Lucas's History of
3x3x3 Rubik's Cube Methods

I first began solving Rubik's cube during winter break of '05-'06. I'm quite method-neutral from all my early method-shopping; I had tried corners first (from my friend Jopeph Doolittle), edges first, Petrus, but settled on F2L... Here I try to list everything I once used as a method, as well as anything I learn extra. And any crazy variations I think of...

Standard terms

My terms

F2L – First two layers
LL – Last layer
CO(LL) – corner orientation (last layer)
CP(LL) – corner placement (last layer)
EO(LL) – edge orientation (last layer)
EP(LL) – edge placement (last layer)
ZB – Zbrowski-Bruchem method

Omega snap – edge flipper; see my alg page
ECs (ecks) – edge commutators; see my alg page



Time

Speed

Method designation

Cross
(Top/Side/Bottom)

3 cross face corners

Last FL Corner

3 Middle edges

Last middle edge

COLL

CPLL

EOLL

EPLL

Jan '06

1 min

Original F2L

1 (T)

2, 3, 4

5

6, 7, 8

9

11 (Sune [x1,x2])

10 (Niklas [x1,x2])

13 (Omega snap [x1,x2])

12 (using ECs [x1,x2,x3])

Jan-Feb '06

<1 min

Small modification

1 (T)

2, 3, 4

5

6, 7, 8

9

11

10

12 (using 2 ECs)

Never really used...

-

Mod #2

1 (T)

2, 3, 4

5

6, 7, 8

9

11

10

12

13

Used for a few months

~50 sec

Mod #3

1 (T)

2, 3, 4

5

6, 7, 8

9

11

10

12 (using 2 ECs)

~30 sec

Keyhole/working corner adoption

1 (T)

2, 3, 4

8

5, 6, 7

9

11

10

12 (using 2 ECs)

Refined for Nationals '06 (August 4-6)

30 sec

Final
(with PLL)

1 (T>S>B)

2, 3, 4

8

5, 6, 7

9

10

12-PLL

11

12-PLL

post-Nationals

<30 sec
<25 sec

[Keyhole/working corner]
Mini-ZB?

1 (T>S>B)

2, 3, 4

8

5, 6, 7

9

10

11-PLL

9

11-PLL

Oct '06

<25 sec

Mini-ZB

1 (T>B)

2, 3, 4

8

5, 6, 7

9

10

11-PLL

9

11-PLL

Nov-Dec '06

<25 sec

F2L Slots

1 (T>B)

2, 3, 4

5

2, 3, 4

6

7

8-PLL

6

8-PLL

January '07 -Finished June 16, '07

?

MGLS

1 (B)

2,3,4

6

2,3,4

5

6

7-PLL

5

7-PLL



Other Methods and ideas

Early '06

Petrus

Well, Petrus... I remain partial to this method, but I've never used it for speed; it's still good for few moves (though I plan to learn Heise).

x
(sounds nice)

Macky's F2L +COLL

Here; a fancy counterpart of my mini-ZB...
Update: This is now MGLS
I'm planning to test combining this with pre-oriented edges (and maybe Petrus).

x

Idea:
F2POL

Cross, place top corners in any of each other's slots and middle adges in any of each other's slots, permute F2L together, orient all remaining edges, then do any style of ZBLL solve (I'd use COLL then PLL)

x

Idea:
Petrus-slot-mini ZB-Fridrich

2x2x2, 2x2x3, top edge, two corners an a middle edge, last edge with EOLL, ZBLL (with PLL?)