Squad Building Challenges (SBCs) trade squads for rewards — players, packs, and coins. Some are great value and some are traps, and the difference usually comes down to how efficiently you build the submissions. This guide covers how to keep SBC costs down without skipping the ones worth doing.
Read the requirements first
Every SBC segment is a list of requirements: a minimum team rating, a chemistry target, and often constraints like a number of players from a league, a certain number of rare cards, or a minimum quality. The whole cost of a challenge is decided by those requirements, so read them carefully before you start buying. A single "Team of the Week min 1" or high rare-card count can quietly triple the price.
Spend fodder, not coins
The cheapest SBC is the one you complete with players you already own. Untradeable cards from packs, rewards, and objectives have no resale value, so putting them into an SBC costs you nothing. Build a habit of checking your club before the market: filter for untradeable duplicates and low-rated cards you will never use, and feed those in first.
- Keep a stock of common rating fodder (mid-80s cards) for the SBCs that appear constantly.
- Don't quicksell rare golds you won't use — many SBCs ask for rare cards specifically.
- Only buy the exact cards a solution is missing, not a whole new squad.
Let a solver do the maths
Working out the cheapest 83-rated, 8-league squad by hand is slow and error-prone. Instead, open the Squad Builder, enter the segment's requirements, and generate a cost-efficient solution. Then replace any card you already own untradeable to bring the price down further. FutCheck lists live SBCs and their challenges on the SBC page so you can jump straight from a challenge to a solution.
Time it right
Rating fodder gets more expensive the moment a big, popular SBC drops, because thousands of players buy the same cards at once. If a challenge runs for several days and you are not chasing a deadline reward, waiting a day or two often means cheaper fodder as the initial rush fades. Conversely, during promos the pack pulls flood the market with fodder, which is a good time to stock up.
Decide if it's worth it
Not every SBC deserves completing. Compare the cost of the squads to what the reward is worth — a player you can buy on the market for less than the SBC costs is rarely worth building, unless you specifically want an untradeable version for future SBCs. For player SBCs, check the card's market price and its price history before committing.