While there’s value in the other game modes that NHL 15 comes loaded with, Hockey Ultimate Team — commonly known as HUT — is clearly the shining star. It combines many of hockey fans and gamers’ favorite things, such as building a team, collecting virtual cards and competition against other human players.
As one might expect, it’s also a very challenging experience, especially when it comes to earning enough Pucks — the in-game currency — to build your dream team.
That’s where we come in. While we’re not exactly HUT millionaires, we’ve been at this long enough to know a few tips and tricks to help you keep your account fully stocked in case of a rainy day, or a deal that’s just too good to be true.
HUT Daily Rewards
Although it won’t buy you that Jonathan Toews card you so desperately want, logging into Hockey Ultimate Team — not necessarily playing — every day will earn you some walking around Pucks. While day one won’t be enough to buy anything, by day seven you’re looking at 1,250 Pucks for every consecutive day you log on.
To break it down even further, let’s say that on the first day of December you were already collecting those 1,250 daily Pucks, and continued to play HUT every day for the duration of the month. You’d end up with 38,750 Pucks. That’s all without even playing a game, which is a pretty sweet deal if you ask us.
Avoid Quick-Selling
For the most part, this tip will only help you earn a couple hundred extra Pucks at a time, but over the course of a month or even a year, this will substantially increase your earning potential.
You know all those low value players that can be sold for 306 or even 613 Pucks? Well, often times those players can be auctioned off for significantly more on the open market. While it is fast and easy to simply quick-sell them and be done with it, you might consider putting them up for bid.
Take a player that you could quick-sell for 306 pucks and put the starting price at 350 pucks. This means that no matter what, as long as you sell him you’ll make more than you otherwise would have. However, if the last price sold for that player is higher, consider setting a starting price that is more in line with their market value.
Let’s look at an example.
Imagine for a moment that a Colton Orr card has a quick-sell value of 306 Pucks, but you see that the last price sold in the auction house is 900 Pucks. Set your starting price to 600 Pucks and your buy now to 800 Pucks. It’s not quite as much as someone else got, but it’s still between 300 and 500 Pucks that you didn’t have in your pockets previously.
Buy Low, Sell High
This tip goes without saying, but knowing the logic behind it versus actually pulling it off are two very different things. It’s therefore important to know when you should be buying and when you should be selling, something that is always changing in the complex economy of NHL 15 HUT.
To make our point, let’s talk about our lucky pack pull of a Legend card, Pavel Bure, who at the time was worth about 550,000 to 600,000 Pucks in the auction house. You see, we pulled Bure on the first or second day that the pack was in existence, and foolishly waited more than 24 hours while we hummed and hawed about the benefits of keeping or selling him.
To be clear, we’d advise selling him if you have any holes in your team whatsoever.
From the moment we pulled Bure to the moment that we finally sold him, we gave up about 50,000 to 100,000 pucks as his value decreased. The reason for this is that the longer the card was in existence, the more people started to pull him, flooding the market and decreasing value. If there are 15 other Bure cards for sale and one player is determined to make sure his or hers stands out, they’ll undersell the rest of the Bure listings by 10,000 Pucks. Soon after, someone else will do the same, and before you know it your card is worth 100,000 Pucks less than when you took possession.
Of course, Bure is an extreme example, so let’s look at something that anyone can try.
The +5 Skater All training cards are frequently — currently — selling on the PS4 auction for a buy now price of 4,000 Pucks. To take advantage of our tip, do a search for these cards, setting your buy now maximum to 3,500 Pucks. Sometimes you’ll even find them for less, but either way you’ll want to buy as many as you can afford for the price we mentioned, then immediately put them back up for 4,000 Pucks.
This accomplishes two things. First of all, it increases the market value for these cards at that specific time by removing cheaper options and replacing them with your own, more expensive cards. Second, it earns you about a 500 Puck profit for each card. Sell 10 of them and you’re looking at about a 5,000 Puck profit, minus the five percent the auction house keeps for itself. The beauty of it, you can apply this very technique to dozens of different cards across the entire game mode.
Work the Auctions
We were fairly clueless when we started playing NHL 15 Hockey Ultimate Team, and therefore paid a heavy price in how long it took us to get our team into tip-top shape. We jumped right into the games, foolishly thinking we could earn our pucks by stringing together a bunch of wins. That, as it turned out, was a huge mistake.
If you want to get your team to a level where you can compete with almost anyone, you’re going to have to spend some time working the markets, often for several hours at a time, for several days — or even weeks — in a row. Unfortunately, all the tips in the world won’t prevent you from having to put in the time and work required to build up your team and bank account.
Pay specific attention to some of the higher priced cards typically selling for more than 50,000 Pucks. Learn what they are worth at that specific time, then look for that foolish player that put them up for auction well below value. This is an extreme example, but if someone puts Phil Kessel up for 25,000 Pucks, buy him, then sell him to someone else for about the 100,000 that he typically goes for. It takes a lot of luck and patience, but one sweet deal can get you on the right track.
Join the NHL 15 HUT Reddit
The reason we focused more on concepts rather than specific values has to do with the constantly changing economy in NHL 15 Hockey Ultimate Team. There is just too much information for one person to always be up to date on, and it’s for this reason that being active on the NHL 15 HUT Reddit is absolutely vital.
The NHL 15 HUT Reddit is a constantly updating in-the-know resource where players can learn about card values, collection checklists and even find trading partners to help build their teams. It’s moderated by respected members of the community, and is generally a safe place that you can go to get good information. Yes, there are scammers and trolls there, but trust us when we say that the bulk of the community puts those threats out of business in a big hurry. If you’re serious about building a power-house team, this is an incredible resource for new and veteran players alike.
For more information on NHL 15 Hockey Ultimate Team, including strategy and news, be sure to keep an eye on Prima Games.
