Cap throw
A cap throw is one of the most basic movement mechanics in Super Mario Odyssey, and is performed by pressing X or Y. Shaking the controller in various ways can also be used to perform many different varieties of cap throws, each with a different purpose. Cap throws are used for a vast amount of actions in Super Mario Odyssey, including triggering levers or scarecrows, capturing enemies, opening doors, collecting coins, and even using Cappy as a platform to perform a vault or a cap bounce.
Regular Cap Throws
Regular cap throws, or just cap throws are the most used type of cap throw. They are commonly seen in capture warps and general movement. They are the most basic type of cap throw and do not require motion controls. The biggest advantage or regular cap throws is that they are extremely useful in both cap bounces and vaults .
Spinthrows
Spinthrows are cap throws that fly in a circle around Mario. A spinthrow is performed by rotating the controller by 90 degrees in a sharp fashion. Alternatively, they can be performed by spinning Mario until he is in a spinning state and pressing y/x. They are one of the most useful types of cap throw due to their speed. They move faster than any other cap throw and if the player spinthrows whilst near a capturable enemy, it will move even faster and in a straight line towards it. This makes spinthrows great substitues to regular cap throws when capturing enemies since they can capture them faster. Spinthrow cap bounces are impossible.
Spinthrows are often seen in trickjumping when a player intends to time a triple throw by using the spinning animation of the spinthrow.
Spinthrows are also seen in multiple glitches and exploits like Rocket Flower Refreshes and Chomp Through The Rocks Clip.
Spinthrow roll cancels are one of the most used roll cancels in both regular speedrunning and Koopa Freerunning.
Upthrows
Upthrows are cap throws that move above the position where Mario executed the upthrow. Upthrows are performed by sharply jolting the controller upwards. They are most often seen in capture warps, most notably Dram Strat and are frequently featured in roll cancels. Upthrow cap bounces are one of the least used cap bounces in the entire game but they are seen in lost kingdom after obtaining the moon Peeking Out From Under The Bridge if the player is not in a capture.
Downthrows
Downthrows are cap throws that move along the ground. Downthrows are the most annoying capthrows to perform since they cannot be performed as easily on pro controllers. If using joycons, downthrows are performed by sharply jolting the controller downwards or groundpounding and then capthrowing after waiting a short while. On pro controllers, downthrows can only be executed using the second method.
Downthrows are one of the least used cap throws in the game but a downthrow cap bounce is very important in the minimum zl/zr presses low% category. Without them, there would have to be an extreme amount of min zl/zr re-routing.
Triple Throws
A triple throw is a variation of a regular cap throw that has a higher speed. A triple throw is much like a triple jump since it is performed by chaining three cap throws. The third cap throw in the chain will be a triple throw. In the cap throw chain, the first and second cap throws can be any type of cap throw but the final cap throw must be a regular cap throw.
Triple throws are most often seen in trickjumping as they allow hctts (Homing Cap Throw Twirls) to be executed more swiftly which loses less height than a normal hctt.
Homing Cap Throws
Homing Cap Throws (or hcts - not to be confused with hctts) are one of the most useful cap throws in the game. While not technically a cap throw, Homing Cap Throws allow the player to home cappy in on an object by shaking the controller. Homing Cap Throws are only possible if cappy is not on Mario's head and a cap throw has already been performed. All cap throws can be turned into homing cap throws apart from spinthrows.
Homing Cap Throws are the only things that make capture warps possible. Without them, all capture warps or 'dram' strats would be impossible.