Why cabinets are the long pole
The Key spawns in one of many wooden cabinets, and its spot changes each run (allthings.how). On a Standard run, cabinet search dominates total run time.
Room prioritization
Halls first, side rooms second, crawlspaces third. Halls carry the most cabinets per unit of risk; crawlspaces are highest-yield but expose you to wall-gap Locust paths.
Density heuristics
The Cabinet Hunt Optimizer lets you tag density Sparse / Standard / Dense. Standard is the default and corresponds to 6-10 cabinets. Use Sparse if your first four searches are empty - it biases toward a quick cabinet-rich hall.
Co-op split
Two players: one halls, one side rooms. Three players: halls, side rooms, crawlspaces. Four players: pair up - one pair halls, one pair side rooms. Beyond four players the marginal value falls off.
Empty-cancel pattern
Use Cancel on every empty cabinet - it skips the search animation and reduces per-cabinet time by approximately 30%. [INFERRED-FROM-MECHANICS]
When to re-roll
If 8+ cabinets come up empty on a Standard density setting, consider lobby re-roll - pre-alpha Key randomization has been inconsistent in community reports. The wiki documents this as a contingency, not a guaranteed fix.
Video References
