Coin Master Guide

You’ve probably seen all the ads for Coin Master every time you go on YouTube or read an article online, but how many of you have actually gone and tried the game? Like many other games these days, the simplicity of spinning a virtual slot machine belies a deeper and more complex mechanic that requires proper strategic thinking and rationalization to succeed. How much you should actually think while playing Coin Master depends entirely on your personal experience, but this guide is meant to help you turn this seemingly mindless game into an even more passive experience.

As you may have already guessed, the key element of playing Coin Master revolves around the slot machine mechanic. Every day, you can spin the wheel a set number of times and get action cards that you can use to win loot, a chance to attack and raid other villages, as well as shields to protect your own. The goal here is to build your little Viking village into the strongest and richest place in the world, and the way to do that is by consistently playing the slot machine, collecting resources to develop your own village, and attacking weaker villages. For the completionists among you, there’s also a collection mechanic where you can aim to get as many card sets as possible.

Villages and Resources

As you begin your Coin Master journey, the first thing you’ll see is an empty plot of land. This is your village, and your primary goal in the game should be to develop it as best you can. Each village has a certain number of structures that you’ll be able to build and upgrade. The level of each structure is indicated by a number of stars, and once you collect enough of them, you’ll be able to move on to the next island, where your next village will be located.

Coins are the primary resource in this game, and you’ll most likely use them to buy upgrades for your village’s structures. You can earn them in a variety of ways, the two most notable being attacks and raids.

Get to Know the Slot Machine Icons

When you first pull the slot machine, you’ll see a number of different icons. Each of them carries a specific function, and we’ll go over what they do and how you can use them to your advantage. Here are some of the most prominent icons you’ll come across and what each of them does.

The Hammer indicates an opportunity to attack. This means you can use it to attack other villages, which will belong to NPCs or to your friends if you enjoy multiplayer. Carrying out a successful attack will earn you coins, and you’ll want as many of them as possible to develop your village quickly. Furthermore, if the person you’re attacking doesn’t have any shields, you’ll be able to set back their progress, as the structure you choose to attack will be reduced by one level. This means the other person would have to spend resources to level it back up again. Keep in mind that if your village is attacked by another player, you’ll experience some setbacks before launching your own attack. That’s because your village will first need to recover before going on the offensive.

Shields should be simple enough to understand; they guard and protect your village for just one turn. Shields don’t stop another player from attacking you, but they do prevent them from destroying your structures, which would set back your village’s overall development. Players who attack someone with active Shields will also earn a much smaller amount of coins than if they attacked someone without them. You’ll be able to hold a maximum of 3 Shields at once, and they’ll be used up automatically every time another player decides to attack you. While this makes it a bit harder to strategize your actions, there are ways to indirectly preserve your Shields. More on that later.

As mentioned before, Shields help you suffer smaller losses. You should also keep in mind that the only way to reduce someone’s Shields is by attacking their village, so if you have deeper pockets in the game, brute-forcing your way through may be the route to take.

The Pig’s Face is a pretty interesting mechanic compared to the other options available to you. What it essentially does is allow you to steal coins from another village with a fairly significant return. This village will either belong to a random NPC or a random player you’ve come across with a sizable amount of coins on hand. There are no significant risks (except perhaps the animosity of the person you’re stealing from); it’s just relatively rare to come across this option at all. So if you manage to steal a significant amount of coins from someone else, you could potentially force them to become the poorest player in the game. Whether it’s out of spite (because it’s perfectly fine to be petty) or you just want to offset your losses from not defending your village against an attack, the Pig’s Face has you covered.

One thing about the Pig’s Face icon is that you’ll only have a limited number of chances to steal coins. As such, it’s imperative that you don’t panic and blindly tap the screen. You’ll be shown a total of 4 dig spots: one of them holds a huge stash of coins, 2 others hold a somewhat smaller amount, and the last one is empty. It’s mostly a game of chance, as with every other aspect of this game. However, there are a number of methods you can use to get the maximum every time. More on this a bit later.

Besides the icons listed above, you can also get extra spins as well as coins. The former requires you to get the energy icon 3 times in a row, while the latter will be awarded to you just by spinning the slot machine. The number of coins you get will largely be determined by the combination on the slot machine, with 3 coin icons in a row giving you the highest amount.

Spin Mechanics

You’ll receive 5 spins every hour, up to a maximum of 50. However, spins still keep accumulating after that, so nothing goes to waste. It’s just not explicitly shown. There are various ways to get extra spins in the game, the most prominent being simply buying them in the store. However, if you’re an F2P fan, there are other methods you can use.

Finally, it’s advisable to check how many coins you actually have before spinning the slot machine. That’s because your village is likely to be attacked every time you attack another person’s village, provided you don’t have Shields up. Without coins at your disposal, you’ll be locked in a particular village with no way to progress. Of course, we want to avoid that, so it’s smart to always check your available coins before doing anything else.

Maximizing Progress for F2P or Low Spenders

Linking Your Social Media Account

At its core, Coin Master is an F2P game, which means you can actually progress through the game without having to spend real money. The downside is that your progress will be much slower compared to players who invest financially in the game. To even out the odds a little, you can choose to link your social media account, such as Facebook, to the game. Not only does this serve as your save data, keeping your progress intact if you lose your account for any reason, but it also comes with many perks, such as coins and extra spins.

But there’s more. If you enjoy social play, linking with Facebook will also give you a more convenient way to communicate with more experienced players through Facebook groups, which you can use to trade card sets to quickly fill your collection. You can also send each other gifts like coins and spins, which will speed up your progress in the game.

How to Buy Chests

For those of you who don’t mind parting with a few dollars, consider visiting the in-game store to buy chests. Chests unlock cards, which, as we mentioned, are important for getting rewards. So if you need that specific card to get the Rhino, or even if you’re just after a few extra spins, this may be the option for you. You can also get chests through Raids, but the chances of that happening are incredibly slim.

There are 3 types of chests: Wooden, Golden and Magical, listed in order of increasing cost. A more expensive chest will get you more cards, which will help you complete a set much faster. Chests will also gradually get more expensive as you progress, so we suggest spending while you’re still below level 50. Try to get Wooden chests first, since they’re the cheapest option. Once you start getting duplicates, you can switch to more expensive chests or head to Facebook to see if anyone is willing to trade.

There are certain “tactics” for buying chests that you can find online if you browse carefully enough. A large number of users have claimed they don’t work, while others say they do, so take them with a grain of salt. What it essentially comes down to is tracking the contents of your chests in an attempt to calculate your overall probability of “luck”. For example, if the last card from the last chest you opened was only a 1-2 star card, you probably won’t get good cards on your next draw, so you might opt for a Wooden chest to cut your losses. Conversely, if your last card was a high-rarity card, you could buy a Magical chest, since the algorithm is seemingly in your favor for now. Again, we wouldn’t call this cheating or anything like that, as it doesn’t seem to work for everyone.

Ideally, you should buy chests most often during Cards Boom events, which will get you more cards per chest. Keep an eye out for them.

Stay Ahead of the Competition

So now that you’ve gotten into Coin Master, what can you actually do to stay ahead in the rat race? Well, you can start by saving up your spins. At first, you’ll be allowed to make 1x or 3x spins, which essentially raise the stakes as well as the rewards in exchange for spin attempts. Once you pass the 200-spin mark, you’ll be able to place 5x bets. Higher multipliers will follow as you collect more spins, going up to 50x.

You might be inclined to think that the higher the stakes, the more significant the losses will be. And you’re not wrong. That’s why we suggest using this super-betting feature conservatively. If it suits you, stick to 25x bets instead. A single win will be more than enough to make up for any losses you’ve suffered.

The reason we advocate saving your spins is that you won’t necessarily see significant progress doing single spins. With a large spin capacity at your disposal, you’re likely to skip entire levels in a single session, rather than endlessly grinding minute after minute. In our opinion, this is a much better use of time and a more efficient way to play.

Besides spins, you can also improve your gameplay with the help of pets. Each pet has a different utility, and you can only have one active at a time. You can get pets by leveling up, but sometimes you may also need to complete a card collection set. The most important pets include:

• Rhino: Helps defend your village from attacks when you don’t have Shields.
• Tiger: Boosts your attacks on other villages and gives you bigger rewards, even against Shield-protected villages.
• Foxy: Digs a fourth hole during a raid, ensuring you get a perfect raid every time.

The more often you use your pets, the more experienced they become at their job, giving you a bigger advantage as time goes on. Keep in mind that for your pet to be active, it needs to be fed. There are several ways to get pet food. You can choose to wait for the game to give you one free serving each day, but that’s not the most sustainable method, as your pet will very likely go hungry before then. This means you can avoid the consequences of hunger by letting your pet rest whenever you run out of food. Other than that, your only real options are buying food in the store or sending spam messages that reward pet food. Technically, you can also get it from the slot machine, but we wouldn’t count on that happening too often.

Tips and Tricks

Extra Chances to Spin the Slot Machine

Every day, you’ll get a total of 5 chances to spin the slot machine, which some of you may find a bit lacking. But don’t worry. There’s a way to get free spins indefinitely. Here are the steps you’ll need to follow:

1. As soon as you open the game, kill it by restarting your phone or closing it through the task manager.
2. Go to your time and date settings and move the clock forward one day. Let’s say you’re playing the game on Monday; just move the clock forward to Tuesday.
3. Voilà. You’ve now got an extra 5 spins for free.

Using this method, you can keep skipping ahead day after day for more spins each time. So if you feel like you need extra spins, we recommend giving this a try.

Be Persistent, but Also Opportunistic

To properly optimize your gameplay, you want to take advantage of everything the game has to offer. That means you should aim to claim the daily bonus as soon as you log in each day, and also check any gifts you’ve received from friends since you last logged out.

Besides that, you also want to be strategic about the events you actively take part in. Not every event will be equally rewarding, but fortunately they all come in droves. Be sure to check the requirements for each event and decide for yourself whether they’re worth completing before you put in the effort.

Spend Big

We’ve taught you the importance of getting coins, but what’s just as important is making use of them. You see, when you have a lot of coins at your disposal, there’s a high chance you’ll be picked for raids, and when another player attacks you, they’ll also have more to gain. So instead of keeping all those coins stored up just to be stolen, it’s probably in your best interest to use them as much as possible. You can use them to upgrade your village or even to buy chests. The point is, don’t hoard if you don’t want a giant bullseye painted on your back.

The Two-Finger Trick

Now, if you haven’t unlocked Foxy yet or don’t have the capacity to activate it for a raid, there’s another trick you can use to get all the loot. This is the notorious two-finger trick, which works when you’ve used 2 of your 3 dig chances and managed to find treasure on both. At this point, with one chance left and 2 spots to choose from, the odds of finding treasure a third time are 50-50. To use the two-finger trick, simply tap and hold both spots at the same time. This will trick the system into digging the hole that contains the treasure, which in turn gets you a perfect raid. Of course, for this to work, your fingers must touch both holes at the same time, and you’ll also need to succeed on your first 2 dig attempts.

Know Your Enemy

If you ever get the option to attack someone else, there’s one tip you can use to determine whether or not you should go after them, and that’s to check whether they have a lot of burning buildings. As you should already know, attacking someone with active Shields isn’t exactly the most rewarding undertaking. That’s why your ideal opponent should be someone who is vulnerable and unprotected. Someone who actively fends off attacks will likely have their village intact and in good condition, while someone without Shields has likely suffered consecutive attacks and had their village structures set on fire. As ruthless as it sounds, this is how you take out potential targets, and if you don’t mind losing a few friendships, go ahead and hammer the final nail in the coffin.