Madden NFL 23: 5 Things Banned in Madden Ultimate Team

Madden NFL ’23 has many new additions that will excite players of the franchise – new and old alike. Conversely, Madden NFL ’23 has also had many features and “exploits” that where often taken advantage of, completely removed from the game – read on to find 5 things banned in Madden Ultimate Team.

5 Things Banned in Madden NFL ’23 Ultimate Team

Mutmaster and Level Up Fast Method

Gone are the days of getting the Ultimate season and immediately jumping to Level 50 faster than you could bat an eye – instead, they’re doing a bi-weekly field pass.

All of those things that used to be able to be exploited, like the mud levels…well, you’re now going to have to be doing extra work utilizing the field pass. Despite this field pass being free, it does mean you’ll have to be much more actively involved with regularly logging into the game and playing it (i.e., grinding) rather than exploiting the game to jump ahead of others.

Power-Ups Are Done – For the Most Part

The massive number of unnecessary powers ups are a thing of the past, as EA has gotten rid of them for this iteration – likely to help reduce the complication and size of the game. The only potential downside to this is for those that wish to play entirely free and not spend any money – depending on how the market is set, you may have to dish out for the elite card.

This means these players will likely have to grind for a lot longer to build up currency and establish their team, when they could otherwise just start adding boosts and power-ups to an ‘average’ player. This is likely a sign that the year is going to be much more focused on promos.

‘Escape Artist’ is an X Factor

“Escape Artist” as an ability is now an ‘X-Factor,’ and as such has become less powerful and useful to players. X-Factor is now extremely nerfed, resulting in you essentially not wanting to use it. EA has dramatically reduced the allure of abilities to equip in ’23 and this may result in players feeling less ‘buffed.’  

Nerfed Sub Linebacker Package

Like to put safeties in linebackers because they move a lot better agility-wise? Or just to be able to get more functionality all-around from your linebackers? Well, EA has now nerfed the safeties from being so overpowered for linebackers in the run game – which means you’ll have to use actual linebackers.

 Compared to having a strong safety, it is unclear as of yet how these will actually be nerfed in-game by EA, or what specifically they’ve added to the game to account for this, compared to utilizing the ‘normal’ linebackers.

Zone Coverage Heavily Increased

This essentially, in practice, means it is incredibly unlikely you’ll be able to run crosses every play – if you take a look at a player’s zone coverage and it shows ’99,’ – this player would typically be able to run with crosses, which means crosses are no longer OP. This was evident in the beta, so we’ll see how much it translates to the official game as it is now launching!