Team of the Season is the biggest promotional event of the FC 26 cycle, and the menu grind it kicks off can feel overwhelming without a clear strategy. At the centre of it all sits the TOTS Crafting Upgrade SBC — the engine that powers the entire TOTS grind. Complete it 100 times and you unlock a ladder of increasingly valuable pack rewards, capped off with an 88+ Rare Gold Player Pack that can land you a top-tier meta card.
What is the Crafting Upgrade SBC?
The Crafting Upgrade is FC 26's foundational fodder-recycling SBC during the TOTS event. Its structure is refreshingly simple: submit seven Gold players with at least two of them being Rare, and you receive a 77+ x5 Rare Gold Players Pack in return. No rating requirement, no chemistry, no league or nation restrictions — just seven Gold cards.
What makes it the centrepiece of TOTS grinding is the attached objective ladder. Each completion counts toward milestone rewards that unlock at specific intervals — 10, 15, 20, 25, and so on up to 100 completions. These milestone packs are where the real value lives, culminating in an end-game 88+ Rare Gold Player Pack that every TOTS grinder aims to collect.
Complete Milestone Rewards List
Here is the full progression of milestone rewards you unlock as you repeat the Crafting Upgrade SBC during the TOTS campaign. All packs are untradeable:
10 completions: 81+ x3 Rare Gold Players Pack
15 completions: 82+ x3 Rare Gold Players Pack
20 completions: 83+ x2 Rare Gold Players Pack
25 completions: 85+ Rare Gold Player Pack
30 completions: 81+ x5 Rare Gold Players Pack
35 completions: 84+ x2 Rare Gold Players Pack
40 completions: 86+ Rare Gold Player Pack
45 completions: 81+ x7 Rare Gold Players Pack
50 completions: 83+ x5 Rare Gold Players Pack
60 completions: 80+ x10 Rare Gold Players Pack
70 completions: 87+ Rare Gold Player Pack
80 completions: 81+ x10 Rare Gold Players Pack
90 completions: 82+ x10 Rare Gold Players Pack
95 completions: 83+ x7 Rare Gold Players Pack
100 completions: 88+ Rare Gold Player Pack
On top of these milestone packs, every single SBC submission also gives you the standard 77+ x5 Rare Gold Players Pack as the base reward — meaning 100 completions nets you 100 base packs plus the 15 milestone rewards. The compounding fodder return makes this one of the most efficient packs-per-effort investments during TOTS.
Smart Fodder Management
The key to grinding Crafting Upgrade efficiently is knowing which cards to feed into it and which to save. The golden rule: dump all your Common Gold cards and only your lowest-rated Rare Gold cards into this SBC. Anything rated 83 or higher should be saved for more valuable Upgrade SBCs that specifically require higher-rated fodder.
During TOTS, you will accumulate massive amounts of low-rated fodder from daily login packs, objective rewards, and Live Event modes. The beautiful part is that you will almost never need to spend coins on the Transfer Market to fuel Crafting Upgrades. Start each day with your daily Bronze, Silver, and Gold Upgrade SBCs, and you will have a steady stream of Gold cards to feed the Crafting Upgrade engine.
If you ever run dry on low-rated fodder, the Provisions Upgrade SBC is your safety net. Submit three 85+ rated players and you receive 15 Common Gold Player Items plus 25 Rare Gold Player Items (all rated 80 or lower). This is an expensive emergency restock, but it can kickstart your grind when your club is running empty.
The Complete TOTS Menu Grind Path
Crafting Upgrade is just one piece of a larger puzzle. Here is the general order of operations for an efficient TOTS menu grind:
Start your day with the three daily Upgrade SBCs — Bronze, Silver, and Gold. These are cheap to complete and generate your base fodder supply. Next, sort your club by league. Any cards from popular leagues (Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1) should be funnelled into their respective League Upgrade SBCs, which typically offer better returns than the generic Crafting Upgrade. Everything else — cards from smaller leagues, hybrid fodder, and unwanted duplicates — goes straight into the Crafting Upgrade pipeline.
Once your base fodder is flowing, work your way up the rating ladder. Higher-tier Upgrade SBCs (83+, 84+, 85+ varieties) demand better fodder but reward proportionally better packs. The sweet spot is using your Crafting Upgrade milestone packs to pull mid-rated Gold cards, which then feed into the higher-rated Upgrade SBCs, which generate even better packs — creating a self-sustaining pack-opening loop.
While EA has not fully revealed the exact menu grind structure for TOTS this year, this framework follows the established pattern from every previous TOTS campaign and should hold true again in FC 26.
Should You Rush to 100?
You do not need to sprint through 100 completions on day one. The smarter play is to complete Crafting Upgrade steadily throughout the entire TOTS campaign, which runs for multiple weeks. Grinding 5-10 completions per day is more sustainable and aligns with the natural pack flow from dailies, objectives, and Live Event rewards.
However, if you are targeting a specific TOTS card that is currently obtainable through a major SBC, rushing Crafting Upgrade milestones can be worth the burst effort. The 86+, 87+, and 88+ milestone packs at 40, 70, and 100 completions all have real chances of landing high-value cards that could cover a big chunk of your target's SBC cost.
Conclusion
The TOTS Crafting Upgrade SBC is the backbone of every serious player's Team of the Season grind. At just seven Gold cards per submission with a guaranteed 77+ x5 pack return, it efficiently recycles your fodder while building toward 15 milestone rewards topped by an 88+ Rare Gold Player Pack. Commit to steady daily completions, pair it with your daily Upgrade SBCs and League Upgrades, and you will pull serious TOTS content without spending a single coin on the Transfer Market.
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