Basically, after much investigating possible timesaves, I figured out that you can use Mini Shroom in RTA to save nearly 20 seconds in 5-Ghost, and it only overall requires 1/18 RNG. this might seem really bad because with shell RNG added in, it totals up to a soul crushing 1/144, we are extremely close to finding RNG manip that works 100% of the time for the shell, which puts the RNG of this trick down to 1/18, which isnt too much worse than grinding shell before manip. I honestly think once this is used to get better any% times, we should split the any% leaderboard into no Elevator Skip, and Elevator Skip, because frankly, the category would be better off without this discovery. Opinions? suggestions? Id love to hear some feedback about this. and yes, sub 23 is RTA viable with ES strats.

And No, RNG is not manipulatable past 1-2 unless you want to be finishing the level on the exact same frame every time

I still havent even fully investigated strats, there are possible timesaves in 8-2 as well by using the strats the old TAS did

I don’t see how we'd need to split the leaderboard into two when you consider how RNG-intensive it is even with 1-2 manip; some people might go for your ES strat if they’re desperate for WR or sub 23:10, but I don’t see that many places(at least the ones that I know of) in w8 where mini is significantly faster than shell. Sure, we can take the time to look through w8 mini strats, but even then this is a very risky route, and frankly I don’t see many people going for this— even top players. You say that 1/18 RNG isn’t as bad as 1/144, but a 1/18 is only slightly better than 5%, which I think isn’t worth grinding for unless there’s an OVERWHELMING advantage in ES route besides time save. Very nice discovery regardless, I sense a new route coming soon