acowsik
MK fan from India
MORTAL KOMBAT X MOBILE STARTER GUIDE V1.15
1) Intro to the game
Mortal Kombat X mobile is a turn based card battle game using characters from the Mortal Kombat X game which is currently available on consoles and PC. The basic objective of the game is to collect everything that is available in the game and increase their abilities to the maximum level as quickly as possible.
Before you begin playing, ensure that you are signed in to your Game Center profile (on iOS) or your Google Play Games account (on Android) when launching the game to be able to unlock the achievements in the game. There are 50 achievements to earn which are listed in the achievement guide linked here... Achievement Guide
At the start of the game you will notice that this game is all about earning three major in-game currency to purchase items. They are KOINS, SOULS, BLOOD RUBIES and SPIRIT FRAGMENTS. You earn koin rewards through playing battle mode, faction war battles and also from character challenge events. With the 1.3 update, the Daily Challenge koin event which allowed easy farming of koins from each match has since been removed and has made koin earning harder than before.
Koins are required to purchase and fuse bronze, silver cards and certain gold cards like Cutthroat Kano and other cross platform unlock exclusives. Koins are also required to buy/fuse character support cards, equipment cards and upgrade character special moves.
Souls on the other hand is the premium currency in the game and is harder to earn in large amounts and is solely used for purchasing and fusing gold cards from the Kombat Pack, Netherrealm Pack, Challenge Pack and limiited time booster packs, in addition to recharging energy if needed. They are also used to purchase and fuse dIamond cards from the Elite Pack.
Blood Rubies, added with the 1.8 update, is a Faction Wars exclusive currency and is used to purchase cards and gear from the exclusive Faction Wars store.
Additionally there are two other minor currencies, ALLIANCE POINTS and TALENT POINTS. Alliance points are earned only in Battle Mode when you use the champion of a friend or a random player as an ally to tag-in when required to help you in battle. Conversly, when a friend or random player uses your chosen champion in battle, you earn alliance points as well. Use the most powerful gold card that you have in your collection as your champion so that it gets picked more often by other players to help you earn a good amount of alliance points.
Introduced with the 1.11 update is Talent Points. These points are used for purchasing and upgrading skills in the Talent Tree system. The points can be earned only by playing through Shao Kahn's Tower and are rewarded only during the first playthrough. The details of the tower and the Talent Tree system can be viewed in the talent guide linked here.. Talent Guide
Spirit Fragments added with the 1.15 update is a currency exclusive to the Relic Hunt mode and can also be earned by playing through the Shao Kahn Tower. This currency is necessary to fuse the diamond card, Konqueror Shao Kahn who is a Relic Hunt exclusive unlock.
In Relic Hunt, you cannot change your team in the middle of a tower and you are allowed to continue if you lose or a character is KO'ed. In the event of getting badly injured or a card getting KO'ed, it costs 10 souls to heal 25% of the health of all cards on your team. The cost goes up to 20 / 30 / 40 for subsequent attempts to heal your team.
As you progress through the towers, the battles increase in difficulty. The details of all the towers with rewards and cost to buy and fuse Konqueror Shao Kahn are available in this sheet... Relic Hunt Guide
2) Character Cards
The second thing you will notice is that there are a lot of cards in the store. There are four main tiers which are Bronze, Silver, Gold and lastly Diamond which is the highest tier in the game as of nowadded in the 1.9 update. The more powerful gold and diamond cards are recommended and having them fused a few levels is helpful in finishing battle mode and to do well in multiplayer. If you don't have fully fused silver cards and a few decent fusion level gold cards, it doesn't matter how skilled you are at fighting, it will be very difficult to complete the 6th and 7th brackets in battle mode as the difficulty increases steeply compared to the 5th bracket.
Obtaining character cards
Character cards can be obtained through direct purchase from the store or can be purchased from packs for a cheaper amount although the catch is that the card awarded from packs are random with the exception of the starter packs which provide specific cards for real cash. The character packs to date are listed below.
Real money based packs
Starter Packs
The Starter Packs are worthy investments for new players starting out to get a good headstart in the game with some decent cards as well as koins and souls to spend in the store. These are one time purchases only.
Starting with the 1.4 update onwards, these packs offer players the opportunity to get early access to the upcoming challenge exclusive characters by paying real money to add them in your collection before their challenge event is available. Purchasing the early access packs also unlocks the challenge character permanently in store for direct fusions. The only character that was released post version 1.4 which doesn't have an Early Access Pack is Unstoppable Jason Voorhees.
Apr 13 2017 - May 25 2017
Apr 18 2016 - May 2 2016
Nov 8 2016 - Nov 9 2016
May 11 2017 - May 15 2017
Feb 24 2017 - Mar 2 2017
Apr 20 2017 - Apr 27 2017
Nov 10 2016 - Nov 23 2016
Apr 6 2017 - Apr 13 2017
Aug 31 2017 - Sep 7 2017
Jun 8 2017 - Jun 15 2017
Jun 22 2017 - Jun 29 2017
Oct 12 2017 - Oct 19 2017
Jan 12 2017 - Feb 2 2017
Jun 29 2017 - Jul 20 2017
Oct 19 2017 - Oct 26 2017
Jun 15 2017 - Jun 22 2017
Jul 20 2017 - Jul 27 2017
Aug 24 2017 - Aug 31 2017
Aug 3 2017 - Aug 10 2017
Aug 10 2017 - Sep 7 2017
Jul 27 2017 - Aug 3 2017
Koin based packs
Permanent packs
Limited time packs
Permanent packs
Flaming Fists Liu Kang
Piercing Mileena
Heavy Weapons Jax Briggs
Kold War Sonya Blade
Gunslinger Erron Black
Unstoppable Jason Voorhees
Ronin Kenshi
Dark Raiden
Revenant Kung Lao
Dark Empress Kitana (added in 1.8 update)
Undead Hunter Johnny Cage (added in 1.9 update)
Kraken Reptile (added in 1.9 update)
Bone Shaper Shinnok (added in 1.9 update)
Dark Lord Kotal Kahn (added in 1.11 update)
Marksman Kung Jin (added in 1.11 update)
Klassic Kano (added in 1.11 update)
High Tech Jacqui Briggs (added in 1.11 update)
Kold War Scorpion (added in 1.11 update)
Pharaoh Ermac (added in 1.11 update)
Kold War Sub-Zero (added in 1.11 update)
Klassic Sonya Blade (added in 1.11 update)
Cyrax Triborg (added in 1.13 update)
Smoke Triborg (added in 1.13 update)
Sektor Triborg (added in 1.13 update)
Elder God Kenshi (added in 1.13 update)
Tournament Quan Chi (added in 1.13 update)
Sub-Zero Triborg (added in 1.13 update)
Flaming Fists Liu Kang
Piercing Mileena
Heavy Weapons Jax Briggs
Kold War Sonya Blade
Gunslinger Erron Black
Unstoppable Jason Voorhees
Ronin Kenshi
Dark Raiden
Revenant Kung Lao
Dark Empress Kitana
Undead Hunter Johnny Cage
Kraken Reptile
Bone Shaper Shinnok
Diamond cards
Hellspawn Scorpion
Klassic Raiden
Ravenous Mileena
Bounty Hunter Erron Black (added in 1.11 update)
Wretch D'Vorah (added in 1.12 update)
Klassic Liu Kang (added in 1.13 update)
Klassic Goro (added in 1.15 update)
Limited time packs
May 5 2016 - May 19 2016
Nov 23 2016 - Nov 28 2016
Apr 21 2016 - May 5 2016
Nov 23 2016 - Nov 28 2016
Note: As of update 1.11, this pack is defunct as the card has been added to the Faction Wars Store.
Apr 21 2016 - May 5 2016
Nov 23 2016 - Nov 28 2016
Note: As of update 1.11, this pack is defunct as the card has been added to the Faction Wars Store.
Unstoppable Jason Voohees (Jun 30 2016 - Jul 7 2016, May 25 2017 - May 30 2017)
Gunslinger Erron Black (Jul 21 2016 - Aug 1 2016, 9 Nov 2016 - 15 Nov 2016)
Nov 23 2016 - Nov 28 2016
Alliance points pack
Kobu Jutsu Tanya
Klassic Scorpion (added in 1.11 update)
Klassic Sub-Zero (added in 1.11 update)
Test Your Luck exclusive cards
Prior to the 1.11 update, there are 6 cards which were unlocked exclusively through the console game. That link has now been removed and they are only obtainable through the Test Your Luck reward if you have reached login reward level 10 (requires consecutive login for 45 days or more). The cards that are obtained through this are
Ninja Mime Johnny Cage
Farmer Jax Briggs
Klassic Kitana
Injustice Scorpion
Undercover Cassie Cage (added in 1.11 update)
Cybernetic Jacqui Briggs (added in 1.11 update)
Character challenges
For a limited period, exclusive characters are added to the game through special events known as challenges. This is the only way to unlock the character permanently in the store to fuse at any time. The challenge consists of 5 towers which have a specific set of constraints and the opponents faced gradually get stronger. With the 1.4 update onwards, each challenge can be done twice, first on Normal and then again on Hard. The hard difficulty rewards you with more koins and souls and also rewards you with the character's signature equipment card on completing the challenge.
Some characters are MANDATORY for challenges. For example, when the condition says "D’Vorah" needed, or "Kotal Kahn" needed, you can use ANY version of that character, silver or gold. If you don't have that character, you can try to buy that specific character directly from the store or "Skip" the matches. This costs koins or souls. To avoid this as much as possible, try acquiring all the available silver cards through Kard Packs. That way if you don’t have the gold card, the silver one works and you are not forced to spend koins/souls to skip battles.
Skipping fights to progress in challenges may be useful in the long run as the challenge card will not be available for a while until the character is added to the Challenge Pack or Elite Pack where the probability of getting a specific challenge character will be totally random. Carefully evaluate the fights that you really cannot win without skipping and only spend koins/souls on those.
For the challenges, you will need a roster of strong bronze and silver characters, not just a few strong gold cards. Challenge mode has certain challenges that ONLY allow all bronze characters, or bronze and silver characters you would want at least a few strong bronze and silver characters to do the challenges.
There is an excellent spreadsheet which documents the details of every challenge event that has occured till date which is available here.. MKX Mobile Challenge Mode Database
This is very useful for new players who don't have a strong roster but need to get past challenge fights which are too difficult and may consider skipping them as an option.
Its highly recommended to complete the challenge at least on the normal difficulty to permanently unlock the character if the hard difficulty is impossible to finish.
Fights can be skipped if you cannot cross a particular fight with koins or souls but its highly recommended not to do so. Use this option as a last resort, only if you are running out of time and the event is about to expire.
Using cards
Each card has levels. To level a character you have to use it in battle to earn XP. The harder towers in battle mode reward you with more XP per match to level up cards quickly. Once a card reaches level 50 it has reached the maximum XP level and cannot go any higher. It takes 7,705,500 XP for a bronze or silver card and 11,547,000 XP for a gold or diamond card to reach level 50.
XP can be earned by playing Battle Mode as well as Faction Wars. While the XP earned from Faction Wars depends on how strong your team is, the base XP earned from each match in Battle Mode is fixed and only varies based on a certain set of factors.
If you have unlocked both the Kove and Lin Kuei XP support cards and have fully fused them, you get a 30% XP bonus from both Battle Mode and Faction Wars. These support cards were obtainable exclusively through console unlocks but from the 1.11 update onwards, they can be obtained only through the daily Test Your Luck rewards. There is also a Fujin's Blessing XP support card which adds an extra 15% XP bonus if fully fused, given out as a free anniversary gift only for the first week of the 1.8 anniversary update. Having all 3 support cards max fused brings the total XP bonus to 45% in both Battle Mode and Faction Wars. This makes leveling up cards a lot faster. While Faction Wars is without a doubt the best option to level up cards quickly, Battle Mode is still a worthwhile alternative if Faction Wars is unavailable or if you need to easily level up a so called weak card which you don't intend to use in Faction Wars.
The following towers in each bracket of Battle Mode are the best for farming XP if you are yet to clear the most XP efficient towers based on your current card level. Tower numbers listed below are cumulative so please use the XP chart linked in this section to know the exact tower to farm.
Bracket 1 - tower #4 (16900 XP)
Bracket 2 - tower #11 (57600 XP)
Bracket 3 - tower #18 (85500 XP)
Bracket 4 - tower #25 (115500 XP)
Bracket 5 - tower #32 (120000 XP) (good alternative for cards level 39 and below without requiring energy recharge)
Bracket 6 - tower #39 (302500 XP)
Bracket 7 - tower #47 (365100 XP) (most efficient tower for cards of all levels)
The XP totals listed above are the maximum XP earned without adding any bonuses. If you have all 3 XP support cards fully fused, you can earn 1.45 times the maximum XP awarded for a tower. The details of all Battle Mode towers along with a calculator to know the exact XP you will earn from every tower based on the card level and support card bonus is available in the sheet linked here... XP Chart and Calculator Sheet.
Another alternative way of leveling up characters is by using Level up cards. These allow you to instantly jump up one level instead of playing matches to move up. Its highly recommended to use them only when your card's level is in the 40s. While its not wrong to use these for bronze and silver cards, its better to save these for gold or diamond cards as they take a lot of XP to move up levels in the 40s. You can see the XP progression for each level for all card tiers in the XP calculator sheet linked above.
Character Passives
Each card has a PASSIVE ability. Passive is like a free perk that your card provides which is useful in battle. These can be specific to provide a benefit only to the specific character alone or can have more impact by benefiting a team if all the cards on the team are of the same class. Passives are extremely useful in the game in both Battle Mode and Faction Wars.
With the newly introduced diamond tier cards in the 1.9 update, their passive has 3 levels with each subsequent level providing an increased %age value in terms of damage dealt or chance of a debuff taking effect. The base level of the passive is unlocked by default. The first upgrade costs 10 souls and the final upgrade costs 30 souls.
Character Support Cards
Each character has 3 support cards that boost attack, health and energy regeneration. The support cards can be obtained randomly from daily login rewards, a random drop through the Alliance Pack / Kard Pack / Kombat Pack or by direct purchase from the store for 5000 koins. The support cards can be fused a maximum of 4 times. Each fusion provides a 3% boost to the character's attack / health / energy regeneration rate. When fully fused, the cards provide a 15% boost.
Its recommended to upgrade the energy regenration ones first to avoid difference in energy regeneration time between characters on your team. For more details on energy, please refer to section 3 below.
Character Special Attacks
Each card has unique special attack moves and Support cards. Support cards, once purchased affect ANY version of a particular character, they give upto a 15% boost in attack, health and energy regeneration. Special Moves once unlocked have 10 levels to be able to deal maximum damage for that specific card at its current XP level and fusion level. Buying these upgrades costs koins or special move upgrade cards for that type of card tier can be used instead if available. Diamond tier cards do not have special upgrade cards and require koins to upgrade their special attacks.
If you are just starting out, its recommended not to waste koins on upgrading the special 3 attack of silver cards. Similarly for X-Ray attack of gold cards, do not bother spending on upgrading unless you have cards like Master of Souls Ermac, Klassic Scorpion, Dark Emperor Liu Kang, Hellspawn Scorpion, Kobu Jutsu Tanya and Bounty Hunter Erron Black.
The cost of upgrading special attacks for all card tiers is shown below...
Fusing character cards
Each card can be fused multiple times. Fusing is automatically done by purchasing a duplicate copy of the same card. Duplicate copies can be purchased directly in the store for a higher cost or by getting lucky in pulling another copy of a card you already own from a character card pack in order to fuse it. Booster pack and Netherrealm Pack exclusive characters can only be fused through the pack and not directly in store.
Fusion level VII is the highest fusion level a card can reach. Any further duplicates purchased are automatically sold for koins (bronze/silver and certain gold cards) or both koins and souls (majority of gold cards and diamond cards). The Spending and Sellback Chart lists the resale value of all items in the game.
Each fusion level increases the stats of the card by a specific factor in increments of 0.5 per fusion (for gold and diamond cards), 0.4 per fusion (for silver cards) and 0.3 per fusion (for bronze cards). So the stats of a card at fusion level I is 1.5 times (gold) / 1.4 times (silver) / 1.3 times (bronze) that of the card at base fusion level while a card at fusion level VII (maximum) has stats which are 4.5 times (gold) / 3.8 times (silver) / 3.1 times (bronze) that of the card at base fusion level. A card has reached its maximum capability when it is at XP level 50 and fusion level VII.
An excellent calculator spreadsheet has been prepared for the community that has the stats of all cards in the game at various fusion levels and it also can calculate stats and damage of special attacks at any XP and fusion level for any card. The same is linked here.. Character Stats.
Additionally a guide on how character statistics are calculated at any XP level and fusion level is documented here... Character Stats Calculation Explained
3) Energy
Each time you play a battle your cards use a certain amount of ENERGY. Some battles only require one bar of energy, others as much as three. When you are out of energy you cannot fight immediately unless the cards regain their energy or you swap out cards and replace them with others in your deck to continue playing. Each card has 10 bars of energy.
In multiplayer however, you cannot swap out cards in the middle of a battle ladder. To mitigate this restriction, you can either instantly RECHARGE ENERGY (costs 1 soul per card), or wait for the energy to regenerate back up over time. Souls are precious and are hard to earn. PLEASE DON'T WASTE THEM!
There are support cards for each character that improve energy regeneration. Without these however, a card needs 12 minutes to regenerate 1 energy bar (120 minutes from empty to full). With fully fused energy support cards, it takes 8 and 1/2 minutes to regain 1 energy bar (85 minutes from empty to full). Investing in buying and fusing these should be a priority.
4) Earning koins
There are seven ways to earn koins without spending real money.
Test Your Luck - Logging into the game every day makes you eligible for a random daily reward on your first login attempt of the day, which can be koins. Yep, login every day, it's worth it! The more consecutive days you login, the better the rewards.
Daily Objectives - With the 1.7 update, the old system of 3 bonus missions which only reward souls has been replaced by 12 daily objectives which repeat each day and cannot be replaced. The following objectives offer koin rewards. The ones marked below in bold are fixed for all players.. from the remaining ones any 3 will appear in the list of objectives to complete and will vary from player to player. Per day, you can earn a maximum of 15000 koins if you complete all the objectives that reward koins.
Battle Mode - There are currently 7 ladder brackets, with a Boss at the end of each one. Play as far as you can, progressing normally through the game, until you hit a "brick wall" in terms of enemies which are too strong for your current lineup. Many battles give a hefty bonus (a good amount of koins) for your FIRST TIME completing a stage. Each time you hit a brick wall, you need to replay completed towers, which will enable you to promote or buy another character. You will earn the per match reward on completed towers on replaying them but a bonus reward on completing a boss tower is awarded only the first time a tower is cleared.
The following towers in each bracket are the best for farming koins if you are yet to clear the most koin efficient tower across all brackets. Tower numbers listed below are cumulative so use the calculator sheet linked in the earlier section to know the exact tower to farm.
Bracket 1 - tower #4 (1253 koins)
Bracket 2 - tower #10 (2900 koins)
Bracket 3 - tower #17 (4425 koins)
Bracket 4 - tower #24 (5950 koins)
Bracket 5 - tower #31 (7475 koins) (most efficient tower for farming koins across all brackets)
Faction Wars rewards - Online multiplayer teams you up against other players teams online. The battles are not in real time and you basically play the AI who is controlling another player’s team. You have to grind a lot of matches in Faction Wars to rank up on the leaderboards and earn better rewards. You earn koins for every win. In addition to the match rewards, there are two sources of koins from Faction Wars.
a) Battle rating milestones - When you win a match in Faction Wars, you are rewarded with a certain amount of battle rating points which add up to your profile. These determine how you rank up in the leaderboards against other players in your faction. With the 1.8 update, there are 6 battle rating milestones per season which can be reached to earn a reward of koins and blood rubies. As you cross a higher milestone, an increasing number of koins are rewarded as listed below...
1000 points - 3000 koins
25000 points - 4000 koins
50000 points - 5000 koins
100000 points - 6000 koins
200000 points - 8000 koins
300000 points - 10000 koins
By completing all 6 milestones in a season, you earn a total of 36000 koins.
b) Leaderboard ranking rewards - The rewards at the end of a season make playing Faction Wars a very worthwhile endeavor. Based on your leaderboard ranking, you are rewarded a certain number of koins, so the higher you rank up the more koins you get. With the 1.8 update, the rewards have been increased and with 2 seasons a week, you earn twice the rewards. If you finish in the top 10 ranks in your faction at the end of a season, you are awarded 50000 koins.
c) Faction standing - In addition to the above, you are awarded koins based on your faction's standing in the season which is given out weekly on Mondays. If your faction wins a faction war, you are awarded 15000 koins.
Character challenge events - With every update to the game, there are new challenge exclusive characters released. These provide decent amount of koins. The challenges prior to the 1.4 update had only one difficulty and offered 119,700 koins. From the 1.4 update onwards, challenges have 2 difficulties (Normal and Hard). You are awarded with 273,600 koins if you complete both difficulties of a character challenge. With the release of the Triborg challenges which were rush challenges, those events offered 199,500 koins.
Shao Kahn Tower - This tower also rewards koins in the process of earning talent points to buy and upgrade your talent tree skills. The very first time you beat the tower you earn 211,260 koins. Every subsequent playthrough rewards you with 105,630 koins.
Relic Hunt - This new mode introduced in update 1.15 also rewards you with koins on completing battles towards unlocking/fusing Konqueror Shao Kahn. On completing all 5 towers you are rewarded with 127,400 koins.
5) Earning souls
There are seven ways to earn souls without spending real money.
Faction Wars rewards - As mentioned before, Faction Wars will be where you will spend most of your playtime. The higher you rank up on the leaderboard, the better the rewards. If you manage to finish in the top 10 ranks of your faction, you are rewarded with 150 souls. Additionally you are awarded souls based on your faction's standing in the season which is given out weekly on Mondays. If your faction wins a faction war, you are awarded 15 souls.
Test Your Luck - As with the case for koins, if you are lucky you can get a small amount of souls which are very valuable. So, login every day, it's worth it! The more consecutive days you login, the better the rewards. You can get 7 souls from Test Your Luck.
Level up your profile - You earn XP towards your profile by fighting and every alternate level up of your profile level rewards you with 5 souls. When you reach level 50 you are rewarded with 20 souls. Currently the level cap stands at 51.
Battle Mode - There are currently 7 ladder brackets, with a Boss at the end of each one. Play as far as you can, progressing normally through the game, until you hit a "brick wall" in terms of enemies which are too strong for your current lineup. Each time you hit a brick wall, you need to replay completed towers, which will enable you to promote or buy another character to progress further. You will earn the per match reward on completed towers on replaying them but a soul bonus reward is given on completing a boss tower only the FIRST TIME the tower is cleared.
Daily Objectives - With the 1.7 update, the old system of 3 bonus missions which reward souls has been replaced by 12 daily objectives which repeat each day and cannot be replaced. If you complete all 12 objectives for the day you get a 3 soul bonus. The following objectives offer soul rewards and all appear as permanent objectives everyday for all players.
Character challenge events - With every update to the game, there are new challenge exclusive characters released. These provide decent amount of souls. The challenges prior to the 1.4 update had only one difficulty and offered 135 souls. From the 1.4 update onwards, challenges have 2 difficulties (Normal and Hard). You are awarded with 312 souls if you complete both difficulties of a character challenge. With the release of the Triborg challenges which were rush challenges, those events offered 159 souls.
Shao Kahn Tower - This tower also rewards souls in the process of earning talent points to buy and upgrade your talent tree skills. The very first time you beat the tower you earn 197 souls. Every subsequent playthrough rewards you with 110 souls.
Relic Hunt - This new mode introduced in update 1.15 also rewards you with souls on completing battles towards unlocking/fusing Konqueror Shao Kahn. On completing all 5 towers you are rewarded with 240 souls.
6) Earning blood rubies
Blood Rubies, a new currency introduced with the 1.8 update, is earned exclusively by playing Faction Wars. The blood rubies earned from Faction Wars can be used to purchase exclusive character cards and equipment from the Faction Wars store. There are two sources of blood rubies from Faction Wars.
a) Battle rating milestones - When you win a match in Faction Wars, you are rewarded with a certain amount of battle rating points which add up to your profile. These determine how you rank up in the leaderboards against other players in your faction. With the 1.8 update, there are 6 battle rating milestones per season which can be reached to earn a reward of blood rubies. As you cross a higher battle rating milestone, an increasing number of blood rubies are rewarded as listed below...
1000 points - 15 blood rubies
25000 points - 20 blood rubies
50000 points - 30 blood rubies
100000 points - 40 blood rubies
200000 points - 45 blood rubies
300000 points - 50 blood rubies
By completing all 6 milestones in a season, you earn a total of 200 blood rubies.
b) Leaderboard ranking rewards - The rewards at the end of a season make playing Faction Wars a very worthwhile endeavor. Based on your leaderboard ranking, you are rewarded a certain number of blood rubies, so the higher you rank up the more blood rubies you get. The amount of blood rubies awarded based on your leaderboard ranking tier are as follows (rank ranges are mentioned in brackets)..
1.8 update (May 12 2016 - Sep 8 2016)
Legend (1-10) - 300 rubies
Grandmaster (11 - 50) - 280 rubies
Master (51 - 100) - 250 rubies
Champion (top 1%) - 220 rubies
Kontender Elite (top 2%) - 210 rubies
Kontender III (top 3%) - 200 rubies
Kontender II (top 5%) - 180 rubies
Kontender I (top 7%) - 160 rubies
1.9 update onwards (Sep 8 2016 - )
Legend (1-10) - 600 rubies
Grandmaster (11 - 50) - 560 rubies
Master (51 - 100) - 500 rubies
Champion (top 1%) - 385 rubies
Kontender Elite (top 2%) - 315 rubies
Kontender III (top 3%) - 300 rubies
Kontender II (top 5%) - 270 rubies
Kontender I (top 7%) - 240 rubies
Ruby increase ratio for each tier
Legend - 2
Grandmaster - 2
Master - 2
Champion - 1.75
Kontender Elite - 1.5
Kontender III - 1.5
Kontender II - 1.5
Kontender I - 1.5
Combining both milestone and leaderboard ranking rewards, the maximum amount of blood rubies you can earn in a season was 500 before the 1.9 update. From the 1.9 update onwards, that limit has been increased to 800 rubies.
7) General tips
Do all your daily objectives without fail. It cannot be stressed enough how important earning and saving souls are to have better cards in the game. Also try not to waste souls on energy refills. Ensure that you have your energy support cards fused to reduce the time taken to regenerate energy. Save your souls and koins!!!
Try and complete challenges on time and make a conscious effort to rank up well in Faction Wars to get good rewards. With this you can make good progress in the game without being forced to spend real cash to get things.
Complete the Shao Kahn tower as far as possible to earn as many talent points to invest and upgrade skills that would greatly help you in Faction Wars.
Starting the game and how to spend your koins and souls:
The free player route
When you first start the game you start with 3 bronze characters and you also get 1 random silver card for free as part of the tutorial.
Play the game as far as you can if you don’t intend to spend any real cash on the game. If you lose a fight, repeat any previous tower that you can easily manage to farm so that you can level up a card to help win the fight that you were stuck at. At this stage, save your koins.
Your next goal is to earn 30k koins to buy another Kard Pack. This will get you 1 more silver character and 2 other random cards. It will help your normal game play immensely and make battles go a lot easier and faster. Again, do not buy moves or support cards for these at this stage. Now play your way through the game until you hit another brick wall.
With 2 silver cards, you should be able to finish at least the first 3 brackets of battle mode without much difficulty. In the process you will also accumulate souls which are crucial to opening that first Kombat Pack for a precious gold card.
Somewhere around the 4th bracket you should have enough souls to be able to open your first Kombat Pack assuming that you have also been doing your daily bonus missions without fail to earn some valuable souls. With the gold and 2 silvers, you should be able to finish the first 5 brackets in battle mode.
The second last tower in each of the first 5 brackets are good places to farm if you are stuck and cannot proceed as these towers give you the most XP per energy spent. The XP calculator sheet linked in the first part of the guide also has a detailed chart for battle mode, so use that as a reference when playing to know future opponents in advance and how strong they are.
The last two brackets increase the difficulty level drastically as the opponents teams will have fully fused silver cards and good fusion level gold cards so unless you have a really strong collection of gold and silver cards, it will be impossible to complete those tower brackets. Don’t attempt them till you have built up your deck with a good number of fully maxed out silver cards and some level 50 gold cards that have been fused a few times.
To continue making progress, play a lot of faction war battles with the cards you have earned through the first 5 brackets in battle mode. This way you can earn more koins and souls through leveling up your profile and also earn faction battle points which determine your season rewards which matter tremendously. Making the top 3% or higher is what you should strive for. Use the koins to buy more silvers and the souls to buy gold cards.
With dedication and effort, you should be able to accumulate a decent collection of cards in a month or two. Always stick to the packs for card purchases as they are the cheapest way to get cards instead of buying them outright unless you are 1 fusion away from maxing out the card.
The paid player route
If you are starting afresh and don’t mind spending some real money, $45 will buy you all the 3 one time deal starter packs which are decent investments. With the 3 packs, you will instantly have Silver Kenshi, Inferno Scorpion, GrandMaster Sub-Zero, 220,000 koins, 330 souls, 7 level up cards and 2 rare gear cards.
The koins alone should help you open 7 kard packs and the souls will get you 2 additional gold cards which should give you a pretty decent head start for battle mode as well as faction wars.
Aside from the packs, its wise to buy packs of souls if any with real money so that you can invest in more gold cards as souls are hard to earn without dedication to playing lot of faction wars.
Recommended cards
Below is the list of the best cards from each tier which are really worth getting to help you in battle mode or faction wars.
The Best Bronze Characters
Possessed Kenshi and Assassin Kitana while not having team passives have the unique ability to cause burn and bleed effects on the opponent on tag-in which are unblockable. Ravenous Mileena who is a diamond tier card can also cause bleed on tag-in as well. Klassic Liu Kang, the strongest diamond as of now causes cripple on tag in and is immune to power drain and gets stronger from DOT attacks.
There are other good gold cards too but these cards improve the team’s attacking power rather than helping just themselves or damaging a single opponent over time.
Fighting
Basics: Battles are all about inflicting a good amount of damage through combos, blocking attacks and performing specials at the right time. Using these tactics intelligently makes you more likely you to win a battle. Basic attacks do less damage while special attacks do more damage and require power. On thr other hand, defense is vital to staying alive against harder opponents. Blocking an attack still inflicts damage but you can lessen the damage if armor equipment cards that provide a toughness boost are worn.
Support Cards: These cards provide an additional boost to your attack, health and energy regeneration rate. Try to max out your character support cards as soon as possible as they will make your cards stronger. When fully fused (at fusion level IV), they can add a 15% boost to your health, attack stats which can help in battle. Energy regeneration has already been covered earlier in section 3.
Special Abilities: A cards special 1 ability is unlocked from the beginning at level 1 and can be leveled up right away. At level 5, you gain the ability to unlock and level up the special 2 move which deals more damage. At level 20, you gain the ability to unlock and level up the special 3 move (silver cards) or a devastating signature X-Ray move (gold cards).
You are invulnerable while performing a special. Special attacks do much more damage than basic attacks. Those moves which also cause DOT (Damage over Time) like poison/bleed/burn) tend to do lesser damage to make up for the extra DOT damage that takes effect once the special attack ends. Unfortunately, enemies suffering DOT will also normally tag out to try and avoid it and regain back lost health.
Power Meter: You start a battle with no power (unless your team has characters that give you a bar or power or use equipment that grants you the same) and can fill it up faster by attacking the opponent more often. The first bar when available, allows you to perform the character’s special 1 ability. Two bars allow you to perform the special 2 ability and finally 3 bars allow you to unleash the character’s most damaging attack or X-Ray move, which can for the most part knockout an opponent character instantly.
For the most part, you will use the card’s special 1 and special 2 moves a lot in battle. However if you have the right team combination that provides a starting power bar boost and you use equipment cards that give you 1 bar of power or grant an increased power generation rate, it is possible to fill up the full 3 bars of meter in a match
When you cause damage on your opponent, you fill up your power bar irrespective of whether your attacks are blocked or not. When you take damage without blocking, you gain 5% meter per hit. If you are playing as Dark Raiden, you gain power if hit by power draining special attacks due to his passive.
When you block enemy attacks you do not gain any power, unless you are Bojutsu Kung Jin, in which case you gain power from blocked hits too. These rules apply to both you and the AI.
Equipment
Equipment is an integral part of making that extra difference to a character’s abilities in battle and can sometimes be the difference between winning and losing. This has been covered in detail in its own guide located here.. Equipment Guide
1) Intro to the game
Mortal Kombat X mobile is a turn based card battle game using characters from the Mortal Kombat X game which is currently available on consoles and PC. The basic objective of the game is to collect everything that is available in the game and increase their abilities to the maximum level as quickly as possible.
Before you begin playing, ensure that you are signed in to your Game Center profile (on iOS) or your Google Play Games account (on Android) when launching the game to be able to unlock the achievements in the game. There are 50 achievements to earn which are listed in the achievement guide linked here... Achievement Guide
At the start of the game you will notice that this game is all about earning three major in-game currency to purchase items. They are KOINS, SOULS, BLOOD RUBIES and SPIRIT FRAGMENTS. You earn koin rewards through playing battle mode, faction war battles and also from character challenge events. With the 1.3 update, the Daily Challenge koin event which allowed easy farming of koins from each match has since been removed and has made koin earning harder than before.
Koins are required to purchase and fuse bronze, silver cards and certain gold cards like Cutthroat Kano and other cross platform unlock exclusives. Koins are also required to buy/fuse character support cards, equipment cards and upgrade character special moves.
Souls on the other hand is the premium currency in the game and is harder to earn in large amounts and is solely used for purchasing and fusing gold cards from the Kombat Pack, Netherrealm Pack, Challenge Pack and limiited time booster packs, in addition to recharging energy if needed. They are also used to purchase and fuse dIamond cards from the Elite Pack.
Blood Rubies, added with the 1.8 update, is a Faction Wars exclusive currency and is used to purchase cards and gear from the exclusive Faction Wars store.
Additionally there are two other minor currencies, ALLIANCE POINTS and TALENT POINTS. Alliance points are earned only in Battle Mode when you use the champion of a friend or a random player as an ally to tag-in when required to help you in battle. Conversly, when a friend or random player uses your chosen champion in battle, you earn alliance points as well. Use the most powerful gold card that you have in your collection as your champion so that it gets picked more often by other players to help you earn a good amount of alliance points.
Introduced with the 1.11 update is Talent Points. These points are used for purchasing and upgrading skills in the Talent Tree system. The points can be earned only by playing through Shao Kahn's Tower and are rewarded only during the first playthrough. The details of the tower and the Talent Tree system can be viewed in the talent guide linked here.. Talent Guide
Spirit Fragments added with the 1.15 update is a currency exclusive to the Relic Hunt mode and can also be earned by playing through the Shao Kahn Tower. This currency is necessary to fuse the diamond card, Konqueror Shao Kahn who is a Relic Hunt exclusive unlock.
In Relic Hunt, you cannot change your team in the middle of a tower and you are allowed to continue if you lose or a character is KO'ed. In the event of getting badly injured or a card getting KO'ed, it costs 10 souls to heal 25% of the health of all cards on your team. The cost goes up to 20 / 30 / 40 for subsequent attempts to heal your team.
As you progress through the towers, the battles increase in difficulty. The details of all the towers with rewards and cost to buy and fuse Konqueror Shao Kahn are available in this sheet... Relic Hunt Guide
2) Character Cards
The second thing you will notice is that there are a lot of cards in the store. There are four main tiers which are Bronze, Silver, Gold and lastly Diamond which is the highest tier in the game as of nowadded in the 1.9 update. The more powerful gold and diamond cards are recommended and having them fused a few levels is helpful in finishing battle mode and to do well in multiplayer. If you don't have fully fused silver cards and a few decent fusion level gold cards, it doesn't matter how skilled you are at fighting, it will be very difficult to complete the 6th and 7th brackets in battle mode as the difficulty increases steeply compared to the 5th bracket.
Obtaining character cards
Character cards can be obtained through direct purchase from the store or can be purchased from packs for a cheaper amount although the catch is that the card awarded from packs are random with the exception of the starter packs which provide specific cards for real cash. The character packs to date are listed below.
Real money based packs
Starter Packs
The Starter Packs are worthy investments for new players starting out to get a good headstart in the game with some decent cards as well as koins and souls to spend in the store. These are one time purchases only.
- Silver Sword Starter Pack - Pack that gives you silver Kenshi, 20000 koins, 30 souls and 1 level up card.
- Gold Fire Starter Pack - Pack that gives you Inferno Scorpion, 100000 koins, 150 souls, 3 level up cards and Scorpion’s Shirai Ryu Kunai equipment card. Prior to the 1.9 update, the pack offered 300000 koins.
- Gold Ice Starter Pack - Pack that gives you Grandmaster Sub-Zero, 100000 koins, 150 souls, 3 level up cards and Sub-Zero’s Ice Dagger equipment card. Prior to the 1.9 update, the pack offered 300000 koins.
Starting with the 1.4 update onwards, these packs offer players the opportunity to get early access to the upcoming challenge exclusive characters by paying real money to add them in your collection before their challenge event is available. Purchasing the early access packs also unlocks the challenge character permanently in store for direct fusions. The only character that was released post version 1.4 which doesn't have an Early Access Pack is Unstoppable Jason Voorhees.
- Kold War Sonya Blade Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Kold War Sonya Blade, all 3 Sonya Blade support cards and Sonya’s Military Vest equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Apr 13 2017 - May 25 2017
- Gunslinger Erron Black Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Gunslinger Erron Black, all 3 Erron Black support cards and Erron Black’s Revolvers equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Apr 18 2016 - May 2 2016
Nov 8 2016 - Nov 9 2016
May 11 2017 - May 15 2017
- Ronin Kenshi Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Ronin Kenshi, all 3 Kenshi support cards and Kenshi’s Sento Blade equipment card. Available for purchase only between Nov 11 2015 (iOS) / Dec 4 2015 (Android) and Dec 9 2015.
- Dark Raiden Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Dark Raiden, all 3 Raiden support cards and Raiden’s Storm Hat equipment card. Available for purchase only between Dec 3 2015 (iOS) / Dec 4 2015 (Android) and Dec 16 2015.
- Revenant Kung Lao Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Revenant Kung Lao, all 3 Kung Lao support cards and Kung Lao’s Bladed Hat equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Feb 24 2017 - Mar 2 2017
- Dark Empress Kitana Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Dark Empress Kitana, all 3 Kitana support cards and Kitana’s Bladed Fan equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Apr 20 2017 - Apr 27 2017
- Undead Hunter Johnny Cage Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Undead Hunter Johnny Cage, all 3 Johnny Cage support cards and Johnny Cage’s Subtle Tattoo equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Nov 10 2016 - Nov 23 2016
- Kraken Reptile Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Kraken Reptile, all 3 Reptile support cards and Reptile’s Saurian Armor equipment card. Available for purchase only between Feb 25 2016 and Mar 16 2016.
- Bone Shaper Shinnok Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Bone Shaper Shinnok, all 3 Shinnok support cards and Shinnok’s Amulet equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Apr 6 2017 - Apr 13 2017
Aug 31 2017 - Sep 7 2017
- Dark Lord Kotal Kahn Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Dark Lord Kotal Kahn, all 3 Kotal Kahn support cards and Kotal Kahn's Sacrificial Knife equipment card. Available for purchase only between May 19 2016 and Jun 9 2016.
- Marksman Kung Jin Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Marksman Kung Jin, all 3 Kung Jin support cards and Kung Jin's Shaolin Bow equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Jun 8 2017 - Jun 15 2017
- Klassic Kano Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Klassic Kano, all 3 Kano support cards and Kano's Combat Knife equipment card. Available for purchase only between Jun 30 2016 and Jul 21 2016.
- High Tech Jacqui Briggs Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you High Tech Jacqui Briggs, all 3 Jacqui Briggs support cards and Jacqui's Power Glove equipment card. Available for purchase only between Jul 21 2016 and Aug 11 2016.
- Kold War Scorpion Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Kold War Scorpion, all 3 Scorpion support cards and Scorpion's Shirai Ryu Kunai equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Jun 22 2017 - Jun 29 2017
- Cyrax Triborg Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Cyrax Triborg, all 3 Triborg support cards and Triborg's Cyber Armor equipment card. Available for purchase only between Sep 8 2016 and Sep 15 2016.
- Smoke Triborg Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Smoke Triborg, all 3 Triborg support cards and Triborg's Cyber Armor equipment card. Available for purchase only between Sep 15 2016 and Sep 26 2016.
- Sektor Triborg Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Sektor Triborg, all 3 Triborg support cards and Triborg's Cyber Armor equipment card. Available for purchase only between Sep 22 2016 and Sep 29 2016.
- Pharaoh Ermac Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Pharaoh Ermac, all 3 Ermac support cards and Ermac's Soul Medallion equipment card. Available for purchase only between Sep 29 2016 and Oct 13 2016.
- Day of the Dead Kitana Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Day of the Dead Kitana, all 3 Kitana support cards and Kitana’s Bladed Fan equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Oct 12 2017 - Oct 19 2017
- Klassic Sonya Blade Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Klassic Sonya Blade, all 3 Sonya Blade support cards and Sonya’s Military Vest equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Jan 12 2017 - Feb 2 2017
- Triborg Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Cyrax Triborg, Smoke Triborg, Sektor Triborg, all 3 Triborg support cards and Triborg’s Cyber Armor equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Jun 29 2017 - Jul 20 2017
- Nightmare Freddy Krueger Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Nightmare Freddy Krueger, 30000 koins, 100 souls, all 3 Freddy Krueger support cards and Freddy's Glove equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Oct 19 2017 - Oct 26 2017
- Kold War Sub-Zero Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Kold War Sub-Zero, all 3 Sub-Zero support cards and Sub-Zero’s Ice Daggers equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Jun 15 2017 - Jun 22 2017
- Elder God Kenshi Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Elder God Kenshi, all 3 Kenshi support cards and Kenshi’s Sento Blade equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Jul 20 2017 - Jul 27 2017
- Tournament Quan Chi Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Tournament Quan Chi, all 3 Quan Chi support cards and Quan Chi’s Bound Demon equipment card. Available for purchase only between Mar 9 2017 and Mar 23 2017.
- Sub-Zero Triborg Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Sub-Zero Triborg, all 3 Triborg support cards and Triborg’s Cyber Armor equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Aug 24 2017 - Aug 31 2017
- Scourge Baraka Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Scourge Baraka, all 3 Baraka support cards and Baraka’s Tarkatan Gi equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Aug 3 2017 - Aug 10 2017
- Treacherous Tanya Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Treacherous Tanya, all 3 Tanya support cards and Tanya’s Kobu Jutsu Blades equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Aug 10 2017 - Sep 7 2017
- Assassin Jade Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Assassin Jade, all 3 Jade support cards and Jade’s Bojutsu Staff equipment card. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Jul 27 2017 - Aug 3 2017
- Shirai Ryu Takeda Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Shirai Ryu Takeda, all 3 Takeda support cards and Takeda’s Bladed Whips equipment card. Available for purchase only between Sep 7 2017 and Sep 21 2017.
- Vengeful Shinnok Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Vengeful Shinnok, all 3 Shinnok support cards and Shinnok’s Amulet equipment card. Available for purchase only between Sep 21 2017 and Oct 5 2017.
- Tigrar Fury Goro Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Tigrar Fury Goro, all 3 Goro support cards and Goro’s Dragon Fangs equipment card. Available for purchase only between Oct 5 2017 and Oct 12 2017.
- Aftershock Tremor Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Aftershock Tremor, all 3 Tremor support cards and Tremor’s Earth Elemental Facemask equipment card. Available for purchase only between Oct 26 2017 and Nov 2 2017.
- Punk Cassie Cage Pack - Limited time offer pack giving you Punk Cassie Cage, all 3 Cassie Cage support cards and Cassie Cage’s Body Armor equipment card. Available for purchase only between Nov 2 2017 and Nov 16 2017.
Koin based packs
Permanent packs
- Kard Pack – Gives you a random silver card and 2 other cards (Support/Bronze card/Special move upgrade/Equipment card). If you are lucky, you have a chance of pulling any one of 3 Kard Pack exclusive gold cards (Nimble Reptile, A-List Johnny Cage or Cryomancer Sub-Zero). Costs 30,000 koins.
- Equipment Pack – Introduced in the 1.3 update, this pack gives you three random equipment cards. This pack is the only way to be able to buy and fuse the epic Wrath Hammer equipment card. Costs 70,000 koins.
Limited time packs
- Cage Family Pack – Limited time offer pack that gives you the three silver cards of the Cage family i.e. Cassie Cage, Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade. Costs 108,000 koins. Available for purchase only between Apr 7 2016 and Apr 21 2016 (iOS and Android).
Permanent packs
- Kombat Pack – Gives you a random gold card from a possible list of 24 gold cards (excluding Cutthroat Kano and the 3 gold cards available in the Kard Pack) and and 2 other random cards (Support card/Bronze card/Special move upgrade/Equipment card) and the only way to purchase and fuse 3 of the pack exclusive gold cards (Covert Ops Cassie Cage, Assassin Kitana and Shaolin Master Kung Lao). Warlock Quan Chi who was only a Kombat Pack exclusive is now also available through the Netherrealm Pack. At launch, the pack was available at a 20% discount at 120 souls, but is currently available at its regular price of 150 souls.
- Netherrealm Pack – Introduced in the 1.3 update, this pack contains three gold cards (Revenant Jax, Revenant Sub-Zero and Warlock Quan Chi). It is also the only way to fuse Revenant Jax and Revenant Sub-Zero. Purchasing this pack does not unlock any of the 3 cards in store. Costs 850 souls.
- Challenge Pack – Introduced in the 1.7 update, this pack contains previously released challenge characters listed below. This pack allows you to buy and fuse them if you missed their challenge event. Nightmare Freddy Krueger and Day of the Dead Kitana cannot be obtained from the pack as of now. Purchasing challenge characters through this pack does not unlock the character in store. The pack was introduced with a price of 280 souls but has now been increased to 320 souls in the 1.9 update and also adds 5 level up cards and one random uncommon/rare/epic equipment card. As of now the following past challenge characters (listed in order of challenge release) can be pulled from the pack.
Flaming Fists Liu Kang
Piercing Mileena
Heavy Weapons Jax Briggs
Kold War Sonya Blade
Gunslinger Erron Black
Unstoppable Jason Voorhees
Ronin Kenshi
Dark Raiden
Revenant Kung Lao
Dark Empress Kitana (added in 1.8 update)
Undead Hunter Johnny Cage (added in 1.9 update)
Kraken Reptile (added in 1.9 update)
Bone Shaper Shinnok (added in 1.9 update)
Dark Lord Kotal Kahn (added in 1.11 update)
Marksman Kung Jin (added in 1.11 update)
Klassic Kano (added in 1.11 update)
High Tech Jacqui Briggs (added in 1.11 update)
Kold War Scorpion (added in 1.11 update)
Pharaoh Ermac (added in 1.11 update)
Kold War Sub-Zero (added in 1.11 update)
Klassic Sonya Blade (added in 1.11 update)
Cyrax Triborg (added in 1.13 update)
Smoke Triborg (added in 1.13 update)
Sektor Triborg (added in 1.13 update)
Elder God Kenshi (added in 1.13 update)
Tournament Quan Chi (added in 1.13 update)
Sub-Zero Triborg (added in 1.13 update)
- Elite Pack – Introduced in the 1.9 update, this pack contains exclusive diamond tier characters listed below, and is the only way to purchase and fuse them. Additionally, the pack also contains challenge characters listed below, the list of which is a subset of those available in the Challenge Pack. The pack costs 360 souls and also adds 5 level up cards and two random uncommon/rare/epic equipment cards. Purchasing diamond tier characters through this pack does not unlock them in store.
Flaming Fists Liu Kang
Piercing Mileena
Heavy Weapons Jax Briggs
Kold War Sonya Blade
Gunslinger Erron Black
Unstoppable Jason Voorhees
Ronin Kenshi
Dark Raiden
Revenant Kung Lao
Dark Empress Kitana
Undead Hunter Johnny Cage
Kraken Reptile
Bone Shaper Shinnok
Diamond cards
Hellspawn Scorpion
Klassic Raiden
Ravenous Mileena
Bounty Hunter Erron Black (added in 1.11 update)
Wretch D'Vorah (added in 1.12 update)
Klassic Liu Kang (added in 1.13 update)
Klassic Goro (added in 1.15 update)
Limited time packs
- Jason Voorhees Kombat Pack – Limited edition booster pack that contains a random gold card and and 2 other random cards (Support card/Bronze card/Special move upgrade/Equipment card) and a chance to buy and fuse Slasher Jason Voorhees. Purchasing Slasher Jason through this pack does not unlock him in store. Costs 200 souls. Available for purchase only between the following dates
May 5 2016 - May 19 2016
Nov 23 2016 - Nov 28 2016
- Klassic Scorpion Kombat Pack – Limited edition booster pack that contains a random gold card and and 2 other random cards (Support card/Bronze card/Special move upgrade/Equipment card) and a chance to buy and fuse Klassic Scorpion. Purchasing Klassic Scorpion through this pack does not unlock him in store. Costs 200 souls. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Apr 21 2016 - May 5 2016
Nov 23 2016 - Nov 28 2016
Note: As of update 1.11, this pack is defunct as the card has been added to the Faction Wars Store.
- Klassic Sub-Zero Kombat Pack – Limited edition booster pack that contains a random gold card and and 2 other random cards (Support card/Bronze card/Special move upgrade/Equipment card) and a chance to buy and fuse Klassic Sub-Zero. Purchasing Klassic Sub-Zero through this pack does not unlock him in store. Costs 200 souls. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Apr 21 2016 - May 5 2016
Nov 23 2016 - Nov 28 2016
Note: As of update 1.11, this pack is defunct as the card has been added to the Faction Wars Store.
- Increased Drop Challenge Pack - Similar to the above mentioned Challenge Pack, this pack offers increased chances to drop a specific challenge character for a limited period. The characters offered with increased drop chances through this pack are below
Unstoppable Jason Voohees (Jun 30 2016 - Jul 7 2016, May 25 2017 - May 30 2017)
Gunslinger Erron Black (Jul 21 2016 - Aug 1 2016, 9 Nov 2016 - 15 Nov 2016)
- Relentless Jason Kombat Pack – Limited edition booster pack that contains a random gold card and and 2 other random cards (Support card/Bronze card/Special move upgrade/Equipment card) and a chance to buy and fuse Relentless Jason Voorhees. Purchasing Relentless Jason Voorhees through this pack does not unlock him in store. Costs 200 souls. Available for purchase only between the following dates
Nov 23 2016 - Nov 28 2016
- Spec Ops Scorpion Kombat Pack – Booster pack that contains a random gold card and and 2 other random cards (Support card/Bronze card/Special move upgrade/Equipment card) and a chance to buy and fuse Spec Ops Scorpion. Purchasing Spec Ops Scorpion through this pack does not unlock him in store. Costs 200 souls. Available for purchase only between 7 Dec 2016 and 17 July 2017
Alliance points pack
- Alliance Pack – This pack contains a random card and costs 500 alliance points to open. Contents range from support cards, special upgrades and common gear to bronze and silver cards.
- Faction Wars Store - With the 1.8 update, the new Blood Rubies currency earned from Faction Wars is used to purchase exclusive characters in the Faction Wars store. As of now, the characters listed below can only be purchased using Blood Rubies. Each character costs 1600 rubies to buy or fuse the character if already purchased.
Kobu Jutsu Tanya
Klassic Scorpion (added in 1.11 update)
Klassic Sub-Zero (added in 1.11 update)
Test Your Luck exclusive cards
Prior to the 1.11 update, there are 6 cards which were unlocked exclusively through the console game. That link has now been removed and they are only obtainable through the Test Your Luck reward if you have reached login reward level 10 (requires consecutive login for 45 days or more). The cards that are obtained through this are
Ninja Mime Johnny Cage
Farmer Jax Briggs
Klassic Kitana
Injustice Scorpion
Undercover Cassie Cage (added in 1.11 update)
Cybernetic Jacqui Briggs (added in 1.11 update)
Character challenges
For a limited period, exclusive characters are added to the game through special events known as challenges. This is the only way to unlock the character permanently in the store to fuse at any time. The challenge consists of 5 towers which have a specific set of constraints and the opponents faced gradually get stronger. With the 1.4 update onwards, each challenge can be done twice, first on Normal and then again on Hard. The hard difficulty rewards you with more koins and souls and also rewards you with the character's signature equipment card on completing the challenge.
Some characters are MANDATORY for challenges. For example, when the condition says "D’Vorah" needed, or "Kotal Kahn" needed, you can use ANY version of that character, silver or gold. If you don't have that character, you can try to buy that specific character directly from the store or "Skip" the matches. This costs koins or souls. To avoid this as much as possible, try acquiring all the available silver cards through Kard Packs. That way if you don’t have the gold card, the silver one works and you are not forced to spend koins/souls to skip battles.
Skipping fights to progress in challenges may be useful in the long run as the challenge card will not be available for a while until the character is added to the Challenge Pack or Elite Pack where the probability of getting a specific challenge character will be totally random. Carefully evaluate the fights that you really cannot win without skipping and only spend koins/souls on those.
For the challenges, you will need a roster of strong bronze and silver characters, not just a few strong gold cards. Challenge mode has certain challenges that ONLY allow all bronze characters, or bronze and silver characters you would want at least a few strong bronze and silver characters to do the challenges.
There is an excellent spreadsheet which documents the details of every challenge event that has occured till date which is available here.. MKX Mobile Challenge Mode Database
This is very useful for new players who don't have a strong roster but need to get past challenge fights which are too difficult and may consider skipping them as an option.
Its highly recommended to complete the challenge at least on the normal difficulty to permanently unlock the character if the hard difficulty is impossible to finish.
Fights can be skipped if you cannot cross a particular fight with koins or souls but its highly recommended not to do so. Use this option as a last resort, only if you are running out of time and the event is about to expire.
Using cards
Each card has levels. To level a character you have to use it in battle to earn XP. The harder towers in battle mode reward you with more XP per match to level up cards quickly. Once a card reaches level 50 it has reached the maximum XP level and cannot go any higher. It takes 7,705,500 XP for a bronze or silver card and 11,547,000 XP for a gold or diamond card to reach level 50.
XP can be earned by playing Battle Mode as well as Faction Wars. While the XP earned from Faction Wars depends on how strong your team is, the base XP earned from each match in Battle Mode is fixed and only varies based on a certain set of factors.
If you have unlocked both the Kove and Lin Kuei XP support cards and have fully fused them, you get a 30% XP bonus from both Battle Mode and Faction Wars. These support cards were obtainable exclusively through console unlocks but from the 1.11 update onwards, they can be obtained only through the daily Test Your Luck rewards. There is also a Fujin's Blessing XP support card which adds an extra 15% XP bonus if fully fused, given out as a free anniversary gift only for the first week of the 1.8 anniversary update. Having all 3 support cards max fused brings the total XP bonus to 45% in both Battle Mode and Faction Wars. This makes leveling up cards a lot faster. While Faction Wars is without a doubt the best option to level up cards quickly, Battle Mode is still a worthwhile alternative if Faction Wars is unavailable or if you need to easily level up a so called weak card which you don't intend to use in Faction Wars.
The following towers in each bracket of Battle Mode are the best for farming XP if you are yet to clear the most XP efficient towers based on your current card level. Tower numbers listed below are cumulative so please use the XP chart linked in this section to know the exact tower to farm.
Bracket 1 - tower #4 (16900 XP)
Bracket 2 - tower #11 (57600 XP)
Bracket 3 - tower #18 (85500 XP)
Bracket 4 - tower #25 (115500 XP)
Bracket 5 - tower #32 (120000 XP) (good alternative for cards level 39 and below without requiring energy recharge)
Bracket 6 - tower #39 (302500 XP)
Bracket 7 - tower #47 (365100 XP) (most efficient tower for cards of all levels)
The XP totals listed above are the maximum XP earned without adding any bonuses. If you have all 3 XP support cards fully fused, you can earn 1.45 times the maximum XP awarded for a tower. The details of all Battle Mode towers along with a calculator to know the exact XP you will earn from every tower based on the card level and support card bonus is available in the sheet linked here... XP Chart and Calculator Sheet.
Another alternative way of leveling up characters is by using Level up cards. These allow you to instantly jump up one level instead of playing matches to move up. Its highly recommended to use them only when your card's level is in the 40s. While its not wrong to use these for bronze and silver cards, its better to save these for gold or diamond cards as they take a lot of XP to move up levels in the 40s. You can see the XP progression for each level for all card tiers in the XP calculator sheet linked above.
Character Passives
Each card has a PASSIVE ability. Passive is like a free perk that your card provides which is useful in battle. These can be specific to provide a benefit only to the specific character alone or can have more impact by benefiting a team if all the cards on the team are of the same class. Passives are extremely useful in the game in both Battle Mode and Faction Wars.
With the newly introduced diamond tier cards in the 1.9 update, their passive has 3 levels with each subsequent level providing an increased %age value in terms of damage dealt or chance of a debuff taking effect. The base level of the passive is unlocked by default. The first upgrade costs 10 souls and the final upgrade costs 30 souls.
Character Support Cards
Each character has 3 support cards that boost attack, health and energy regeneration. The support cards can be obtained randomly from daily login rewards, a random drop through the Alliance Pack / Kard Pack / Kombat Pack or by direct purchase from the store for 5000 koins. The support cards can be fused a maximum of 4 times. Each fusion provides a 3% boost to the character's attack / health / energy regeneration rate. When fully fused, the cards provide a 15% boost.
Its recommended to upgrade the energy regenration ones first to avoid difference in energy regeneration time between characters on your team. For more details on energy, please refer to section 3 below.
Character Special Attacks
Each card has unique special attack moves and Support cards. Support cards, once purchased affect ANY version of a particular character, they give upto a 15% boost in attack, health and energy regeneration. Special Moves once unlocked have 10 levels to be able to deal maximum damage for that specific card at its current XP level and fusion level. Buying these upgrades costs koins or special move upgrade cards for that type of card tier can be used instead if available. Diamond tier cards do not have special upgrade cards and require koins to upgrade their special attacks.
If you are just starting out, its recommended not to waste koins on upgrading the special 3 attack of silver cards. Similarly for X-Ray attack of gold cards, do not bother spending on upgrading unless you have cards like Master of Souls Ermac, Klassic Scorpion, Dark Emperor Liu Kang, Hellspawn Scorpion, Kobu Jutsu Tanya and Bounty Hunter Erron Black.
The cost of upgrading special attacks for all card tiers is shown below...
Fusing character cards
Each card can be fused multiple times. Fusing is automatically done by purchasing a duplicate copy of the same card. Duplicate copies can be purchased directly in the store for a higher cost or by getting lucky in pulling another copy of a card you already own from a character card pack in order to fuse it. Booster pack and Netherrealm Pack exclusive characters can only be fused through the pack and not directly in store.
Fusion level VII is the highest fusion level a card can reach. Any further duplicates purchased are automatically sold for koins (bronze/silver and certain gold cards) or both koins and souls (majority of gold cards and diamond cards). The Spending and Sellback Chart lists the resale value of all items in the game.
Each fusion level increases the stats of the card by a specific factor in increments of 0.5 per fusion (for gold and diamond cards), 0.4 per fusion (for silver cards) and 0.3 per fusion (for bronze cards). So the stats of a card at fusion level I is 1.5 times (gold) / 1.4 times (silver) / 1.3 times (bronze) that of the card at base fusion level while a card at fusion level VII (maximum) has stats which are 4.5 times (gold) / 3.8 times (silver) / 3.1 times (bronze) that of the card at base fusion level. A card has reached its maximum capability when it is at XP level 50 and fusion level VII.
An excellent calculator spreadsheet has been prepared for the community that has the stats of all cards in the game at various fusion levels and it also can calculate stats and damage of special attacks at any XP and fusion level for any card. The same is linked here.. Character Stats.
Additionally a guide on how character statistics are calculated at any XP level and fusion level is documented here... Character Stats Calculation Explained
3) Energy
Each time you play a battle your cards use a certain amount of ENERGY. Some battles only require one bar of energy, others as much as three. When you are out of energy you cannot fight immediately unless the cards regain their energy or you swap out cards and replace them with others in your deck to continue playing. Each card has 10 bars of energy.
In multiplayer however, you cannot swap out cards in the middle of a battle ladder. To mitigate this restriction, you can either instantly RECHARGE ENERGY (costs 1 soul per card), or wait for the energy to regenerate back up over time. Souls are precious and are hard to earn. PLEASE DON'T WASTE THEM!
There are support cards for each character that improve energy regeneration. Without these however, a card needs 12 minutes to regenerate 1 energy bar (120 minutes from empty to full). With fully fused energy support cards, it takes 8 and 1/2 minutes to regain 1 energy bar (85 minutes from empty to full). Investing in buying and fusing these should be a priority.
4) Earning koins
There are seven ways to earn koins without spending real money.
Test Your Luck - Logging into the game every day makes you eligible for a random daily reward on your first login attempt of the day, which can be koins. Yep, login every day, it's worth it! The more consecutive days you login, the better the rewards.
Daily Objectives - With the 1.7 update, the old system of 3 bonus missions which only reward souls has been replaced by 12 daily objectives which repeat each day and cannot be replaced. The following objectives offer koin rewards. The ones marked below in bold are fixed for all players.. from the remaining ones any 3 will appear in the list of objectives to complete and will vary from player to player. Per day, you can earn a maximum of 15000 koins if you complete all the objectives that reward koins.
- Open 2 Alliance Packs (1000 koins)
- Use an Ally attack in combat (3000 koins)
- Win 3 matches in a Challenge or in Battle mode (3000 koins)
- Win a Quick Battle in Faction Wars (5000 koins)
- Upgrade a special attack, X-ray or passive (1000 koins) (does not appear if all specials of all cards are fully maxed)
- Perform an X-ray special attack (1000 koins)
- Win 5 Matches against Martial Art opponents (1000 koins)
- Win 5 Matches against Spec Ops opponents (1000 koins)
- Win 5 Matches against Outworld opponents (1000 koins)
- Buy or fuse a support card (1000 koins) (does not appear if all support cards are fully maxed)
- Level up a character card that you own (1000 koins) (does not appear if all cards are at lvl 50)
- Succesfully complete Test Your Might (1000 koins)
Battle Mode - There are currently 7 ladder brackets, with a Boss at the end of each one. Play as far as you can, progressing normally through the game, until you hit a "brick wall" in terms of enemies which are too strong for your current lineup. Many battles give a hefty bonus (a good amount of koins) for your FIRST TIME completing a stage. Each time you hit a brick wall, you need to replay completed towers, which will enable you to promote or buy another character. You will earn the per match reward on completed towers on replaying them but a bonus reward on completing a boss tower is awarded only the first time a tower is cleared.
The following towers in each bracket are the best for farming koins if you are yet to clear the most koin efficient tower across all brackets. Tower numbers listed below are cumulative so use the calculator sheet linked in the earlier section to know the exact tower to farm.
Bracket 1 - tower #4 (1253 koins)
Bracket 2 - tower #10 (2900 koins)
Bracket 3 - tower #17 (4425 koins)
Bracket 4 - tower #24 (5950 koins)
Bracket 5 - tower #31 (7475 koins) (most efficient tower for farming koins across all brackets)
Faction Wars rewards - Online multiplayer teams you up against other players teams online. The battles are not in real time and you basically play the AI who is controlling another player’s team. You have to grind a lot of matches in Faction Wars to rank up on the leaderboards and earn better rewards. You earn koins for every win. In addition to the match rewards, there are two sources of koins from Faction Wars.
a) Battle rating milestones - When you win a match in Faction Wars, you are rewarded with a certain amount of battle rating points which add up to your profile. These determine how you rank up in the leaderboards against other players in your faction. With the 1.8 update, there are 6 battle rating milestones per season which can be reached to earn a reward of koins and blood rubies. As you cross a higher milestone, an increasing number of koins are rewarded as listed below...
1000 points - 3000 koins
25000 points - 4000 koins
50000 points - 5000 koins
100000 points - 6000 koins
200000 points - 8000 koins
300000 points - 10000 koins
By completing all 6 milestones in a season, you earn a total of 36000 koins.
b) Leaderboard ranking rewards - The rewards at the end of a season make playing Faction Wars a very worthwhile endeavor. Based on your leaderboard ranking, you are rewarded a certain number of koins, so the higher you rank up the more koins you get. With the 1.8 update, the rewards have been increased and with 2 seasons a week, you earn twice the rewards. If you finish in the top 10 ranks in your faction at the end of a season, you are awarded 50000 koins.
c) Faction standing - In addition to the above, you are awarded koins based on your faction's standing in the season which is given out weekly on Mondays. If your faction wins a faction war, you are awarded 15000 koins.
Character challenge events - With every update to the game, there are new challenge exclusive characters released. These provide decent amount of koins. The challenges prior to the 1.4 update had only one difficulty and offered 119,700 koins. From the 1.4 update onwards, challenges have 2 difficulties (Normal and Hard). You are awarded with 273,600 koins if you complete both difficulties of a character challenge. With the release of the Triborg challenges which were rush challenges, those events offered 199,500 koins.
Shao Kahn Tower - This tower also rewards koins in the process of earning talent points to buy and upgrade your talent tree skills. The very first time you beat the tower you earn 211,260 koins. Every subsequent playthrough rewards you with 105,630 koins.
Relic Hunt - This new mode introduced in update 1.15 also rewards you with koins on completing battles towards unlocking/fusing Konqueror Shao Kahn. On completing all 5 towers you are rewarded with 127,400 koins.
5) Earning souls
There are seven ways to earn souls without spending real money.
Faction Wars rewards - As mentioned before, Faction Wars will be where you will spend most of your playtime. The higher you rank up on the leaderboard, the better the rewards. If you manage to finish in the top 10 ranks of your faction, you are rewarded with 150 souls. Additionally you are awarded souls based on your faction's standing in the season which is given out weekly on Mondays. If your faction wins a faction war, you are awarded 15 souls.
Test Your Luck - As with the case for koins, if you are lucky you can get a small amount of souls which are very valuable. So, login every day, it's worth it! The more consecutive days you login, the better the rewards. You can get 7 souls from Test Your Luck.
Level up your profile - You earn XP towards your profile by fighting and every alternate level up of your profile level rewards you with 5 souls. When you reach level 50 you are rewarded with 20 souls. Currently the level cap stands at 51.
Battle Mode - There are currently 7 ladder brackets, with a Boss at the end of each one. Play as far as you can, progressing normally through the game, until you hit a "brick wall" in terms of enemies which are too strong for your current lineup. Each time you hit a brick wall, you need to replay completed towers, which will enable you to promote or buy another character to progress further. You will earn the per match reward on completed towers on replaying them but a soul bonus reward is given on completing a boss tower only the FIRST TIME the tower is cleared.
Daily Objectives - With the 1.7 update, the old system of 3 bonus missions which reward souls has been replaced by 12 daily objectives which repeat each day and cannot be replaced. If you complete all 12 objectives for the day you get a 3 soul bonus. The following objectives offer soul rewards and all appear as permanent objectives everyday for all players.
- Daytime login [5AM - 2PM] (3 souls)
- Evening login [2PM - 5AM] (3 souls)
- Win 7 matches in a Challenge or in Battle mode (2 souls)
- Win 12 matches in a Challenge or in Battle mode (4 souls)
- Win a Normal Battle in Faction Wars (3 souls)
Character challenge events - With every update to the game, there are new challenge exclusive characters released. These provide decent amount of souls. The challenges prior to the 1.4 update had only one difficulty and offered 135 souls. From the 1.4 update onwards, challenges have 2 difficulties (Normal and Hard). You are awarded with 312 souls if you complete both difficulties of a character challenge. With the release of the Triborg challenges which were rush challenges, those events offered 159 souls.
Shao Kahn Tower - This tower also rewards souls in the process of earning talent points to buy and upgrade your talent tree skills. The very first time you beat the tower you earn 197 souls. Every subsequent playthrough rewards you with 110 souls.
Relic Hunt - This new mode introduced in update 1.15 also rewards you with souls on completing battles towards unlocking/fusing Konqueror Shao Kahn. On completing all 5 towers you are rewarded with 240 souls.
6) Earning blood rubies
Blood Rubies, a new currency introduced with the 1.8 update, is earned exclusively by playing Faction Wars. The blood rubies earned from Faction Wars can be used to purchase exclusive character cards and equipment from the Faction Wars store. There are two sources of blood rubies from Faction Wars.
a) Battle rating milestones - When you win a match in Faction Wars, you are rewarded with a certain amount of battle rating points which add up to your profile. These determine how you rank up in the leaderboards against other players in your faction. With the 1.8 update, there are 6 battle rating milestones per season which can be reached to earn a reward of blood rubies. As you cross a higher battle rating milestone, an increasing number of blood rubies are rewarded as listed below...
1000 points - 15 blood rubies
25000 points - 20 blood rubies
50000 points - 30 blood rubies
100000 points - 40 blood rubies
200000 points - 45 blood rubies
300000 points - 50 blood rubies
By completing all 6 milestones in a season, you earn a total of 200 blood rubies.
b) Leaderboard ranking rewards - The rewards at the end of a season make playing Faction Wars a very worthwhile endeavor. Based on your leaderboard ranking, you are rewarded a certain number of blood rubies, so the higher you rank up the more blood rubies you get. The amount of blood rubies awarded based on your leaderboard ranking tier are as follows (rank ranges are mentioned in brackets)..
1.8 update (May 12 2016 - Sep 8 2016)
Legend (1-10) - 300 rubies
Grandmaster (11 - 50) - 280 rubies
Master (51 - 100) - 250 rubies
Champion (top 1%) - 220 rubies
Kontender Elite (top 2%) - 210 rubies
Kontender III (top 3%) - 200 rubies
Kontender II (top 5%) - 180 rubies
Kontender I (top 7%) - 160 rubies
1.9 update onwards (Sep 8 2016 - )
Legend (1-10) - 600 rubies
Grandmaster (11 - 50) - 560 rubies
Master (51 - 100) - 500 rubies
Champion (top 1%) - 385 rubies
Kontender Elite (top 2%) - 315 rubies
Kontender III (top 3%) - 300 rubies
Kontender II (top 5%) - 270 rubies
Kontender I (top 7%) - 240 rubies
Ruby increase ratio for each tier
Legend - 2
Grandmaster - 2
Master - 2
Champion - 1.75
Kontender Elite - 1.5
Kontender III - 1.5
Kontender II - 1.5
Kontender I - 1.5
Combining both milestone and leaderboard ranking rewards, the maximum amount of blood rubies you can earn in a season was 500 before the 1.9 update. From the 1.9 update onwards, that limit has been increased to 800 rubies.
7) General tips
Do all your daily objectives without fail. It cannot be stressed enough how important earning and saving souls are to have better cards in the game. Also try not to waste souls on energy refills. Ensure that you have your energy support cards fused to reduce the time taken to regenerate energy. Save your souls and koins!!!
Try and complete challenges on time and make a conscious effort to rank up well in Faction Wars to get good rewards. With this you can make good progress in the game without being forced to spend real cash to get things.
Complete the Shao Kahn tower as far as possible to earn as many talent points to invest and upgrade skills that would greatly help you in Faction Wars.
Starting the game and how to spend your koins and souls:
The free player route
When you first start the game you start with 3 bronze characters and you also get 1 random silver card for free as part of the tutorial.
Play the game as far as you can if you don’t intend to spend any real cash on the game. If you lose a fight, repeat any previous tower that you can easily manage to farm so that you can level up a card to help win the fight that you were stuck at. At this stage, save your koins.
Your next goal is to earn 30k koins to buy another Kard Pack. This will get you 1 more silver character and 2 other random cards. It will help your normal game play immensely and make battles go a lot easier and faster. Again, do not buy moves or support cards for these at this stage. Now play your way through the game until you hit another brick wall.
With 2 silver cards, you should be able to finish at least the first 3 brackets of battle mode without much difficulty. In the process you will also accumulate souls which are crucial to opening that first Kombat Pack for a precious gold card.
Somewhere around the 4th bracket you should have enough souls to be able to open your first Kombat Pack assuming that you have also been doing your daily bonus missions without fail to earn some valuable souls. With the gold and 2 silvers, you should be able to finish the first 5 brackets in battle mode.
The second last tower in each of the first 5 brackets are good places to farm if you are stuck and cannot proceed as these towers give you the most XP per energy spent. The XP calculator sheet linked in the first part of the guide also has a detailed chart for battle mode, so use that as a reference when playing to know future opponents in advance and how strong they are.
The last two brackets increase the difficulty level drastically as the opponents teams will have fully fused silver cards and good fusion level gold cards so unless you have a really strong collection of gold and silver cards, it will be impossible to complete those tower brackets. Don’t attempt them till you have built up your deck with a good number of fully maxed out silver cards and some level 50 gold cards that have been fused a few times.
To continue making progress, play a lot of faction war battles with the cards you have earned through the first 5 brackets in battle mode. This way you can earn more koins and souls through leveling up your profile and also earn faction battle points which determine your season rewards which matter tremendously. Making the top 3% or higher is what you should strive for. Use the koins to buy more silvers and the souls to buy gold cards.
With dedication and effort, you should be able to accumulate a decent collection of cards in a month or two. Always stick to the packs for card purchases as they are the cheapest way to get cards instead of buying them outright unless you are 1 fusion away from maxing out the card.
The paid player route
If you are starting afresh and don’t mind spending some real money, $45 will buy you all the 3 one time deal starter packs which are decent investments. With the 3 packs, you will instantly have Silver Kenshi, Inferno Scorpion, GrandMaster Sub-Zero, 220,000 koins, 330 souls, 7 level up cards and 2 rare gear cards.
The koins alone should help you open 7 kard packs and the souls will get you 2 additional gold cards which should give you a pretty decent head start for battle mode as well as faction wars.
Aside from the packs, its wise to buy packs of souls if any with real money so that you can invest in more gold cards as souls are hard to earn without dedication to playing lot of faction wars.
Recommended cards
Below is the list of the best cards from each tier which are really worth getting to help you in battle mode or faction wars.
The Best Bronze Characters
- Monk – Gives teammates 1 bar of power on being knocked out
- Ninja Mime Johnny Cage – Gives 30% recovery boost for martial artist teammates
- Saurian – Gives 5% health boost for outworld teammates. He has one of the fastest basic attacks among all bronze cards
- Trooper – Gives 5% attack to spec ops teammates. Has pretty good attack speed.
- Kenshi – Gets 40% health boost from spec ops teammates and 40% attack boost from martial artist teammates. Can single handedly defeat teams given the right boosts. Best silver card in the game.
- Ermac – Gets an additional 40% of attack and toughness from dead teammate once per match
- Cassie Cage – Gets 50% health boost if teamed with Johnny Cage and 50% attack boost if teamed with Sonya Blade. Like Kenshi, can single handedly defeat teams if teamed with her parents.
- Jax – Gives 15% toughness for spec ops teammates. He is the tank among the silver cards.
- Covert Ops Cassie Cage – Gives spec ops teammates, 25% unblockable attack chance. She has one of the fastest attacks among gold cards
- Balanced Kenshi – Gives spec ops teammates 1 bar of power at the start
- Demolition Sonya Blade – Gives spec ops teammates 30% attack boost
- Shaolin Kung Jin – Gives martial artist teammates 1 bar of power at the start
- Ninjitsu Scorpion – Gives martial artist teammates 30% attack boost
- Mournful Kitana – Gives outworld teammates 1 bar of power at the start
- Master Of Souls Ermac – Gains 1 bar of power for each outworld teammate. He is the only one who can start a match with an X-Ray attack
- Piercing Mileena - Attacks on bleeding enemy gains 25% health and gains 1 bar of power if made to bleed by opponent
- Heavy Weapons Jax Briggs - A very good soloing character who can deal extensive damage to the entire team with his LAW rocket special 2 attack. Against teams that have ice shields, this breaks the shield instantly for the entire team.
- Kold War Sonya Blade - Gives teammates an ice armor shield which can only be destroyed by a special or X-Ray.
- Gunslinger Erron Black - Very good soloing character whose special 2 attack is unblockable and deals critical damage above 80% which can instantly KO an opponent.
- Slasher Jason Voorhees - Can revive twice and gets 1 bar of power and a damage boost each time he is knocked out.
- Unstoppable Jason Voorhees - Can revive once and gets 1 bar of power and a damage boost when he is knocked out. His special 2 gives him a health regen which is extremely useful.
- Revenant Kung Lao - Gives Netherrealm teammates 1 bar of power at the start
- Dark Empress Kitana - Can enslave an opponent character once defeated to fight for your team once per match. Slave doesnt have benefit of equipment or passive boosts.
- Undead Hunter Johnny Cage - Very good soloing character who can do 30% extra damage against Netherrealm characters like Jason or Quan Chi. Gains 50% meter with each opponent resurrection which makes him a perfect counter for Netherealm characters.
- Bone Shaper Shinnok - Gains a 25% attack boost for each defeated teammate or enemy as well as on enemy resurrections. He becomes very strong if kept alive towards the end.
- High Tech Jacqui Briggs - Gives spec ops teammates a 20% power generation boost. Very useful for characters like Covert Ops Cassie Cage or Heavy Weapons Jax Briggs.
- All 4 Triborg cards (Cyrax, Smoke, Sektor, Sub-Zero) - A team of 3 of these that have one of the best synergies in the game. Increased crit chance, power drain, burn or frostbite on special 1 attacks can make them a real force to reckon with.
- Spec Ops Scorpion - Saves all teammates from a death blow by tagging them out and tagging himself in. Also gives spec ops teammates the capability to cause power drain on tag in.
Possessed Kenshi and Assassin Kitana while not having team passives have the unique ability to cause burn and bleed effects on the opponent on tag-in which are unblockable. Ravenous Mileena who is a diamond tier card can also cause bleed on tag-in as well. Klassic Liu Kang, the strongest diamond as of now causes cripple on tag in and is immune to power drain and gets stronger from DOT attacks.
There are other good gold cards too but these cards improve the team’s attacking power rather than helping just themselves or damaging a single opponent over time.
Fighting
Basics: Battles are all about inflicting a good amount of damage through combos, blocking attacks and performing specials at the right time. Using these tactics intelligently makes you more likely you to win a battle. Basic attacks do less damage while special attacks do more damage and require power. On thr other hand, defense is vital to staying alive against harder opponents. Blocking an attack still inflicts damage but you can lessen the damage if armor equipment cards that provide a toughness boost are worn.
Support Cards: These cards provide an additional boost to your attack, health and energy regeneration rate. Try to max out your character support cards as soon as possible as they will make your cards stronger. When fully fused (at fusion level IV), they can add a 15% boost to your health, attack stats which can help in battle. Energy regeneration has already been covered earlier in section 3.
Special Abilities: A cards special 1 ability is unlocked from the beginning at level 1 and can be leveled up right away. At level 5, you gain the ability to unlock and level up the special 2 move which deals more damage. At level 20, you gain the ability to unlock and level up the special 3 move (silver cards) or a devastating signature X-Ray move (gold cards).
You are invulnerable while performing a special. Special attacks do much more damage than basic attacks. Those moves which also cause DOT (Damage over Time) like poison/bleed/burn) tend to do lesser damage to make up for the extra DOT damage that takes effect once the special attack ends. Unfortunately, enemies suffering DOT will also normally tag out to try and avoid it and regain back lost health.
Power Meter: You start a battle with no power (unless your team has characters that give you a bar or power or use equipment that grants you the same) and can fill it up faster by attacking the opponent more often. The first bar when available, allows you to perform the character’s special 1 ability. Two bars allow you to perform the special 2 ability and finally 3 bars allow you to unleash the character’s most damaging attack or X-Ray move, which can for the most part knockout an opponent character instantly.
For the most part, you will use the card’s special 1 and special 2 moves a lot in battle. However if you have the right team combination that provides a starting power bar boost and you use equipment cards that give you 1 bar of power or grant an increased power generation rate, it is possible to fill up the full 3 bars of meter in a match
When you cause damage on your opponent, you fill up your power bar irrespective of whether your attacks are blocked or not. When you take damage without blocking, you gain 5% meter per hit. If you are playing as Dark Raiden, you gain power if hit by power draining special attacks due to his passive.
When you block enemy attacks you do not gain any power, unless you are Bojutsu Kung Jin, in which case you gain power from blocked hits too. These rules apply to both you and the AI.
Equipment
Equipment is an integral part of making that extra difference to a character’s abilities in battle and can sometimes be the difference between winning and losing. This has been covered in detail in its own guide located here.. Equipment Guide
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