>>49970793
there are always exceptions, but the general rule is true that you don't have to worry as much when you're in the lead. when you get raped by items as a frontrunner, it's tragic. when you get raped by items while in the pack, then it's expected. many of my wins happen when I race nearly-perfect for the first half of the race. and once I get a decent lead I notice... "hey, I haven't even seen an item for a good two minutes! I wonder how the other guys are doing?" then I look at the left side of the screen and see everyone else spinning out because of a master spark or triple mushrooms or something as my lead on the map steadily grows. and most of my losses happen when I can't secure that early position as one of the frontrunners and get utterly obliterated by things I can't even hope to defend against 90% of the time unless I draw an elixir or something.

that's just how one wins consistently; the guys in the back can't hit you if they aren't even close enough to see you, after all. again, there are exceptions to ths hard-earned peace: Sanae's, Kokoro's, Clownpiece's, and Remilia's LWs target 1st especially, as well as the possibility that the person in second place is close enough to hit you with an amulet or bomb or can snipe you with onbashira over a gap. but LWs are inconsistently-used, and itemwise it's a lot easier to manage one guy in 2nd place who's barely getting any meter than it is to manage the guy next to you, ahead of you, and behind you when you're in 5th place and everyone there is getting meter and drawing items like a madman in hopes of getting that cradle/reverie/elixir that will let them actually catch up to the frontrunners rather than just dicking over everyone nearby.

of course, that's not the only way to win; there are other strategies like bagging for good items or for a powerful LW and then making a mad dash from the middle of the pack to first place during the final lap. and I'm not gonna pretend like I know everything about the game just yet, either. but this is the strategy I've discovered that works the best, and this is my reasoning and observations as for why it works. I just need to sharpen my skills so that I can put it into practice on every map and not just the ones I've gotten good at optimizing (ironically, the maps I now struggle to get ahead on are the ones that are simple to drive). but when I do, watch out!