The Statistically Worst Combination for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Are you tired of always beating your friends in Mario Kart? Do you need a new challenge after beating all the Time Trials on 200cc? Or maybe you need a build that won’t crush your younger siblings. Well, you’re in luck! Because we’ve calculated the worst combination in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

To find the so called “worst build” the first thing we did was list out all the possible combinations in the game. We then added up every single statistic for the builds and found which builds had the least overall points. That left us with 12 combinations, all with a stat total of 33.75. Now, hold onto those combinations, because we’re going to come back in a few steps and reference them.

I’m sure if you’re reading this, you probably already checked out the article about the best combo according to “science” (Here's the article if you haven't read it yet). Long story short, a statistician compared the two stats he thought were most important to find a build that optimizes both of those stats as best as they could, using what’s called the Pareto Frontier. And while in theory his science is sound, there’s a few mistakes in the execution. However, he does bring up a good point of using the Pareto Frontier to figure out the best combination between two stats (the Pareto Frontier is a model to find the most efficient use of 2 resources that increase or decrease independently of each other, or in this case, in-game stats). After discussing it amongst ourselves, and comparing some other resources, we’ve ranked the 6 major stats based on importance.

Speed

Mini Turbo

Acceleration

Handling

Traction

Weight

So we followed what Henry did and made a Pareto Frontier to find the builds with the best Speed/Turbo combination. Except we took the worst combinations for Speed/Turbo, we found the Anti-Pareto Frontier.

Using this model, it helped narrow down the search quite a bit, but it still left us with over 200 combinations. From here, we took our 200+ builds and checked to see if any of them were on our list of lowest total stats. And what do you know? It narrowed the search down to three. And on top of that, all three combinations have the same character, kart, and tires! The only thing separating them is what glider they use. So, as of now we’ve concluded that Baby Rosalina/Lemmy in the Badwagon/GLA/Standard ATV, with Slick/Cyber Slick wheels are the worst combinations. But we’re not done. We’re going to rank these three combinations so you know what the absolute worst build is.

Of these three, Baby Rosalina/Badwagon/Slick/Super glider is the best. Although it has the same stat total and average stat value as the other 2 builds, it has the greatest low and high values at 1.5 and 4.

Out last two set ups are near identical, so it comes down to one deciding factor, who has the lowest speed. As we mentioned earlier we’ve concluded that speed is the most important stat, so clearly the one with the worst speed stat will be the tie breaker. Which leaves us with Baby Rosalina/Badwagon/Slick/Wario Wing as our second worse combination.

With all that out of the way, we’re left with the statistically WORST kart combination in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Not only does Baby Rosalina/Badwagon/Slick/Peach Parasol have literally the worst combination of Speed and Mini Turbo, it also has the lowest total stats of any combination in the game.

So there you have it, the least optimal, least viable, statistically worst build in the game. Try it out next time you play online and see how bad you do.