I'm gonna try to keep this short, but like the title says, 2k is being outdone when it comes to team building. In this specific case, we're talking about MyTeam/Ultimate Team. I've been in the EA Access beta since it's started and I've played Madden every single time I've turned on my Xbox. I've played 2 games in 2k (MyTeam) in the past week and that's a substantial drop. In the past I've played through multiple seeds in a single day, but I don't even think about 2k anymore. A huge reason for this is how Ultimate Team is set up. The auction house, trading, the level (seeds) rewards, everything is SOOOOOOOOO much better. To give an example, I woke up at around 5am and out of instinct I reached over and grabbed my controller to turn on the Xbox. I started Madden up and I went straight to the auction house and got a 93 rated QB on the last few seconds of the auction. That felt especially good because RGIII has been letting me down (because it's totally his fault and not mine).

Something else that Madden does right is player cards. The good players should have multiple cards. For the people who don't know, it's much more than Bronze, Silver, Gold, Ruby, Emerald, Diamond (I'm sure I'm forgetting something). Madden has Bronze, Silver, Gold, Legendary, Playoffs, Fantasy, Elite, Ghost, BCA (Breast Cancer Awareness), Holiday Editions, Player of the Game editions and I'm pretty sure I've seen sponsored cards as well.

When you open a pack in Madden, you don't get a single player, you get multiple players in a single pack. It's like you were a kid opening up Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh card packs. You grow to expect a bunch of trash, but when you come across that one amazing card it's a great feeling when you're throwing the other up on the auction block (junk pile) because they just can't measure up to your new starter (the card that'll be added to your main deck).

As you progress in seeds, the prizes become better and you actually have a reason to want to be in the better seeds outside of the wonderful world of "bragging rights". The higher level (seed) you get, the more coins you get for winning and at some point you get special packs for winning certain games (you have to be really good to get to that point in Madden, but I feel like 2k is a bit easier so that wouldn't be a problem).

Thanks to the auction house, I went to sleep last night with 600(?) coins and woke up with 6200 from selling mostly jerseys and a few players. That's all I'm saying.

And on top of all of that, the input lag is barely noticeable (I don't notice it at all, but I'm sure someone somewhere does).

I'm sorry to say this here, but if EA can get NBA Live's gameplay together, I have my lifeboat prepped and ready to jump ship.

I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting, but whatever it is escapes me right now.

What's crazy about this is I don't even watch football (I've been trying to get into it for the last few years).

TL;DR: 2k should steal everything they can from Ultimate Team.

EDIT: I added a couple more variations for Madden cards