How to Solve a Rubik's Cube using the Roux Method

Contents

• Viva la Rouxvolución
• Method Outline
• Roux's Potential

Viva la Rouxvolución

Before I answer the How, I will first give you the quick Who, What, When, Where, and Why of the Roux method. Roux is an extremely efficient, fast, and intuitive method for solving 3x3 invented by Gilles Roux in 2003. Roux is one of only 3 methods used by any of the top 100 3x3 or one-handed cubers (the others being Fridrich (CFOP) and ZB, these make the so-called Big 3). Roux is very unique compared to other popular cubing methods. It has no layer-based-thinking. Instead, it is an optimized combination of block building techniques and piece-type-based-thinking. Roux is the perfected version of the old-school Corners First methods which were very popular in the 80s (Minh Thai used a Corners First method to win the first ever Rubik’s cube World Championship in 1982; see page 6 of David Singmaster's championship report). Roux uses no cube rotations and uses fewer moves and fewer algorithms than both Fridrich and ZB. The best Roux solvers are world class cubers and have proven that Roux can compete with any other method at the highest level. Roux isn't just fast and efficient but also fun; by being so intuition based rather than memorization based, every solve feels unique and interesting.

At time of writing (July 2025), Roux is used by 6 of the top 100 cubers in 3x3 average and 32 of the top 100 in OH (WCA top results, spreadsheet tracking Roux solvers). Four Rouxers (Sean Patrick Villaneuva (SPV), Alexey Tsvetkov, Neo Cuares, and Crimson Arradaza) have achieved official sub-6 second 3x3 averages and Alexey has even achieved an official sub-4 (3.95) 3x3 single. Additionally, Roux has been used to set the OH single world record by SPV and the OH average WR by Nicholas Archer, SPV, and Kian Mansour. Roux is the only method other than Fridrich to ever hold the OH single or average WRs. The unofficial YouTube world best 3x3 Roux average is 4.77 and is held by eff-perm, who has never officially competed. SPV used Roux to win OH at the 2023 Rubik's World Championship and Neo Cuares did the same at the next Worlds in 2025. 2/16 cubers in the 2025 Worlds 3x3 finals used Roux (Neo Cuares, who placed 9th, and Alexey, who placed 15th).

While Roux has already set world records, I believe we are nowhere close to the limits of its potential. There are no official statistics on what methods cubers use because it is not tracked by the WCA. The best data we have is from the r/Cubers community mega-survey, which suggests that at least 84% of cubers mainly use Fridrich, about 6% mainly use Roux, about 2% mainly use ZZ, and that less than 1% each use either Petrus or ZB. Roux accounts for 6% of cubers overall but 6% of the 3x3 top 100 and 12.5% of the finals at Worlds 2025, which is evidence that Roux is every bit as good as Fridrich even though Fridrich has been researched and optimized much more extensively by many thousands more cubers to get to its current form. Per cuber, Roux has performed just as well as or better than Fridrich even with so many fewer resources. Additionally, Roux is overwhelmingly overrepresented among top one-handed solvers (32%) compared to its overall usage among cubers, to the point that it is essentially umabiguous that Roux is the best one-handed method. Roux has never held the 3x3 world record average or single, but it has gotten extremely close (SPV has at times been #2 in 3x3 average). The Roux community is extremely dedicated. They like to refer to the growing popularity of the Roux method and its growing success at the highest levels of competition as the Rouxvolution.

Method Outline

1. FB — First Block intuitvely blockbuilds a 1x2x3 block in the lower two-thirds of the L face without regard to the position of the centers on the M slice.
2. SB — Second Block blockbuilds a second 1x2x3 in the lower two-thirds of the R face still without regard to the M slice, by using only U R r M moves. These moves are both highly ergonomic and guarantee that FB is never broken, which allows SB to be both fast and efficient by not wasting moves redoing past work. The first two steps together are known as First 2 Blocks (F2B).
3. CMLL — Corners, with the Middle slice unsolved, of the Last Layer is an astronomer’s excuse for an acronym that as a step solves the four corners that aren’t part of F2B without regard to the state of the M slice. This is the only algorithmic step of Roux and has just 42 cases at the advanced level or 9 cases at the novice level.
4. LSE — Last Six Edges solves the edges found on the U face and M slice intuitively using only M and U moves, completing the cube. M and U moves do not destroy anything built by the first 3 steps and also give Roux solves a really distinctive look that clearly stands out among other speedsolving methods.

The Novice level is appropriate for someone who is new to Roux but knows how to solve the cube (Roux is not a beginner's method). Once you are sub-30 or so, you should begin to learn the Intermediate level. Once you are sub-20 or so, you should begin to learn the Advanced level.

Roux's Potential

Before we actually get into the deatils of each of these steps, let's take a minute to see how they contribute to a full solve. We are going to look at how many moves each step takes, how fast a good solver can turn in each step, and what percentage of a solve each step should account for. Knowing this will help you set goals for each step as you practice to improve and it will also let us estimate how fast Roux could possibly get when studied by a supercuber. The estimates for this hypothetical supercuber will assume they never have to pause during their solve and that they always turn at top speed so the times they get will be crazy fast. For us mere mortals we can still apply the percentage each step accounts for in the ideal-plan to estimate how long that step should take at our current skill. You may think such a supercuber could never exist, but only if you've never watched a Yiheng Wang solve.

Roux uses a lot of slice moves and so for counting solve efficiency we use the Slice Turn M (STM). In STM, face turns by any amount, like U, U2, F, D' each count as one move and slice turns by any amount, like M, E2, S' each count as one move. In Roux you never rotate the cube in your hands and so sometimes will do simultaneous moves that are equivalent to a slice move with a rotation. For example, you might do a U and a D' move at the exact same time and we will still only count that as 1 move (you do this using one finger each on the U and D layers while holding firm on the E slice between them). In cube notation, we write these simultaneous moves by putting them in parantheses together i.e. (U D'). This is still legal to count as 1 move because the move (U D') is exactly the same thing on the cube as an E move followed by a y rotation. The notation (U D') helps you understand how you should execute this move in practice.

I wrote a computer code that solves each step of the Roux method STM-optimally (using the appropriate types of moves allowed for each step and using standard ergonomic algorithms for CMLL). I also analyzed some solves of top solvers to estimate how far real Rouxers are from computer optimal. Humans are unlikely to ever be able to do these intuitive steps optimally at speed, so I gave an inefficiency cushion to each step based on what I think is achievable given what has already been done. But, movecount isn't everything. To get low solve times, you also have to turn quickly. Your TPS or Turns Per Second is defined as the number of turns you do in a solve divided by the time it takes to complete your solve. Algorithms can consistently be performed at very high TPS due to muscle memory. Intuitive steps are typically at lower TPS, but can be very gradually trained up to speed as well. Based on top solvers, we can estimate possible TPS for each step. We assume our hypothetical supercuber is just slightly better at each aspect of each individual step than the current Rouxer best at that step. I've combined these results into the table below, which gives a breakdown of how long each step should take at the highest level of Roux solving reasonably achievable in the next several years. This analysis is based heavily on legendary Rouxer Kian Mansour's similar calculation from a few years ago.

Idealized Roux Step Breakdown

The above table assumes the supercuber is color neutral even though the current top cubers are not. Current top solvers tend to be x2y color neutral which adds a half move to the average optimal first block solution and so we estimate a super-x2y-solver could average 6.5 moves for first block (adding a whole extra turn of inefficiency when only a half turn is necessary). This changes the overall solve time to 3.71 seconds. We can see from this analysis that total mastery of the Roux method could make someone the fastest cuber of all time.

For practical use, the most valuable columns are Achievable turns and Solve Fraction. The achievable turns column gives you a target for each step of how many moves that step should take you on average at the highest skill level. The solve fraction column gives you a target for how long each step should take that is scalable to your current skill level.

Now let's go and get started! Up first is of course First Block.