A Messy Guide to Speedrunning this Game, and thank you.

Hello! My name is Blitzerama. For the past year, I've dedicated a decent chunk of time becoming as good as I can at Mario Superstar Baseball. I've worked hard to figure out how the game works, and the result of my effort has been greater than I could have imagined. I currently hold all 8 records for the game at the time of writing this, and I feel as I accomplished what I set out to do. Unfortunately over the past months I've realized I've grown very tired of not just speedrunning the game, but streaming and recording in general. It's hard to say whether this is an issue with burnout, time constraints, or just life moving on, but I feel like its time that I step away. Thanks to everyone who followed me and gave me encouragement throughout my time running the game, and I hope this community can continue to flourish and grow as much as possible.

With all that said, I feel as it would be hard for me to walk away if I wasn't able to put to paper all of the notes I have taken about this game over the year of playing it. My apologies ahead of time if these notes feel scattered or unorganized, but I'll do what I can to sort it and make it as cohesive as possible. So... let's start with the basics. Keep in mind that the strategies I lay out within this guide may only work for Mushroom Cup. Once you get into the higher levels, this game becomes much more of a test of skill and requires an insane amount of good luck.

~ What Charater's Team Should I Use? ~

My personal choice, and what I believe to be the best choice for this is Wario. Wario's team has one thins that I cannot stress the importance of in a heavy RNG game such as this. That thing is consistency. On both sides of the ball, Wario's team provides some of the most consistent play that you will find in this game. Whether this be the hit-potential of star hits done by the middle of the line up, to the amazing plays you can make with many of the infielders, runs done with Wario's team always seem to last longer and make it to the finish line more often than not. Of course if you want to use other characters you certainly can. Heck, the current 2nd place record by simesaba and original 1st place record by AnthonyCaliber both used Mario. However it's hard for me to turn down how great Wario's team is. On that note as well, most of this guide will be written with the idea that you have selected Wario's team, so keep that in mind.

~ Pitching and Fielding ~

I'll be honest, this will be the least scientific part of this guide. Pitching and fielding in this game takes a lot of practice. Additionally, it is so heavily dependent on RNG that you might go through an entire run without giving up a single hit, only to lose it to a 2-run homer by Toadsworth. That being said, here are the tips that I can provide to help get through this portion of the run.

1. Put spin on the pitches
In many of the runs I do, I usually switch King Boo with Wario to start the game. This is because King Boo is slightly trickier than Wario, and allows us to put spin on the ball by holding the stick left or right after a pitch. From my experience, too many pitches without any movement or variance in location have resulted in hits from the CPU. 

2. Mash the B button when fielding
Mashing the B button when running at any time in this game with result in your character moving faster. You need to take advantage of this as much as you can, as a caught ball for an out can result in saving yourself 15+ seconds.

3. Keep the infield as is
The magikoopas are the MVPs of your defense, and there is really no reason to move them away from their original spots. I can't tell you how many times my run has been saved by me frantically hitting the A button and having a magikoopa make a fantastic catch with their wand.

4. Practice
I know that this is a cop out, but honestly there isn't much that you can do to make fielding in this game easy. It's something that requires you to build reflexes based on a given situation. Once the ball is hit, you just need to be able to make the best play.

~ Hitting, and getting 10 Runs ~

Now this is where I have an actual plan. Over the past year of doing this I think I've figured out a pretty good way to get 10 runs in most cases. Obviously if you are going for the Any% run this only matters for Bowser, as the rest of the games your game plan will be to get 1 run as fast as possible, then bunt until you waste all of your outs.

My gameplan is this:
1. Get a Hit with Wario. If you get out, its not the end of the world, so keep going.
2. With Waluigi and the Magikoopas (MK), use star hits. They are incredibly consistent hits with these characters.
3. At this point, you may encounter scenarios where you can bunt for free and not lose an out. This only works when you have <2 outs, and you can do this by manipulating the CPUs into throwing home. This works if you have a man on third, and at least one empty base. It's hard to explain this technique, but in short, you will:

Bunt the ball, do NOT steal with the man on third. DO steal with the man on first if there is one. If you have a man on second and third, have them mimic each others movements. The CPU will prioritize the man going home and throw the ball there. Once this happens, have the running going home run back to third. If done correctly, everyone should reach base safely. You can do this with pretty much any character in that situation, and its a really easy way to get men on without stress. You can see me perform this here, as well as in many of my other videos: https://youtu.be/dkzSXuYNaU4?t=1393

4. At this point, you need to interweave these tips with solid hits. Yeah I know its another "just practice and you'll get better" thing, but its the truth! However I do have a note about hitting in general at this point. DON'T CHARGE HIT EVER. Solid contact is always better than rolling the dice on a power hit.

The more you practice hitting in this game the better your feel for it will be. Honestly a lot of runs succeed on the back of just getting great hits. However if you follow this plan it will set you up more often for success and take more of the load off of your shoulders.

~ Conclusion and Thanks ~

I hope this was of some help to you guys. I know its messy and probably not as helpful as I think it will be, but I had to get my thoughts on paper to have some kind of closure. I wish you all the best of luck with running this game, and always remember that patience is key for this and any other RNG heavy game. 

Special Thanks to Socky for the insane sub support, my best life and discord friends for supporting me, AnthonyCaliber for making the run that inspired me to try it, my followers on twitch, and people like simesaba and mdmason for putting a fire under my ass and forcing me to make my runs better. You guys are the best.

Love you guys, and play ball! <3

Mushroom Any% Guide

Mario Superstar Baseball Any% Speedrun Notes

Captain Glitch: The captain glitch is performed at the captain select screen at the beginning of the run. Performed by holding “L” or “R” one square before the captain  you want to select. Then hold the control stick to the right, and then stop on the captain you want as the main captain that gives the team name, and the one you control on the overworld. This glitch allows access to both of the teams. 
So in this example. Yoshi is the overworld captain, but Wario’s team is in the default lineup, but you can substitute players from Yoshi’s team into the lineup. In the run you will see me substitute both Yoshi and Birdo into the lineup for fielding purposes.

Main Strategy: Win each game 10-0 via 1-inning mercy.

Fielding Strategy: Birdo, Yoshi play SS and 2B for catching infield line drives. Putting Birdo in the lineup is also important because she gives the team 4 team stars instead of the default 3 team stars. Since Yoshi is technically the overworld captain, but the majority of the players in the lineup or Wario players. That makes you start off with 3 team stars, so getting the 4th team star is big for characters that have the line drive star swing i.e. Magikoopas and Waluigi. 

Lineup Strategy: Make every batter a lefty because starting off on the right side of the box makes them closer to first to beat out throws to 1st on bunt hits, and other infield singles. Yoshi bats 9th because he has a high “score a run” mission flag appearance rate. Birdo bats 4th because she can bunt it to 1st Base, and beat out the throw. This is only applicable in the Mario game when Pianta is at 2B. Pianta is too slow to cover 1st base in time, so Birdo can beat the throw to first. If Monty Mole is the 2B when the game starts then this strat can’t work because he covers 1B in time. Characters like Magikoopa, King Boo, and Petey. (Yes Nick, even Blue Mag is too slow to where this strat won’t even work even if Pianta starts at 2B.)

Mission Flags: So Mission flags are the worst part about the run. They appear randomly, but there is some manipulation that you can sort of control which ones show up or not. Example: “Steal a Base” mission flag only appears when the leadoff hitter gets on base and they are a speed character i.e. Yoshi. So putting him at 9th in the order lets him never get that mission flag.

MAIN HITTING MISSION FLAGS
“Get a hit” is the most common mission flag you will encounter. Can’t really control when it appears. Each “get a hit” mission flag costs about a total of 3 seconds because of the cut scene that plays. “Get a hit” can still appear even after the opponent’s captain gets taken out of the game. So a character like Monty Mole can come in and pitch and because he’s a new character the game wants you to try and unlock him for your team so they will sometimes cause a mission flag to appear when they pitch. Same thing goes for multi color characters i.e. Pianta, Noki, Toad, etc. If the default color character comes in: blue pianta, blue noki, red toad, etc. then a “get a hit” mission flag will also appear, but if a color variation comes in like Pink Menace, Mint Noki, or Purple Toad, etc. Then a mission flag will never appear when they pitch. So ideally when you tire the captain out you want the AI to substitute a color variant pitcher so that no mission flags will appear. You will see me have bad luck with this when Wario substitutes Blue Magikoopa instead of a color variant Mag.


“Score a Run” The absolute worst mission flag you can get to show up. Majority of the time it only shows up when Yoshi is batting. It’s the worst because not only does it have the same 3 second time waste that Get a Hit does, but the game also takes 2 extra seconds for the AI pitcher to pitch the ball, and if you don’t score the run as soon as possible then, then the pitcher will keep taking that 2 extra seconds to pitch the ball until a run scores.

“Hit a Sacrifice Fly” Not as bad as “score a run” because a cutscene doesn’t play at the beginning but it still makes the pitcher take 2 extra seconds to pitch the ball.

All other mission flags that appear like “drop a successful squeeze bunt”, and “steal a base” aren’t too bad because a cutscene doesn’t play at the beginning but they still waste time at the end, because a cutscene still plays for whether or not you succeed or fail the mission flag.

DEFENSE MISSION FLAGS
“Get the Player Out” This is the equivalent to the Get a Hit mission flag. It’s the standard mission flag that can appear, and like Get a hit. This mission flag will only appear when you’re pitching to unique characters i.e. Monty Mole, Daisy, Dixie, Goomba. As well as the color variant characters default forms: Blue pianta, blue noki, red toad.

“Strike em’ Out” Same thing as Get the Player Out” but this mission flag only appears when you pitch against the opposing team captain.



“Finish Them Off in Three Batters” This one isn’t too bad because a cutscene doesn’t play at the beginning, one will play at the end though whether you succeed or not, but if you strike out the last batter then a cutscene does not play for succeeding or failing. Instead the game tells you if you succeed or fail during the strike out animation, so you do not lose time at all for it.

Overall for these mission flags, if you can’t get first pitch contact outs then striking them out in three pitches is a very good thing to go for because striking the batter out makes it so that  a cutscene doesn’t play at the end for “get the player out” “strike em’ out”, etc.

Gameplay Strats - Hitting: Main basic strategy is to use star swing hitters to get on base and set up runners on 1st and 3rd. Setting up runners on 1st and 3rd creates the bunt cheese. The bunt cheese is executed by stealing with the runner on 1st, bunting the ball and then the AI tries to throw the ball home to get the 3rd base runner out. Retreat the 3rd base runner back to 3rd. This allows all runners to be safe. Then drive in runs with the next batter Create the 1st and 3rd bunt cheese and rinse and repeat. The bunt cheese also works if you have runners on 2nd and 3rd. It’s easier this way because you don’t have to worry about stealing with a runner. This is the main strategy used for every game.

RBI Cutscenes - RBI cutscenes only play when an rbi is scored on a regular hit. The RBI cutscene plays for each run scored up until you get 4 runs. Once you get the 5th run, you do not have to worry about the RBI cutscene. HOWEVER: The RBI cutscene can be skipped if you perform sacrifice bunts, or even better get a bunt single. This is extremely important in the Peach game.

Gameplay Strats - Pitching: Main strategy is to hope that that AI swings at the first pitch to get a quick fielding/contact out. Ideally a line out to the infield. If the first pitch out can not happen, then it’s best to go for the strikeout since more time can be lost in case they hit the ball on the 2nd pitch and it’s a high fly out.
King Boo pitches the Mario game because he has a fast curveball speed, plus he has a good star pitch that is a super fastball which is good for going for the third pitch strikeout.

Peach Game: Most unique game in the run. Peach has a majority of Toads in the field, so the strat is to get the bases loaded, and do a late purple steal with every runner when the ball is traveling on it’s way to the batter. The batter bunts the ball, ideally to the first base side. The Blue Toad fields it, and when they throw it home, the runner just barely scores, and the runner makes it to 1st base, and everyone becomes safe. This is huge because this avoids the RBI cutscene from happening. 
Now this strategy can work against every team, but Peaches' team is the most consistent and easiest to do it against because the Toads have weak arms, and the other teams have strong throwing arms that makes it risky to go for.
Also, going for star swings against Peach is risky because all Toads including Toadsworth and Toadette have gigantic hitboxes that snag a lot of star swings that would be out of reach for other characters on Mushroom Difficulty.

MARIO PITCHING: Starting with the Peach game, substitute Mario into Pitcher. Mario is a great pitcher because he has a fast curveball, and the super fastball star pitch that KB has, but also he has a pitching animation cancel that allows him to throw the ball quicker each time.

DK Game: DK is the hardest pitcher to face against because he has a really fast curveball and his side arm release is tricky to time up the hits. Barrels can cost some time because the AI gets hit by them a lot, and this wastes time because it takes longer for the next batter to come up since the ball is still technically in play and not fielded.

Wario Game: Wario is fairly easy to hit against because of his slow pitching, the main thing you have to worry about are the tornadoes in the outfield. Majority of the time if a ball gets hit into the tornado then Magikoopas in the outfield will catch it because the AI reads it perfectly. Waluigi is also a huge hit box at 2B, so like the Toads, star swings can be very dangerous near him.

Bowser Game: Most important thing about the Bowser game is that it is the only game where there is a 0% chance of mission flags ever appearing. Since it’s the final game, and you can’t unlock Boswer characters there’s no need to worry about mission flags appearing which is great.

Thank you guys for reading these notes. I know there’s a lot of intricacies to the run, but I appreciate you guys taking the time to commentate the speedrun.

Superstar% - Peach - Guide

Peach Star Missions:

1.) Strike 'em out!
2.) Win MVP!!
3.) Get a Lovely Heart!
4.) Strike out Bowser!
5.) Pitch and bat with the Heart Ball and win the game!
6.) Make a big play!
7.) Get 5 strikeouts!
8.) Score over 300 points by breaking walls!
9.) Shut out the Bowser team and win!
10.) Become a captain and round everyone up!

Daisy Star Missions:

1.) Smack a hit!
2.) Win MVP!!
3.) Get a Pretty Flower!
4.) Drive in a run!
5.) Pitch and bat with the Flower Ball and win the game!
6.) Smash the bonus barrel in Barrel Batter!
7.) Smack more than 3 hits in a game!
8.) Make a double play with Peach!

Toad Star Missions:

1.) Let someone go shopping for you!
2.) Win MVP!!
3.) Hit a home run!
4.) Crush someone with a body check!

Toadette Star Missions:
1. Smack a hit!
2. Strike 'em out!
3. Make a big play!
4. Win with a shutout!
5. Win MVP!
6. Hit a ? block with the ball! (Musical Note block)

Toadsworth Star Missions:

1. Catch the ball!
2. Smack a hit!
3. Make a big play!
4. Steal a base!
5. Win MVP!!
6. Clear all minigames!

Superstar% - Wario - Guide

Wario Star Missions:

1.) Smack more than 2 hits in a game!			
2.) Become a captain and win more than 900 coins! 	
3.) Get a Gnarly Garlic!					
4.) Get a hit with Mario!				
5.) Pitch and bat with the Phony Ball and win the game!	
6.) Strike out Mario!					
7.) Get a red gem in Chain Chomp Sprint! 		
8.) Get more than 200 coins in the Toy Field! 		
9.) Belt a home run with Mario! 			
10.) Get more than 5 RBIs in the game!

Waluigi Star Mission:

1.) Strike 'em out!				
2.) Win MVP!!					
3.) Get a Whiskered Eggplant!			
4.) Win with a shutout!				
5.) Strike out Luigi!				
6.) Get a runner out with a laser beam throw!	
7.) Smack more than 3 hits in a game!		
8.) Clear all minigames!				

Magikoopa Star Missions:

1.) Drop a sacrifice bunt!			
2.) Strike 'em out!				
3.) Make a big play with a magical catch!	
4.) Win MVP!!		

Boo Star Missions: 

1.) Smack a hit!				
2.) Get 3 strikeouts in a game!		
3.) Smack more than 2 hits in a game!	
4.) Win with a shutout!			

King Boo Missions:

1.) Smack a hit!				
2.) Get a Team Star!			
3.) Smack a hit with a charge swing!	
4.) Make a jumping catch!		
5.) Hit a home run!			
6.) Be the MVP in the last game!		

Petey Piranha Missions:

1.) Crack a long hit!				
2.) Place first in Piranha Panic! 		
3.) Hit a home run!				
4.) Shut out Mario's team and win!		
5.) Crush someone with a body check!		
6.) Catch the ball more than 5 times in a game!

Name	Author
A Messy Guide to Speedrunning this Game, and thank you.	Blitzerama 4 years ago
Mushroom Any% Guide	MattyIceFalco 2 years ago
Superstar% - Peach - Guide	RubberDuckyAssassin 3 years ago
Superstar% - Wario - Guide	WhiteMystery 2 years ago