New salary cap mode coming to Ultimate Team in Madden NFL 16

It’s April, the NFL Draft is right around the corner, and promotion of Madden NFL 17 will be getting underway soon. Despite that a new mode is about to roll out in Madden NFL 16. A patch is coming in a few weeks that will deliver “Salary Cap Ranked Beta” to Ultimate Team.

Salary Cap Ranked Beta is not just a new game mode, it’s a fundamental change that is felt throughout the entire Madden Ultimate Team experience by assigning a Cap Value to every player and redefining how to assemble a lineup. This is being referred to as a “Beta” because of the size of the feature and the timing of when we’re releasing it.

Salary Cap Ranked will be in addition to all the other ways to play Ultimate Team and not a replacement for any of them. Every player will be assigned a cap value that won’t necessarily be based on their Overall Ratings. Teams will be formed through assigning 34 already owned MUT players the total of which must stay under the 1,000 point cap.  

SALARY CAP RANKED BETA EVENTS & LINEUPS

Salary Cap Events are structured the same way Draft Champions Ranked Events are – play until you’ve reached 6 wins or 2 losses, whichever comes first. One difference to note between a Salary Cap Event and a Draft Champions Event is the entry fee. It will only cost you 1 “Event Ticket” (which is a re-branding of the existing Draft Champions Ranked Ticket; any Tickets that you already own will be usable in Salary Cap Events) to enter and we’ll be giving away 1 Ticket to everyone who logs in after the Salary Cap release goes live. And yes, you’ll earn rewards for playing in these Salary Cap Events and they will scale up with each win.

The other major difference is how you build a team to compete. Instead of selecting players from a 15-round Draft Pool, you’ll be using Player Items from your Item Binder to assemble a 34-man lineup and the sum of those 34 player’s Cap Value cannot exceed a 1000 point Cap Total.

Of that 34-man lineup, 32 of them will be “base players”. In Salary Cap Events, we define base players as players at specific positions that are purposefully selected in order for us to ensure you have enough players to fill every offensive and defensive formation.

We are intentionally shorting you at some positions and that’s where the concept of “flex players” comes into play. The final two players in your lineup will be considered flex players. You can use these players practically anywhere (minus kicker or punter).

Flex players adds another layer of strategy to a format that is all about strategy and scheme. You may rely heavily on the running game. If so, it’s probably smart to flex in a backup running back. If you want to make sure you have enough beef on your defensive line during a goal line situation, a 3rd defensive tackle is likely a flex player for you. The choices will ultimately come down to your play style and how you value depth.

GAMEPLAY

You now have your team of 34-players under the 1000-point Cap Total, it’s time to hit the gridiron. However there’s a couple of important details before you take that first snap. You’re being asked to play a game with a condensed lineup and thus we modified a few gameplay settings.

The first one is very straightforward – we have turned injuries off during a Salary Cap Event. The other aspect we changed was how fatigue affects your players. Your players will fatigue at a slower rate compared to the rest of Madden NFL 16. Choosing your 34 players will make for some difficult decisions and we want you to play with those players but keep in mind that fatigue has only been altered, not turned off. It will not be wise to abuse a consistent no-huddle attack or call the same plays and formations without making any substitutions. Managing fatigue will separate an average player from a great player. Having the depth and gameplan to manage fatigue should be a major factor when deciding on where to use your flex players.

NEW TO MUT/WHERE DO I START?

Of course not everyone has played a lot of Madden Ultimate Team so far. If you’re someone who falls in that bucket, we are going to help you join the fun. So, we’re doing a couple things to help ease the transition. The first thing is we are improving the welcome and starter packs to include more Gold Player items.

Also, we’ll be releasing Journey 4 – a series of Solo Challenges that are short experiences (not full games) and will also be Salary Cap-based at the same time the Patch goes live. The Journey Solo’s are some of the best ways to quickly earn rewards just by playing the Madden Ultimate Team and this is especially true with Journey 4 as you’ll unlock a total of 11 players, including a 96 OVR Aqib Talib as the final “Journey Master” reward.