Tower-defense RNG hybrids punish early misallocation more than most genres, because the resource you spend in hour one is the same resource that gates the units you would want in hour ten. Anime RNG Defense is squarely in that category. A few decisions are effectively one-way doors.
The reflex is to spend everything on rolls immediately. The problem is inventory and upgrade capacity: a rare unit you cannot level is worth less than a common one you can max, because damage scaling in this genre is dominated by upgrade tiers rather than base rarity. Rolling ahead of your upgrade economy converts currency into units you will shelve.
On the opening maps, path coverage matters more than DPS. A mid-tier unit sitting on a segment the enemy traverses three times out-damages a strong unit covering a single pass, and it does so by a margin large enough to swamp rarity differences. This inverts somewhere around the mid maps, when enemy health outpaces what coverage alone can handle — but until then, geometry wins.
Redemption codes in this genre have short lives, often tied to a specific update or a follower milestone, and stale code lists are the norm rather than the exception. It is worth checking a maintained list rather than an aggregator that has not been touched in a month.
For the full opening sequence — what to roll for, when to stop rolling, and which upgrades to prioritise — thebeginner guide to Anime RNG Defensewalks the first few maps in order rather than presenting a decontextualised tier list.
Tier lists rank units against a hypothetical average player at a hypothetical average progression point. If you are behind or ahead of that assumption, the ranking shifts. A unit that is B-tier at endgame can be the correct pick at hour two purely because it is cheap to upgrade.