Hi all. Decided to submit myself to the rigors of Any% (US) for one of my 12 Hour Challenge entries. Blaster Master is a childhood favorite of mine, and I've always enjoyed the game casually. I learned a few of the speed strats for funsies, mainly the deathwarps and the door glitch to clip through the barriers in Areas 4 and 5, but I never actually sat down and put a full run together for reasons I don't actually have (just never did). Area 8 and the final boss are the only real roadblocks I see to my becoming a Real Blaster Master Speedrunner (TM). Any tips or tutorials I should look at for those 2 areas?

Also, what is the preferred emulator for the community? I don't see any information for that here. I don't run any NES games so I don't have one yet - I normally play on 3DSVC but I can't stream that.

Also also, is there a discord link?