Blue Shells and How to Stop it from Ruining Your Run

in single player you can get mushrooms in first place so just spam items until you get it and then hold it until a blue shell comes then use it right before it hits you. boom you did it you dodged a blue shell and saved some time on your run congrats. 

if you’re still struggling git gud

Glider boosts

Do you want a free five seconds on a speedrun you have? Ok screw the introduction.

Requirments: gold glider, beast glider, or super glider.

Type 1. The less common glider boost which is mostly used for time trials but can happen on koopa beach. Since you start in eighth place on koopa beach you have a chance for an item box with triple shrooms. Keep that item! You can use it for the shortcut and for a blue shell dodge (which I'll make a guide for tomorrow night). On koopa beach, the shortcut that has a glider, then you go through that tunnel, is the shortcut I'm referring to. There is a ramp that your supposed to trick off of to get to the platform with the glider. Trick off of that and as soon as you do, use a mushroom and run into the glider. DO NOT TRICK OFF THE GLIDER. The mushroom off of the glider will give you a boost. If you don't get propelled forward after using the mushroom while in midair, you are using the mushroom to late and need to use it earlier.

Type 2: the more important one that you can do on more tracks and do it shroomless. It does require a little practice. This is most commonly used on coconut mall. Go through the top path to the glider. As soon as you trick off the glider, you will see an archway. If you go down as soon as you pass over it, you will get a boost in speed. Watch a coconut mall 1:57 live if you want to see what I'm talking about. This can be used in other races such as the pipe on rock rock mountain.

Maka Wuhu

At the very beginning of the second lap, if you turn right there is water that you need to run into. If you don't have a mushroom to do this drift right into the corner that separates the water from the bottomless pit. If done correctly, you should respawn very close to the third lap which cuts off around 25 seconds.

Mushroom Cup guide (WIP)

*This is currently a WIP. If you have suggestions or comments on this guide, please ping me in the MK7 Discord under the same name (Fire). I am no WR holder or master speedrunner, so some insight from more experienced players is always welcomed!*

This is a guide to achieving a faster time on the Mushroom Cup. Most of what I say here can also be applied to TTs, but some tricks are only for Grand Prix. Most of this is just observation from the top runs in the category. Some terminology will be listed at the bottom. With that out of the way, let's begin!

**Course 1: Toad Circuit**
-There are two straights for which you can use SSMTs to save time: the one at the start/finish line, and the one after the small glider section.
-After the second straight, there's a left turn and then a curve with a ramp surrounded by sand on the right. It's possible to reach this ramp without a Mushroom and save time. Hold a drift to the left and try to angle yourself with the bottom left corner of the ramp. You would've charged up a SMT. Right before you would touch the sand, release the SMT and hop. If your positioning and timing were right, you should barely reach the ramp without touching the sand at all. Then trick off the ramp and make sure to not accidentally land on the sand (though with your speed, it shouldn't be too hard)
-On the second and third laps of the race, the glider ramp with pop up. Normally, taking this would just be slower than riding on the orange/red boosts on the ground, but there's a trick using the ramp to get a last place item while staying in first.

To perform it, drift so that your kart is angled to the right before you glide off it (I personally don't recommend tricking or doing a Mini Turbo since it often gives you too much height). Tricking causes your kart to go higher, which may make the next part more difficult. You need to glide to the right and dip down to grab an Item Box before gliding up and to the left back onto the lower portion of the track. If you don't glide left right after getting the Item Box, you may end up gliding into a death barrier and lose a chunk of time. The timing to grab the item box is a bit tricky, but it can be done with some practice.

The reason this works is because when you descend to grab the Item Box, the game thinks you're behind everyone else (assuming you're in first or some other high placing), and momentarily marks you as eighth, which makes the game roll an eighth place item for you when you grab the item box. Gliding out of the area does not change the drop because the game decides the set of drops based on the position you were in when you grabbed the Item Box, not your current position. Your drop's usefulness should save more time than you would lose detouring. However, I have had a few moments where I did the trick to get an item box and I got what looked like a first place item. This seems to happen when you don't go far right enough or when you grab the first item box, before the game can recognize you're in last.

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**Course 2: Daisy Hills**
This course has a few straights you can gain time on with SSMTs. These are;
-The area around the start/finish line
-The bridge after the first set of item boxes

After the second set of item boxes, there's a left turn and you can choose to either cut through the grass on the left, or go on the bridge to the right. The general consensus from seeing runs is that the right side is actually faster (unless you maybe have a Mushroom). After gliding off the ramp, glide down and to the left under the windmills. I've heard of a trick that allows you to gain time by diving down then up to hit the front of the balloons for a speed boost, but this doesn't seem to be as effective as just gliding through the windmills. Other than this, there aren't too many advanced tricks here.

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**Course 3: Cheep Cheep Lagoon**
This is the only course in this cup to have water sections. It also has only one straight, the part of the track near the start/finish line.

------Terminology------

Straight: A more or less straight line of road. Normal drifts wouldn't save you time here.
SSMT: Short for "straight-stretched Mini Turbo". Used mainly to gain time on straights, though SSMTs can be used outside of those to gain time. These are typically just normal (blue) Mini-Turbos.
MT/SMT: "Mini Turbo" and "Super Mini Turbo" respectively. If you've ever played Mario Kart before, you probably know what these are more or less. Holding a drift will eventually result in blue sparks (a Mini Turbo) coming out of the back wheels of your kart, and releasing the drift will give you a small boost. Super Mini Turbos take longer to charge but give a longer boost.
TT: Short for "Time Trials".

Changelog:
Sept. 27, 2018 - Guide created.
Sept. 28, 2018 - Minor edits
Oct. 2, 2018 - Added Daisy Hills section
Oct. 3, 2018 - Removed "don't dip down far enough to have the game recognize you as in last, but far enough down to grab the item box". Began section on CCL.
Oct. 8, 2018 - Minor edits (will get back to finishing this soon!)

SSMT guide

SSMTs, or "straight-stretched mini-turbos" are most commonly used as a time trial strat in MK7 to save about .05 seconds per successful SSMTs. However SSMTs are also useful in online races or speedruns as a method of quicker recovery after being hit by an item. I made this guide for new players to learn how to perform it :)

Chapter 1: Neutral Hop Drifting

In order to be able to do SSMTs you will first have to master neutral hop drifting. As some of you may know, turning while hopping to start a drift is quite huge waste of time in itself, and because proper SSMTs are only doable with neutral hop drifting, its best to learn that first :P

Whenever you hop to start a drift, you have to make no steering inputs until you are very close to touching the ground, and only then you can start steering. Neutral hop drifting also significantly shortens the super mini turbo charge timer, so that'll help you a lot as well.

Chapter 2: The SSMT itself

Once you've mastered neutral hop drifting, you can start learning SSMTs. First, you'll need to start a neutral hop drift during a straight line. Then, hold down the direction you're going to for a short while. Release and hop again immidiately after charging a mini turbo to realign properly. The time save window is quite small with SSMTs. so you'll need to practice them a lot before you can do them consistently.

Chapter 3: When to perform SSMTs

SSMTs are a technique you should mostly perform on tracks with long wide straight lines to get the most out of them. Best track to practice this kind of technique is most definitely Luigi Raceway. Although you should also do SSMTs whenever you get hit by something to save 0.5-1.0 seconds depending on character

Chapter 4: Extra

SSMTs are a technique that can only be performed using wheels with low handling, like monsters, slicks, etc. due to SSMTs being impossible on high steering wheels that would likely steer too much before charging up a SSMT.

Another useful thing to do with neutral hop drifts are hop alignments, which are realigning your vehicle with little to no speed loss compared to just steering.

thx for reading :)

Wall clip

By wall clipping, you mini turbo to the wall that will not affect the speed. Without mini turbo to the wall will affect the speed! In NBC, you wall clip it and drift by pressing the R twice like that. Im sure its hard to do it!

Name	Author
Blue Shells and How to Stop it from Ruining Your Run	ControlPro 5 years ago
Glider boosts	OBSIDIAUS 5 years ago
Maka Wuhu	OBSIDIAUS 6 years ago
Mushroom Cup guide (WIP)	KleaKirb 5 years ago
SSMT guide	neuro 6 years ago
Wall clip	Lycanroc_YT 4 years ago