What Is FUTHead?
FUTHead is a one-stop shop for anybody involved with FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT), the most compelling and equally addictive game mode on FIFA.
FUTHead is also in essence an online community available to everybody and anybody who wants to master FIFA Ultimate Team. There is compelling evidence to suggest that FUTHead is the largest community platform of its kind online.
What Is FUT?
You may not be familiar with FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT). We won’t go into too much detail about that here, but FIFA Ultimate Team is one of the most popular sports game modes in the world, mostly played using the FUT Web App, which we discuss in another post.
In the context of this blog, the heart of FUT is the challenge to assemble the most successful squad of players possible at your club, within a budget.
To realize those objectives, you will need to access information. You will need to know who all of the new FIFA players are, with every game release, and which players have fallen by the wayside between seasons. The latest version of this game is FIFA 21.
You also need to know as much as possible about the FIFA Clubs, FIFA Leagues and FIFA Nations. You will find out a little more about these in the sections below.
The whole point of this entire exercise is to make informed comparisons and subsequent decisions when playing FIFA Ultimate Team.
All of that can be achieved when using FUTHead, while also keeping up to date on details about all of the squads, news headlines and teams of the week.
The FUT Web platform also has a Squad Builder. Invariably Squad Builder challenges come with the territory and for that, FUTHead also provides meaningful analysis.
A compelling feature of FUTHead is the football community that it represents. It gathers similar minds (some smarter than others) and provides an environment to exchange tools, ideas and especially banter. There is no such thing as football without banter.
In a nutshell, FUTHead is a FIFA Community and a comprehensive football knowledge database.
What Is NLW on FUTHead?
It has been said that NLW in FIFA or FUTHead actually stands for “No Liverpool Win” or “Norwegians Love Wolves”. That is just our little joke….we like to keep things informal here.
In actuality, NLW stands for No Link Wasted. That is a mouthful, especially for somebody who has limited experience with FUT.
FUT Links and Chemistry
NLW is a term the FUTHead community has adopted (probably invented) to describe one of the key aspects used to calculate FUT Chemistry – LINKS.
FUT Chemistry
FUT Chemistry is a mechanism to ensure that you don’t create an all-star lineup by simply dumping 11 top players into a team. Each player receives an individual chemistry score, and then there’s a team chemistry score. There’s also an overall chemistry and chemistry styles.
Many factors go into the individual chemistry score including how a player links with other players, club, nationality, and league. Individual chemistry scores are from 1 to 10. A player’s chemistry score can be improved which is part of the strategy of the game. The chemistry score impacts a player’s attributes when at play.
The success of any football team is heavily reliant on the chemistry among the players, which is where team chemistry comes in. Team chemistry is measured on a score of 100 and is impacted by, among other things, Manager nationality and league. Team chemistry is also impacted by Manager nationality and league to some degree.
Once you have a decent handle on how Chemistry works, the very concept of NLW will be significantly simplified.
In the real world, some of the most talented teams have not gone on to win a FIFA World Cup or the UEFA Champions League. That is normally because the set of players did not link up well on the pitch, for whatever reason.
FUT is such a compelling game mode because it is realistic and the LINKS between players are crucial to the teams that you create ahead of competition.
Some of the things that contribute to those LINKS are the nationalities of the players you have chosen, whether those players compete in the same league or not and whether those players are actually from the same club. So, we are dealing with both cultural elements and the sense of familiarity.
The ultimate question here is do those players connect as well as they could or should?
FUT Links
Now, about those LINKS. We have already established that the three main player criteria are Nationality, League and Club.
A Perfect Link is when the players match up on all three counts.
A Strong Link is when the players match up on two of the three counts. There are two separate permutations there. That could be “Nationality and League” or “League and Club”.
A Weak Link is when the players merely match up on one count. Once again, there are two permutations there. The first is Nationality and the other is the League. The Club does not become a factor here.
Finally, you have something conveniently called a Dead Link. That is when the players have absolutely nothing in common.
Every link that connects a group of players carries with it a certain value, which we have basically outlined in the paragraphs above already. But for the point of clarity we will spell that out for you.
Perfect Link = 3
Strong Link = 2
Weak Link = 1
Dead Link = 0
The stronger the links you have the greater “cost” to you because there is ultimately no such thing as a free lunch. When you have a dead link, that would account for No Link Wasted (NLW).
Phew, we went about that the long way around but at least you now know what “NLW on FUTHead is”.
What Is FUTHead Beast Rating?
Another “invention” of the FUTHead Community, the FUTHead Beast Rating is essentially a reference to overpowered players in FIFA. Overpowered players are the ones that bring considerably more value to a team than what is written on the paper – or the FUT Card.
Players with a Beast Rating are those who are perceived to be cost effective because they can be useful to your team in a variety of positions. Opinions vary on which players should get a Beast Rating and which players should not but what is clear is that this is not actually an official FIFA thing.
Because of that, calculating a player’s Beast Rating can be an equally miserable and even futile in the end. After all, this is just a game.
Off the cuff, there is at least one school of thought on this and if you are really determined to do so, you could probably pick holes in it pretty quickly.
Some chaps on FUTHead say that you should calculate a player’s Beast Rating by adding Pace, Strength and Shot Power, before dividing that by three. The answer to which would give you X.
Then it is suggested that you take 99 and deduct the player’s rating from that, before dividing that by three. That should give you Y.
The conclusion to this is that X+Y will then give you the player’s Beast Rating. So in a nutshell this particular suggested formula should be:
(Pace+Strength+Shot Power)/3= X
99-(Player Rating)/3= Y
X+Y= Beast Rating
Maybe you can try that out and tell us if the formula actually works!
So, while the formula might appear a little dodgy, when you are discussing a player with a so-called Beast Rating, you are invariably talking about a player who will give you a lot of bang for your buck (or a player you believe gives you a lot of bang for your buck).
These are players who cost next to nothing but have the capacity to outperform players who are much more expensive.
Players who we think might fit this description are players like Marcos Llorente, Adama Traore, Ousmane Dembele, Dries Mertens, Alphonso Davies and even Leroy Sane (since he moved to the Bundesliga anyway).
What Are FIFA Packs?
When performing a player transaction on the transfer market, you can hone in on a specific player who has piqued your interest, for whatever reason. You should be fairly knowledgeable about the player if you are going to go through the effort of actually searching for him.
You can also bid for individual players or just buy them outright. Finally, you can purchase these players in packs.
So, that would be a group of players you can purchase all at once. When talking about FIFA Packs we are talking about close to 200 options that are available to you.
Those FIFA Pack options are available on the store, using FIFA Points or Coins, both of which are forms of currency. You can also perform these FIFA Pack transactions by completing the Objectives, which are set in the FUT Web App.
You can also purchase the FIFA Packs in Squad Building Challenges, Squad Battles and FUT Drafts. We are talking about a lot of male ego here…seemingly endless options to compete against a rival or set of rivals.
The crux of the matter is that this is also the kind of detail that you would bump into or actively search for when navigating your way through the FUTHead community.
Conclusion
FUTHead is not going to end global warming, but it is nice to know that it exists. Whether that’s because you feel you can extract considerable value from it or because you are too socially handicapped to engage in football or gaming banter in a living room or the local bar.
The FUTHead community is available to answer questions and even help you through some important decisions. Hearing the banter back and forth is educational, as it allows you to understand what’s on everyone else’s mind. Being involved in the community also helps you learn strategy so you can hone yours! Happy playing.
It is nonetheless a popular platform to use and we would hate to think that you might be missing out in any way.
