It’s that time again: #KappySpotlight time, where I talk about badges/items/partners/etc… that are generally seen as “bad” and not used very often by challenge runners. I dive deeper into why they’re perceived the way they are with some cool strategies centered around them mixed in! Today, I’ll be covering a really unique item in TTYD that’s RNG…for Mario! It’s POISON SHROOM!

Move: Poisons Mario and takes away half of his HP or fully heals his HP. Poison Shroom is an interesting item. Unlike other items that are random for Mario (Mystery, Peach Tart, etc)…this one just looks like it’s awful at a glance. Hurting Mario with an item…why would you ever want to do that? And you can easily manipulate HP with Point Swap and Double Dip. Plus, it could accidentally do the other thing you didn’t want it to do (for example, it could heal you where you’re wanting it to hurt you). The item itself requires quite a bit of cooking to obtain, although that’s not really a huge issue. To break down the chance of both — poisoning Mario and taking half his HP is an 80% chance and the full heal is a 20% chance. That might sound bad at first, but we can actually use this to our advantage. Let’s adapt a couple strategies to use a Poison Shroom!

GRODUS STRAT
10 HP, 5 FP
BADGES: Last Stand, Power Plus x2, Power Bounce, Mega Rush, Power Rush, All or Nothing, Flower Saver, Flower Saver P (29 BP)
ITEMS: Poison Shroom, Fire Flower

Click here to see the strategy in action!

T1: Fire Flower, Poison Shroom Mario (M: 1)
T2: Spin Jump (25), Rally Wink, Spin Jump [KO]

This is a pretty cool variation on the classic Turn 1 Peril strategy against Grodus. With a
Poison Shroom, if Mario has 10 HP, he’ll be at 5 and poisoned. With Last Stand and a guard, Grodus’ lightning attack that he always does Turn 1 will do 6 / 2 = 3 damage, leaving Mario at 2. Finally, poison kicks in, dealing 1 damage and leaving Mario at 1. Awesome. We use a Fire Flower with Goombella to get rid of the Grodus X’s Turn 1. With two on the field Turn 2, Grodus has 3 DEF, so we need to make up for that with Power Plus and All or Nothing. Our base is 0 with Ultra Boots, brought back to 2 with two Power Plus and All or Nothing. Mega Rush + 2 Power Rushes is 9 extra ATK, leaving us at 11. We Spin Jump once for 25 damage, then use Rally Wink. With Flower Saver and Flower Saver P, two Spin Jumps is 2 FP and Rally Wink is 3 FP for perfect FP use. We then use another Spin Jump to deal the last 25 damage for perfect damage on Grodus!

This next one is a variation with Gloomtail!

GLOOMTAIL STRAT
10 HP, 10 FP
BADGES: Last Stand, Mega Rush, Power Rush x2, Power Plus x2, All or Nothing, Power Bounce, Feeling Fine, Flower Saver, Double Dip P x2 (37 BP, 40 with FP Plus)
ITEMS: Poison Shroom, Power Punch, Hot Sauce x3

Click here to see the strategy in action!

T1: Triple Dip (Power Punch, Hot Sauce x2 Mario), Poison Shroom (Mario)
T2: Hot Sauce Mario, Power Bounce (5-cap) [KO]

This strategy aims to deal perfect damage to Gloomtail T2 with Power Bounce with a Poison Shroom. Gloomtail has 1 DEF, but that’s okay — with all the ATK we’re stacking, Mario ends up being at a staggering 18 ATK. So, how does Poison Shroom get us into Peril? At half, Mario is again at 5 HP. Gloomtail always uses breath T1, and it does 8 damage, so halve that and we’re at 4. Nice! But, we have a small problem — Poison Shroom also poisons Mario! Luckily, Feeling Fine actively prevents the poisoning part, which allows us to get into Peril T1 cleanly. After that, it’s just stacking on ATK and Power Bouncing T2. Perfect FP with Flower Saver since Triple Dip is 8 FP and Power Bounce is 2 FP with Flower Saver. We could remove a Power Rush and deal 81 damage with a 6-cap, but perfect damage is more fun!

I want to draw attention to the fact that Poison Shroom is actually a really cool way to get to peril without the use of Double Pain. Normally, both of these bosses pose a problem getting to Peril T1 with 10 HP. You can easily circumvent this by having 15 HP and equipping Double Pain, but Poison Shroom allows us to do it without those things. Of course, there’s some RNG involved, but since Poison Shroom is used T1, it’s easy to just reset and wait until the desired outcome happens, which is pretty often at 80%.

Besides getting into Danger/Peril from 10 HP or dropping your HP by half if you have higher HP, Poison Shroom doesn’t really offer much use, and even then it’s heavily outclassed by Point Swap as the easy Peril item. That said, it is a really cool way to manipulate your HP, so try it out next time you want to do something weird with your strategies!

Next time, I’ll be covering…Ugh…Ms. Mowz…

Just Sayin’