New vanilla FM route

NOTE: If you are new to speedrunning Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories, read this guide before reading the one below: https://www.speedrun.com/yugiohfm/guide/o9dax

This is a speedrun route for Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories (the original game) that I have found a lot of success with -- significantly more than any other route I've tried or observed. I have been consistently getting good or great decks to the Final 6 on sub-3 pace.

Abbreviated version:
- Reset for a deck with at least 2 dragons OR 1 dragon + 2 thunders
- Farm Rex until you have 4/4 or 5/3. Reset if this is on pace to take 55+ minutes
- Farm Isis or Pegasus until you have 6 dragons
- Farm Pegasus for Acid Trap Hole to A-TEC, or Dragon Treasure
- If you have 6 dragons and a trap, A-TEC Pegasus
- Stop farming somewhere between the 1.5 and 2-hour mark. Consider farming more even if you have a 2nd equip
- Reset at 2 hours if you have 1 equip

It's difficult to explain on paper why this route has been so good. I can't stress enough how much more successful my runs have been now, compared to the old days when I took worse starting decks and farmed Isis for 20+ duels. I very rarely have a slow duel while farming, and I very rarely have a run that lacks dragons.

Starting with good monsters is huge. Resetting isn't fun, but I've worked out the math and it only takes 30 minutes on average to get a deck that meets the above criteria. Once you have a deck, you can breeze through the Rex farm with 4-turn S-POWs, saving time and star chips. I've found that the starting dragon count is significantly more important than other monsters, such as beasts and pyros. These monsters were primarily valued because they help you farm Isis, which this route rarely does. You also usually win about 2 beasts on Rex.

Farming Rex for 15+ duels isn't new -- I believe most top runners do this now. But in the past, I would sometimes leave Rex early if I had lots of Pluto fusions to beat Isis. Almost every time, my deck ended up being worse for farming Isis than I thought, and it took forever to get enough dragons, thunders and magics to end Farm 2. Mathematically, the fastest way to win enough dragons (6) and thunders (4) is to farm Rex and then use star chips to buy them. Once you have enough dragons and thunders, you can farm Pegasus consistently.

Farming Pegasus is so much better than farming Isis. Nearly every duel is clean as long as he doesn't lead MBD. He leads MBD less often than Isis leads B. Skull, and significantly less often than Isis leads B. Skull OR THTD. His only other threatening monster is Bickuribox, which he leads 1/3 of the time -- less often than Isis plays Aqua Dragon. Bickuribox isn't a problem for most decks -- you can beat it with THTD, Flower Wolf, Dark Witch, Flame Swordsman or Cyber Saurus. Pegasus also plays Illusionist Faceless Mage a lot, which you can bait into attacking turn 1 (unlike Isis' big turtle) and then easily defeat turn 2. If you get into trouble against Pegasus, he'll often fuse Crimson Sunbird, but this can be defeated or walled by THTD, B. Dragon Jungle King, Pumpking or Dark Witch.

Pegasus' drops are better than Isis' drops. He drops dragons less often, but this isn't especially important once you have 6 dragons (which this route usually gets around the 1:10 mark). He drops Umi at twice the rate that Isis does, and winning Umi usually saves 55 star chips, which you can use to buy 1-2 more monsters. He also drops Oscillo Hero #2 at a high rate, which helps even out your Dragon/Thunder count. Having an even Dragon/Thunder count such as 8/7 is preferable to having an uneven count such as 10/5, since the latter sometimes needs 4 cards to fuse for THTD.

The primary reason to farm Pegasus is that he drops Acid Trap Hole at a high rate. Acid Trap Hole allows you to begin A-TECing immediately. In the past, runners sometimes opted to skip A-TECs for WR/PB attempts because of how slow they were, and because they wanted to win more dragons before the 2-hour mark. However, recent testing has shown that A-TECs significantly improve your chance of beating the game quickly, even if you have only 6 dragons. This is because you have a reasonable chance to win Megamorph, a game-breaking equip, during your A-TECs. If you win Megamorph, your chance of beating the game is 4-5 times greater than it would be with a normal 2nd equip such as Dragon Treasure. Making a 3800 THTD, which is usually required at least once on the Final 7, is about 10-15 times easier with a single equip than two equips.

Pegasus' other A-TEC drops aren't bad either, and if you start A-TECs early enough, you have a reasonable chance of winning 2 very good cards (maybe 2 Bright Castles, or 1 Bright Castle and 1 Widespread Ruin). Compare that to a typically good Farm 2 with the Isis route, which wins a few dragons and a Dragon Treasure -- enough to attempt to beat the game, but almost never enough to actually beat it.

Intelligent resets are an important part of this strat as well. Sometimes you need Rex to drop a dragon or thunder within 20 duels, and he doesn't. It's better to reset now rather than staying on Rex too long or rushing into Farm 2 with a bad deck. And about half the time, you don't win a 2nd equip. Attempting to beat the game with 1 equip is almost always not worth the time unless you're just doing it for fun -- your chance of beating the final 7 will be about 1/600 per try. That means you would need about 1200 hours on average -- or 200 days if you play for six hours per day -- to beat the game.

If you use this route, the runs that make it past Farm 2 should look something like these:
- 9 dragons, 6 thunders, 2 equips, 2 Umi
- 7 dragons, 6 thunders, 1 equip, 1 Umi, 1 Megamorph
- 7 dragons, 6 thunders, 3 equips, 1 Umi
- 7 dragons, 6 thunders, 2 equips, 2 Umi, 1 Widespread Ruin

Hope this route makes FM more runnable for anyone who tries it. Cheers!