New Year's 2021 Tour

The New Year's 2021 Tour was the thirty-fourth tour of Mario Kart Tour, which began on December 30, 2020 and ended on January 12, 2021. Hence the name, the tour celebrated the new year of 2021. A new remix variation of SNES Rainbow Road, called RMX Rainbow Road 2, was introduced in this tour, while the Lakitu referee in his New Year's outfit worn since the 2020 Winter Tour became a playable High-End driver in the game, alongside Pauline (Party Time) and Toad (Party Time) as the spotlight drivers for the first week. Additionally, every alternate variant of Mario (only excluding Mario (Musician) and Mario (Santa)) returned as the spotlight drivers for the second week. The menu's background featured the four bouncy mushrooms from RMX Rainbow Road 2 as the landmark for this tour.

Starting from January 1, 2021, kadomatsu were added to every course. Unlike in the 2020 New Year's Tour, hitting the kadomatsu did not award the player with points.

Similarly to the 1st Anniversary Tour, there were special bonus challenges called New Year's Challenges that awarded players with rubies upon completing a challenge.

Signature kart sets
Drivers with a corresponding cup in the tour were bumped one rank up in every course of their cup.

Rewards
Gold cells indicate rewards exclusive to Gold Pass members.

New Year's Log-In Bonus
The 14-day New Year's Log-In Bonus served as the log-in bonus for this tour.

Initial pipe appearance rates
In the New Year's 2021 Tour, the amounts of various items were changed, holding 100 items instead of 50 items. New Year's 2021 Pipe 1 held these items:

New Year's 2021 Pipe 2 held these items, due to having nine spotlight drivers and no spotlight karts or gliders:

The Gold Pipe held 50 items again, and contained these items:

In the New Year's 2021 Tour, the All-Clear Pipe held all regular High-End items, but only shot out one item at random and could contain any of these items:

Token Shop
The limited-time event where event tokens appeared began on December 30, 2020 and lasted until January 12, 2021. Event tokens could be earned by collecting in courses.

Tier Shop
The shop featured a variety of set and randomized items available for purchase. The item slots in the shop are unlocked based on the highest tier of players.

Profiles

 * Mario Kart Tour Twitter:
 * "The Rosalina Tour is wrapping up in blue. Starting Dec. 29, 10:00 PM PT, ride into 2021 in the New Year's 2021 Tour! It looks our trusted guide Lakitu is eager to join the party!"
 * "Are you ready for the new year? It's time for the New Year's 2021 Tour! Start the tour off with some seven-colored fun on RMX Rainbow Road 2! Let's join the drivers and welcome the new year in blue."
 * "Thank you for playing in 2020! We hope you continue to enjoy blue with the New Year's 2021 Tour. Have a wonderful new year, and we can't wait to see you again next year!"
 * "Gold drivers, karts, and gliders that have appeared as Gold Pass rewards, like King Boo (Gold), Dry Bowser (Gold), and the Gold Glider, are back and in the Gold Pipe! You can test your luck in the new year! The pipe is available until Jan. 7 in blue."

Trivia

 * The New Year's 2021 Tour was the fourth tour to reuse a post-release Coin Rush course from another tour, namely reusing the SNES Vanilla Lake 1 Coin Rush course from the Ice Tour. The first time was the Cooking Tour, which reused the DS Luigi's Mansion Coin Rush course from the 2019 Halloween Tour, the second time was the Sunset Tour, which reused the 3DS Shy Guy Bazaar Coin Rush course from the Holiday Tour, and the third time was the 2020 Winter Tour, which reused the DS DK Pass Coin Rush course from the 2019 Winter Tour.
 * Despite festive trees not appearing in the New Year's 2021 Tour, one could be seen in the upper middle area of the King Boo Cup's Break Item Boxes challenge.
 * This is due to the fact that the icon in question came from the Holiday Tour, a tour that did have festive trees.
 * In the Diddy Kong Cup, GBA Sunset Wilds R/T depicted Birdo (Yellow) on the icon despite it not being a favorite course.
 * This was the fifth tour in which the Vs. Mega (opponent) challenge did not appear in the final cup of the tour, the other four being the Tokyo, Peach, Summer Festival and Sunset Tours.
 * This was also the first tour since the Sunset Tour to feature the Big Reverse Race challenge.