Mastery Mode

"Masteries are only for the BTD5 Elite. Bigger Bloons, bigger rewards, and bigger challenges await this prestigious mode.

You'll need to prove yourself a Bloon popping veteran by winning ALL medals on 17 beginner tracks AND at least bronze on 39 other tracks before you can undertake the challenge of Masteries."

- BTD5 Mobile description before unlocking

"Welcome to the elite! You can now play all beginner tracks in Mastery Mode with tougher Bloons for double the rewards!

You have also unlocked Level 9 Monkey Lab research."

- BTD5 Mobile description after unlocking Beginner Mastery Mode

Mastery Mode is a new feature added in Bloons Tower Defense 5 Mobile in October 23, 2015 and afterwards in other versions of Bloons Tower Defense 5.

This mode adds 5 new medals to each track, and each of these appears the same as the one from the normal gameplay, except they appear to have stars instead of monkeys on them. Money and token rewards received from Mastery tracks are doubled.

Also with this update came Monkey Lab upgrades, with the maximum upgrade level increased from level 8 to level 13. Notable among these upgrades is that to tower sell price - it maxes out at the ability to sell towers at 99% of their value.

In this mode, all bloons except Z.O.M.Gs have their rank boosted by one, but cash from popping bloons is halved, along with cash penalties happening sooner, making Banana Farms almost a necessity. Natural Z.O.M.Gs are unchanged. Due to ceramic rushes on rounds 63, 76, 78 and some later rounds being upgraded to a M.O.A.B. rush, it will lag on most low memory devices like iPhones or Androids. Some rounds that contain the deadliest and most dangerous rushes are Round 55, Round 63, Round 76, Round 78, Round 82, Round 83, Round 84, Freeplay Rounds, etc.

Unlocking
Requirement for unlocking are following:

Strategies
Due to Mastery's main gimmick being strengthened Bloons, you should prepare much earlier for several milestones - Ceramic Bloons arrive on Round 35, there are 7 Camo Leads on Round 37, 4 M.O.A.Bs at the end of Round 40, and a B.F.B on Round 46. Additionally, if playing on any difficulty higher than easy, you must be capable of dealing with a Z.O.M.G on Round 60, and an extremely packed M.O.A.B rush on Round 63, 76 and 78.

Banana Farms are almost essential. More money is required to place powerful defenses earlier in the game - this is best accomplished with several banana farms. Some further tips:


 * Using multiple 4/x Bloonchippers is effective to deal with most M.O.A.B-class Bloons before Round 63, including B.F.Bs. Using the upgrade 'Super-Wide Funnel' is among the more cost-effective methods to shred M.O.A.Bs - provided you have further towers to destroy the bloons that emerge once they're popped.


 * To defeat the packed M.O.A.B rushes, use explosive towers of some sort. The immense number in certain round's rushes may seem intimidating, but even a single Spectre can demolish Round 63, 76 and 78 easily on most tracks. Non-explosive towers will be next to useless against these rushes, but explosive ones will make them trivial.


 * Ballistic Missile and MOAB Mauler are both good choices to deal with M.O.A.Bs in this gamemode. On tracks with a lot of water, spamming lots of 2/3 Monkey Subs is generally effective. With sufficient funds, a Spectre is also an excellent choice.


 * The Monkey sub's fourth upgrade on the second path, First-Strike Capability, can also be useful, again if you are playing on a track with water. This can eliminate a group of powerful bloons, or, more importantly - destroy a Z.O.M.G instantly. It is expensive, however, priced at over $20,000 on higher difficulties.


 * If you are NOT playing on a track with water, the Portable Lake special agent can be used. This costs $40 of Monkey Money, but will allow you to place a Monkey Sub with First Strike Capability on almost any map, if you so desire.


 * Using the 4/x Monkey Engineer may be viable on impoppable (needed on later maps) due to early ceramics and the need for money for popping 4 M.O.A.B.s on round 40. Each trap can consume 2 ceramics before being full.

Trivia

 * In update 3.4, due to a bug, all ceramic bloons were boosted to golden bloons instead of MOABs. This also affected daily challenges/random missions with boosted bloon ranks. This has since been patched.
 * Fast Track mode is disabled for all Mastery tracks. You must always start from Round 1.
 * Oddly, nothing was done to make the Zeppelin Of Mighty Gargantuaness (Z.O.M.G.) bloon tougher to fight in Mastery Mode. This renders the final round of Hard or Impoppable difficulty quite comical. You will face quite staggering and difficult rushes of bloons and M.O.A.B.s during Rounds 78-84... only to still face just 1 or 5 Z.O.M.Gs on the final round. This seems like a strange oversight, considering a single Z.O.M.G could just have been replaced with 2 or 3 Z.O.M.Gs to make things more difficult.
 * The Red Bloons do not spawn in Mastery Mode. They only can be found by popping higher bloons.
 * On Tar Pits Mastery all of the Z.O.M.Gs come through the same circle on Round 84 making First Strike Capability an unfavorable ability without the use of glitches.
 * Sandbox mode and FastTrack, Apopalypse and Deflation are not playable in Mastery Mode
 * The Challenge Monkey event bonus rewards does not apply to Mastery Mode