Five minutes and 52 seconds to beat. That's from the time the start button was pressed until the moment when Toad gives a 'peace' sign at the end of the third round.

Special Mode Hard Wario isn't for the faint of heart. Frustrating is an understatement. You might remember about four years back, when I'd posted another video about Wario's Woods? At the time, I was still working on around level 100 or so. Let me simply say that I've kept playing since. After reaching level 255, it turned out to be just an endless repeat of that level, so I moved on to vs COM. At the moment, on average, I'll beat Special Mode Hard Wario around 33% of the time.

Strategy.
This is a topic I'd enjoy giving a video of its own. Wario's Woods is deceptively complex. Probably the reason it has managed to hold my interest for so long is that simple fact. Most of the time, the games I play appear to have a 'lucky' quality about them, but I assure you that the good luck you see is a matter of absurdly deliberate preparation. Some of it is from intuiting statistics, but not in the way you might imagine. For example,

Stacks.
It's tempting to believe, should you have lots of blue critters on the screen, that you'd be due (by simple probability) to soon receive a blue bomb, right? Yeah, no. The AI consistently avoids giving you the bomb you need most. In fact, if you have blue stacks of four lined up and ready, you can forget about it entirely. A better strategy is to keep two stacks of two, preferably by positioning one low and one high, so that when you get the appropriate bomb you can assemble all the pieces with relative ease. Of course, any advice I give you here is just a guideline, an ideal, since the highspeed of the game will easily ruin the best laid plans.

Combos.
You'll have to master the art of combo if you want any shot at defeating Wario. The trick to developing this skill is in Round Mode. Round games require you to get better at combos, because there's a timer/gauge there (the one Birdo is pointing to), and if you don't appease it, you'll enter boss mode, which is much harder. To get through some of the +200 levels, you'll be pressured into looking for simple combos of the form:
○ (Blue bomb)
☻ (Red creature)
☺ (Blue creature)
☺ (Blue creature)
Once you can identify this pattern in your sleep, you'll stop being distracted by all of the noisy information around it, and just focus on looking for nearby ● (Red bombs) and ☻ (Red Creatures), so that you can knock out the ☻ from the column, thus connecting the three blue things. But don't count on getting it every time. Why not?

Setup.
Good luck comes from longterm planning. That's what your prefrontal cortex is made for. You know, delayed gratification. Maybe you don't get your gem right now, but you might set it up to get a double combo later, instead. Build up the ○☻☺☺pattern listed above whenever possible. If you don't/can't get to it right away, move on. Don't dwell on anything; the key to this game is to be able to pick up a new strategy instantly and to then drop it just as fast. Attach yourself to no plan. Stubbornness will kill you in this game. Adapt instantly as new information comes in. On every single drop.

Risk.
High payoff moves are great, IF you can pull them off. The problem is that they require investment. A solid general rule is this: build risky configurations only when either the creatures are low on screen or when the drop speed is low. Weigh your own skill level against these factors to determine how much risk is appropriate. When starting a new round against SpecialHard Wario, don't take ANY risks at all until you're halfway down. Instead, try to make as many simplethree moves as you can—as quickly as you can.

Movement.
Digging yourself out desperately is par for the course in this game. It is possible to come back from being completely (and I do mean completely) buried. That said, try not to get there in the first place. Shortstack pickups and drops can be a useful means of locomotion. Not all pickups have to be an attempt to move something; some of them can be used simply to move Toad around through a thick mess. Dig aggressively, especially at first. Go after your target hard. Do not accept that lazy feeling telling you that there's nothing you can do as you drown.

Compounding problems.
All of your setup work is useless if you don't get to make use of it. Stacks, lines, or diagonals confer no advantage after they're permanently buried. Although longterm setups are a sort of kinetic energy in this game, they're also a risk to preserve. Sometimes you'll have to sabotage them in order to dig your way out. Don't be afraid to abandon dreams. I can't emphasize that enough. If a combo chain starts to get buried, activate it. Just as Natalya Simonova said: all the heroes I know are dead.

0:00 How to setup Special Mode
1:20 Round 1
3:41 Round 2
5:29 Round 3
7:11 End