Card Hunting Guide: Get your Tier 10 Ring ASAP

Preface​

First off, a disclaimer: This is NOT a guide to help you get EVERY single card in the monster book. I haven't done this, and I'm sure the vast majority of the people that are going to find this guide won't either (as I'm writing this, only 3 people in the whole server have completed the Monster Book 100%, which literally is only 0.002% of the total number of characters created in the server).

There are in total 425 card sets in MapleLegends' Monster Book, and you only need 300 to get this ring. This guide is a compilation of my experience getting those sets, where the easiest maps are, and some tips in order to get your Tier 10 ring as quick as possible.

I won't go in depth into why you should do this either. I'll just say the ring is amazing. It's the best HP equip you can get in the game and the 10/10/10/10 boost is nice mainly for the secondary stat boosts to equip higher lv weapons and armor and to get +1MP per level for HP washing. Also, the amount of mobbing you'll be doing will grant you gachas, equips and drops that can give you a good monetary incentive to keep going.

For the people who already know the ins and outs of card hunting and just want to check the Tier List of the best zones to hunt, go directly to the "WHERE to hunt" section.

Finally, while I tried to be as objective as possible (talking about map designs, card drop rates, mob spawn rates and even used the experiences of other players' card hunts), this is just a conclusion based mostly on my personal experience. The tier list can be further improved with YOUR responses and experiences. So go nuts on the comments.

Spoiler: EDITS

EDITS:
-Mainly grammar and spelling checks.
-Added guide to buying PQ boss cards via Tienk.
-Added Neo Tokyo ranking, since at the time of doing this guide I forgot about it. Despite how frequent the card drop is, it sits in the B-tier, given the amount of prequests you have to do in order to visit new maps and its lv requierements.
-Ariant and Magatia have been changed in the Tier list from A-Tier to S-Tier.
-Scholar Ghost's rare card drop rate has been acknowledged in the KFT zone.
-Korean Folk Town has been moved to the S-Tier! Honestly, A-Tier was also a good spot for it, considering you need to do some extra work to complete the King Goblin sets and Scholar Ghost is just annoying to hunt. But the rest of the cards are SO easy to hunt that people who just want to get a couple of tiers to their ring shouldn't really skip this one.
- New Leaf City has been added to the Tier List after the the September 2021 Update.
-Added some extra information about the portals added in Ludibrium. Thanks to them, Deep Ludibrium's wording and its placement within the D-Tier list has been modified, thanks to the introduction of the portals for every single one of its gigantic maps.
- The whole Tier List (and the "edits" section) has been hidden behind spoilers to save screen space.
-Level ranges of each zone have been added so you can start in a zone that fits your character's level. Shoutouts to Trion for the idea!

Hope you enjoy!

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Introduction​

I got my Tier 10 ring with my main character: GrayNimbus (lv140 Corsair as I'm writing this). I created this character in 2018, before the Monster Book patch, and did not pick it up again until May 2020. This is important because it means that I started hunting for cards at lv125 with virtually 0% progress on it; no completed sets, and basically no cards, save from a random 1/5 here and there. The whole process of getting from tier 0 to tier 10 took me a bit less than a month (from June 13th 2020 to July 8th 2020), in which I also still did bossing, grinded and participated in the Anniversary Event. All of this without the help of an alternative account with an Archmage/Bishop.

All of this just means that getting a Tier 10 ring is possible to do within a month's worth of work, or during the many months you are training your character AND YOU CAN DO IT TOO!

While the grind to get this ring to the final tier is long and sometimes very arduous, I hope this guide can help new card hunters to lessen the tedium of the whole process by choosing when to begin and where to start hunting, keep on going, and ending the journey.

So, let's begin.

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The Book
​

Let's start with some math about the monster book. There are 9 post-it notes in the monster book, each with a different number of mobs:

Red (lv 1-15): 13 cards
Orange (lv 16-30): 56 cards
Light Green (lv 31-45): 88 cards
Dark Green (lv 46-60): 71 cards
Light Blue (lv 61-75): 51 cards
Dark Blue (lv 76-90): 32 cards
Purple (lv 91-105): 33 cards
Black (lv 105+): 30 cards
Gold (Boss cards): 52 cards

NOTE: As of September 2021, new cards have been added to the Monster Book. You might see a discrepancy between the number of Card Sets that are mentioned here and the Card Sets on the in-game Monster book. This is because some cards are still not available for hunting yet! Here, I'm only focused on mentioning card sets that you can hunt right now to get your Tier 10 Ring.

It is important to know that THESE ARE NOT ALL THE MONSTERS PRESENT IN MAPLELEGENDS. Not every zone you will visit during your gameplay will have cards, so please check if the zone you are trying to hunt and its monsters are included in the book!

Now... if you start adding all the numbers from top to bottom, you might realize that there are already 311 sets from the colors Red to Dark Blue. This is GREAT news, because Purple, Black and Gold cards are, as a general rule, harder sets to get. And while this mostly is true, that does not mean that some of the cards in the other sets are REALLY hard to get (in fact, the Dark Blue set has a lot of hard sets), so you will probably have to help yourself by getting cards from ALL the colors.

Since the Dark Blue tier has mobs from lv 76-90, you could theoretically finish your Tier 10 ring around those levels... However, anyone who has done this would tell you otherwise. You will, most likely, get your Tier 10 Ring when you reach lvs past your 4th job (120+)

Which leads to when do I recommend to start hunting for cards, how to hunt for these cards and where to start hunting these cards.

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WHEN to Begin​

Since the first 4 color tiers have LOTS of cards to start hunting (228 in total, which could lead you to Tier 7 and 18/30 sets for tier 8), you could start completing some sets with any character, even during your 1st and 2nd jobs. But again, this guide is meant to tell you how to do this the most efficient way. And killing mobs of your level, that you probably 2-5 hit, is definitely not optimal to finish your card hunts.

"When" to begin is very subjective, since it depends both on your class and your lv, but the general rule is a no brainer. Start card hunting when:

1. You have a good mobbing skill.
2. You can 1 hit the mobs you are hunting.

Since a lot of characters who will want to obtain this ring are ranged DPS classes (because of the +1k HP boost to our squishy HP), this might be an issue if you don't have an alt account with a Bishop/Archmage. But, as I said before, it can be done within a month without said help. It just means that you will probably start card hunting or finishing the monster book later than other classes.

If you want to check out a guide that was made with access to a mage ult, then click here to give it a read. My main takeaway after reading it is that the mage ults help you deal with awkward map designs that you would otherwise have to deal with with other classes, and which consequently pushed these zones down in my own tier list. Shoutouts to anitbishop for referring to my guide too!

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HOW to Hunt​

While card hunting, I heard of 2 main ways people hunt for cards:

1. Color-coded card hunting.
2. Card hunting each individual zone.

My rule is:
If your character is high lv and strong enough to 1-2 hit a series of maps and zones already, card hunting each zone is definitely faster. If you are not there yet, just card hunt by colors.

You might think that the reason why card hunting each zone is faster than the color-coded way is because you don't waste time travelling from place to place. While this is DEFINITELY a factor, the main reason is actually because some zones seem to actually have mobs that are way more generous at dropping cards than other zones, regardless of their color. At the same time, some zones just have better map designs and/or spawn rates than others.

This is why I am 100% convinced that card hunting each zone wins over color-coded card hunting and will net you a faster completion time for your Tier 10. Hands Down. Even if you want to hunt by color code (or can't complete a whole zone because you are of low lv), you will complete sets and earn new ring Tiers faster if you know which areas are easier to complete within said color.

Other benefits of card hunting when you are high lv is that you will spend almost no money on pots for a long time, since most mobs will hit you for no damage, and picking up their drops, gachas and mesos will most likely leave you in a positive balance. This is especially true when hunting mobs that are known for their expensive drops (i.e. Nightghosts).

So now, for probably the most helpful part of this guide and something I would have liked to know while hunting, let's talk about which zones you should hunt and which ones you should avoid or save for later.

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WHERE to Hunt​

On average (taken from mine and other friends' experiences), each set will take you around 25-35 minutes, considering you can 1-hit and have good mobbing skills (which averages out to around 150 hours of card hunting to get your Tier 10 ring). Any mob that takes fewer minutes than this means that you were very lucky or that said mob is S-tier quality and will take that whole zone to a higher tier. Mobs that take longer than 1 hour to complete exist, and this can happen because they only exist in horribly designed maps, the spawn rate is abysmal, their card drop rate is just horrible, or all of the above.

Also, I won't go into bosses (Gold Cards) when doing the tier lists, unless they are extremely easy to get. I will go into bosses after tiering the zones. Also, the zones inside every tier are not ranked themselves, just ordered per lv.

If you are interested, however, in checking out a Card Tier list for anti-botting mobs and bosses, click here.

I also won't go into the best maps to hunt every single monster in the game, because it has been done before. Click here to go to the Monster Book Efficient Farming Guide discussion. In fact, I'd recommend to always hunt with this guide open on a tab! Just bear in mind that the recommended maps assume that you are focused on hunting just that one type of monster, and you will have to look for a new map if you want to hunt 2-3 monsters at the same time (which is sometimes better for you).

The aforementioned guide also doesn't mention how good or bad the monster card drop rates are; and that is actually the main reason I thought about making this guide. Hunting in level order is not necessarily the best option. And when it is, there could be many zones in the game you could begin with. Im here to explain which are the best ones in my experience.

Finally, YOU know your character better than I will ever do (damage range, stats, level, skills, the level of those skills, HP and elemental attributes). So, if you encounter a zone that is hard for your character, maybe because they resist your elemental attacks, they deal too much damage for the HP you have, you can't 1-2 hit consistently because you lack damage, or any other reason, then you might have to change your card hunting routes accordingly and move between tiers.

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The Tier List
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Spoiler: S-Tier

S-Tier​

-Ariant/Magatia: These zones have a lot of good factors for card hunting: maps dedicated to only 1 monster, a lot of low lv mobs that you can 1-hit very soon (though this is more true for Ariant than Magatia) and a lot of possible cards to collect. The anti bots, Rurumo and Deet & Roi, deserve a shoutout, since they are also fairly easy sets to complete, despite their spawn timers. I previously had criticisms about spawn rates, but recently the maps have been revamped, making most maps bigger and with teleports to boot. Homunscullo and D.Roy are still fairly hard to complete, but besides that this zone is amazing.
Mob level range: 20-80 (85 if Kimera is counted)

- Orbis Tower: While the mob count in this zone is not as big as other S-Tier zones, this is a very low lv card hunt that you will finish quickly. I got all of them in less than 2 hours. Not joking. Only card that takes an average time for me was Scuba Pepe.
Mob level range: 23-36

- Ludibrium- Eos Tower: One of the best zones for card hunting, provided your character can mob efficiently in outside spaces. There are just a couple of mobs who take a long time to finish (King Bloctopus, Rombot). The rest had average to below average drop rates. Some mobs will even gift you their cards (Trixter and Green Trixter).
Mob level range: 23-47

- Ludibrium- Terrace/Factory and Time Zones: Lots of mobs, fairly generous drop rates and still a place you can start very early on. Aside from Deep Ludibrium, which will be off-limits for you until you are higher lv, you can get a lot of good cards here. And now that certain maps have portals added for extra mobility, this zone should be a breeze. Just do it with your Eos and Helios Tower hunts and you'll be set (pun intended)!
Mob level range: 30-46 (59, if Timer is included)

Mu Lung & Herb Town: If you can 1 shot or 2 shot every mob on this zone, start here. This is, bar none, the best place to card hunt. It is very likely you will have a full set of Bellflower Root just by casually moving trough maps. Only monster that can take a while is Reindeer. Aside from that, this place is my #1 recommended place to start (and, ironically, I left it for last when hunting with my Corsair).
Mob level range: 40-70 (77 if King Sage Cat is counted)


- Korean Folk Town: These cards are EASY, though it doesn't have that many mobs to hunt. This is even more true if you don't come prepared to hunt the 3 King Goblins. In other words, to truly card hunt efficiently in this area, you need to complete the quests required to get the Rice Wine, Buckwheat Paste and Roasted Pork needed to summon them. Hoard these use items for a few days, until you have 10-15 of each (or... just buy them from FM or via Discord's #FreeMarket channel) to get 3 extremely easy card sets. Only disclaimer: Scholar Ghost's card drop is pretty bad, coupled with the fact that it doesn't really spawn often. I finished the rest of this zone so quickly I left before even seeing one; but the comments on this thread say that they've had a bad time hunting this card. I'd recommend to hunt for it if you are in the zone still, but feel free to leave once you have the rest; you still have a lot of easier cards to get to start suffering for this one.
Mob level range: 45-70 (Starts with lv22 only if Dark Axe Stump is counted)

-

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Spoiler: A+- Tier, or the Victoria Island Tier

A+ - Tier, or the "Victoria Island" Tier​

Let me explain; I don't think the WHOLE of Victoria Island is easy to hunt. Hell, there are too many mobs to even rank it properly with other regions of the game (and that is why it is getting its own tier). And you probably won't hunt the whole of victoria island in one go. BUT I can't, in good faith, put Victoria Island any lower because of the amount of the low lv mobs here, combined with some easy zones to complete. In fact, for color-coded hunters, the Red tier can be 100% completed without ever leaving Victoria Island or even walking far from its main cities (completing the Red tier must be, by far, the most popular way of starting your card hunting journey, according to what I've heard from other people and friends).

So, for hunting inside Victoria Island, my recommendation is doing the following IN TANDEM with the A-Tier zones:

- Complete the maps south of Victoria Island (From Lith Harbor, to Henesys, to Ellinia). You can skip Golems for now, since their card drop rate isn't THAT good, but remember to finish them later on!.

- Complete Kerning City's Subway and any mob near Kerning City that doesn't spawn in the last mentioned cities (Octopus, mainly). Don't go crazy for Shade, since it spawns in a very popular low lv leech map and you'll probably won't be able to hunt it efficiently (it has a spawn timer, just like the bosses but it takes less time to spawn).

- Hunt in Perion, but just the low lv mobs (Stumps, Dark Stumps, Axe Stumps, Dark Axe Stumps, Wild Boars). You could also do The Burnt Land at this point, or leave it for later. Do leave the Excavation Site for last, though.

- From Kerning City, hunt the whole Swamp zone until you reach Sleepywood. Hunt the Jr. Necki outside sleepywood and complete the Horny Mushrooms, Zombie Mushrooms and Evil Eyes from the Ant Tunnel.

- Go to Florina Beach, where you'll get just 3 easy cards: Tortie, Lorang and Clang (Lupin has way more efficient maps and you shouldn't do it here).

- Finally, prepare yourself for the hard part of Victoria Island. In whichever order you want, finish the Excavation Site and complete Sleepywood Dungeon. These final zones would probably fall into the B or even C -Tier category if they weren't bundled up with the rest of Victoria Island.

Victoria Island is also the perfect place to hunt a lot of the Boss cards, since you'll spend so much of your play time in the island. Just try to get some spawn timers and patiently hunt those bosses while you are near the place.
Mob level range: 1-75 (80 if Jr. Balrog is counted)

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Spoiler: A-Tier

A-Tier​

Remember, this Tier is basically tied with a lot of Victoria Island zones/routes. Don't think A-Tier as to being a "little bit worse than Victoria Island", but rather as "zones I can do while I also finish card hunting in Victoria".

- Shanghai (China): This place is both low lv and easy to finish. Fairly average drop rates for every mob and very easy to one shot. Also, the Giant Centipede boss has just TOO GOOD of a card drop chance and NOBODY HUNTS IT. Also, beware when hunting the Black Sheep; you can only access the map if you complete the quest started by the NPC Chief Officer Chu. As long as you keep the quest item it gives you, you can go back. Otherwise that set will be lost forever. Only dishonorable mention is the Black Goat. It honestly is the only card in this zone which takes a weirdly long time compared to the rest of the cards.
Mob level range: 22-38 (50 if Giant Centipede is counted)

- Singapore- CBD zone and Ghost Ship: Barring Biner and Tippo Red, these two zones from the famous Singapore area will be very easy to finish. Only hard part could be getting a space to hunt inside the Ghost Ship, since it is such a popular grinding and leech zone, but even then, you can ask people grinding if they got spare card drops. No shame in that!
Mob level range: 18-68 (100 if Captain Latanica is included)

- Orbis: If you hold on to Orbis Tower and finish it at this point, this place is the bomb. Pixies, Nependeaths and Dark Nependeaths are fairly generous with the card drops. While the Lioners, Grupins, Cellions and their jr. counterparts are a bit on the average side, they all have very good maps to hunt them efficiently. The only bad spawn rates are Lucidas and, if you don't get timers for Eliza, you won't be able to hunt for the very easy Jr. Lucida (just keep Eliza alive while she's below half HP and she will start spawning the mobs. Perfect opportunity to get the Eliza set too!).
Mob level range: 33-73 (83 if Eliza is counted)

-New Leaf City: Only the Bigger Ben and the Outskirts of New Leaf City have been added so far, so even if the Monster Book shows cards for all the areas inside Crimsonwood, mosnters won't drop cards. This makes NLC a pretty small zone for card Hunting as of now, with only 10 card sets total available. This zone has a pro and a con that are worth mentioning. The pro is that the spawn and card drop rate of the mobs mentioned are very generous, coupled with the fact that most of the mobs are low level, and thus accessible early on. The con is that NLC is one of the zones with the weirdest map designs in Maplestory, which can make it awkward/annoying to get to specific places or get certain card drops (Killa Bees dropping cards in unreachable spots or Gryphons dropping their card into the abyss are the 2 main examples). All in all, however, your card hunt here should be over soon enough and it will net you 1/3 of a Tier. Don't skip this.
Mob level Range: 25-80

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Spoiler: B-Tier

B-Tier​

- Upper Aqua Road: If you have a character that can do most of its skills mid swimming, this zone might be A-Tier for you. But for the sake that some characters can't do that, or just the fact that the whole float mechanic is slow and gave way to some gigantic maps with not so many spawn rates, it stays in the B-tier. Special mention to Pinboom, which is has an amazing card drop rate!
Mob level range: 22-43 (45 if Seruf is counted)

- Omega Sector: Outside of the fact that MT-09 is a horrible mob to cart hunt, the rest of the cards are either average or easy to get. Just remember to channel surf to get the Chief Gray card and you will earn a lot of cards from this place. Also, start with the Gray family and then move on to the Mateon family, since Grays seem to have better card drop rates.
Mob level range: 40-54 (65 if Zeno is counted)

- El Nath- From Forest of Dead Trees until Door to Zakum: As you'll see later, El Nath is a horrible place to card hunt. But hunting the Coolie Zombies, Miner Zombies, Flyeyes, Firebomb, Jr. Cerebes and Cerebes isn't so bad. In fact, you'll find some of these mobs are very generous with their cards.
Mob level range: 41-90

- Malasya: Aside from the restricted number of maps you can hunt cards on Malasya, there is not much wrong with it. The Theme Park zone is definitely harder than the Muddy Banks, but just because of the level difference and some bad maps like the one with Booper Scarlions and Yabber Doos.
Mob level range: 45-94 (140 if you want to hunt for Scarlion/Targa cars)
Side-note: If you like to card hunt with a friend, this is actually the perfect place to do so, since a lot of maps have mobs exclusively spawn on the right/left or upper/lower parts of the map, making it really easy to split the map in two and change positions once someone is done with one half.

- Neo Tokyo: It's... hard to rank this zone. On one hand, cards drop fairly often. On the other hand, it includes a lot of prequests in order to open up new maps (which includes defeating bosses you might not be fit to fight if you did not HP wash properly), it has mobs with annoying debuffs (mainly, Overloads and Afterroads) or high HP (like Maverick B) and it is a pretty high lv zone (basically endgame material for this server). The fact that this zone has annoying pre-requisites for it to open up (just like Temple of Time), makes me not put this in the S-Tier, but it definitely IS S-Tier for anyone who is high-lv and already has all the zones opened up for card hunting.
Still. Chances are you already finished your Tier 10 ring by the time you can properly hunt in this zone, hence its placement in B-Tier.
Mob level range: 115-143 (174 if Dunas/Nameless Magic Monster are counted)

Enjoy these hunts! Because you are running out of easy cards.

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Spoiler: C-Tier

C-Tier​

Here is where things start to get harder, but definitely worth it. Either the mobs here are higher lv and thus harder to 1-2 shot for most players, the maps to hunt get more restrictive or the drop rates are getting harder and harder. Either way, the C-Tier is still bearable. If you are not high lv enough for some of these zones, you can go for cards in lower tiers. But you've been warned...

- Ludibrium- Helios Tower & Ellin Forest: The only bad thing about this zone is the low amount of sets you will get. Otherwise, it is great. Helios Tower only has Retz; though it is not that hard to get. Regarding Ellin Forest, while the card drop isn't bad, it is not a higher ranked zone because there aren't that many maps to hunt the mobs you are looking for and every single map has below average spawn rates. Every single mob has its dedicated map, though, which is a plus for a lot of hunters.
Mob level range: 36-57


- Zipangu: Let me be honest, I HATE Zipangu's design. Map design is all over the place, monster levels are all over the place and card drop rates for some mobs are so bad (I'm looking at you, Cloud Fox). However, it is home to a lot of low lv enemies you will want to complete in order to not waste EVEN MORE TIME on the E-Tier zones or on higher lv monsters. If you are not high lv enough or can't farm there efficiently, just skip Dreamy Ghosts for later. This stays on the C tier only thanks to Crows, Fire Raccoons and Big Cloud Foxes being fairly average to finish, and that it is also a zone where you can farm Coolie Zombies + Nightghosts if you don't want to go to El Nath yet.
Mob level range: 25-100 (8-115 if Orange Mushroom (which can be hunted in Victoria Island more easily) and Black Crow are counted)

- Singapore - Ulu City: From what I've experienced, this is the easiest high lv zone you can finish. And that is mainly for two reasons:
1. Card drop rates aren't that bad for a lot of mobs.
2. SO MANY LEECH MAPS.
To be fair, leechers could be erased from this server and you might still complete all the cards from this zone on your own, but their existence makes this so much easier. If you find leechers willing to help you card hunt in Ulu 1, 2, 3 and Petris AND you are able to kill the rest of the mobs (which are just Dukus and Berserkies), you can finish this zone in no time. If this is not the case, your only pre-requisite to finish this zone is to be high lv enough to farm these monsters. Just... pray to have someone to help you 1-shot Montrecers.
Mob level range: 85-115 (140 if you count Krexel)

- Shaolin Temple: I personally haven't finished this zone in order to complete my Tier 10 ring, although it is a good option for people that do. A main con is that the maps leading to the Sutra Depository and Forest of Towers are all fairly high lv and most have a lot of verticality. But from the short periods of time I tried to hunt for cards there, every single one of the mobs have dropped a card (and that is fairly rare for Purple/Black sets) . Also, the Sutra Depository is a very popular map to grind and leech. So you will either get those card sets when it's your time to train in those zones OR you can politely ask the people who train or leech there if you can pick the cards up. Shoutouts to the Wooden Fish and it's amazing card drop rate.
Mob level range: 80-130 (150 if Jiaoceng is counted)

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Spoiler: D-Tier

D-Tier​

Here is my tip: assume you are NOT going to touch the E-Tier zones in order to finish the Tier-10 ring. If you are coming here because some zones above are too high lv for you or are not giving you good results, just be aware that these are your only salvation from NOT doing what's below this. Also, no one is expecting you to finish ALL of these zones. Just do a good combination of these and you will probably have the 300 sets you yearn for.

- Deep Ludibrium: Deep Ludi is the epitome of hard work with certain mobs. Cards like Buffy, Master Soul Teddy, Deep Bufoon (!!!) and Dark Klock have appalling spawn rates and/or card drops rates. The rest of the mobs are very bulky for their lv and will require a strong character to 1 shot or 2 shot. A more horrible thing is THE MAP DESIGN. This is the bane of every character that has been carried by a mage, since every single map is gigantic and pressing Genesis/Blizzard/Meteor feels like a joke on a lot of those maps. HOWEVER, this has been alleviated by the inclusion of portals on every map, making the grind easier for everyone.
Despite the problems, the zone holds 18 card sets. Eighteen . That is more than half a set. And that's the main reason why I personally powered through it and why I personally encourage you to go for it. Go for Thanatos and Gatekeepers first; they are a very easy hunt if you channel surf. Other fairly fast hunts I can also confirm are the Ghost Pirates, Dual Ghost Pirates and Spirit Vikings.
Mob level range: 61-108 (125 if Papulatus is counted)

Edit: The wording of Deep Ludibrium has been altered since the update where portals on every Deep Ludi map were included, thus making the grind more bearable in terms on traversing the zones. It also sits on top of the D-Tier list, as I recommend going for this 100% now before going with the other maps.

- Ninja Castle: There is nothing wrong with Ninja Castle's map design. What's wrong with it is it's abysmal drop rate for cards like Ashigarus, Chunins, Kunoichis and Nintos.... as well as the fact that I just mentioned ALL of the mobs in the zone that drop cards, except for the only one that is easy to hunt: Genin.
Mob level range: 25-100

- Showa: I have the exact same criticism towards Showa than towards Zipangu. However, Zipangu is just so much worse when it comes to card drop rates and maps. There is no good map to hunt 1 card in specific, aside from Bain (which you might have finished in El Nath). Biggest offenders from this zone are Leader A and Extra C. Just go to Showa Street 2 and try to complete every single card there... yes, 1 map for 5 mobs, just because that is the best place to hunt for Extra C. Only redeemable card here is Male Boss, which has an amazing drop rate.
Mob level range: 45-130

- El Nath- Before Dead Mine: This map is bad for the same reason Ninja castle is bad: I'm telling you that you are going to spend a considerable amount of time to hunt just 3 cards: Jr. Yeti, Hector and White Fang. If you can find the Snow Witch, then add that mob to the list. I'm not counting Leatty, Dark Leatty and Jr. Pepe in this list because you most definitely have them by now (they are in Orbis Tower).
Mob level range: 50-64

- Leafre- Before Crossroad: I should put this is E-Tier, because chances are you won't want to finish half of this zone once you try it. You could, but it takes longer than other zones previously mentioned. The good news is: by the time you reach this area, you should be very close to finishing the 300 sets for tier 10! Here is my tip: go for Rash, Dark Rash, Beetle, Dual Beetle, Birk (and Dual Birk if you are lucky while hunting Birks), and the 3 Kentaurus. You have the rest of the zones I am mentioning to finish your tier 10.
Mob level range: 70-88 (105 if Manon/Griffey are included)

- Deep Aqua Road: To be fair, this can be an A-Tier spot if you have a mage ready to spam your all-screen attack, because the main problem with this map is the buffs/debuffs the monsters use. You just can't farm Gobies or Bone Fish if you don't 1-shot, which you can do, but fairly late into the game. Sharks and Cold Sharks also dispel you, but at least they are easier to hunt. Finally, Squid and Risell Squid are O.K. hunts. If you come here without a mage, just do everything except Goby and Bone Fish.
Mob level range: 85-102 (21-110 if Flyeye, which can be hunted in El Nath more easily, and Pianus are counted)

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Spoiler: E-Tier

E-Tier​

Avoid these places like they have COVID-19.

- Temple of Time: I love this zone... but it is bad for card hunting. You'll have to finish quests to kill 999 mobs of the zone in order to progress... and you probably won't have a full set of those guys by that time. That's how bad the card drop rate is. If you are stuck hunting for high level mobs for cards, maybe come here if you have this place already open for exploring and/or have a few mobs with 3-4 out of 5 cards you want to complete. Otherwise, just imagine it doesn't exist.
Mob level range: 80-131 (180 if Pink Bean is counted... lol)


- Leafre- After Crossroad: This zone has just too bad of a drop rate. Only honorable mentions are Skelegons, Skelosaurus, Green & Dark Cornians and Dark Wyverns. Sound familiar? These are all mobs in popular leeching/grinding spots or needed for drops used in Horntail Prequest. It does NOT mean the drop rate is high. It just means you can ask for help and get those cards easily. Another mention could be Rexton if you are planning to farm those 500 Rexton Leathers for your Silver Mane. Just pray you get the full set (you probably will, 500 leathers takes a long time). After that just don't bother unless you WANT to power through some specific mob.
Mob level range: 90-113 (160 if Hortnail is counted)

- El Nath: Sharp Cliff And Wolf Territory: Remember what I said a long time ago about zones being bad because of the have bad map design, bad drop rates, bad spawn rates and/or all of the above? This is all of the above. You are better off imagining there are no possible card drops here if you are just missing a couple of sets for Tier 10. Believe me, I've tried hunting here. It took me 2 hours to get 4 Pepe & Yeti cards and 1 miserable Yeti card IN THE SUPPOSEDLY BEST MAP TO HUNT YETIS. I TRIED to get other card sets and they never spawned. Just don't come here and invest your time hunting for cards elsewhere.
Mob level range: 56-80 (or 50-80 if you don't have the Jr. Yeti card... but you do at this point, right?)

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What about bosses?​

I've mentioned very little about bosses in this guide (the Gold tier). This is mainly for two reasons:

1. Some bosses are locked behind specific Party Quests, which you can't enter later on when you are higher level. Meaning, the bosses have the biggest amount of missable sets in the game, UNLESS you are willing to empty your wallet for them (read this section's edit).

2. I don't count them as a "fast" method to get your Tier 10 ring, since you will have to be wary of timers and probably waste time protecting a channel in order to get a CHANCE at a card drop. Its even worse for PQ bosses, since you are waiting for the chance the card drops AND to score a high roll (if you roll for drops, like you probably should), or you have to be willing to pay the high roller some mesos for the card IF it drops.

I see it this way: every set you complete of a boss = 1 less annoying Tier D-E mob you will have to hunt in order to get your 300 sets. If you are not in a hurry to get your Tier 10 ring, then by all means try to stay in a specific zone until you also manage to get the respective boss' set as well. You will definitely thank your past self for doing that. But I only managed to get 5 boss sets during my card hunting adventures, so I can confidently say it is not mandatory to hunt EVERY boss you know or finish EVERY boss set from your PQs in order to reach Tier 10.

Edit: You COULD try to complete your PQ boss card sets in the Night Market (Taiwan) by talking to Tienk

​

As you can see, all previously "locked" PQ bosses can be obtained this way. There is just a caveat: It will cost you 10'000'000 mesos per card OR 5'000'000 mesos + 200 of a certain Etc. drop (depends on the boss you want) per card.

This guide is really long as is, and most of the readers will probably agree that's a steep price for 1 card, so I'm leaving it at this conclusion:

If you are going for the Tier 10 ring only, this is not worth it. But if you got 4/5 sets on any of these bosses and you REALLY want to complete it for any personal reason... there you go. But again, for the majority of people who will read this guide, those sets are probably just lost because they have better things to spend their mesos on.

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Getting Ready for Upgrades​

While card hunting, you will most definitely hoard every single jewel ore you need in order to upgrade your ring, but that doesn't mean you KNOW in advance which jewel you will need to refine next. The answer lies on the ore creation list:

​

The quest will ask you for every jewel on the list from top to bottom (i.e. Tier 1 is Garnet, Tier 2 is Amethyst, Tier 3 is Aquamarine, and so on), with the last tier asking you for a Star Rock, which you can get by talking to Arwen in Ellinia, finishing her missing Glass Shoe quest, and giving her every single jewel + 1k mesos, or Pi in Ludibrium by giving him every single jewel +13.5k mesos. So just be prepared to check if you got 10 units of the correct jewel ores every time you are close to your next tier.

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Conclusion​

Well, that is all for this post. I honestly would have loved to have someone telling me where should I go next to have a GOOD time card hunting. Having such a hard time finishing Tiers 4 and 5 in 2 or 3 days and then just having great completion times, finishing higher tiers like 7 or 8 in half a day or 1 day, made me realize I could have used easier zones to finish my ring.

Again, for a list on which map is better for card hunting, go to this post and have that juicy excel on favorites: https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/monster-book-efficient-farming-guide.23984/

And if you want to check out another card hunting guide from the perspective of someone who had a bishop available for card hunting, check out this post here: https://forum.maplelegends.com/inde...ier-10-monster-book-ring-with-a-bishop.41903/

I hope the community can benefit from extra conversations about card hunting. Getting to Tier 10 will always be a long-term process, but with more guides we can make it easier for everyone.

I hope you liked it!

Thank you for reading,
Nimbus.

 

Definitely worth noting. Experience will vary greatly from class to class, and even from level to level.

Its true that some cards in deep ludi were pretty fast, but I am trying to rank these zones as a whole. Kind of like " how long will it take to complete the WHOLE map, considering the amount of cards available". And in my experience, the 4 mobs mentioned were bad enough to make that zone drag out A LOT. ALSO DEFINITELY FORGOT TO MENTION GATEKEEPER AND THANATOS. Going to edit that now. They are actually really easy.

And again, since I did not finish EVERY single card, information like Blue Wyverns being a good option to card hunt quickly is good to know for the rest of the readers.

EDIT: Another way to read this guide for me is: "If I would start card hunting all over again from scratch, at what level should I start and which zones would I personally go first?"

 

Oh... wow.
Big grats for that feat! Sounds like a cool way to play your character and getting those stats sooner than later is always so great.

Also, things like some characters having a horrible time killing some mobs (like Nintos resisting all F/P's attacks) just demonstrates that this experience can vary for certain classes and their elemental attributes, for example.

 

Just added an edit on the guide based on the Night Market information (totally forgot about it, since I never considered paying for the cards). As you can see, Frankenroid has already been added!

Also fixed some of the wording on that part of the guide, since now you CAN get all the PQ boss sets if you want.... it's just too expensive when compared to just hunting 6 other sets, or even 1 of them.

So, unless the option for Frankenroid is bugged or something, the ONLY Monster Book card that can be lost forever is the Black Sheep.

 

Definitely a good strategy, and it does not only count for Showa and El Nath, but for many other spots, like: Pixies in Orbis (starting at the end of Cloud Park), the first 3 CBD maps in Singapore, Ulu City as a whole (Dukus + Slyges, then Petris + Montrecers, then Veetrons + Berserkies/ Veetrons + remaining Slyges and then Berserkies), and many more maps I might be forgetting. The only downside is that you HAVE to be starting out at a point where you CAN fight the strongest mobs right away, but nonetheless a timesaver.

Also a sidenote:

As someone who has finished the Tier 10 ring twice (something I'll probably do too with for my Dark Knight, eventually...), how much do you agree with this list? Was it accurate? Would you move certain spots up or down the list?

It'd be cool to hear your opinon and maybe make the tier list more accurate.

 

Ill be sure to add this!

I totally forgot about NT because I personally haven't card hunted here. I will edit this into the guide, and I'm giving the zone a try later just to corroborate the info.

 

Whoops, I DID check but don't remember now. Will come back to edit this later....

Edit: Whoops. Somebody else beat me to it already. Yeah it was 200 Dual Ghost Pirate Propeller.

 

I just want to pin this to emphasize it once again for new card hunters. Going down the tiers and the tiers getting harder is just a general trend. There are certainly mobs from the last or latest colors that are easier to hunt and I hope that message comes across while reading the guide. Male Boss, Wooden Fish, Gatekeeper and Thanatos are great examples of this and would 100% recommend to ALWAYS hunt for these cards while trying to finish the Monster Book.

Also, the "it gets harder" trend does not just happen because of card drop rate. It happens for the HP and Damage of the mobs; how accesible it is to 1-shot there or to survive there, basically. But that is a barrier that eventually gets lifted once you enter the end game and your character gets stronger.