Mario speedrunner claims he’s being derailed on way to ‘perfect’ run

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Niftski, a highly skilled Super Mario Bros. speedrunner, is getting close to achieving a flawless run of the game. However, they say other members of the speedrunning community are intentionally trying to hinder their progress, potentially preventing them from setting new personal bests.

The competition to become the fastest Super Mario Bros. speedrunner is incredibly close, with just milliseconds separating the top nine players worldwide. Currently, averge11 holds the world record, finishing the game in four minutes, 54 seconds, and 415 milliseconds – a feat achieved just a few months ago.

Niftski is just 33 milliseconds behind, but instead of trying to win, they’ve been focused on achieving flawless performance.

Niftski, while striving for a record-breaking run, says they’ve faced obstacles from other players, particularly the current world-record holder, averge11.

Super Mario Bros. speedrunner hits out at world-record holder

Niftski is attempting a special kind of speedrun called a Tool-Assisted Speedrun. This involves using software to perform actions with perfect precision, essentially calculating the ideal way to complete the game. Niftski’s goal is to match this theoretically perfect run – the best possible performance a human could achieve if they played flawlessly.

Niftski is trying to achieve what might be the perfect Super Mario Bros. speedrun – a record that could be impossible to beat. To do this, they’re using a technique called input swapping, which means switching between using a keyboard and a controller during the game. They choose whichever input method gives them more precise control for each level.

The debate started when moderators on Speedrun.com decided to allow a technique called input swapping. As Kotaku first reported in October 2025, they voted eight to one in favor of the change.

So, after four months, they voted on whether to allow input swapping again. This time, the moderator team was much more strongly in favor of banning it – the vote was 14 to 2! It sounds like they really made up their minds.

So, I was watching a video by Niftski, and he’s claiming a recent change to a game record wasn’t legit. He thinks the moderators didn’t make the decision on their own, but were influenced by another speedrunner named averge11.

He stated that the initial proposal to ban input swapping wasn’t made with good intentions, and was actually meant to make it harder for him to do his job.

They described the second vote as a planned attempt by averge11 and others to stop him from succeeding in his TAS (Tool-Assisted Speedrun) attempt.

During the second vote, averge11 is accused of messaging moderators to request they prohibit input swapping. He’s also accused of having the vote prematurely ended, even though not all moderators had cast their votes yet.

I heard after the vote results were announced, people were apparently saying things like “no more Niftski” on a private Discord server. It’s just what I’ve been hearing from others, though!

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2026-04-02 05:19