I just checked the mempool again. When congestion hits, it really feels like waiting in line during rush hour on the subway: the moment you submit your transaction is actually just "entering the waiting room." Whether you get on the train depends entirely on whether your fee is high enough, whether the nodes are willing to relay it, and how the miners/block producers choose to pick transactions. Sometimes, even if it hasn't failed, it stays pending, occasionally gets bumped by someone with the same nonce, or gets stuck behind a bunch of more "valuable" transactions, eating up the tail gas... Basically, you're competing with a group of invisible people for the front spot. Recently, the stacking of yields from staking/sharing security has been criticized as "nested," and I feel a mix of envy and guilt: the more complex the chain, the easier it becomes a game of who can cut in line in the mempool. Anyway, what I’ve learned isn’t tricks, but that queuing is inherently unreasonable—you have to accept that first.