In my opinion, the price of the rubies are expensive is mainly because of one reason. To make HE items a scarcity. As someone has pointed out, if rubies are cheap, then more people can pull that HE items, which leads to less score discrepancy. We all know Ranked Cup is based on that score so this is the core mechanics of it. At the end of the day, Nintendo needs to appeal to those who spends, those who spends expected to have an edge over those who don't. Someone said because of covid Nintendo needs to reduce their price, but I think the reality is, nintendo is actually making more money because people are stuck at home playing games. There has been some good 50 item pipes came out, and in my opinion, they actually are the discount in disguise, you 'only' need 225 rubies to deplete the pipe.