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Cast your mind back, weary Ultimate Team veteran, to early December 2024. The Thunderstruck Black Friday madness had finally calmed, your coin balance was weeping in a corner, and just as you thought it was safe to open a preview pack again, EA SPORTS dropped a new promo like a last-minute winner: Ultimate Succession. The game studio\u2019s relentless calendar meant there was no rest for the Grind, and on Friday, December 6, 2024, at precisely 6 PM GMT, a fresh set of special cards booted the old Thunderstruck crew out of packs. Gone were the lightning bolts, in came the handing-over of imaginary batons.

What even was Ultimate Succession? EA never bothered with a grand philosophical manifesto. The loading screen gave a few hints, but the real story came from the leaks\u2014and the theme was deliciously meta for a game built on obsolescence: players who succeeded one another. Think of it as a digital passing of the torch, except the torch was made of chem styles and inflated attributes. The centrepiece? A certain Argentine magician and a Spanish teenager with braces. Yes, Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal were the poster boys, bridging eras at Barcelona. Yamal had exploded onto the scene as the heir to the right wing that Messi vacated in 2021, and now EA was symbolically handing the two a joint IF-like card for your starting XI. A beautiful narrative\u2014unless you packed neither and instead got the goalkeeper dupe for the fifth time.

The promo only lasted a single week, so savvy investors immediately started panic-buying any remotely meta card. The question on everyone\u2019s lips was simple: Who else would get the Succession treatment? Leaker \u2018FUT Sheriff\u2019 rode to the rescue before the official reveal, unveiling a squad that made lore nerds giggle and market manipulators rub their hands together. The lineup, which you probably still have PTSD from facing in Weekend League, went like this:

  • \ud83d\udc10 Lionel Messi (Inter Miami)

  • \ud83c\udf1f Lamine Yamal (Barcelona)

  • \ud83c\udde9\ud83c\uddea Joshua Kimmich & Joao Palhinha (Bayern Munich)\u2014a double pivot succession, or simply an excuse to give Palhinha a card that could actually pass the ball

  • \ud83d\udfe1\u26ab Nico Schlotterbeck (Borussia Dortmund) & Manuel Akanji (Manchester City)\u2014center-backs who had clearly swapped clubs but kept the defensive line banter alive

  • \ud83e\udde4 Gregor Kobel (Borussia Dortmund) & Roman Burki (St. Louis City)\u2014goalkeeping hand-me-downs that made you question your pack luck

  • \ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9 Sandro Tonali (Newcastle United) & Jorginho (Arsenal)\u2014deep-lying playmakers who probably shared a secret handshake involving rat tails and penalty techniques

  • \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 Marquinhos (PSG)

  • \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 Eugenie Le Sommer & Selma Bacha (Lyon)\u2014the women\u2019s section proving once again that OL\u2019s production line leaves everyone else in the dust

Every card promised a link between past and present, whether it was the same club, same position, or just a vibe EA had on a Wednesday afternoon. Naturally, the community spent more time debating whether the Yamal card would have 99 dribbling than actually appreciating the concept. And honestly, could you blame them? The predecessors and successors were often just two players who had once breathed the same air in a dressing room. But in Ultimate Team, a flimsy narrative is still a narrative\u2014and it gave the content creators enough material for 10-minute videos titled \u201cWHY THIS PROMO IS ACTUALLY GENIUS.\u201d

Beyond the pack-pulling theatre, the promo delivered the customary SBCs, objectives, and Evolutions. Chances are you completed a Marquinhos Premium SBC that you then regretted when a better CB arrived three days later. Mode Mastery rewards were still being grinded, and Winter Champions cards were still floating around, making the whole timeline feel like a fever dream of overlapping events. EA knew exactly what it was doing: keeping the hamster wheel spinning so fast that nobody had time to question why Burki was suddenly a meta card.

Looking back from 2026, the Ultimate Succession promo perfectly encapsulated the beautiful chaos of the EA FC 25 cycle. Cards that were considered \u201cendgame\u201d back then are now museum pieces in your club, untradeable ghosts haunting the quick sell recovery menu. Yet the memory of finally pulling that Yamal remains, as does the sting of facing a full Succession team that your gold rare defence stood no chance against. It was one week of passing the torch\u2014and your coins\u2014into EA\u2019s ever-hungry furnace. And if you\u2019re still playing, ask yourself: did you ever actually use that Roman Burki card, or is he still sitting in your club silently judging you?