# My self-developed (almost) Master Pyraminx method



## simontiger (Oct 16, 2021)

So I recently bought 4 new puzzles. 2 of them I already knew how to solve, 1 was really easy to figure out, but the last one, the Master Pyraminx, was quite interesting. I wanted to share the method I came up with here. If you know how to solve both a 4x4 and a Pyraminx, this should all make sense, but you really only need to know the Pyraminx to understand this.

*Terminology*

- The pieces similar to tips will just be called tips. The two types of edges are called "midges" (the very middle edges), and the "wings" (the edges one out from the middle). The centers will be the actual centers of the puzzle, not the type of centers you will find on a Pyraminx. Those I have not yet come up with a name for, as they are not really used in the method in any way.
- I will call moves that turn only turn the tips "tip moves", moves that turn both the tips and the layer below them "normal moves", and moves that turn the tips and the two layers below them "wide moves".
- For notation, I will use something similar to the normal Pyraminx notation. Tip moves are lowercase letters, normal moves are uppercase letters, but wide moves will have a "w" on the end of them.

*Step 1. Edge Pairing*

The centers on the Master Pyraminx never move relative to each other, so we can skip straight to edge pairing. Each edge has three parts, the midge (the absolute middle edges), and the two wings (the edges one out from the middle). To pair an edge, first find a midge. Then, put a wing with the same colors on one side of it. Finally, put the other wing with the same colors on the other side. If you have more trouble doing this than me, here are some tips (get it? tips? eh whatever):

- Wide moves will never mess any edges up, but normal moves may do so. I recommend first using wide moves to bring the wing close to the midge, then using a normal move to put them together.
- If you want to flip an edge, the following algorithm flips the front-left and front-right edges (you may recognize this alg as a 2-flip on a Pyraminx): Lw Rw' Lw' Rw Uw' Rw Uw Rw'.
- When putting the midge and the wings together, do some moves to make sure that the normal move will not mess up any solved edges. Normally, you can do this by placing an unsolved edge into the slot next to the edge you're trying to solve, but for the last 2 edges there are no unsolved edges to place, so you need to solve the edges in a slightly different way.

For the last 2 edges you will need to solve them using slice-flip-slice instead of the normal method. Do some moves to put both unsolved edges in the front-top. Then, do a normal move on the top in such a way that it puts _something_ together. If that's not possible, use the flipping algorithm from before and it should work. Then, flip the thing you just paired together. This can be done by cube rotating and then doing the flipping algorithm. Finally, undo the normal move on top from before. Now all the edges should be paired together.

*Step 2. Pyraminx stage*

On 4x4, we have 3x3 stage at the end, so on Master Pyraminx, we have Pyraminx stage at the end. You can use any Pyraminx method you want for this, but I use Intuitive L4E because that's what I normally do on Pyraminx. This still has a couple of differences from 4x4 though:

- On 4x4, normal moves are the moves that don't mess up 3x3, but on Master Pyraminx, wide moves are the moves that don't mess up Pyraminx. So only use wide moves in the pyraminx stage here.
- Ignore the centers for this step. They are not there on a Pyraminx, and we can just do them at the end.

*Step 3. Centers*

There are 3 possible cases here:

- All of the centers are already solved. This one should be pretty self-explanitory.
- None of the centers are already solved. In this case, there should be 2 centers that need to swap. Put them at the back, and then just do three sledgehammers (Lw Rw' Lw' Rw) and it should be solved.
- One of the centers is already solved, the other three aren't. In this case, you ran into parity, which you can't solve with only wide moves.

Now, you know that the title has "almost" in parentheses? Well, this is that. I haven't made a parity algorithm yet. If you think you have one, please let me know. Also, let me know if you have any improvements to this method. I'm not that experienced with this so help is very much appreciated.


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## abunickabhi (Oct 17, 2021)

simontiger said:


> So I recently bought 4 new puzzles. 2 of them I already knew how to solve, 1 was really easy to figure out, but the last one, the Master Pyraminx, was quite interesting. I wanted to share the method I came up with here. If you know how to solve both a 4x4 and a Pyraminx, this should all make sense, but you really only need to know the Pyraminx to understand this.
> 
> *Terminology*
> 
> ...


Cool method, I think this method already exists and Daniel Goodman and Harsha Paladgu use it to a high level to get insaney fast sub-20 solves.


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## simontiger (Oct 17, 2021)

abunickabhi said:


> Cool method, I think this method already exists and Daniel Goodman and Harsha Paladgu use it to a high level to get insaney fast sub-20 solves.


Just looked it up and his method first solves the midges, whereas my method is more reduction based.


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## DGCubes (Oct 17, 2021)

simontiger said:


> So I recently bought 4 new puzzles. 2 of them I already knew how to solve, 1 was really easy to figure out, but the last one, the Master Pyraminx, was quite interesting. I wanted to share the method I came up with here. If you know how to solve both a 4x4 and a Pyraminx, this should all make sense, but you really only need to know the Pyraminx to understand this.
> 
> *Terminology*
> 
> ...



Nice job developing this on your own! It's super-satisfying to be able to solve puzzles independently.  

To answer some questions/provide some tips:
You don't actually need to flip 2 edges at a time when pairing edges; you can instead flip a single edge in the UR position with Rw' D Rw'. Note that this alg will also move around the pieces on the bottom layer, but it won't actually unpair any of them (since, as you noticed, wide moves don't mess up edges).
The alg I used to use for fixing centers at the end was this alg (based on the sune): Rw Uw' U Rw' Uw' U Rw Uw' U Rw' Uw' U and its mirror, but Kit Clement also has potentially better algs for these cases. He's also where I got the Rw' D Rw' alg.



abunickabhi said:


> Cool method, I think this method already exists and Daniel Goodman and Harsha Paladgu use it to a high level to get insaney fast sub-20 solves.



I used to use a method like this and averaged around 25-30, but I then switched to a method I invented/derived from Harsha's method to get sub-20.

The method I currently use goes like this:

Solve midges. This is fast because no centers are fixed yet. For example, a 4-flip (Rw Uw' Rw' Lw' Uw Lw Rw Uw' Rw' Lw' Uw Lw) is a U move away from a much better case (wide-sledge Uw' wide-sledge).
Solve centers. This is faster than saving it for the end, since the 3-center cases no longer have to preserve the rest of the puzzle. (I use Rw Uw' Rw' Uw' Rw Uw' Rw' Uw' and its mirror.)
Solve wings using 3-cycles (like Rw U Rw' U' and L' Uw L Uw').
Note that the tip centers can be solved at any time with this method; sometimes I'll solve a few of the tip centers and wings on my bottom layer while I solve midges, since it's relatively easy to force the bottom layer to remain preserved with some practice.


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## simontiger (Oct 18, 2021)

DGCubes said:


> Nice job developing this on your own! It's super-satisfying to be able to solve puzzles independently.
> 
> To answer some questions/provide some tips:
> You don't actually need to flip 2 edges at a time when pairing edges; you can instead flip a single edge in the UR position with Rw' D Rw'. Note that this alg will also move around the pieces on the bottom layer, but it won't actually unpair any of them (since, as you noticed, wide moves don't mess up edges).
> ...


DGCUBES! WOW! Thanks for the tips, they helped me a lot. It still feels unreal that you actually replied to me!


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