Pack
How do I beat the AI in Squad Battles?
Playing against the AI is very different to playing against human players, and this can work for you and against you.
The first thing to do is figure out which difficulty you're happy playing against. You earn substantially more points for wins than defeats, so it's worth finding a setting where you will win the vast majority of your games without losing your mind in the process. For a lot of players, that seems to be Legendary setting, which is the second-highest available.
That might sound ambitious, but here's the thing: the AI in FIFA 21, as in previous games, almost completely gives up once it goes down by a few goals. It's also very susceptible to pacey attacks and leaves massive gaps for your strikers to run into. So if you play aggressively and exploit it, you can run up unassailable leads quite quickly and then just chill for the rest of the match.
Here's our go-to method:
Move into Attacking mode from kick-off - Unless you've changed the Custom Tactics to something else, the default "Attacking" setup (press right on the d-pad once to activate it) makes your team much more aggressive, while the AI will be passive early in the match, especially if you're the one kicking off.
If you're kicking off, try to sprint past the sleepy AI defence - You'll be surprised how docile the opposing team can be, even on high difficulty settings. Take the ball with a fast, nimble attacker and sprint through the lines, using the right analogue stick to nudge the ball ahead of you to maximise your sprinting speed. Quite a lot of the time, this is enough to split the defence and find yourself one on one with the keeper and able to shoot across him, which is an overpowered shot type in FIFA 21. You can often be 1-0 ahead before anyone's woken up.
Use the wings and low driven crosses - Another OP tactic is to race down the byline and square it for a volleyed goal. Move the ball to your winger, use a one-two pass with a nearby player (LB/L1 + pass) to send the winger sprinting down the touchline, and release him into space. Look up and see what your strikers are doing -- they should be nosing ahead of the central defenders. If they are, hold the right bumper and fire in a cross. For some reason, these are like guided missiles in FIFA 21, and your striker will volley them home for fun.
Foul the AI when you sense a goal coming - Play a lot of Squad Battles and you'll notice that the AI can be ultra passive for a lot of the time, but then have spells where even bronze players start playing tiki-taka like Guardiola's Barcelona. These periods are very dangerous and often lead to absurd goals. If you sense the momentum building, do not be afraid to throw in an outrageous foul. Referees are super lenient in FIFA 21, so at worst you'll get booked. Once the ball goes dead (for a throw-in or other situation too), this seems to reset the AI's temperament.
Give up quickly if it's not working - You can play 40 matches per week, earning 2,500 points for each Legendary win, so unless you're desperate to hit those Top 200 tiers, the chances are you won't need to play all your matches. Matches where you struggle to rack up early goals can become very boring and attritious. We usually just cut our losses and move onto the next one.
Anything else to consider?
Why yes! It's always a good idea to keep an eye on the Objectives tab in FIFA 21 Ultimate Team, because EA frequently includes Squad Battles-related objectives that you can complete. Sometimes these involve using a specific squad or scoring in a particular way. Given that Squad Battles matches are usually over as a contest before half-time, you might as well keep a note of what you need to do so that you can spend the rest of the match grinding to achieve it.
Finally, while you're over in Objectives, dip into the Milestones tab and look at the ones associated with Squad Battles. If you're going to be playing the mode a little every week, then it makes sense to grind towards these, as they give out some nice packs. They do have some very basic restrictions, which may require minor squad surgery, so scrutinise them to make sure you're not missing out unnecessarily.
