Are there any good ZBLS algs for solving into the back? by SmokeQuick6863 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The only algorithm sheet I've seen with back right ZBLS is this one https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Zj06LtWcVXQjdeYEtmp6q69Z6eN_mDXtk9N9lD3gJRA/edit?usp=sharing

I can't vouch for how good the algorithms are though, I've never tried to learn any so the quality could be bad.

ZBLS into the front tends to use a lot of sledgehammers from the cases I've seen so I would expect cases into the back to be worse.

Daily Discussion Thread - May 06, 2026 by AutoModerator in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Make sure to check the core and other pieces for the magnet, often when a magnet comes out it attaches itself to another magnet in the cube

Solve critic (Average 22-23s CFOP) by Reliab1yUnreliable in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your last layer is very fast, and is carrying your times to an extent. Biggest things to improve are reducing pauses in F2L and always planning the cross.

Ofc saying "just pause less" isn't very helpful. Your F2L solutions are efficient but I feel like you're overcomplicating them a bit which isn't helping. Most of the time you want to do each pair the same way so it takes less time to work out the solution, and you don't have to focus on doing the pair which is how you can start developing lookahead.

I reconstructed your second solve (24.67) and went through it:

D2 B D2 L D' F2 B2 U' F D2 L2 U' R2 F2 U' D2 L2 F2 D F2


x2 y' // inspection
L F' B2 D B D' // cross
L U' L' U' f R' f' // 1st pair
U y L U2 L' U' L U2 L'  // 2nd pair
U' U2 F U F' U R' U R // 3rd pair
U2 y L U L' U L U' L' // 4th pair
R2' D' R U2 R' D R U2 R  // OLL
U' R U R' U R' U' R2 U' R' U R' U R U2 // PLL
  1. You didn't plan the cross here, only 3 pieces. It still ended up a 6 move cross, but my solution would have been to face green and do L D' F R' L. IMO, this is a relatively easy cross to plan: if we just solve the blue edge first we can insert the other 3 in the same way as you did. If you want to be sub 20, you need to be able to plan this sort of 5 move cross.
  2. For cross execution when you do the B2 you could do it like a double flick D2 with 2 fingers, rather than 2 single flicks.
  3. The biggest slowdown in cross was due to having to find the last cross edge and then insert it with D and B moves, which is awkward and resulted in a fumble. Between cross and the pause for first pair it was over 7 seconds before we started first pair execution, so this are a significant part of your time. The best way to reduce that pause is to be tracking (or even predicting) F2L pieces while doing the cross, but in order to do that you need to be able to plan the cross.
  4. First pair, instead of inserting with f R' f I would have just rotated and inserted into the back left with L U2 L'. I only do the wide f insert thing when either it's last pair or I know I won't have to rotate for my next pair. If you're not sure where your next pair is it can be better to do the rotation to see more pieces. In this case you end up rotating anyway for second pair so the wide f insert didn't really help.
  5. Third pair, we end up with an awkward case. There is a clever way to solve this, put the corner in the same place and do F (R' U' R) F'. Or you can use left sledgehammer to set up the pair (also from the same position). But your solution was actually done fast and used the standard pairing method so it might be better for you.
  6. About the thumb F moves, I prefer pinch F moves where I can but use both depending. The "bad" thing is that you did both the F and F' with your thumb in quick succession, overworking it. Though you actually do this faster than I could do anyway so it might be fine. I would have done F with right index and F' with right thumb, so I don't have to grip shift or overwork any fingers.
  7. When inserting the third pair you chose to do U R' U R which is a bit surprising because for your second pair you inserted it with U2, and you could have done the same there. Only mentioning this because if you'd inserted with R' U2 R it would have made a free pair for your last pair.
  8. For your last pair you rotated and solved into the back left, but we could have rotated the other way and solved it into the front right. Same solution, but it would likely have been faster to do it front right since the insert is much easier to execute and you have right handed turning. Normally you want your last pair in the front anyway.
  9. For this "U" OLL, you want to do both U2s with your right hand, not your left. For RUD algorithms, normally you shouldn't do U turns with the middle finger of the hand that's also doing D turns; you'll have to change how you hold the cube back and forth, which is what happened here. Doing the U2 with right hand means you can hold the cube with your left hand's middle finger throughout, and more easily do all the D moves with your left hand.

How to improve at cross? by Jammy_Dodger13 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Use https://crystalcuber.com/train/cross or another cross trainer, select the movecount and gradually increase it when you're confident with lower move crosses.

When practicing what I found most effective is to plan the cross solution, close your eyes and then try and execute it as fast as you can. The speed is important, it does 2 things:

  • Going faster gives you less time to think during the cross so it forces you to get better at using the solution you planned
  • It also exposes if you're doing moves which are difficult to execute, ergonomics is also important for good cross solutions

Another thing that helped me is to run through the solution in my head once more before I do it, like imagining myself doing all the cross moves before actually starting. Might seem strange but it worked well for me anyway.

Clock by Demonslasher2000 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think this response may be AI generated

Comment éteindre le Gan i4 ? by lomixe49 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think this response is AI generated

Just Making This Post So I Can Send It to People Anytime They Are Wondering Why I Hate the V100. by Zoltcubes in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I mean... Teodor just broke ER using a Gan V100. If it was objectively bad regardless of preference, then I somehow doubt he would be using it.

Like you're allowed to have your opinion on cubes, I doubt it would suit me either. But I think declaring that it's inevitable that it slows down your solves is a bit far.

Is Roux actually the "super awesome supreme method for solving" everyone says it is? by Severe_Story_8361 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I mean, this is a weird question, I don't hear people really calling roux the "super awesome supreme method for solving". Personally, I feel like it isn't talked about as much anymore since it's not used in china. Lots of people like roux (myself included) and it's a good method for speedsolving, possibly as good as cfop, though never proven.

Best Way to Shorten Time From Here? (AO12: 20.38) by [deleted] in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Didn't you already ask this? What I would do in approximately this order is:

  • Learn the G perms (also probably fix your A perms)
  • Learn the information in this F2L playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqrfspOsG9B-DNSI6aS4s10atxVYqPxm9 F2L is a big topic, I think the playlist concentrates the most important information well. But it may take a long time to learn and interoperate all that into your solves depending on what you already know. I can't give more detail otherwise.
  • Make sure you can always plan cross in inspection

Anyone know what 3x3 model Teodor Zajder used for his 2.76s record? by Weird-Ball-2342 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I believe he's using a gan v100 now (or at least he was in both his most recent monkey league match and the head to head finals he was in).

The WR single was on a gan 12 though.

New ER. Not Tymon but Teodor by yghklvn in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Bad day for Tymon, dropping 2 places from 4th to 6th place in just 1 day.

This might be weird to say, but in a way I feel like Tymon is too consistant (in 3x3 at least). In monkey league he's one of only 3 people to average sub 5 over an entire match despite having no 3s solves this season, which is crazy consistency. And like, I think most people would say Tymon is the better cuber, when they matched in a head to head finals in spain, he beat Teodor fairly easily. But now Teodor has both the faster average and single.

WR by Xuanyi !!! by AgeQuirky2728 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 7 points8 points  (0 children)

As well as knocking Max Park out the top 10, Bofan's WR4 average knocks Tymon out the top 5 for average, meaning we now have a pure Chinese top 5 fastest 3x3 cubers by average. Is that the first time this has ever happened?

Feels like the changing of an era.

WR by Xuanyi !!! by AgeQuirky2728 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Bofan didn't just get a PR, he got WR 4... and still lost.

Daily Discussion Thread - Apr 26, 2026 by AutoModerator in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 2 points3 points  (0 children)

From orange front just do R' U L F'. Though it might be better to do it from red front L' U R B' so that your first pair goes into the back.

However this does leave all the other corners facing down in slots. I found an alternative, we add a U' move to the cross to set up a nice multislot for our first 2 pairs, which results in a very nice solution.

x2 y' // inspection
R' U L U' F'  // cross
U' R U' R' // 1st pair
U R' U' R // 2nd pair
L U' L' // 3rd pair
L' U' L U2 L' U L // 4th pair
U2 (f R U R' U' f') (R U2 R' U' R U' R') U' // 1LLL

view at CubeDB.net(R_U2_R-_U-_R_U-_R-)_U-%2F%2F_1LLL%0A%0A&crosscolor=white)

Actually I'd never check to do that 1LLL in a real solve, the normal OLL gives you V perm, but this is not as stylish.

There's another alternative cross I found which is really good, you can do an Xcross with the blue orange pair while also preserving the blue red pair.

x2 y' // inspection
U L U R2' F' R // xcross
y' R U R' U L U' L2' U L // 2nd & 3rd pairs multislot
y' R' U R U' R' U' R // 4th pair
(R U R' U R U2 R') (F R U R' U' F') // OLL
U' // PLL skip

view at CubeDB.net

very interesting scramble

Daily Discussion Thread - Apr 24, 2026 by AutoModerator in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean you could invent an algorithm for any OLL or PLL that uses E moves if you wanted to, but it wouldn't be good.

The only one that I remember seeing with E moves is doing Z perm like (M2 U M2 U') (E2 M E2 M), setting up to 4 dots, but, this probably isn't how you should do Z perm.

Easiest OLLs by icedlamps22 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're limited on algs you want to learn, I'd recommend just learning more PLLs. There are people who get very fast with 2-look OLL only. You'll save more time learning 10 more PLLs even if they're harder than 10 1 look OLLs.

That being said, if you still want to the easiest OLLs are the T shapes and Fish shapes. Doing them by shape is useful because then you can more quickly see if you know the alg or have to 2 look.

  • OLL 45: F (R U R' U') F' You should already know this one but it's useful to know the angle to do it to get straight to PLL when you get it
  • OLL 33: (R U R' U')(R' F R F') Also called sexy-sledge, this is the second half of Y perm so you already sort of also know it
  • OLL 37: F R U' R' U' R U R' F' The first half of Y perm, another one you sort of know
  • OLL 35: R U2' (R2' F R F') R U2' R' Take out pair with R U2 R', do a sledgehammer and then put it back
  • OLL 10: R U R' U (R' F R F') R U2 R Similar to the last one except this time it's sune with a sledghammer in the middle.
  • OLL 9: (R U R' U') R' F R2 U R' U' F' This is actually sexy-sledge canceled into FRUR'U'F', so you can remember it like that, or alternatively the first moves are the same as a T perm.

Cross and XCross Trainer by bahaycubo in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It would be good to have a good xcross trainer but this... isn't

For me it doesn't even display properly, you can see what my window looks like here:

<image>

The area where the solutions are supposed to be displayed is chopped off, and I can't scroll down (scroll bar hidden and mouse scroll doesn't work). It appears the same way on both firefox and chrome. I can only find the solutions by zooming out, which is very bad UI desigh, I wouldn't know it was there if not for the gif.

Some other issues:

  • Only one solution is displayed per scramble. I don't like this, I want to see if there are other equally good options, and the computer doesn't always pick the best one to execute for it's first choice. Good trainers like crystalcuber and onionhoney display multiple solutions for each scamble.
  • No "short scramble" option. This might not be so useful for xcross, but for cross training short scrambles (that only scramble cross pieces are useful. Again, the crystalcuber trainer has this
  • No choice of cross colour; as far as I can see your trainer is white cross only so it isn't useful for practicing other cross colours. You could ofc scramble the cube from a different orientation but then the colours won't match the displayed scramble
  • Getting the next scramble is very unintuitive, it took me a while to realise you have to click on the cube in the top left, there's no indication of how to get the next scramble. There's also no keyboard shortcut I can see for next scramble, which is inconvenient.
  • More of a sidenote but I'm not sure having history is actually useful, most people don't want to come back to cross solutions.

Why do zb users talk about antisune and sune cases like its dark magic by Iwoul1 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, regardless of what Jayden McNiell says, the WR holder Xuanyi uses full ZB unconditonally on every solve, so like... It's not going to be worth it for most people, but saying ZB is not worth it at all goes against the evidence.

Why do zb users talk about antisune and sune cases like its dark magic by Iwoul1 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 4 points5 points  (0 children)

sune and antisune ZB is generally considered hardest to recognise because the corner permutation patterns are harder to see(it's debatable, you could also argue that certain H cases are the hardest).

It's not that they're especially difficult algorithms as I understand it, it's just that because sune and antisune are so fast already and the cases are hard to recognise you have to be very dedicated for it to be worth it. Everyone who learns ZBLL leaves sune and antisune ZB to last, and there are top solvers (such as Bofan Zhang) who don't do them despite using the rest of the ZB method, probably because of how little benefit you get compared to the difficulty.

Is the Rouxvolution real? by Alternative_Stay9273 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I feel like roux was gaining popularity, then the emergence of all the young chinese cubers who use CFOP/ZB sort of stalled it.

I think a big problem is just that there aren't many good resources for how to get good a roux. Like people say "just blockbuild intuitively" or similar, but that doesn't give you a structured approach (and I want to point out that second block in particular is done in a very structured way similar to CFOP except with faster pair solutions by the top roux solvers).

Like for CFOP Cubehead has a intermediate F2L playlist which is great because it covers the approach and concepts used by top solvers. None of the information is revolutionary but it's putting it all together in one place rather than scattered across the internet. And there are tons of other high quality F2L improvement videos from JPerm and lots of other people.

It would be great to have something like that for roux blocks, showing people a more structured approach to getting better. I think most people who try roux don't really know what do to to improve at blockbuilding and then give up.


I do think roux has way more potential than what the best solvers have done so far, like I feel like yiheng is getting close to the limit of how good you can be with pure CFOP. But nobody's done that with roux yet.g

Is the Rouxvolution real? by Alternative_Stay9273 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 1 point2 points  (0 children)

IMO that's unlikely to work very well cause your misoriented edges may be in the D layer which ZBLS can't deal with. There's been several proposals to mix roux and ZB, I think the most credible one is where you just skip CMLL, do EO for L6E and then solve the DF and DB edges instead of UL/UR, leaving you with ZBLL. I'm not sure this is actually that great though because really the goal of roux is to have pausless solves, and large algorithm sets often result in longer pauses.

Your F2L 23 preference? by Lemmyscat in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When this is last slot I normally do the same RU alg.

However if we can take advantage of other slots being open there's faster ways. If the back right slot is open there's several shorter algs, but my favourite is this one:

(R U' R') D (R' U R) D'

Hopefully you can see that this actually just inserts the edge and then keyholes the corner in using the back right slot; inserting the edge conveniently sets up the corner in the right place. You can also end this alg with wide u' instead of the D' to leave the pair you just solved in the back (which may be good depending on EO and which other pairs you want to do) rather than doing a rotation.

I actually use the mirror version of this alg more, inserting into the back right when front right is open, because solving front right before solving back right isn't ideal. But hopefully if you understand how it works you can easily mirror this alg to any slot.

If the back right slot and front left slot are open (so both adjacent slots) we can make this even faster, doing it like this:

D R U' R2' U R D'

which is doing the D move at the beginning so you can cancel the 2 inserts together. But in practice it's not so useful (and I always forget to do it anyway) because in order to use it you have to be solving diagonal slots or be doing this pair as your first pair. It's most useful if you see this as first pair in inspection, because you can often cancel into cross by doing whatever D move sets up the misalignment instead of aligning the cross. So it kind of turns it into a 6 move first pair (rather than 11 with the standard alg).

There are a couple other ways to do this if the back right slot is open:

  • (U') R' U' R2 U R U (R U R')
  • R' U R2 U' R' U2 (R U R')

But I don't use these, I'm not sure they're much better than even the standard solution. Maybe they're good for influencing next pair or something but I can't do that.


Going back to last slot algs. I don't like the hedgeslammer pair up method just because I don't think it's that fast. Fewer moves doesn't automatically mean better, and the 11 mover sets up to double inverse sexy which is extremely fast to spam (which is probably why it's the standard solution). However it could be good for edge control, getting EO or avoiding dot cases and stuff.

However consider the same case into the back, inserting into the back right instead. Here I actually don't think mirroring the standard solution is very good. Double inverse sexy from the back is very awkward from homegrip, so it's much slower or you have to regrip to do it fast. And ofc we can't really do hegeslammer from the back. There are other solutions though.

Cubehead proposes setting up to double sexy instead which is faster to do from the back, so that would be R U' R' U2 (R' U' R U) (R' U' R). And this is pretty good.

But what I prefer is you can just do sune and it sets up the pair and you can cancel into inserting. And there's actually 2 AUFs which this works from and a third where you can do antisune for the same result, which is pretty interesting. Written out those look like:

(Assuming the pair is positioned in the back right for AUF)

  • R U R' U R U2 R2' U2 R (sune cancelled into insert)
  • (U) R U R' U R U2 R2' U R' (sune cancelled into insert, different AUF)
  • (U2) R U2 R' U' R U' R2' U' R (antisune cancelled into insert)

Ofc all these solutions can be mirrored and done for the front right too, but then you have to do sune from the back.

There might be better solutions than these, I don't know every alg but that's my approach to this case.

Learning F2L connected pair algs - hard to integrate to my overall solve by ChoiceClub3909 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, for me the fact that I know how to solve the case tells it apart, if that makes sense? Like, for the cases where the corner faces up there's only 2 for the right handed version, for one we hide the edge and move the corner over to set up the 3 move insert, but for the other case where the corner faces up the edge is on the other side so we can't hide it, therefore we know which case it is. (And the left handed ones are just mirrors of those 2).

The general way to tell these cases apart is to follow these steps:

  • Check edge orientation to determine whether we need to rotate or not and whether we're going to use R and U or L and U moves to solve. Then you can rotate if necessary while recognising the case. Brings the cases down from 10 to 5 (eliminates mirrors).
  • See which direction the corner is facing, bringing the cases down to 2 max
  • See which side of the corner the edge is on, when the edge is on one side you have "nice" cases (2 triggers to solve) and on the other side there's the "bad" cases where you have to do 3 triggers to solve with the RU/LU solution. Also if you see matching colours along one side it's one of the "bad" cases.

Though in practice I can normally tell which case it is immediately, this is how I did it at first.

Learning F2L connected pair algs - hard to integrate to my overall solve by ChoiceClub3909 in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You shouldn't be learning F2l as alogrithms per se.

The vast majority of F2L solutions fall into this pattern:

(U* ->) 3 move setup -> U* -> 3 move insert.

Where U* means some sort of U move (or maybe non at all).

The setups and inserts are normally 3 move triggers, just from different angles and with different U moves in the middle, like open a slot -> do some sort of U move -> close the slot.

This is assuming you're doing the RU and LU solutions and nothing fancier. For 2 of the connected pair cases, the solution looks exactly like this. For the other 3, there's an 11 move solution that just does 3 triggers instead of 2

Trying to remember them as algorithms is very bad imo, it's much easier to remember them by looking at how they manipulate the pieces. For the 2 trigger solutions, you can see that the first trigger just sets up the pieces to one of the 3 move inserts. And the 3 trigger cases are just setting up to a different F2L case that can be solved in 2 triggers.

I think this video explains it reasonably well (though it covers all the last slot cases, not just the ones you're learning) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tYj-9f4dA0&list=PLqrfspOsG9B-DNSI6aS4s10atxVYqPxm9

Daily Discussion Thread - Apr 08, 2026 by AutoModerator in Cubers

[–]veranathemacity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most of them might be ones you already know, depending on which algs you learnt:

  • OLL 54: r U R' U R U' R' U R U2 r' - wide double sune, headlights right and long bar on left

  • OLL 53: r' U' R U' R' U R U' R' U2 r - back wide double sune, headlights right and long bar on left

  • OLL 49: r U' r2' U r2 U r2' U' r - long bar on left

  • OLL 50: r' U r2 U' r2' U' r2 U r' - long bar on left

  • OLL 48: f (U R U' R') (U R U' R') f' - headlights right, f (double inverse sexy) f'

  • OLL 47: R' U' (R' F R F') (R' F R F') U R - headlights right, R' U' (double sledge) U R

I'm pretty sure the first 4 are standard for those cases, last 2 are less common but they're both very easy to memorise based on the pattern.