Mario Kart World items tier list – every single item ranked
Mario Kart World introduced plenty of new items to the series, and now it’s got more unique items than any other game in the franchise. Not all of them are winners, though, and after almost 100 hours playing the game we’ve decided to rank every single one in a tier list. We’ve also added explanations on why each item is in its respective tier.
Mario Kart World item tier list
Starting off with the highest tier, we’ve got the Mega Mushroom as the best item in the game. Generally speaking, it’s best to use this item as soon as you receive it. As you might expect, your hitbox becomes huge and you gain the ability to run over other drivers. You’re also completely invincible – the Mega Mushroom even lets you dodge Lightning, which gives you a huge and immediate advantage in any race. The Golden Mushroom is extremely powerful online, especially in intermission courses. You can use the Golden Mushroom to skip huge chunks of the track and gain a big advantage. It does have one drawback: if you’re hit with Lightning while you’re off-road, the Golden Mushroom will be destroyed and you will be stranded. Still, when used correctly, this item is amazing!
For the next part of our Mario Kart World items tier list, the A tier is full of tons of different items. The Boomerang Flower is another great one if you’re good at aiming. It can hit an infinite number of players, and the last throw has significantly increased range. If you know what you’re doing with the Boomerang Flower, you can easily create chaos and use it to pull forward. The Triple and single Mushrooms aren’t as powerful as the Golden Mushroom, but all three do let you dodge Spiny Shells. Lightning has been slightly nerfed this game, but it still provides a good benefit to the person who uses it. All of the drivers in front of you will drop their items and coins, which can create opportunities to steal Mushrooms and Super Stars for free. Speaking of which, Super Stars make you completely invincible and give you a small speed boost, and most importantly they let you drive off-road with no speed penalty. Triple Red Shells form a protective barrier around you, but you can also use them to attack the racer in front of you. Super Horns destroy Spiny Shells, but they can also create chaos in other scenarios and prevent greedy players from trying to trail you for slipstream. Boo’s item stealing isn’t always helpful, but you do gain the ability to drive off-road with no speed penalty for its duration. Great for shortcuts!
The Bullet Bill was severely nerfed in Mario Kart World, now being a mid-tier item in our opinion. It no longer deals direct damage to opponents and pushes them instead, and it sometimes gets stuck on certain parts of course geometry. Still, it travels fast and it’s generally a good way to get back in the game if you were near last place. Hammers have decent range and can be tossed multiple times, whereas Fire Flowers and Ice Flowers can both slow down drivers in front of you if aimed well. Triple Green Shells and Triple Bananas are mostly useful to form a barrier around yourself. If you’re targeted by a Red Shell with one of these items active, you will sometimes have to aim your item backwards to properly dispatch the Red Shell. Since Triple Shells and Bananas spin around you, Red Shells can sometimes find their way through that barrier if one of your items has been destroyed.
Moving on to the C tier, singular Red Shells aren’t super helpful because they aren’t even guaranteed to make you pass the opponent in front of you. Dash Food does let you take smaller shortcuts, but its speed boost is smaller than that of a Mushroom. The Feather lets you dodge Red Shells and Green Shells, but jumping up in the air sometimes lowers your momentum and lets other players pass you at the last second. Bob-ombs are useful for defense, but if you throw them forward you’ll sometimes be bumped right into your own bomb by another racer. Single Green Shells and Bananas are good for defense, and if you’re really good you can snipe an enemy with them. This is especially difficult with Bananas, but it’s still very possible.
Next up for our item tier list is the D tier. Spiny Shells are devastating for the player in first place, but they aren’t very helpful to the person who gets the item. Most players online know to avoid driving in the center of the track due to Spiny Shells and Golden Shells, so chances are it won’t hit anybody on its way to first place unless you’re racing against CPUs. The Golden Shell provides a good amount of coins and can hit enemies as it travels, but again, most players will know not to drive in the center of the track.
Moving on to the item tier list’s F tier, we have the Coin item. You could argue this to go higher, because it does help a lot to gather coins in this game. That said, it obviously offers nothing in terms of offense or defense. In first place, you usually want to see a Green Shell or a Banana rather than a coin so you can have some defense against incoming items. The same goes for the Question-Mark Block, which honestly is more helpful to other racers than it is to you. It creates tons of coins for others to pick up, so whenever you get this item you’re essentially boosting the speed of the drivers near you. Blooper doesn’t offer any big benefits to the player who gets it, and the Kamek item can sometimes harm the player who used it. Unlocking NPC drivers via Kamek is also incredibly tedious, but we can’t use that as the sole reason we think the Kamek item is bottom-tier.
That’s our Mario Kart World item tier list! Do you agree with our item placements, or would you change our ranking a little bit? Feel free to let us know in the comments down below. In the meantime, you can learn more about the game over Nintendo’s official website for Mario Kart World.
