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.
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.
Unlock Tour Gifts
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…
Complete 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.
Purchase Rubies With Event Tokens
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.
Placement Gifts
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.
Multiplayer Pipe
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 isn’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!
Don’t Stress The Daily Spotlight
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.
If You’re Going To Spend Money…
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!
