Data scientist researches Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's 700k+ customization options to find the best
The race for first place
Ever wonder what is the best combination of kart pieces and racers is in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? There are plenty of conversations online from people who claim to know the top pick, but that’s a little hard to believe due to there being over 700k possible combinations. Thankfully, now we have a definitive answer, and it comes from one very dedicated data scientist.
Antoine Mayerowitz set out to find the best of the best in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which led him to discover that there are 703,560 different build options, but when duplicates are taken out, players have 25,704 distinct statistical options to pick from. That’s still a ton of choosing to do, so which combination will give you the best shot at first place? Turns out pro players have been onto something for years now.
With all the numbers crunched, we’ve seen that a Peach build is the way to go. In particular, going with Peach, the Teddy Buggy, Roller tyres and the Cloud Glider will get you the best chance at securing victory. This build is optimized for every single attribute, so if all that matters to you is getting first place and not who your racer/kart is, this is the way to go.
Mayerowitz has a LOT more data to offer in his full study, and it’s all presented in rather gorgeous fashion. If you want to dive deeper in the mechanics of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, you can find his full analysis here.
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This isn't quite true:
"With all the numbers crunched, we’ve seen that a Peach build is the way to go. In particular, going with Peach, the Teddy Buggy, Roller tyres and the Cloud Glider will get you the best chance at securing victory. This build is optimized for every single attribute, so if all that matters to you is getting first place and not who your racer/kart is, this is the way to go."
This build is on the Pareto front, which means "there is no build that is certainly worse than this". It isn't strictly the best, any build on the Pareto front (the yellow dots) is just as good, unless we say something like "speed is twice as important as handling". It's like if I offered you three choices:
- two pizzas and a lime
- two limes and a pizza
- a lime and a pizza
We know that the third one is objectively bad - it's worse than the other two in every way! It has less pizzas, and less limes. But we can't say one of the remaining two options is better, that's a matter of preference.
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