Trimming the Herbs, the course treated as the final obstacle in Team 0%’s effort to clear every user-submitted level in the original Super Mario Maker for Wii U, had not been cleared by a human when the group declared its goal complete. Its creator, Ahoyo, later admitted that he used tool-assisted speedrun (TAS) methods to produce the clear needed to upload it. The deception was the claim of a human achievement—not proof that the level was impossible or that Team 0% faked its progress.
What was the “final boss” in Super Mario Maker?
Trimming the Herbs (TTH) was a user-made course, not an official Nintendo boss or the finale of the game’s campaign. It became the apparent last hurdle in Team 0%’s years-long effort to clear every user-submitted course in the original Wii U game. As the Wii U’s online service shutdown approached, the community declared that goal complete even though nobody had then produced a human clear of TTH.
Kyle Orland’s March 26, 2024 report for Ars Technica revealed why the course’s upload clear was in question: Ahoyo admitted he had used TAS assistance. The Wii U online service was scheduled to shut down on April 8, 2024, making the timing of Team 0%’s announcement especially significant.
How did the creator upload a course nobody had cleared?
Super Mario Maker required a creator to clear a course before uploading it. Ahoyo said he used tool-assisted methods to make the precise sequence of inputs needed for TTH’s upload clear. TAS tools can allow a player to work with slow motion, rewind, or advance frame by frame, making exact timing possible in ways that ordinary real-time play does not.
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Ahoyo said he had designed TTH “to be unreasonably difficult and to cause a ruckus.” He had planned to reveal that it was TAS-assisted after people had examined the course, but the reveal did not happen as intended. He later said sunk-cost thinking and other responsibilities helped the deception continue. In his admission, he wrote: “I’m sorry for the drama [my level] caused within the community, and I regret the ordeal.”
What TAS method did Ahoyo use?
The specific method for creating and playing back the TAS was not publicly disclosed in the report. Ahoyo said someone had contacted him about a Wii U TAS project and that a friend replicated the method after two days of building.
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Allan “DwangoAC” Cecil, a TAS expert and TASBot keeper, distinguished between making a TAS for Super Mario Maker and playing it back on a real Wii U to produce the video and upload clear. He doubted that Cemu playback explained the result and speculated about possibilities such as hardcoded Bluetooth inputs or a hacked console. Those were hypotheses, not confirmed accounts of what Ahoyo or his friend did. Cecil summarized the ethical issue plainly: “I never want to see anyone pass off TAS effort as human effort under any circumstances.”
Was Trimming the Herbs impossible for a human?
The evidence in the report supports a more careful distinction: “humanly possible” is not the same as “humanly completed.” Team 0% moderator Louis_XIX said, “TTH is definitely humanly possible,” and said humans had completed every part of the course individually. The challenge was completing all of those parts consecutively in one run. At the time of the report, however, no human had cleared TTH.
Ahoyo’s use of machine assistance for the upload clear does not establish that the course was impossible. It does mean that the upload clear could not be treated as evidence that a person had beaten it unaided.
Why did Team 0% declare its goal complete without a human clear?
Team 0% treated Ahoyo’s admission as sufficient to close its community-wide level-clearing goal. That was a decision about the rules and purpose of the project, not a claim that a human had beaten TTH. The group had spent years trying to clear every user-submitted course, and the Wii U’s online service was about to shut down. The report also noted that streamers continued trying to secure a verified human clear of TTH.
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Team 0% moderator Black60Dragon described the mixed feeling around the declaration: “We accomplished the goal we’ve had for over six years, but it almost doesn’t feel exciting to me.” The community could count its broader goal as complete while still recognizing that TTH had no human clear at that point.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What about bombs5?
Ahoyo’s admission also implicated bombs5, a separate level uploaded in 2021 shortly before new level uploads were halted. He said that course was also illegitimate. A human cleared it in 2022 without knowing about its TAS-assisted origin, according to the Ars Technica report. That history is distinct from TTH: a person did clear bombs5, but the report says the clear happened without awareness of the course’s origin.
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What the “fraud” headline does—and does not—mean
- It does mean: Ahoyo admitted that TAS methods were used for TTH’s creator clear, which let him upload the course despite no human having cleared it at that point.
- It does not mean: Team 0% invented its years of work, that TTH was proven impossible for humans, or that the group’s declaration was the same thing as a human clear.
- It remains unknown: the exact technical setup used to create and play back the TAS.
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