🎤 Artist Dex Guide — Reading Categories and Generations
The Artist Dex is dex number one — the one that started Fandom Dex. It covers Korean popular music in full breadth, from idols and balladeers to rappers and bands, which means how you set your scope decides half your score before the first question appears.
Picking categories is picking your difficulty
Before you start, the Artist Dex lets you choose from four categories — idols, balladeers, rappers, and bands — to set the question pool. Turn on all four and you get the widest playing field, but narrowing down candidates from a single hint becomes much harder. Sticking to the fields you know best is the fundamental move for high scores.
If you'd rather "explore" the dex for fun, though, try the opposite combo: all categories on, plus the category hint. With the category hint enabled, you start every question already knowing "ah, this one's a band" — for free.
Types are stage impressions
In the Artist Dex, types are assigned by the impression someone gives on stage. Explosive vocals and firepower? Fire. Emotional and flexible? Water. Cold, restrained charisma? Ice — you get the idea. What each type means is fully laid out in the Type Dex.
One tip: practice reading the combination of two types. The same Fire reads as big-scale energy when paired with Flying, but closer to gritty determination when paired with Fighting. The combination is a one-line summary of that artist's character.
Move names are a career in miniature
Artist Dex moves are chosen from symbolic moments in an artist's career. You can check what each move stands for, organized by type, in the Move Dex. Once a move name lets you picture "so this is the kind of stage they put on," you'll find yourself landing answers on the very first hint far more often.
The generation hint is your sense of debut era
The stage-2 generation hint groups artists by rough debut period. If you keep even a fuzzy memory of when your favorite artists debuted, the candidate pool collapses the moment this hint opens. It's especially valuable in long-career categories like balladeers and bands.
The final multiple choice is process of elimination
If you've made it this far, you're down to 30 points — but that still beats a wrong answer. Start crossing out the options whose vibe doesn't fit the type combination. For a full walkthrough of hint strategy, read Making Every Hint Count as well.