Hello fellow Hivians!

So I've been dabbling in Rising Star the past couple months but hadn't really written much about yet. Since many of my SPL guild mates have also started their journey into Rising Star I thought I'd use the starbits I've accumulated to buy my first pack as well as talk through some of the tips and tricks I've found to be helpful in the game.

Pack Opening

So first off, packs are awesome. However, much like in Splinterlands, and any other TCG for that matter, as a new player you might be better off specifically buying the cards you need vs buying packs. I would still categorize myself as a new player and am not following my own advice here as I simply like the joy of opening. Further, I'm after two specific legendary cards which I simply can't afford to buy outright at the moment: Foxon and Wagginston. You might wonder why these cards specifically and honestly it isn't because of any specific in-game reason but more so that these guys support the Peakd Blockchain Gaming community and have really been a major support factor in my Hive experience so far.

When you are in the marketplace web page you can actually see all of the various cards which are currently live within packs. Once these cards hit their full limit however, they will no longer be mintable and 2nd market will be the only way to obtain them.

So with my pack, what did I get:

Unfortunately, nothing amazing, certainly not one of the 2 cards I'm after. That said, all 3 of these cards are new to me and not duplicates so still a net positive.

Tips and Tricks

Buy special collaboration cards

There are a handful of cards out there much like S30 Juan Up which can be purchased with the collaboration's native coin. Generally as a new Rising Star player you very likely are coming from an existing Hive environment and as such likely have some of those native tokens. As such, it will make obtaining these cards some of the easiest power boosts for you.

I'm aware of Peakd community collaborations, the Juan Up OneUp collaboration, and of course Pizza. Juan Up specifically however holds a special place for me not only because I support the Oneup community but also because the reference to Ready Player One just does something for me as it really is such a great book especially considering how close we are getting to that dystopia with the whole metaverse idea. Anyways, this specific card can be obtained via the in-game marketplace for 160 oneup tokens.

Prioritize unique cards

This unfortunately should go sort of without saying but duplicates don't really help you much so try and get unique copies of cards. If you do end up with duplicates, find someone in the community to trade with or sell them. Yes, one day they could go up in value so maybe holding them is the right call for you but that wouldn't help you now and I'm sure there are plenty of cards you don't own yet which would serve both purposes.

On that note, I have the following duplicates:

Focus on a single instrument type

EGO is a mechanic that comes into play for most people once you hit lvl 15 (or if you are dropping money into the game, at 1000 FANS). This mechanic directly reduces the amount of STARBITS you earn from running missions. The way this is countered is simple, keep your SKILL stat higher than your FANS stat.

Although this can be accomplished via buying various cards, you generally will do this by taking music lessons and the amount of skill you get stacks based on the instrument type so when you take guitar lessons, it will consider all of the guitars you have.

Another benefit to music lessons aside from the SKILL stat boost is that generally, the ratio of XP/Energy use is incredibly high. For example you can see here that Guitar lessons take 40% energy and provide 120 XP. This can be compared to the Midweek Headline Mission which provides 125 XP but costs a massive 80% of your energy.

Buy a booster

Boosters are cards that generally perform either straight up stat boosts or are reusable energy modifiers. You may have noticed after completing your early missions that you received some coffee or maybe a pizza slice which either refilled completely or boosted your energy recharge. These are free boosters which the game will randomly hand out at the end of any mission with the % chance dropping as you level higher and higher.

These boosters are the FASTEST way to improve your Rising Star experience. They simply make you level faster than anything else you can do as there are few ways to circumvent time requirements such as recharging your energy to start the next mission.

So which cards should you buy? Well the following: Cold Pizza Slice, Pizza Box, Coffee Cup, Risky Whisky. This is in order of importance as well. Pizza is easily the most powerful boost as it simply sets your energy to 100% allowing you to do any mission.

Buy an I6 Mid-Range Acoustic Guitar

There are a few cards which are an absolute must for progression and one of them is the i6 Mid-Range Acoustic Guitar. Why, well because it is built into the mechanics which allow you to move to the second region of the game. There are a few other situations where you have to have a card to progress but they are not as specific as this requirement, more like 'Have a vehicle' instead.

Use NFT Mart

Although there is an in-game market, it is terribly optimized and doesn't function well. As such, I seriously suggest utilizing NFT Mart for all of your Rising Star market activities.

Conclusion

Quick Summary:

• Buy special collaboration cards
• Prioritize unique cards
• Focus on a single instrument type
• Buy a booster
• Buy an I6 Mid-Range Acoustic Guitar
• Use NFT Mart

So that's a wrap. I hope my tips and tricks help you out in your Rising Star journey. If you have any questions or mechanics you'd like me to look into drop a link in the comments below.

Cheers all!

Disclaimers

Images pulled from games belong to their respective developers. All other images and content owned by me unless otherwise noted.

Helpful Details

Hive Curators

For those of you that blog but don't like to curate content, consider delegating your tokens for daily payouts. The following Curation accounts will payout 95% of all curation rewards received back to you automatically allowing you to indirectly support great content while earning great APY off of your crypto.