Century-Old Solution Reveals The Best Possible Mario Kart 8 Combos

With the Nintendo Switch in its twilight years, surely the end for Mario Kart 8 is in sight too. Having launched on the Wii U back in 2014 and then again on the Switch 2017, you would assume that the best possible setups would have been discovered long before now. Well, a new study using a century-old method may just transform the game.

Parisian economist and data scientist Antoine Mayerowitz has revealed his research using the methods of another economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who died in 1923. We presume he wouldn’t have died expecting his ideas to resurface for a Japanese kart racing game 101 years later.

Now, our brains aren’t big enough to explain the exact process any better than Mayerowitz himself, so we’ll direct you to his site for the full research and tool to figure out your own combo. In short, though, Pareto’s methods allow you to add weight to variables based on your preferences and present the best-optimised solutions along a line described as a “Pareto front”.

Apply this to Mario Kart 8’s variables on performance, which mainly takes into account speed, handling, acceleration and weight, and you can find the best possible combinations.  You can even take into account smaller gameplay elements like off-road and mini-turbo.

From 703,560 possible choices, using the Pareto method, there isn’t one stand-out way of setting up. Rather, depending on your play style, there’ll be a few.

For example, on a setup completely balanced between speed, acceleration and handling, the Pareto method tells us Luigi using a Biddybuggy with roller wheels and a cloud glider would be the optimal choice.

It’s perhaps not the satisfying guaranteed way to beat your siblings at Christmas you came for, but it’ll surely help give you an edge.