Last Updated: August 6, 2025
As a precursor to the following information, please note that everything mentioned in this post is simply a preview and subject to change at any time.
I. Important Dates
- Final League Siege season ends: July 26, 2025 @ 1:00pm ET
- Final Madden NFL VS season ends: August 4, 2025 @ 10:30am ET
- Final Unlimited Arena season ends: August 4, 2025 @ 10:30am ET
- Final LvL season ends: August 4, 2025 @ 11:00am ET
- Final Daily Arena ends: August 5, 2025 @ 10:30am ET
- Final Promo (Domination) ends: August 5, 2025 @ 10:30am ET
- Final Field Pass (Summer Blast) ends: August 5, 2025 @ 10:30am ET
- Server Maintenance (Game goes offline): August 5, 2025 @ 10:30am ET
- MM26 launch date (tentative): August 7, 2025
II. Carryover
Here's what will carryover with us into MM26:
- Madden Cash
- Play It Forward (PIF) Tokens
- These can be used in a unique shop in MM26 to purchase things like Player Card Packs, Team Training Points (TTP), Madden Coins, and Trait Crates.
- Saquon Barkley Badge (which is a badge that will be redeemable in MM26. You'll be able to use the badge alongside an MM26 Saquon Barkley card that will allow you to upgrade the art on the card to an exclusive version).
- MM25 players (only MM25 players specifically were mentioned here, so if you still have MM24 players sitting on your bench, those MM24 cards may not carryover).
- Their OVR will be significantly reduced to align with MM26’s OVR.
- Here's the expected MM25 -> MM26 player conversion trade rates:
Here's what will not carryover with us into MM26:
- All other currencies not mentioned above including:
- Coins
- Team Training Points (TTP)
- League Tokens
- Madden Trophies
- Play Tokens
- Current Mastery bonus (Mastery Bonus will no longer exist in MM26).
- Earned/Purchased plays
- You'll get Play Tokens granted to you in MM26 based on the plays you had in MM25.
- Here's the expected MM25 Plays -> MM26 Play Tokens exchange rates:
- MM25 Plays that cost 750 Play Tokens will exchange for 150 Play Tokens in MM26.
- MM25 Plays that cost 2,500 Play Tokens will exchange for 500 Play Tokens in MM26.
- MM25 Plays that cost 5,000 Madden Cash will exchange for 1,000 Play Tokens in MM26.
III. Returning Features
- As it stands now, the economy updates that EA implemented in April are all staying for MM26, meaning the following will return for MM26:
- 7-for-2 UC-to-Rare trade
- Field Pass Random Iconic trade
- Event stamina with a regeneration rate of every 105 seconds
- Team Training Points (TTP) that rollover to the next Field Pass season (opposed to how we had it initially in MM25 where your TTP reset at the start of each new Field Pass season). Note: TTP will not carryover with us into MM26. The carryover doesn't start to apply until Field Pass S1 -> S2 of MM26.
- League Siege will return in MM26. There won't be any new Siege boards at launch.
- VS will return in MM26 with a few minor tweaks including more in-depth postgame stats and the ability to create a VS mode specific playbook.
- Point Attack will return in MM26 without Leaderboards.
- Mythic and Marvel rarity players will make a return in MM26.
- Tapjoy/Unity, which allows you to earn Madden Cash, will return in MM26.
Playbook
- The playbook system is returning for MM26.
- Every single play in the playbook is going to have a PBB (Playbook Budget) cost.
- Some of the plays’ cost will be 0 PBB.
- These are the freebie plays in the base playbook.
- For example, in the screenshot above Four Verticals would cost 0 PBB (do not pay much attention to the PBB costs in the screenshot above; those values are used as an example).
- The little blue star in the top-right corner of Zone Week and Four Verticals indicates that play is a play you favorited.
- If you favorite a play, that play will be listed toward the top/front of your playbook in-game.
- For example, in the screenshot above Zone Weak would be the first run play listed in your playbook.
- This could be especially helpful in creating a playbook specifically for Versus, for example, where you can star the four plays in each particular category that you want to use. That way the plays appear at the front of the playbook where you don’t have to scroll down and search for the play you want.
- If you favorite a play, that play will be listed toward the top/front of your playbook in-game.
- There are only 8 plays that universally show up in everyone’s playbook that you cannot amend. These are the 2-point plays.
- You can choose to omit plays from your playbook that you would otherwise never use (e.g. HB Draw).
- This allows you to have a playbook specifically tailored to your own playcall.
- There will be universal base plays in the playbook, which are listed below:
- Some of these plays will be 0 PBB; some will have a cost of no more than 10 PBB.
- There will be boosted plays that provide an OVR boost to your team.
- The starting PBB is 100 just like in MM25. You can raise this budget via leveling up.
- As shown in the screenshot above, there’s a “Stats” button you can toggle ON that shows you how often a particular play has been used (play count) and the average yards gained on each play in competitive modes across the entire game (this is not individual to just your personal stats).
- At the moment, these stats do not reset. Phfredd mentioned he will propose the idea of having the stats reset periodically (e.g. with each new Field Pass).
- These stats are only tracked from gameplay specifically within E1 and Hall of Fame tiers.
- Which competitive modes are exactly being tracked statistically is currently unknown. Sounds as if it will just be from LvL & Siege gameplay.
- It will be imperative to check your playbooks before you enter a game mode to ensure you are utilizing the correct one.
- For example, you don’t want to run into the issue where you’re being forced to use a playbook for your LvL drives that you specifically designed for Versus mode.
- Here's the list of purchasable plays via the Core Store that will be available at launch:
Season Team Training (STT)
- Season Team Training (STT) will return in MM26, although implemented differently than it was in MM25.
- As of now, upgrading your lineup will cost 0 Coins.
- There isn’t any catch with this. Coins do not seem to be required elsewhere in the game either. So, you should be free to allocate any Coins you earn on Store packs of your choosing (Pro packs, All-Pro packs, etc…).
- TTP also seems just as accessible as it was in MM25.
- When it comes to ranking up your lineup, you're no longer going to be able to train individual positions on your own path. It’s going to be a progressive system of ranking up that is linear.
- For example, you’re no longer going to be able to take your own path by training your quarterback first, or your wide receiver first, etc…
- Instead of using 6 different sliders to upgrade the main track and positional groups on each side of the ball in MM25, there’s just a single slider now used to rank your lineup up on each side of the ball.
- Each side of the ball can be upgraded 50x each.
- Upgrading to Rank 1 boosts all positional groups on that side of the ball +1%. Rank 2 boosts one of the positional groups to 2%, Rank 3 boosts another one of the positional groups to 2%, Rank 4 boosts another one of the positional groups to 2%, and Rank 5 boosts the final positional group to 2%. Then, Rank 6 boosts all the positional groups to 3%, and the cycle continues until all positional groups are ranked to 20% each.
- Here’s how the new ranking system works out on the defensive side of the ball for the first 24 rank ups:
- You’ll still earn STT Players on your journey of ranking up your lineup.
- There are no longer 2 different STT players you can earn.
- MM26’s equivalent version of achieving the “8/6/6” Mythic STT Player at 40/30/30 requires 179,000 TTP (roughly 17,000 less TTP required than in MM25).
- Ranking up your lineup fully to 50/50/50 gets you a Marvel player.
- Here’s how the STT Player rewards breakdown:
- There is no longer a Mastery Bonus (+5% OVR in MM25) for achieving a fully ranked up lineup.
- On the My Team screen, there’s a new “Quick Rank Up” button (see screenshot above) that functions similarly to the current “Best Lineup” button where it automatically applies your TTP to Offense/Defense/Special Teams. It supposedly applies the TTP in the cheapest way possible, but like the “Best Lineup”, Phfredd recommended not to rely on this button. It’s essentially equivalent to that of blindly auto-adding items to trades. So, it’s recommended just to use the slider whenever ranking up your lineup instead.
- Your Rank still resets monthly alongside each new Field Pass season like it does in MM25.
- As aforementioned, your TTP count does not reset at the start of each new Field Pass season.
IV. New Features
Evo
- Any Rare+ Rarity cards (i.e. Rare, Epic, Iconic, Mythic, etc...) will be eligible for Evo.
- You can Evo a card at any time in the season.
- For example, instead of taking an S1 Iconic card and Evo'ing it incrementally from a 90 (S1 OVR) -> 92 (S2 OVR) -> 94 (S3 OVR) -> 96 (S4 OVR) -> 98 OVR (S5 OVR) as the season progresses, you can automatically take it from a 90 -> 98 OVR card in S5, at no difference in the cost.
- Evo is player tier specific.
- For example, you can only Evo an S1 OVR Rare card to an S5 OVR Rare card, or an S3 OVR Iconic card to an S10 OVR Iconic card, or an S5 OVR Mythic card to an S11 OVR Mythic card. It is limited to that card's specific rarity (Rare, Epic, Iconic, Mythic, etc...).
- Evo is not position specific.
- For example, you can upgrade a DB card using a Center card (as aforementioned, just has to be the same rarity of card).
- The Evo process costs 1 single player card and X # of Evo Tokens (Evo Tokens are a new currency that are obtainable via different aspects of the game).
- Active boost on card will transfer to card being Evo'd.
- For example, you can take an S6 Iconic player card w/ a boost and use that card to Evo an S1 Iconic player card to an S6 Iconic OVR. That newly Evo'd S1 Iconic card will also take on that S6 player card's boost.
- Only MM26 cards can be Evo'd.
- You cannot Evo MM25 cards that will carryover with us.
- You'll be able to view the Evo'd card's upgraded stats before Evo'ing them to aid in the decision-making process.
- This allows you to utilize random trades more. For example, you can use a player you obtain from a current Random promo trade to Evo an older player's position in your lineup. That way you don't have to go the select trade route for a specific position you are targeting for an upgrade.
- Evo Token Cost is tier based. The number of Evo Tokens required to Evo a player escalates based on the tier of the player being Evo'd.
- For example (and these numbers are completely made up), it may cost you 5x Evo Tokens to Evo a Rare player, 10x Evo Tokens to Evo an Epic player, 15x Evo Tokens to Evo an Iconic player, etc... The cost escalates the higher the player card tier.
- Evo Token economy (how costly the Tokens will be) was described as being affordable/accessible for all users.
Traits
- Opposed to how Console Madden does it, traits and cards are separate of one another; traits are not preset to cards.
- You can apply traits to cards in your lineup, and can also unapply those traits from cards as you see fit.
- For example, if you exchange a player card for TTP, that player card's applied traits will just go back to your bench/items; you will not lose those traits to the exchange.
- Traits impact single or multiple positions.
- For example, the trait can apply to your quarterback, and only affect quarterbacks on 4th down. Or the trait can apply to your quarterback, and affect the entire offensive line. Or the trait can apply to your wide receiver, and affect all your skill positions.
- Traits are only applicable to certain positions.
- For example, a trait can be applied to the WR1 slot, and that trait affects all wide receivers. Then you can apply a different trait to the WR2 slot, and that trait also affects all wide receivers. So, essentially you're able to stack traits.
- There will be different scenario traits.
- For example, Red Zone traits where the defense will behave differently in the red zone, or First Down Pass Play traits where the defense will behave differently on first down pass plays.
- Traits have a tier/rank.
- Similar to player cards, there are Uncommon (tier I), Rare (tier II), Epic (tier III), Iconic (tier IV), and Mythic (tier V) traits where each has a varying impact on your players (the higher the tier, the greater the impact).
- You can only apply certain tier traits depending on the tier of the player card. The trait’s tier cannot exceed the player card’s tier when applying it.
- For example, you can apply a Tier I Uncommon Trait to an Iconic player card, but you can’t apply a Tier IV Iconic Trait to an Uncommon player card.
- There will be 22 distinct traits at launch.
- Each distinct trait has 5 levels/tiers, so you can imagine how many traits you'll be able to apply.
- Only one of the 22 traits directly shows a stat/OVR change to a card, the rest are about certain conditions. Therefore, traits are very specific.
- For example, "Increase passing success on 4th down plays" or "Increase OVR offense ability in the red zone."
- The number of trait slots is tier based.
- Epic cards will get two trait slots where you can apply two different traits to that card.
- Iconic cards will have three trait slots where you can apply three different traits to that card.
- Traits are obtainable via different currencies including “Keys”, which are obtainable via Field Passes, Journeys, trades, and other aspects of the game. Here’s an example of some of these trades to acquire traits:
- This is a bit advanced, but traits only increase the likelihood of "X" happening instead of it being a guaranteed outcome.
- For example, the trait may increase the percentage chance of success of a stiff arm, truck move, etc... happening.
- Traits do not expire (i.e. they don't have an expiration date).
- F2P (Free to Play) players can obtain the top traits in the game.
- Here’s a breakdown of how some of these traits will look:
Dual Player Cards
- Dual player cards will be introduced.
- Some of the dual player cards will feature two different players as a single player card (see the screenshot above for an example of this).
- For example, a card that is both a QB Kyler Murray and S Budda Baker where you can either use it as a QB Kyler Murray or S Budda Baker at any time.
- You'll be able to acquire and slot both dual players into your lineup at the same time.
- Eventually, other dual player cards will feature a player that can be used in two different position slots; one being the player's normal position and the other being an Out of Position (OOP) position.
- For example, a Ja'Marr Chase card that can be used as either a WR or a KR.
- These dual cards give an OVR boost to promo-specific dual player cards that does not expire (+2 OVR from Mythics, +1 OVR from Iconics).
- There's also an additional +1 OVR to Mythic+ boost coming from these Mythic dual player cards that lasts for one month.
- The cost of a dual player is only “slightly higher” (roughly 13.95% higher) than a regular player.
- Here’s an example of one of these Epic dual player trades in the first promo of MM26:
UI/UX Changes
- There’s now a button feature toward the bottom-left of the screen where you can toggle card animations on/off.
- The button with the arrows above the card takes you directly to the trade(s) that you can add that specific card to (see the below image for an example of this screen).
- Below we have a sneak peek of the MM26 Ultimate Team screen.
- Some things to take note of in this screenshot:
- "Core" and "Events" will now be located in the same "Events" tab.
- The "News" button has been moved to be more visible.
V. Miscellaneous
Non-Promo Iconic Players
- Here’s the Offensive non-promo Iconic Players that will be available at launch:
- Here’s the Defensive non-promo Iconic Players that will be available at launch:
- Here’s the Special Teams non-promo Iconic Players that will be available at launch:
- These will be the players featured in the Iconic Player Select packs at launch.
- Note: The player cards given in the screenshots above are slightly boosted. These players will actually be a 103 OVR non-boosted.
First MM26 Promo
- The first promo of MM26 will be Opening Drive.
- Here’s a look at some of the players dropping during this promo:
- Here's a look at the Opening Drive Challenges/Events screens:
First MM26 Field Pass
Name
- First Field Pass of MM26 is Preseason.
Duration
- Starts: August 7th (launch day of MM26)
- Ends: September 8th @ 10:30am ET.
Milestone Player
- HB Saquon Barkley is the Milestone player on the VIP track of the Field Pass.
- Per usual, you can also obtain this player via a select trade (limit one) as well as the Field Pass Random Iconic Trade.
- The Saquon Barkley Badge you earned in MM25 goes toward upgrading the art of this Saquon Barkley card (just the art itself).
Journey Player
- S Derwin James Jr. is the Journey player.
STT Player
- TE Brock Bowers is the STT Player.
- There's only one STT Player for this Field Pass, which is upgradeable to a Marvel.
Other Field Pass Players
- MLB Bobby Wagner (Marvel Player)
- LB Andrew Van Ginkel
- OG Quinn Meinerz
Player OVRs
- Epic Player OVR: 97 OVR
- Iconic Player OVR: 110 OVR
- Mythic Player OVR: 118 OVR
- Marvel Player OVR: 128 OVR
Journey OVR Gates
- Journey Challenge 15 (rewards 110 OVR Iconic Derwin James Jr.): 3,078 OVR
- Journey Challenge 18 (rewards 110 OVR Iconic Derwin James Jr.): 3,290 OVR
- Journey Challenge 20 (rewards 10,000 Madden Cash): 3,600 OVR
Field Pass Play
- Play: HB Base
- Cost: 45 Playbook Budget (PBB)
Field Pass Journey and Milestone Reward Changes
- There have been some changes made to the Field Pass Journey and Milestone rewards.
- See the below screenshots for the updated Journey and Milestone rewards:
Other Info
- Field Pass trades will remain the same.
Future Programs in the Works
These new programs are set to release some time post-launch of MM26. They're still a work in progress, meaning literally everything/anything can change.
Jigsaw
- Note the “Request” tab toward the bottom of the Jigsaw screen. It appears you’ll be able to ask fellow league members for help acquiring the pieces.
