(Credit to J0Y for bringing this route to Kex, and Orii before him for using it in his NoMo run on source)

Of all the high-level runs I've done, this one might be the most scuffed. Waking up the Pinky, hitting several walls, wasting time shotgunning a Zombieman, skipping past the intermission screen, and dealing with a menu glitch to top it all off.

As for the run itself, the new route allows me to trade a luck-based strat for a more skill-based (albeit incredibly tight) route. Instead of waiting for a Zombieman to lower a lift for you, you can make it onto a different lift and go through a secret, if you're fast enough. It's very easy to lose all speed on the winding staircase, and sometimes an Imp will block you, but most of the time the trick is pretty fair.

It's very tempting to do more Episode 1 runs using this strategy, as it could alleviate a lot of RNG-induced pain.