IOTM Tiers for Speedrunning

What it means

The best-of-the-best. The cream of the crop. The big kahuna. These IOTMs save a boatload of turns by themselves, cutting over 15 turns every single day. These are the kinds of IOTMs that can shave entire days off your run if you only have a few shinies, and are still explicitly routed around and optimized if you have many. You probably need these!

Example

The Blood Cubic Zirconia is a T0 IOTM. In a normal speedrun, you save 8-9 turns a day in flat savings from freekills. You can get the same or more turns saved from clever usage of refracted gaze. The ML effect helps in multiple areas of the run, likely saving you 1-2 turns per run. And you also get some bonkers buffs that could feasibly save turns, like +411% mysticality, all the spooky damage you need to ace the tower test, an extra 60% meat drop for nuns, and a huge boost of spell damage for advancing Blech House. And then on top of that you get a few turn-taking all-day banishes! That's WAY over 15 turns, man!

Our reviews (5)

• Book of Facts
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Bat wings
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Blood Cubic Zirconia
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Legendary Seal-Clubbing Club
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Sword of S-Words

What it means

These are great IOTMs. Some of them require synergies to operate successfully, but 7-15 turns is the kind of weighty margin that can separate a Bronze from a Silver in a challenge path leaderboard.

Example

The Spring Shoes are a T1 IOTM. With 1 freerun every 30 turns, you can expect about 6-7 turns of value per day from freeruns alone. The +/- combat is worth 1-ish turn per day. Spring Kick is extremely difficult to benchmark, but is worth (in my view) at least 2-3 turns per day by letting you powerfully manipulate the queue. The init and fruit are both worth about half a turn. So you're at about 11 turns saved per day. It's a very, very good IOTM.

Our reviews (14)

• Candy Cane Sword Cane
• Patriotic Eagle
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Apriling band helmet
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Chest Mimic
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Everfull Dart Holster
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Roman Candelabra
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Sept-Ember Censer
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Spring Shoes
• ⏲︎(in Standard)McHugeLarge deluxe ski set
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Peridot of Peril
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Archaeologist's Spade
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Baseball Diamond
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Heartstone
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Interesting Coin

What it means

These are pretty good IOTMs. They don't individually make or break a run, and sometimes you can get away without having one or two of them, but there are a lot of them, and their savings add up.

Example

The Leprecondo is a T2 IOTM. In modern Standard, you'll save a flat 5 turns per day from the spleen items. The familiar XP buff is worth a few turns per run in freed-up familiar flex, bar darts are probably worth a turn per run, and crafting plans are worth anywhere from 0 to 3 turns depending on the path and your crafting needs. There's perhaps a fraction of a turn or so from all the initiative buffs, as well. This nets out to an IOTM that saves you 6-7 or so turns per day in modern Standard; high-end T2, but T2 all the same.

Our reviews (9)

• Clan VIP Lounge: Overview (as of 2024)
• August Scepter
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Mayam Calendar
• ⏲︎(in Standard)TakerSpace
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Allied Radio Backpack
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Leprecondo
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Prismatic Beret
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Black Rose Garden
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Legendary Pasta Wand

What it means

These are decent quality IOTMs. They will shave a number of turns in the aggregate, and are often necessary for big speedruns or useful in some synergistic ways with better IOTMs... but they probably aren't going to make your runs way better by themselves.

Example

The Cooler Yeti is a T3 IOTM. The turnbloat potential is helpful for cutting daycount for things like 1-day attempts or getting over the 3-day to 2-day jump, but the real value is in 100 turns of +100% item drops and +100% meat drops; generally those kinds of effects aren't worth a ton by themselves, but 100 dang turns of it means you can fit the majority of your run's item drop activities (and nuns!) into the duration. In actual usage, my guess is that most runners will get the meat/item effect once a run and otherwise put this guy on the shelf. But that's totally fine, and still worth about 2 turns per day in the grand scheme of things.

Our reviews (8)

• The Garden Slot: a Retro Review (Granny Tood's Thanksgarden Catalog, rock garden guide)
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Peace Turkey
• ⏲︎(in Standard)April Shower Thoughts shield
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Cooler Yeti
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Möbius ring
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Shrunken Head
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Toy Cupid's Bow
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Meat Shield Maiden

What it means

These are OK IOTMs. They have a few niche use cases, and some synergies, but it is certainly possible to get a Silver-quality leaderboard run without all of them. The savings are small, but they're dependable: a T4 IOTM does at least a little something in every run.

Example

The Eternity Codpiece is a T4 IOTM. The simplistic “slot in a bunch of item drop, ascend, profit” method of using it probably saves you a turn or so over a full run. While that gets a bit more fractional as you lower the item drop percentage, it's still additive item drop compared to what you'd be getting naturally, and pulling a steely marble for +65 sleaze damage is likely to save you a turn. It also happily allays some equipment pressure by letting you double up on IOTMs in one accessory slot. I'm comfortable saying this saves anywhere from half a turn to a full turn per day; it does so dependably, too, which helps push this up from a T5 to a T4.

Our reviews (9)

• Crown of Thrones/Buddy Bjorn: a Retro Review (Crown of Thrones, Buddy Bjorn)
• The Garden Slot: a Retro Review (Mint Salton Pepper's Peppermint Seed Catalog, Pete & Jackie's Dragon Tooth Emporium Catalog, Discontent Winter Garden Catalog)
• Jill-of-all-Trades
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Black & White Apron
• ⏲︎(in Standard)CyberRealm
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Monodent of the Sea
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Skeleton of Crimbo Past
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Cup of 13s
• ⏲︎(in Standard)The Eternity Codpiece

What it means

These IOTMs aren't really necessary for speedrunning; they have small uses, but you should never bend over backwards to buy these or fit them into your plans. They can occasionally save a turn, but in many paths, or alongside IOTMs with similar functions, they save nothing at all.

Example

The Portable Laughing Stock is a T5 KoL Con item. There's only so much you can do with nice buffs and a bit of turngen. These buffs are generally less useful than most buff-based IOTMs, too, essentially deriving their total value from the leveling assistance that the new fruit unlocks. There is some turngen benefit here as well, with 4.5 adventures per fullness being on the high side (and a relatively easy path to 6-9 fullness per day taken up by the fruit)... but overall, this is a skippable item that often won't do anything for you.

Our reviews (7)

• Bottled Green Pixie: a Retro Review
• The Garden Slot: a Retro Review (Gordon Beer's Beer Garden Catalog, Pokéfam Guide to Capturing All of Them, Better Shrooms and Gardens catalog)
• A Guide to Burning Leaves
• Wardrobe-o-Matic
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Mini Kiwi
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Tearaway Pants
• ⏲︎(in Standard)Portable Laughing Stock

What it means

These IOTMs are virtually completely useless for speedrunning. Any turn savings you glean from them are fractional at best and non-dependable. In most cases, you're better off using literally anything else.

Example

The unevolved organism is a T6 KoL Con item. It's effectively useless. While it has a fun and cute mechanic (adding a new ability every 400 XP), none of the abilities it offers you are remotely useful for modern speedrunning. Familiar damage, HP/MP regen, and barrrnacle blocks haven't really been super useful in decades. Perhaps there'd be a run on these in 2008's low-MP meta, but for modern running... just don't use it. Trust me.

Our reviews (2)

• Haiku Katana: a Retro Review
• The Garden Slot: a Retro Review (Grumpy Bumpkin's Pumpkin Seed Catalog)