The ladder, and the rule that governs it
The Dice Shop sells a ladder of eight dice. Each one raises the Luck value behind every roll you make, and the numbers are published — which makes this the one ranking on this site that does not depend on community intuition.
| Dice | Rarity | Luck | Price | Sourcing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lightning | Rare | 42x | $500K | Single source |
| Ice | Rare | 100x | $4M | Single source |
| Magma | Epic | 200x | $30M | Single source |
| Storm | Epic | 400x | $200M | Corroborated |
| Shadow | Epic | 750x | $1.5B | Corroborated |
| Light | Legendary | 1,500x | $12B | Corroborated |
| Blood Moon | Legendary | 3,000x | $100B | Single source |
| Void | Legendary | 5,000x | $1.5T | Single source |
"Corroborated" means the price appears both in the community dice list and in a recorded gameplay session. Storm at $200M and Shadow at $1.5B are both shown being bought on video, and $12B is quoted in the same footage as the cost of the next tier up. Rows marked single-source come from the community list alone — check them in your own shop before planning a savings target.
Luck roughly doubles at each step. Price roughly quintuples. That asymmetry is the entire strategy: buying an intermediate tier you intend to discard costs you far more cash than it costs you Luck, so the correct move is usually to skip ahead.
What each step is actually for
Lightning → Ice ($500K → $4M)
Your first two purchases. Lightning is the point at which rolling stops feeling pointless, and it is cheap enough that saving for it should take a single session. Ice is a clean doubling, but do not linger here: the Epic tier arrives at Magma, and Magma's 200x is only a few million more.
Magma → Storm ($30M → $200M)
This is the first decision that has real opportunity cost. Magma is 200x for $30M; Storm is 400x for $200M. The doubling costs about seven times as much. If you are farming steadily, skipping Magma and going straight to Storm is legitimate — but only if your current dice can actually produce the $200M in a reasonable number of sessions. If they cannot, Magma pays for itself on the way.
Storm → Shadow ($200M → $1.5B)
Storm is the mid-game anchor. It is the tier most recorded play sessions land on, and at $200M it is the first purchase where the cost is a genuine project. Shadow, at 750x, is the biggest single Luck multiplier in the mid-game — nearly double Storm for 7.5 times the price. It is also the last tier before the Legendary band, where prices jump into the billions.
Light and above ($12B → $1.5T)
Light at 1,500x for $12B is where the ladder changes character. Everything below it is a mid-game purchase you make in a session or two. From here, the tiers are goals measured against your Rebirth multipliers and your plot's late-game income — a single mythical unit is documented as generating into the billions per second, which is what makes a $12B purchase possible at all.
Blood Moon at $100B and Void at $1.5T are the documented end of the ladder. Treat the exact figures as community data and confirm them in game.
Which tier to buy next
A decision procedure that works at every stage:
- Can you afford the tier two steps up rather than one? If yes, buy that instead. You are trading cash for a permanent Luck value, and the intermediate step will be discarded.
- Is the next tier within about a session's income? If yes, just buy it. The saving effort is not worth the delay.
- Are you close to a Rebirth threshold? Buy the dice first. Dice persist through Rebirth, so you get the tier and the multiplier; buying it after the reset means rebuilding from a smaller cash base.
- Have you bought your Money and Luck nodes this session? If not, do that first. Nodes compound within a session; a dice tier is a one-time step change with no repeat purchases.
That last point is the one players get wrong most often. The dice ladder and the upgrade nodes are both Luck sources, but they behave differently: the ladder is a single large step, while nodes are repeated small purchases that scale with your own economy. Buying a tier does not make the nodes irrelevant, and buying nodes does not make the tier optional.
Upgrades: the order, and why it is not close
The plot panel carries six upgrade categories. Three independent guide sources rank them in the same order, and none of them publish effect values — which is fine, because the order is the part that matters.
| Priority | Node | Why it sits here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Money | Raises the cash your placed units produce. Every other purchase is funded by it. |
| 2 | Luck | Improves the rarity of what your dice reveal. The core progression lever. |
| 3 | Roll Speed | Shortens the roll animation, so you see more units per minute of active play. |
| 4 | Unit Storage | Lets you AFK longer before the backpack fills and rolls start being discarded. |
| 5 | Damage | Tower combat only. Zero value to a plot farmer. |
| 6 | Health | Same as Damage. Both are documented as lowest priority. |
The reasoning behind Money-then-Luck is worth spelling out, because the intuitive order is the wrong one. Upgrading Luck first means you roll better units into an economy that cannot fund the next upgrade — you have improved the quality of what you pull without improving the rate at which you can act on it. Upgrading Money first means the cash for the Luck nodes arrives faster, and every Luck purchase afterwards is made from a larger base.
Unit storage, and the invisible cost of ignoring it
Storage sits at priority four, which undersells it. A full backpack silently stops your rolls from producing anything, and a recorded session shows exactly this: the player kept rolling without noticing they were getting nothing until the inventory filled. If you AFK overnight, storage is the difference between a productive night and a wasted one.
The fix is not just to buy storage. It is to run Equip Best before every sell, so your active lineup is protected, and then clear the rest. Community guidance is consistent on this: equip first, sell second, never the other way around.
Damage and Health
These two nodes do nothing for plot income. They exist for Tower runs, and the three documented towers — Dragon (easy), Cursed (medium) and Pirate (hard) — reward Gems and Luck boosts. Treat them as a side objective: fund your economy first, then push floors. See tips and tricks for tower preparation.
Reading a unit's value
Once your dice tier is set, the units you pull are judged on rarity first. The community's income tiers are consistent:
| Rarity | Income tier | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Common | Minimal | Early filler only. |
| Rare | Moderate | Useful for the first few hours. |
| Epic | High | The solid mid-game backbone. |
| Mythical | Game-changing | Documented as generating into the billions per second. |
Rarity is not the whole story, though — a legendary carrying a weak trait can underperform a rare with a strong one, which is why traits are factored into unit rankings. See the traits guide for what is and is not known about that layer, and the tier list for the keep-or-reroll framework.
