The monthly card is the best deal in the game. 600 ingots for 50 coupons a day for an entire month - 2.5 times your investment. I think the money dumped on the jounin medal would be better spent in straight power - I've never been fond of it. You do get a return, but I believe it's around twice the initial expenditure of ingots over the course of like, six months. Other bonuses with it are nice, but that's better spent elsewhere.
I started as Midnight Blade and ran iruka up until around level 55 and I blitzed through content. MB runs a very buff heavy build. Although it's a long ways away (since you're starting fresh) late game fire is in a weird place right now while Water, Wind and Lightning mains are doing great. A lot of the old guides for fire teams are going to be outdated with the changes - since Tobi was nerfed and many old glass cannon builds for fire either aren't as effective or require some workarounds. Also some of the big ninjas that work with fire's glass cannon builds (like shurado) aren't konoha ninjas.
If you started a month ago, I would say go fire, spend on straight power and beeline for tobi ASAP. But with the changes, (and especially if you are keen on iruka) I would say go for MB. They clear the early game content quick. They fall off slightly around 60 (when you can change your main anyways) but pick up again with the new changes. This post was last edited by Kaigen at 2017-1-13 14:20