When I'm running minus world and reach the end of -1, I sometimes find the flagpole in a glitched state where the actual flag is nonexistent. When you grab the pole, Mario just jumps off and "floats" over to the castle, which ultimately saves 3 framerules (1.05 sec) over the version with the flag. The thing is that whether the flag shows or not seems to be completely random. I think it might be framerule dependent, but does anyone know for sure?

Interesting, could you make a video showing that?

I'm pretty sure that there shouldn't ever be a flag on that flagpole, but if you go for full FPG it won't matter whether there is a flag or not.

Here's a comparison:

I've never seen that before and I have run this category for 16 hours all together. Interesting

That's interesting, I've never experienced this.

I wonder if the fire flower is allowing the chance of that to happen. I don't think I've ever seen it when reaching the end as small Mario

It's actually happen to me last time when I'm messing up and doing things on world -1. It's cool and I also saw that on another YouTube Video. But when I'm small mario (using AISSON game genie code) There's always a flag in that flagpole.

Have you ever seen it in an actual run?

I'm just putting a theory out there, but maybe the flag doesn't spawn because there are too many sprites on the screen, so it doesn't show up. Maybe if you killed some koops or that hammer brother that likes to suicide maybe that caused the flag to spawn?

I’m in the same boat as something must be done differently but the video doesn’t show anything but the end of the level.

I would test it but I’m not feeling it haha.

@BlueYoshii Yes In the world record that it was not shown. I don't know if killing something will show the flag. I'm doing it offline and not recording the screen so yeah.

I didn't know that there can be a flag in -1, but I've verified it on original hardware (FDS). I guess that you have to kill the koopa on the stairs. It also seems to help if you scroll the screen to the right and move pixel by pixel like I do here: Sometimes there is a cheep-cheep at the bottom of the screen which seems to prevent the flag from spawning:

Big potential time save.

how @TicTacBean

@TicTacBean It's not a time save, because flag spawns almost always. Actually, if it DOES spawn, it's a time loss.

I didn't really say it was a time save but said it was a POTENTIAL time save which to me means a possible time save but not being all that sure about it.

About the sprite overload theory: I did notice that when the flag appeared the koopa on the stairs was gone, and when the flag was absent, the koopa was there. So I suppose it's possible the existence of the koopa prevents the flag from spawning. Usually when I still had my fire flower at the end of -1 I would shoot the koopa at the end for fun. The thing is that even when I kill the koopa, the flag is sometimes still absent, and just a single koopa and flagpole doesn't seem like enough to cause a sprite overload.