mario kart tour how to get rubies

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Mario kart tour: how to earn rubies (without spending a dime).

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Mario Kart Tour's new in-game economy can add up fast. Follow these tips to earn Rubies for free without spending any money.

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Unlock tour gifts, complete challenges, purchase rubies with event tokens, placement gifts, multiplayer pipe, don't stress the daily spotlight, if you're going to spend money....

Back in October 2022, Mario Kart Tour overhauled its in-game economy to do away with its gacha system, which operated similarly to the unlock systems found in titles like Genshin Impact . Previously, players would have to gamble their rubies if they wanted a chance to unlock high-ranking characters.

RELATED: Mario Kart: Best Items, Ranked

Mario Kart Tour now features a storefront that allows you to buy karts, characters, and gliders directly. However, these can be quite costly. High-ranking characters typically cost 150 rubies . If you wanted to buy 150 rubies directly, that would cost you more than $50 . If you want to build up a stockpile of rubies without breaking the bank, the following tips should help you out.

Rubies are often given out for free as Tour Gifts. To unlock Tour Gifts, all you have to do is earn stars by finishing races and completing challenges. Oh, and speaking of challenges...

Challenges are often the best way to earn rubies. Check the challenge menu and see if there are any you haven't completed yet. Sometimes you can earn rubies by completing individual challenges, while other times you'll need to complete an entire challenge board first. Be sure to prioritize limited-time challenges — each board will tell you how much time you have left.

During some tours, event tokens are scattered across the racetrack and can be picked up like coins. Other times, they are earned by attacking opponents with items. Event tokens can be used to purchase a number of goodies from the store, including rubies ! Note that, for each tour, you can only buy a finite number of rubies from the event token store. Once the next tour rolls around, the token shop resets.

RELATED: Diddy Kong Racing Surpassed Mario Kart 64 In Every Way

Each week, Mario Kart Tour picks a different cup to assign prizes to. If you manage to get a high-ranking place on the leaderboard, you'll be showered with rare characters, coins, and (of course) rubies! If you're just starting out, don't worry about competing against top-ranked players . The game assigns each player a "tier" based on their past performance and won't force players in different tiers to compete against each other.

The Multiplayer Pipe was introduced at the same time the gacha system was retired. It essentially works the same as the old gacha system, but instead of requiring rubies, all you need are multiplayer points . By playing against other players in the multiplayer modes, you'll accrue these points. Once you reach a certain threshold, you can fire off the pipe and hope for the best. This i sn't the best way to get rubies (you're much more likely to get tickets, vehicles, or gliders), but there is a slim chance it will toss a few rubies your way. Every little bit helps!

Related: Best Mario Kart Tracks

The Daily Spotlight section of the store is where most of the high-end items can be found, and it refreshes each day with a new lineup of karts, gliders, and characters. If you see something in the Daily Spotlight store that you really want, but don't have enough rubies for it, you may feel tempted to buy the remaining rubies you need with real money before the lineup changes.

A word of advice: don't! If you miss your chance to buy the item one day, it will likely return to the Daily Spotlight rotation later on in the tour. Keep building up your ruby stockpile, and once you have enough, check back in the store. If the item you wanted is no longer there, don't worry . You can use Quick Tickets to refresh the storefront until you see the item you had your eye on. Quick Tickets are pretty easy to acquire — the game hands them out like candy via Tour Gifts and challenges.

So what do you do if you're nearing the end of a tour, and you still don't have nearly enough rubies to buy the item you want? Well, there's always the option to wait until a later tour. Characters, karts, and gliders will usually return to the Daily Spotlight store after a while. If you don't want to wait, and you want to just spend a few bucks to get the item now, here's something to keep in mind: earning rubies through the Gold Pass is much more affordable than buying rubies from the store.

The Gold Pass is similar to the Battle Pass system found in games like Fortnite . It costs $5 a month and unlocks a bevy of new Tour Gifts and challenges, which means tons of new opportunities to earn rubies . For example, during the New Year's Tour, being a Gold Pass member allowed you to earn an additional 40 rubies . If you wanted to purchase 40 rubies directly from the store, that would cost you over $13 — instead of the $5 you'd spend on the Gold Pass.

Of course, buying a premium subscription to a free mobile game won't be to everyone's liking. If you don't want to deal with the frustration of being just a couple rubies short at the end of a tour (or if you're worried you'll be tempted to spend, spend, spend) then maybe Mario Kart 8 Deluxe would be a better way to spend your time. After all, Nintendo has been adding plenty of Tour racetracks to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe through the Booster Course Pass , so you can get the Mario Kart Tour experience on your Switch!

NEXT: Every Mario Kart Game, Ranked

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Mario Kart Tour: How to Get Rubies

Mario Kart Tour , the new mobile game from Nintendo, is finally here. As you’d expect after the likes of Dr. Mario World, there are loads of different currencies to earn. So that you can unlock more things in the game, here’s everything you need to know about how to get Rubies in Mario Kart Tour .

Rubies are what you use to unlock new characters, karts, and gliders. For five Rubies, you can pull a pipe (which is basically a slot machine lever) to get one random item.

You get 20 Rubies at the start of the game, once you complete the first Cup, which allows you to unlock four items, but after that you’ll have to earn them in different ways.

How to Get Rubies in Mario Kart Tour

The first and easiest way to get them is by purchasing them from the store. As is the case in pretty much every game with microtransactions, the bundles start small, but you can spend a lot of money if you want.

You can also sign up for the Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass, which costs $4.99 per month and gives you Rubies as a reward.

If you don’t want to spend real world money though, you can get them as Gifts that crop up between some Cups. You won’t see them until you’ve beaten the third cup (Yoshi Cup) and unlocked Ranking.

Just click on the little present icon when they appear and you’ll get the rewards, which often include Rubies.

Finally, once you’ve unlocked Ranking, you’ll be able to get the shiny red things by finishing in the top six in the table. You just need to get enough points from the cup to beat the competitors.

In short, here are the four ways you can get Rubies in Mario Kart Tour:

How to Get Free Rubies

Whilst some of those options above work, you’ll probably be looking for ways to get rubies without spending any mode. Below are all the ways in the game you can do so:

• Daily Log-in Bonus (5 rubies every other day)
• Rewards for levelling up
• As rewards for finishing in the top six places in a Ranking Cup.
• From Gifts in between Cups after you unlock Ranking.
• Rewards for completing some Tour and Gold challenges

That’s everything you need to know about how to get Rubies in Mario Kart Tour . For more tips and tricks on the game, be sure to search for Twinfinite . We have also listed some other helpful guides on the game down below.

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Mario Kart Tour Guide: How To Get More Rubies

Like any freemium mobile game these days,  Mario Kart Tour  uses several different forms of currency for unlocking new drivers, accessing additional courses, and leveling up your existing karts or gliders.

The more rubies you have, the more pipe pulls you get. That means you will have a bigger roster of drivers for using on favored courses. Want to get more rubies in Mario Kart Tour as quickly as possible?

Let’s take a look at your options so you can either get to the grind or decide if you want to pull out your wallet and skip all that.

Earning Mario Kart Tour Rubies Quickly

There are a number of online generators for Mario Kart Tour rubies and coins out there like iFreeGames. These sites are of wildly varying quality, however. Some are just flat out malware/ad spam sites, while others actually work if you’re willing to go through the process of downloading extra apps.

To get your free rubies, you need to connect your account name to the generator service, then download several apps or watch a string of ads, after which the currency is popped into your account.

We recommend caution here , though, as Nintendo may start banning accounts that use these services, and an upcoming patch might prevent the current crop of generators from working at all.

If you aren’t willing to take that route, here’s how to get rubies the old fashioned way, although it will take either a time or a money investment:

• ($1.99 for 3 to $69.99 for 135)
• Open tour gifts after unlocking every second cup by earning stars in the previous cups
• Level up  your account by getting higher scores in each track and receive coins or rubies as a reward
• For info on raising your tier works and the full breakdown of ruby and coin rewards, check out our guide here .

For instance, having the $4.99 a month Gold subscription provides extra item tickets when you open tour gifts, and using item tickets unlocks tour challenges, which in turn offer more rubies.

Found any other sure-fire ways to earn rubies quickly? Let us know your method in the comments below, and we’ll see you on the track!

Need to figure out how to complete any other challenges or earn extra coins? Take a look at our growing list of  Mario Kart Tour  guides here , including:

• What is the coin rush map?
• How to slipstream
• Koopaling 6,000 score challenge
• Three hairs 7,000 score challenge
• How to get the super horn

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Mario Kart Tour: How to Get Rubies

Rubies are the currency in Mario Kart Tour that allow you to roll different items that you want in the game.  Like most free to play games, rubies are going to be awarded at different progression spots, and you’ll be given some to start the game as well.

You’ll start with a free 20 Rubies in Mario Kart Tour

When you start Mario Kart Tour you will be given 20 Rubies and you can use them to roll until you get different starting items.  Rubies are used to fire the pipe in Mario Kart Tour and when you fire the pipe you can get potential rewards such as new drivers, new karts, or gliders.

Ways to Get More Rubies

• Leveling Up

Ranked Cups

• Purchase Rubies

There are a few different ways to get more rubies in Mario Kart Tour.

As you play races and complete them you will unlock different tour gifts.  Some of these gifts will be Rubies and you have a certain amount of time to collect these gifts.

Level Up Rewards

As you complete races you’ll level up through gaining experience.  While you level up you will also earn Rubies.

Rubies are rewarded to players who place highly in the ranked cups of Mario Kart Tour.  The higher you rank the more Rubies you can get for completing it.

Purchase the Gold Pass

To try and get people to pay for Mario Kart Tour there are a couple of premium ways to get more rubies.  You can purchase the Gold Pass for Mario Kart Tour which will increase your rewards that you earn.  Since rubies are often a reward you can boost the amount of Rubies you get by purchasing the Gold Pass.

If you don’t want the Gold Pass you can also just purchase Rubies.

Purchase Rubies separately

If you don’t feel like spending any of the necessary time to earn Rubies you can always just purchase them.  This can be done in the app and you’ll get bonuses for the more Rubies that you purchase.

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How to get and use Rubies in Mario Kart Tour

It is very common for mobile games to have a microtransaction system that incentivizes players to put money into their currency to purchase new content in the game. Mario Kart Tour follows this model with its Rubies currency. Here is how to get Rubies in Mario Kart Tour and what to use them on.

Related: How do Mii Costumes work in Mario Kart Tour?

How to get Rubies in Mario Kart Tour

As stated above, Rubies are the premium currency in Mario Kart Tour, so the main way of getting them is through purchasing the microtransaction via the iOS or Google Play stores. The quantities and prices for them are listed below:

• 4 Rubies – $1.99
• 14 Rubies – $5.99
• 29 Rubies – $12.99
• 61 Rubies – $26.99
• 122 Rubies – $49.99
• 170 Rubies – $69.99

While buying them with real money is the main way to acquire Rubies, it is not the only way. You can also earn them through your Daily Log-in Rewards, leveling up, completing challenges, tour gifts, and in the Gift Box from time to time. There will also be various special bundle offers that include Rubies and other items in them available for real money. If you get the Gold Pass, you will earn some Rubies for keeping your monthly subscription.

How to use Rubies in Mario Kart Tour

Originally, Rubies were used to open the loot box-like warp pipes that earned players rewards. Now they are used for buying content directly from the in-game Shop. By going to the Shop, you can scroll down and see the Spotlight, which will include characters in various outfits, Mii outfits, karts, and parts. Characters cost 150 Rubies each, with Mii outfits, karts, and parts being a bit cheaper at 100 each. When you purchase the item, your Rubies are taken, and you can then equip what you purchased.

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How to get more Rubies in Mario Kart Tour

Find out how to get more Rubies in Nintendo's new mobile racing game Mario Kart Tour.

Nintendo finally released the much anticipated mobile debut of the Mario Kart series for mobile devices this week in the form of Mario Kart Tour. It allows players to take to the track with their favorite characters from the Mario universe and battle it out across various fantasy tracks. Gaining new racers and items in Mario Kart Tour is achieved by firing the pipe. To fire the pipe, you must spend Rubies, an in-game currency. The more Rubies you have, the more you can fire the pipe. 

To quickly get access to the characters and items you want in Mario Kart Tour, you’ll need to earn Rubies. Here is our guide on how to get more Rubies while playing Mario Kart Tour.

Every new player in Mario Kart Tour is awarded a complementary set of 20 Rubies just for installing and trying the game. This can get you started up, but you’ll definitely want to earn more. There are a few tasks you can focus on that will speed up your acquisition of the currency.

Leveling Up

As you race and earn victories, you earn experience points in Mario Kart Tour. Each time you level up, you will be awarded some Rubies.

Ranked Cups

By entering and winning the Ranked Cups events in-game, you will earn additional Rubies. The amount of Rubies received is correlated directly with how high you rank.

Tour Gifts are awarded during the game simply by playing the game. Enter races and events and you will be awarded Tour Gifts. You must win the races listed and have enough Grand Stars before you can claim your Tour Gifts.

If you are willing to pony up some cash to play Mario Kart Tour, you can earn Rubies faster than by playing for free. A Gold Pass subscription will set you back $4.99 a month and will boost the number of rewards you receive in-game, including Rubies. You may currently opt-in to a free two week trial of Gold Pass right now.

Buy the Rubies outright

If you don’t have time for the grind and you’d rather not pick up a Gold Pass subscription, Nintendo will sell the Rubies for money, straight up. A 3-pack of Rubies sells for $1.99, while a 135-pack of Rubies will set you back $69.99. To fire the pipe, you must spend a minimum of 5 Rubies.

For more coverage of Mario Kart Tour , including guides and strategies, keep your browser aimed at Shacknews.

Chris Jarrard likes playing games, crankin' tunes, and looking for fights on obscure online message boards. He understands that breakfast food is the only true food. Don't @ him.

• Mario Kart Tour

Rubies are the premium currency in Mario Kart Tour . Prior to the 2022 Battle Tour , they were mainly used to summon new drivers, karts , and gliders from the pipe . Five were required to fire it one time, although 45 could be spent to fire ten at once. As of the Battle Tour, rubies are instead primarily used to redeem High-End drivers, karts, and gliders, with drivers in the Daily Spotlight costing 150 rubies each, and karts and gliders in the Daily Spotlight costing 100 rubies each. In addition, each tour has a dedicated Spotlight Shop, with specific drivers, karts, and gliders available depending on the tour; here, drivers cost 105 rubies for the first purchase, while karts and gliders cost 70 rubies for their first purchase. Also, since their introduction in the 2022 Mii Tour , rubies can be spent to redeem Mii Racing Suits, costing either 70 or 100 rubies each. If the player does not have any or enough Coin Rush tickets , rubies can be spent to play Coin Rush , with 5 rubies multiplying the coin count by 2, 15 by 6, and 25 by 10. In addition to being purchasable with real money, rubies are obtainable in-game through Tour Gifts, by completing the game's Standard Challenges , as an occasional daily reward, from Event Shops , and as a reward for reaching certain levels and achieving high ranks in a ranked cup (the amounts for the latter varying depending on the player's current place and tier). In the pre-release beta test , rubies were emeralds and could not be purchased. The front part of a ruby resembles an Item Box .

• 1 In-game description
• 2.1.1 45 rubies (30 + 15 bonus)
• 2.1.2 90 rubies (60 + 30 bonus)
• 2.1.3 Other
• 4 Names in other languages

In-game description [ edit ]

" You can use these to fire off the pipe or play Coin Rush. "

Pricing [ edit ]

Special offers [ edit ], 45 rubies (30 + 15 bonus) [ edit ], 90 rubies (60 + 30 bonus) [ edit ], other [ edit ], gallery [ edit ].

Artwork featuring rubies and coins

Artwork with rubies and Gold Pass gifts

Names in other languages [ edit ]

• Collectibles
• Mario Kart Tour items

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• How to Get Free Rubies

Although you start with 20 rubies in Mario Kart Tour, you'll soon be searching for ways that you can get more of these beauties for free in the game. And this is where we come in...

There are a number of ways to get free Rubies in Mario Kart tour, lets take a look at each way to get free rubies.

Play through the game to get various tour gifts, in those gift packs you'll sometimes get free rubies. Remember to not let these gifts expire, as you only have a certain amount of time to remember to collect them

Level Up Rewards

Gain exp by playing through the game. When you reach certain experience milestones you'll level up and earn some rubies for free.

Ranked Cups

Participate in ranked cup races for a chance to win rubies. The higher up you finish in the ranked races the more rubies you'll potentially get.

Paid ways to get Rubies

You can also pay to get more rubies. You can just straight our purchase them in the game shop, and also you'll boost the amount of ruby rewards that you get if you purchase the gold pass subscription.

We have questions and answers related to this topic which may also help you: Show all

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How to Get Free Rubies in Mario Kart Tour

Being a free-to-play game, Mario Kart Tour features a premium currency, Rubies, that is used to fire off the pipes to collect new characters, karts, and gliders.

While the fastest way to get rubies, and thus collect all characters and vehicles, is to purchase them with real money, there are ways to get rubies in Mario Kart Tour for free. Here’s how to.

In Mario Kart Tour, you can get free rubies in a variety of ways: by leveling up, as a log-in reward, by completing challenges, and as Tour and Season gifts .

Getting free rubies by leveling up is pretty much self-explainatory. Every time you increase your player level by earning enough EXP, you will get some rubies as reward. You can easily level up by playing the game and finishing as high as possible in races. The more races you win, the faster you will level up.

If you play Mario Kart Tour frequently, you definitely don’t need to be explained how the game hands out a variety of rewards as a log-in bonus . So do not forget to log in daily to receive some free rubies, even if you have no intention of playing the game each and every day: they will eventually add up, and give you the chance to fire off the pipes without having put any effort.

Completing challenges is also a great way to earn some free rubies in Mario Kart Tour, although it is not exactly reliable as rewards for all types of challenges vary and also include Badges and Grand Stars. By playing the game daily, and completing as many challenges as possible, you will be able to get a decent amount of free rubies, so dedication is key for this method.

Free rubies are also handed out in Mario Kart Tour as Tour and Season gifts . Like for completing challenges, playing the game daily is key here, so make sure you do so as to not leave any free ruby on the table!

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Mario Kart Tour: tricks, tips, and how collect all the characters and karts

Here's how to master Mario Kart Tour's gameplay

Mario Kart Tour is a mobile version of the popular and long-running Mario Kart series, released in late 2019 for Android and iOS smartphones, and it's proven popular ever since.

The main Mario Kart Tour game is centered around the race seasons mode, which offers a variety of incentives to keep you coming back to race for each new season. While you don't race other real players live in this mode, your device will still require an internet connection so you can play.

Since launch, an online multiplayer mode has also been added to Mario Kart Tour, so you can compete in live online races against other drivers from around the world.

The basics How to win races and earn points How to win multiplayer How to collect gold coins How to collect rubies How to collect Grand Stars How to unlock all characters, karts and gliders How to level up your gear Should you buy Gold Pass?

Plus, the selection of playable characters, karts, gliders and courses have been greatly expanded since launch, providing you with new ways and places to race.

While Mario Kart Tour is centered around a very simple premise - winning races - it can get very complicated. There are three different types of currency that do different things, the characters, karts and gliders have different stats that you can improve in different ways, and there are a few mechanics in the races that can make the difference between winning and losing.

We've come up with this comprehensive list detailing the different parts of the game,  helping you work out how to win races both online and offline, how to collect and spend the different types of in-game currency, and how to bulk out your collection of characters, karts and gliders, as well as level them all up.

Hopefully soon, you'll be decked out with all the best kit, winning every race and racking up huge amounts of points.

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What is Mario Kart Tour? The basics, explained

Most of what you'll be doing in Mario Kart Tour is racing. You'll be charging around courses collecting items and coins, and (hopefully) overtaking your opponents, while finding shortcuts, using those items to get ahead and taunting your digital opponents.

Most races are against AI bots (albeit ones with player-sounding names), but after Mario Kart Tour's launch a multiplayer mode was added that lets you play against real people online.

Outside the races, the game is organized by Tours which last two weeks. These dictate the theme of lots of the courses as well as any new character costumes and karts available during the season.

Each tour is a series of 'Cups', each one consisting of three core races and a bonus race. At the start of the tour only some of the Cups are available to play, but one new one opens each day up to a total of 12.

If you just want to drive cartoonish karts and races around cartoonish tracks, you can ignore Tours and Cups, and many of the intricate details of character levels, score multipliers and the currencies too, but if you want to experience all facets of the game, and collect all the characters and pieces of gear, it's worth playing through the Tours.

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How to win races and earn loads of points

There are some key things to remember in order to win your Mario Kart Tour races.

Firstly, learn how to drift. This is an invaluable skill that lets you turn corners quicker and earn small boosts as you do, and when you get really good you can use drifting to quickly shift to the side to pick up coins and item boxes. 

When you're drifting, look at your tires - a blue flame will appear, when you let go, you'll get a small boost forward - gold and purple flames respectively will give you longer charges, but you have to drift for longer to get them.

You can't fall off the map in Mario Kart Tour, so feel free to drift more aggressively than you otherwise would. You can drift quicker by moving your finger nearer to the side of the screen you're drifting too - this'll help you earn boost quicker, but you'll turn the corner faster too.

Moving your finger the other way will be good if you're turning a wider corner (or aren't turning a corner, just drifting cleverly to build boost), as it stops you turning as quickly.

Next, you can easily get a boost when you're starting by holding down the screen on the countdown when '2' appears. Long time Mario Kart series fans will know this already as it's a stalwart feature of the games, and it's really good for starting the race ahead of everyone else (except in later CCs or multiplayer where everyone else does it too).

Learn how to earn boosts, and where they are on each track, as they can help you get ahead. Jumps, however minor, will give you boosts, as will drifting, certain areas of floor (shown by arrows pointing forwards), and some rewards in item boxes.

Finally, be smart about shortcuts and ramps off the side of the course, as not all of them will actually help you. 

Many will actually slow you down in order to get to them, like ramps in grassy areas, so only approach these if you have a boost to get over the slow patch, and some are actually longer detours that offer more coins or item boxes instead. If coming first is your goal, usually following the track is ideal - but sometimes you don't want to win.

In Mario Kart Tour winning isn't the whole point of each race - but it is the most fun part of it. You see, you're given a score after each race that takes into account three things - the points of your character and gear (these can be leveled up, which we'll explore later on), what position you came in the race, and how many points you earned through tricks in the race.

Position is easy - you get more points for winning than you do coming second place, and more for second than third, and so on. The amount of points you get for coming each position depends on your level and what CC - what difficulty of race - you're in. 

50CC is pretty slow and easy, and thus the points are lower, 100CC is medium difficulty and speed, and 150CC is hardest and fastest, with more points awarded as a result. When you get Gold Pass, you can play 200CC too.

Your gear is something that's predetermined, based on which character, kart and glider you choose, and what points level they're at. Don't worry, we'll explain all about Base Points later on.

Finally, there are Bonus Points which are points you earn over the course of the race. There are many actions that earn these like collecting coins, hitting opponents with items and drifting well - the Mario Wiki has a more succinct breakdown - and if you pick the right kart you'll get a multiplier on these. 

You can get combos during the race if you earn Bonus Points for different things in a row, which is a really great way to collect more points, and the glider you pick can make the combo even more effective.

Together your Bonus Points, Base Points and Position Points will create your score for each course, which is a way of comparing your skills to your friends. You also want to get points because this score will reward you some extra coins (one for each thousand points) and Grand Stars, depending on how well you performed.

Mario Kart Tour: how to win in multiplayer

Points work the same way in multiplayer as they do in the offline game, and you should utilize similar tactics to win, but there are some extra things to bear in mind.

First, drifting isn't just important in online multiplayer - it's vital. Everyone does it, and you generally won't have a chance at winning if you aren't a master at it.

When you're playing 'offline' you can generally use items whenever you want, because there are so many other racers you're bound to hit one, but there are often fewer players in a multiplayer race, so it's worth being clever about when you use items.

Only throw a red shell if there's definitely someone ahead of you, and if you're first try and save a banana until someone's directly behind you. It's always worth saving an item to act as your shield as well, because most of the time if someone attacks you, it'll bounce off an item you have in reserve.

What are gold coins and how do you collect them?

Coins are the basic currency in Mario Kart Tour, and you'll be spending them in the shop on new characters, karts and gliders. Generally basic karts and gliders cost 500 coins, while characters cost 800, and that price goes up for gold or purple-tier as well as rarer pieces of gear. Coins can be collected in a variety of ways, but many of them are pretty slow.

Firstly, you can collect physical coins in races, and generally you'll pick up between five and 15 depending on the course. You lose coins if you're hit, so try and make sure that doesn't happen much, though this works for your opponents too so if you play aggressively you can pick more up. 

In addition, as we've already said, you get a course bonus based on points, though this won't net you many coins.

Each 'Cup' in the game consists of three levels and a bonus round with different rules - some of these bonus rounds can be particularly lucrative for picking up coins, so always make sure to do them.

Leveling up is an easy way to get coins in Mario Kart Tour, as you tend to get 100 coins every time you level up in the game. This will happen naturally as you play, and will keep your bank account getting bigger.

Another way of getting 100-coin jackpots is by completing challenges (you can find these from the menu) as when you complete a line of the multiplayer or standard challenges, you'll get a 100-coin combo care package. 

When you're playing online, if you ever find yourself waiting around for other players to join, you're actually slowly amassing coins - look at the animation at the bottom, as this tells you how many you've earned. You can get up to 100 a day just through waiting for online games.

Finally, Coin Rush is a special mode accessed in the shop where you play a race as Gold Mario, picking up as many coins as possible, and if you play well you can amass upwards of 300 coins just from the race. 

To play this mode, you need to spend rubies, the second form of currency, which we'll look at next.

What are rubies and how do you collect them?

Rubies are Mario Kart Tour's premium currency, and they're much harder to acquire, but they have a bigger variety of uses. 

You can use them to play Coin Rush and launch the Peach Pipe to win a random selection of characters, karts and gliders (this is basically a lootbox), and this latter method is the best for getting new gear.

Rubies (or gems, as some call them) are generally hard to acquire, but you can easily buy them if you want. This is what 'premium currency' tends to mean in mobile gaming, and if you're enjoying Mario Kart Tour you can put money in to it to get rubies for the Peach Pipe. Saying that, there are some ways of getting them in-game too.

The best way of winning rubies is through the weekly rankings. Each week, a certain cup will play host to a ranking, where you'll be lumped with 20 strangers, and ranked by how many points you get in the three races of the cup. The person with the most points overall gets 20 rubies, second place gets 15, third gets 10 and players 4-6 all get five.

If you're good at the game you can get loads of rubies easily this way, however depending on your performance you get bumped into higher tiers, competing with better players, so each week it'll be harder to win that top spot.

There are other ways to get rubies though. One is through challenges, as completing these will net you one, two or three rubies depending on the challenge, and these will slowly add up.

Finally, you can get rubies as a reward for earning Grand Stars in each tour. The Grand Stars you earn in each tour slowly earn you reward boxes as well as access to free Peach Pipe uses, and sometimes these boxes can get you some rubies. Want to know more about Grand Stars? Well good, because that's the next section of this article.

What are Grand Stars and how do you collect them?

When you're on the Mario Kart Tour menu, you can see your coins and rubies at the top but you can't see your grand stars, so some players don't realize they're actually a key part of the rewards you get as part of a Tour.

On the main Tour menu, if you scroll along past the cups, you'll see various Tour Gift icons and Pipes, each one with a figure of grand stars next to it. As you play the Tours, and collect stars, you'll earn some of these, though it's worth pointing out looking at these figures on the reward icons is the only way you can figure out how many stars you've actually got.

It's not too hard to collect Grand Stars when you work out what they are and how to collect them. The main way of getting them is in each race, as you'll earn up to five depending on how many points you score, although three is the max in bonus levels. 

Generally if you don't lose horribly, you can get three or four stars per level with the gear you start the game with, but to reach that fifth star you'll need a fair mix of skill and top-tier gear. You can replay races once you get better gear to improve your scores.

You can collect one Grand Star per day by completing a daily challenge, which you'll be notified of when you turn the app on each morning. One challenge appears each day, though you can store up to three, but then you’ll need to complete one to get any more.

Finally, some of the challenges reward Grand Stars, not rubies - these are the Tour Challenges, which reset every time the tour changes. You'll probably collect a fair few of these naturally over the course of a tour, but if not you can check them out from the menu to find which you missed. It's worth pointing out half the challenges only unlock after the tour has been running for a week, so keep checking back to the app.

How to collect all the characters, karts and gliders in Mario Kart Tour

Now you've worked out how to collect all the different forms of currency, it's time to look at how you can collect as many characters, karts and gliders as possible, so you can get more points and in turn win more races and collect more coins.

The reason you'll want plenty of different types of gear - well, other than so you can play as your favorites - is because each one has a few 'favored' race tracks, and the higher-level pieces of gear have more. Using the optimal piece of gear can transform your racing experience.

A character will offer you three items instead of one from an item box on their favored courses, and two items in a selection of other courses. Karts will give you a 1.5x multiplier on bonus points on some courses and a 2x multiplier on their favored ones. 

Gliders will give you 2x combo bonus for some courses, and a more lenient time restriction between tricks before your combo is dropped, and on some others they'll offer you 3x bonus and an even longer combo-time boost.

The easiest way to collect gear is to buy them with real money - certain timely karts, characters and gliders can be bought in bundles, which sometimes include rubies too, and this can be the quickest way to get rarer items. You can earn plenty of things through gameplay though, so you don't always need to spend real cash.

One of the best ways to get gear is through Peach Pipes - when you spend 5 rubies you get a random character, kart or glider, though you can spend 45 rubies to get 10 spins - we'd recommend saving up your rubies to be able to do this, as that works out as you getting one for free.

The other way to buy items is through the main store, which lets you buy them with gold coins, though the prices can be a little steep, especially for higher-tier items.

When you start playing Mario Kart Tour, you're only allowed to see one row of store items at once (so one character, one glider, and one kart), but when you reach level 7, then 12, you unlock a second and third row. We'd recommend saving your money for then, so you can see more of your options, and also because these subsequent rows tend to offer rarer items.

The items in the shop change daily, but given the huge number of characters, karts and gliders in the game, it'll take you a long time to unlock them all, especially given the price. 

How to improve characters, karts and gliders

Characters, karts and gliders have two different metrics to show how well they perform - a score, which indicates how many points you get per race just for choosing it, and a level, which functions as a form of multiplier for bonus points in races.

There's only one way to improve the level, that second stat, and that's by getting duplicate pieces of gear in the shop or peach pipes. Since the former is random, you may sometimes feel irked that you picked a duplicate instead of getting an entirely new piece of gear, so the level up and subsequent point multiplier might make that a little bit less galling.

It's easy to improve the base score of a character, kart or glider in Mario Kart Tour. Simply using the gear in a race will grant it some experience points which help it increase levels, so a trusty kart or your favored character can quickly become a high level powerhouse.

If you've just drawn a new super-rare character but they’re a much lower level than your favorites, you can use vouchers to level them up without using them. These Tickets, as they're called, can be gained in a huge variety of ways, including daily log-in bonuses, tour rewards, challenge rewards and more.

Using Tickets on a piece of gear will grant it some experience points, so if you use a few you can quickly use them to get your new character, kart or glider to a high level. 

It's worth pointing out there's a max base level dictated by which piece of equipment it is (characters can have more than karts or gliders) and the rarity (purple items have a higher limit than gold, which has a higher limit than the base pieces of kit).

When you have a top-level purple item, especially a top-level character, kart and glider all in use at once, you're going in to races with 2,800 base points already, which will ensure you plenty of grand stars and gold coins, and you'll get even more if any of those have high levels from duplicates.

What is the Gold Pass and should I buy it?

Mario Kart Tour has a season-pass-style item called the Gold Pass, which you can buy monthly if you really want to get the most out of the game. It gives you a few extra rewards and unlocks a new game mode.

Gold Pass gives you extra gift rewards in tours, including sometimes gold-tier and purple-tier character, karts and gliders, as well as extra rubies - frequent players will find it a lucrative way of boosting their gear count.

A new round of challenges is available to Gold Pass members too, which gives you an extra way of earning grand stars to help you get those extra rewards.

Finally, the Gold Pass unlocks 200CC mode, which is a faster and harder version of racing which ensures you more position points. 

If you play Mario Kart Tour frequently and are invested in getting as many characters, karts and gliders as possible, Gold Pass will likely help you get them faster, and let you enjoy them more. 

However if you just like to pick up Mario Kart Tour for some fun racing action from time-to-time, you might not feel the need to get Gold Pass.

It’s worth pointing out there's a two-week free trial for Gold Pass so if you're not sure whether it's for you, you can test it out for free.

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Tom Bedford was deputy phones editor on TechRadar until late 2022, having worked his way up from staff writer. Though he specialized in phones and tablets, he also took on other tech like electric scooters, smartwatches, fitness, mobile gaming and more. He is based in London, UK and now works for the entertainment site What To Watch.

He graduated in American Literature and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Prior to working on TechRadar, he freelanced in tech, gaming and entertainment, and also spent many years working as a mixologist. He also currently works in film as a screenwriter, director and producer.

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