Glitz Pit Strategy Contest - Magnus von Grapple (#3)

Magnus von Grapple
"Soft-Lock Picking"
10HP/5FP/6BP
Start at 1/10HP, with no coins, badges, or items anywhere. No enemies are left after the game is saved with them previously defeated -- so no star points, star power, coins, or items, and you can't go anywhere with the timer and boss blocking the exit.
One extra condition: No superguards.
T1-68: Wait. Repeat until a heart is thrown. Defend if no heart. [Guard]
After a heart is thrown (M=2).
T1: Jump (28) [Guard] (1HP/0FP/1.13SP)
T2: Sweet Treat (6HP/5FP) [No Guard] (5HP/5FP/0.13SP)
T3: Spin Jump (24) (3HP/3FP/1.40SP) [No Guard]
T4: Spin Jump (21) (1HP/1FP/2SP) [No Guard]
T5: Sweet Treat (Full) (8HP/5FP/1SP) [No Guard]
T6: Appeal (7HP/5FP/1.37SP) [Guard]
T7: Spin Jump (17) (7HP/3FP/2SP) [Launch X-Fists]
T8: Earth Tremor (11) (5HP/3FP/0SP) [No Guard; always Quake]
T9: Spin Jump (7)
60%: Stomp (3HP/1FP/1.27SP) [No Guard]
T10: Hammer (6) (Either Stomp or Launch X-Fists) (1-3HP/1FP/2SP)
T11: Earth Tremor
40%: Launch X-Fists (5HP/1FP/1.27SP)
T10: Jump (X-Fist) (1HP/1FP/2SP) [Guard both]
T11: Sweet Treat (5HP/5FP/1SP) [Guard one]
T12: Hammer (6) (1HP/5FP/2SP) [Guard both]
T13: Earth Tremor (0)
So, there's a lot to explain here.
These conditions are a "worst-case" save file for TTYD.
No health, nowhere to go, no items or (useful) badges.
It appears impossible without superguarding.
Beating this requires an audience throw of a heart drop.
A heart drop is relatively rare, but since Magnus only does 2 damage, you can Defend and Guard every turn, and eventually get one.
I'll go into more detail below with numbers, but in brief, there's about a 31% chance for this to work in one attempt (due to the audience eventually getting bored)
*Star Power*
Under the hood, there's some necessary Danger manip for Star Power.
-The very first attack gets you just over enough Star Power to be able to heal with Sweet Treat.
-Not healing to full on Turn 3 allows you to Spin Jump in Danger, to get enough SP for the next turns.
-T7/T8 heal fully to 2SP perfectly.
-Being at 5HP on T10, again, in order to get enough SP for Earth Tremor (or Sweet Treat+Earth Tremor in the case shown in video)
This scenario is quite tight, even after getting the heart drop. Careful planning is required to survive X-Fists.
Being able to beat this "softlock" (without superguarding), in an otherwise impossible state, was pretty unique to figure out. And, it's a setup limited to one of the easiest bosses in the game. Most bosses you can at least heal, if not go buy more items/badges.
*MATH*
First of all, you can read Jdaster's guide on the Audience for a look at how Audience Throws work. supermariofiles.wordpress.com...
For this strat:
-Punis and X-Nauts are guaranteed to fill both halves of the stage.
-At the start of every turn, there's an 80% chance for the audience to throw nothing, a 10% chance to throw one item, and a 5% each for 2 or 3.
-This is expected to happen after 30 seconds, if the 20% latter cases to throw were chosen. If there isn't, Defend and start the next turn.
-If one item is thrown, that means there's a 50% chance for a second to be thrown, which is likely to happen after 70 seconds, so it's worth waiting for it.
-X-Nauts can throw rocks/cans, while Punis can throw more useful items.
-Dried Shroom: Heals 1HP, but you can't use it without taking 1 damage from Magnus, leaving you where you started.
-Slow Shroom: Gives HP Regen, but you take damage before it activates.
-FP Items/Flower/Coin: FP/Coins don't help, since Mario can't do much with it on its own.
-Heart: Gives Mario 2HP and the ability to attack in the same turn, which is what's needed.
-There's a 50% chance for a Puni to throw something, and 50% for an X-Naut.
-Eventually, the audience gets bored and leaves. This is determined by Mario's level (and the enemy's level)
-The formula is (Enemy Level x 2 / Mario Level) [Hard minimum at 5 turns]. Magnus' level is 68.
-This means that at Level 1, the audience gets bored after 136 turns. 68 turns at Level 2 (the minimum level you can be), and 27 turns at Level 5.
-I chose to be at Level 2, but technically, Level 5 would be the "worst case" (while still meeting the strat contest global condition), since you'd have less chance of getting the heart drop in one attempt, but this doesn't matter much (it can happen on any turn)
So:
-The chance of at least one item being thrown per turn (20%)
-The chance of a Puni being chosen (50%)
-The chance of a heart being chosen (10/116)
-The chance that we see the item be thrown before moving on to the next turn (63%)
-All together, the chance of getting a heart drop per turn is about .54%
*The chance of getting a heart drop in 68 turns is about 31%.*
Thanks to Jdaster with the help on the math of audience drops, for ensuring I spent the optimal amount of time waiting for drops.
...I typo'd "Magnnus" in the video and I don't have the editing strength to fix it and make it look good.