Mario Kart Tour High Score Guide: How to Maximise Your Score and Win the Cups

Our Mario Kart Tour High Score Guide will help you maximise your score so you can win every single cup. High scores are super important in Mario Kart Tour – even more so as finishing first, which might not even …

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Our Mario Kart Tour High Score Guide will help you maximise your score so you can win every single cup. High scores are super important in Mario Kart Tour – even more so as finishing first, which might not even be enough to get the top prize.

To help you earn that, we thought we’d put together a few tips and tricks that helped us to maximise our score. Bear in mind that a big part of earning the top scores involves unlocking drivers, karts, and, to a lesser degree, gliders, so prepare to put in the grind – or cash.

Looking for more Mario Kart Tour content? Check out everything else we’ve written in our Complete Guide.

Mario Kart Tour: How Cups Work

Each week, you and a random 19 other players get placed into a group and must compete with each other to receive the highest combined score in a certain Mario Kart Tour cup.

The higher you place, the greater the rewards, with the top-most player receiving 20 rubies and moving up the cup tiers to face fiercer opposition. This requires hard work and dedication, as well as a little luck.

To get a high score, you’re going to need to have unlocked specific drivers and karts – particularly those who provide the maximum rewards for the courses you have to race on.

Right now, for example, the Toad Cup is where you’ll be racing. Those of you who’ve unlocked Toad, Peachette, Toadette, Metal Mario, Shy Guy, Pauline, Peach, and Mario (Musician) will have a much easier time.

This is due to these characters having the ability to receive three items on their subsequent favoured course. Why is this important? Because you’re going to want to get a Frenzy to access the highest scores.

A Frenzy is when you get three of the same items from a box at once. This triggers invincibility, places your character at maximum speed, and allows you to create a huge combo chain by furiously tapping the screen to use the Frenzy item over and over.

The absolute best Frenzy you can get to access the highest score is Coin, from our experience. You gain points each time you pick up a coin, earning more if you chain coin pick-ups. That’s easy to do with Coin Frenzy, as you’ll pick a coin up each time you tap the screen until it ends.

Where it differs from the others, is that you’re not relying on it harming another character. Any of the weapons require you to hit an enemy to gain the maximum points.

What also helps is having a kart that provides you with double points for the course, and a glider that gives you a three times combo bonus. We’d argue that the glider is less important, but every little helps.

If you have the best kart, driver, and glider combo for a cup, you shouldn’t run into many issues. We’d recommend playing the cup over and over until you get, at the very least, a Frenzy. If you’re really struggling to beat a talented player, keep going until you get Coin Frenzy.

We also recommend trying to finish first for both laps, as this maximises your points, and to turn on manual drift mode and chain mini turbos together. This is a great way to get easy extra points.

Mario Kart Tour: Tips to Maximise Your Points

Now that you understand the basics of cups, let’s take a look at how to maximise your points:

  • Aim to get a Frenzy – particularly Coin Frenzy: To get the best scores, you’re simply going to have to get a Frenzy. This is triggered whenever you get three of the same item out of a box, and makes you invincible, boosts your speed, and lets you repeatedly use that item over and over. It gives you a seriously huge score boost – particularly Coin Frenzy, which gives you points each time you tap.
  • Having the best driver, kart, and glider combo is incredibly important: As much as it pains us to say this, you’re going to need to have certain drivers, karts, and gliders unlocked to progress in Mario Kart Tour. You can get many for free, by saving your rubies to pull 10 pipes at once, or by getting the gold pass to receive them as rewards.
  • Use manual drift and chain together mini turbos: Manual drift is the best control scheme for those looking to maximise their points, as you can pull off mini turbos, which provide you with a boost in score each time you use them. You can also pull them off in between other interactions to keep your combo going.
  • Pick up every coin, jump off every ramp, and use every boost panel: Seriously, interact with everything as it all provides you with points. Hit enemies with items, drift everywhere, jump off every ramp, remain airborne as long as possible, and use every single boost panel. Never waste points.
  • Practice makes perfect: You’re not going to get the perfect score on your first attempt unless you’re incredibly lucky. Get used to the idea of practicing a course until you master it. Seek out shortcuts and learn when to drift.

Head of Editorial
Glen has over a decade's worth of experience in gaming journalism, writing for Pocket Gamer, Pocket Tactics, Nintendo Life, and Gfinity. When he's not badgering everyone about the dangers of passive text, you can probably find him playing Wild Rift.