Deku Leaf

Description

The Deku Leaf is by far the hardest item to skip and is considered TAS-only to perform. Skipping the Deku Leaf first involves reaching Ganon's Tower early with Barrier Skip. Once in Ganon's Tower starts the real challenge.

By skipping the Deku Leaf, the normal Magic Meter is also skipped. This means that skipping the Deku Leaf also makes the Light Arrows unusable. While it is possible (theoretically) to obtain the Magic Meter from the Two Eye Reef Big Octo instead, that requires having Farore's Pearl which is also extremely difficult to obtain without the Deku Leaf and is also a much slower route.

Skipping the Deku Leaf saves several minutes in a TAS by skipping having to go to Forest Haven completely.

Leafless Trials Skip

Discovered by Quaforce

First, it is possible to skip the Trials by using a series of tricky item slides. Item slide to a door frame and then item slide to the horn above the Trial Door to grab it. You can then jump and grab a ledge to get on top of the very large door frame. On that door frame, there is a slope on the right side that you can clip through by item sliding sideways into it. This will make you fall down inside the door frame. You still don't quite have access to the loading zone from there, but there is a tiny gap in between the door and the wall, which you can item slide through to hit the loading zone.

Leafless Phantom Ganon Skip

Parry by ChaoticAce, Item Slide by MrAlberto, Clipping method by Kazooie

After obtaining the light arrows, you will go back to the main room, where Phantom Ganon's final battle occurs. By performing a parry off a ground spawn from Phantom Ganon, with the right position and angle, you can land on the door frame without needing a zombie hover. From there, you can perform a very precise item slide in order to grab the wall without using the Deku Leaf:

1. Aim Link towards the front of the room (perpendicular to the wall)
2. Charge an item slide into the wall
3. Hold target
4. Move link towards the very front edge of the ledge
5. Hold an angle so that link begins rapidly moving backwards
6. Release target
7. Just before link falls off of the door frame, hold a direction so that link flings towards the opposite corner of the doorframe. Link will now shoot forwards towards the door, but make sure he does not jump or else this will not work. Now hold up while link is falling to make him grab the top of the door.

NOTES on the item slide:

1. The top of the door has a lip over it which is raised up over the sides and lowest in the middle
2. This lip protrudes out farther than the door itself. So link cannot grab if he is pushed back by this lip unless he has enough forward momentum to travel forwards in time to reach the top of the door to grab it. The speed required for this far exceeds that of link's jumping speed, thus it is impossible to grab the door if link jumps.
3. When you item slide over to the door the lip will push you back and prevent you from grabbing everywhere except for the edge of the door (the opposite corner from where you are item sliding works best). This is convenient because in order to clip after grabbing the top of the door you need to move to either side of it anyway.

Once you've grabbed the wall, tap right (or left) and, as Link starts moving, hold all the way up on the control stick. Because Link can't climb up from that ledge, he will start sliding in the direction you chose. This slide will allow him to climb up the wall and go OoB on either the right or left side of the wall. It is very easy to get crushed once OoB: if you climb on the right side then jumping into the loading zone causes no issue, but if you climb on the left side you must make sure you pulled out your sword before the item slide, so that you can slash your way to the loading zone (one frame window).

This trick does NOT skip the light arrows, since Phantom Ganon will only spawn in that room if you did get them in the maze. This trick is required to skip Magic since you cant shoot light arrows without the Magic Meter.

Leafless Puppet Ganon Skip

Since you do not have Magic, skipping Puppet Ganon is also required if you want to skip the Deku Leaf. Start a Zombie Hover and, once on top of the room, wait for the Keeses to appear. Either snipe a keese with the bow (if you have the quiver) or pull out a bomb and get hit by a keese to drop it (if you have bombs). Kill a keese and collect his heart to skip Puppet Ganon.