Speedrunner Niftski, who’s best known for being the second-fastest person to ever complete Super Mario Bros., has spent most of 2026 working toward a monumental achievement: being the first person to tie with a theoretically perfect playthrough of the game. However, after a particularly sudden rule change that voided his preferred method of input, he’s now accusing the game’s Speedrun.com moderation team of conspiring against him and his progress.
In a YouTube video published Monday, Niftski alleged that the current Any% world record holder, averge11, “conspired with certain SMB1 leaderboard moderators and others to rig the vote to ban input swapping for the purpose of sabotaging my Any% TAS tie progress.”
Since January, Niftski has been working on an Any% TAS tie of the entirety of the original Super Mario Bros. If this sounds like gibberish to you, let me translate: Any% refers to a non-completionist run — here, Niftski just needs to get to the end of the game as fast as possible, rather than completing all its content. TAS means “tool-assisted speedrun,” AKA using code to achieve precise inputs, often ones that humans can’t replicate, both to figure out near-perfect routes for speedrunning and to test the limits of what’s possible within a game. A TAS tie is when a human is able to tie with a TAS speedrun’s time.
Essentially, Niftski is trying to beat Super Mario Bros. with the exact fastest possible time.
To do this, he’s been input swapping, a technique that speedrunners have used to their advantage in several other games. In Niftski’s case, this means swapping between a keyboard and a controller to make certain segments of the game easier.
Last October, the game’s Speedrun.com moderation team had voted eight to one to permit input swapping under specific conditions. As shown in Discord screenshots shared in a document by Niftski, averge11, the speedrunner he’s accusing of conspiring against him, was also a fan of input swapping and sent messages indicating they intended to use the technique for their own benefit around that time.
However, after Niftski began sharing his impressive progress on TAS ties in individual levels using input swapping, the Speedrun.com SMB1 mod team mentioned Niftski’s progress as a reason why the vote should be reconsidered.
In February, the team voted 14 to two to ban input swapping, marking a massive change in just four months. Niftski believes that this change wasn’t natural but was encouraged by averge11.
“The discussion of the input swapping ban was initially brought up in bad faith and was intended to hinder my performance,” he said.
Here’s where this bout of speedrunner drama gets pretty messy: Niftski claimed that averge11 constantly sent negative messages about him in private servers and was “jealous,” motivating them to conspire against him by manipulating the vote.
Both Niftski and averge11 were able to vote on the matter by assuming informal “consultant” positions despite not being official moderators on the game’s leaderboard. However, Niftski alleged that LeKukie, another prominent speedrunner with extensive controller knowledge, was also added as a consultant, but that his acceptance to the Discord server where the vote occurred was withheld until after the vote had closed.
During the vote, averge11 pinged members of the team encouraging them to vote to ban input swapping. Additionally, averge11 successfully pushed to close the vote early even though several members had not yet had time to cast their votes.
When the vote went through, averge11 and their friends began to celebrate in a private server, where other members sent messages like “no more Niftski” and made a video titled “niftski funeral.”
“[Averge11 has] repeatedly abused their standing in the community to get what they want, even if it’s to the detriment of others,” Niftski said, later adding that he hopes this doesn’t lead to harassment of the mod team but rather a reconsideration of the vote that banned input swapping.
In a post on Twitter/X, averge11 later responded to Niftski’s video and documents. ”I don’t have an excuse for some of the behavior brought up in some of these documents, nor do I intend to excuse it,” they wrote. “That was also never the point. I’ve fucked up many times and anyone who knows me knows I will own up to that and I think accountability is important.” They did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The speedrunning community is definitely no stranger to drama, but I could foresee this specific incident leading to some serious changes to the structure of Speedrun.com moderation.
