Rising Star Meme #29 - Getting the Most out of Card Purchases to increase FANS (Tiers Explained)

Earlier today, I said that I'd give a thorough explanation on my big "worthy" card purchase off of the market, so here we are...

(Couldn't think of a fitting meme, so have some "404 not found" humor)

Finding out what you "need"

Depending on where you are in your journey, you'd need different cards and stats to accelerate your progress, but as a converging point, Fans are the common goal regardless of which stage you're in. (as they increase your income)

Tiers

I believe there are more tiers and categories into which players can be divided (like a sub-category of having the Millionaire's card or not), but for the sake of simplicity, let's go with the three general ones:

• Little Fish - who is new blood and is testing the waters
• Somewhat Bigger Fish - who knows the basics and is managing everything to lay the foundation of becoming a Whale
• Whales - well, pretty much self-explanatory

Where to find the best deals?

If you're looking for deals on the game's card page one by one... hate to break it to you, but you're WAAAY behind.
Foxon's website at RSGFam.com is the go-to when looking for the cheapest Fan out there.

But there's a catch...

Usually, (it's been true for as long as I've been around) the cheapest card is a card with the following traits:

• 125 Fans / 75 Skills
• It's a Rare
• It is introduced that month (or the previous ones)

This is this month's instance.

The first trait is the one we're concerned with. (The rest was for training so you can detect the ones in the future)

Now, this is where it gets interesting:

I argue that such a cheap card is not for everyone - due to the difference between Fans and Skills.

Here's how that cheap card affects each Tier in my opinion:

• Lil Fish:
  It's mostly beneficial for these groups of players. Since they're new, they probably have few fans and haven't unlocked Ego yet. So the extra Fans enable them to do higher missions and earn more while not producing any Ego at all. (unless they hit Level 15 or 1000 Fans - whichever first)
  I'd recommend buying as long as you haven't hit 1000 Fans to trigger Ego.

• Whales:
  Well, whales are whales and they're mostly not affected by ANYTHING. So they're fine. They probably have stacked a big number of Lucks and their Music Lesson pays really well, making these cards perfect for them, a single 1hr Music Lesson can cover tens of these cards and since they're cheap, it's almost as if the Music Lesson is in fact producing STARBITS.

• Medium Fish (and no, we're not talking about how well they're cooked)
  These guys - including myself - will have the least benefit of all from those cards. Let's dive deeper here and I'll explain a substitute:

As a Rule of Thumb:

The floor price for cards is observed to be around 50 STARBITS per Fan. (This is the current meta, might change, and is not exactly 50 all the time... bounces from 48 to 54 or more depending on the market and time of the month)

Considering that "Rule", Flash should be worth around 6250 STARBITS.

Now, if you're a Medium fish and have invested enough in a particular instrument, then this is your green light to go for that Rare card - especially when Crow or other pack openers have put them on sale mid-month which makes them super cheap.

If you're a Maso like me trying to balance Lucks and Fans and raise them simultaneously (or simply don't have the means to stack excess Lucks), then it's better to pay a little bit extra for some good cards...

There are cards like R159 Stomper or R160 Melody with 150 Fans and 150 Skills. Giving more than your average Fans you'd normally get from a Rare and producing no Ego. I was lucky enough to find a batch on sale from Crow for less than 8K SB which means they cost less than 53 SB per fan and they're cards that produce no Ego making them extremely valuable, but not on the top of SB/Fan-value ranking.

In the end, it's best to go with the method you're most prepared for or the one you're most comfortable with. These are just my speculations on the matter, and the reason I've not gathered much Luck is due to my indecisiveness over which instrument to focus on, so I've decided to go this way until I've got a firm belief in one of them to master :D