The pushable block required to open the south door is inaccessible before hitting the crystal switch, so all strategies for this room begin with hitting the crystal switch when first coming out of the stairs.

Ideally this will be followed up with a downward dash. Since most strategies also walk left onto the spikes, it's generally best to buffer a leftward walk out of the door instead of trying to walk downward.

A boomerang, sword beam, or rod shot is the fastest way to trigger the switch (see Item Use Speed), though the rod shot is generally not worth the magic usage.

A boomerang dash can save 6 frames over a normal boomerang toss, but requires pressing left, Y, and A on the same frame. A rod dash can also save 3 frames over normal rod usage.

The bow or hookshot can also be used if other options are unavailable (or to lessen the need for quickswapping), though this will lose 3 or 10 frames, respectively.

It can sometimes be desirable to manipulate the red mimic on the left side of the room to walk up to the top of the room so that it's out of the way. This can usually be done by holding down on the d-pad while in the middle of your item usage / sword slash for hitting the crystal switch, as well as the subsequent downward dash or walk. The green mimic can be used to visualize the corresponding movement of the red mimic (which is off-screen).

The standard path through the room takes 3 hearts of spike damage -- 2 on the way to the pushable block, and 1 on the way out. Having the boots will allow you to dash twice along the way: once from the door, and another immediately after stepping onto the spikes, but with clean movement and wallpumping you can come within ~10 frames even without the boots.

When traversing the spikes, the leftward dash can save up to 23 frames over walking (with no pumping).

A leftward hookshot on the bottom block can save about 20 frames when walking, or 5 frames when dashing.

• You'll need to be at least one pixel down from (i.e. not flush with) the middle row of pegs for the hookshot to connect with the block.
• The rightmost coordinate that you can hookshot from is horizontal coordinate 16C3.

Doing a downward hookshot to the bottom pegs is slower than simply walking, due to the extra distance travelled.

You can save over half a second by starting to move away from the block immediately instead of waiting for the door pause.

The hookshot can also be used in both directions, saving up to ~8 frames.

This strategy can be used to traverse the room without taking any damage. Though difficult to execute optimally, it is only ~2 seconds slower than traversing the spikes and taking 3 hearts of damage.

Care must be taken to position yourself away from the transitioning pegs when the switch is being flipped, to avoid being trapped or pushed into an unexpected position.

A hammerdash through the bottom pot can theoretically save about half a second, though is difficult to execute and necessitates excessive quickswapping (the bow is usually needed in the next room).

Normally a hammerdash through a doorway loses 21 frames time in the following room due to the subsequent hammer swing, but the movement of the red mimics in the next room can still be manipulated during the swing, so the time loss may not be applicable in this case.

When using the hookshot, lifting the middle pot on the right side and walking diagonally down-left allows you to obtain a small magic refill and save one heart, and is less than half a second slower than taking the extra spike hit.

Picking up the bottom pot on the way out of the room nets you one small magic refill at the cost of ~20 frames (slightly faster than picking up the right pot).

The fastest strategy through the room uses a capedash to dash left across the entire room, followed by a "poof walk" to walk upward to the pushable block without pausing. However, this uses about ~20 magic, only saves a small handful of frames, and still takes a heart of damage on the way out, so this strategy is generally not recommended.

If the camera is shifted from its normal position at least one pixel to the right when going through the bottom door, it will remain unlocked. This allows you to open the door in Mimics 1 without defeating the two red mimics. Although this is generally slower overall than simply using arrows in the next room, it can be useful when the bow is not available, or if insufficient arrows are on hand, as it is usually faster than clipping the mimics out of bounds manually.

To perform the camera unlock, you must:

• Using one of the methods below, shift the camera to the right at least one pixel while you are at horizontal coordinate 1678 (center of the door) or greater
• Move to and enter the door without moving to the right at all
• You must also remain at 1678 or greater (i.e. do not go past the center of the door)

• Scroll the mimics to the edge of the screen to open the door
• (An effective way to do this is to slash 6 times while walking to the right)
• Move left until the camera locks again (happens at coordinate 1678, the center point of the door)
• Proceed through the doorway

The easiest way to shift the camera is by using a red, green, or blue potion to refill at least some health or magic while walking to the left. The bottom-middle row of blue pegs can be used as a convenient location to do this, but as shown in the fast strategy, you can also use the patch of ground next to the doorway if you are confident.

If the following room is entered without re-locking the camera, you will be put into a softlocked state where you cannot progress, forcing you to mirror or Save+Quit.

An alternative way to shift the camera is to move diagonally up+right into the right-hand crystal switch (Link's facing does not matter). Care must be taken to release right before (or on the same frame) as releasing up, to prevent moving right at all (which will break the camera unlock offset).

Two strats are shown -- one which takes 5 hearts of damage, and one which only takes 1 heart of damage.

The left-hand crystal switch can also be used, but this is much more difficult as there is only a two-pixel window where Link will be at 1678 or greater and still be able to contact the switch while moving up+right. You will be forced to take spike damage after nudging against the switch, as 1678 is also the first coordinate at which the middle column of spikes begins to damage Link.

In all practical cases the room will be entered with the orange pegs down, as the crystal switch will revert to this state whenever the mirror is used. Even when the mirror is not available, the orange pegs will still be down in most cases because Spike Crystal and Crystal Conveyor are usually left with the crystal switch in this state.

While it is technically possible to intentionally trigger one of the aforementioned switches an extra time to enter this room with the opposite switch state, doing so is not worthwhile as it saves less than half a second of time in this room.

As shown in the above strategies, you'll generally want to start the room by hookshotting downward. Dashing downward is also possible as an alternative, but you'll need to buffer down+right coming out of the stairs to avoid being hit by the antifairy.