Should you use the “best most optimal” method for every event you care about?
There’s absolutely such a thing as good and bad methods, but what should you do when it comes to the grey area?
"Hey Jay,
I switched from Vanderbergh to Lin on sq1 some time ago (shortly after Helmet Ewert, who uses Lin, got a 7.7 PR avg). I do enjoy Lin a lot more, but I was wondering what your thoughts on it were.
Cheers"
- Sukant
In short, it CAN be an OK idea to use nonstandard methods for some events
If we're talking purely about Vanderbergh vs Lin, I think Vanderbergh is clearly better and can go a lot further than Lin since intuitive blockbuilding on Square-1 holds Lin back, and I think CSP>OBL>PBL as a method is just too OP (even CSP>CO>EO>PBL probably beats whatever the best Lin variant is)
That being said, Lin can still get some very respectable times (Helmet for example is faster than most Sq1 solvers officially), and if you find the method more enjoyable, you'll probably end up putting in a lot more work than you would if you were using the "optimal" method and found it boring to the point of wanting to quit
Some notable examples of people doing "pretty damn well" with "clearly not optimal" methods include Oscar Roth Andersen (2015 WC) with his Megaminx solving style (he does Petrus EO for last two faces and then finishes mostly with 2gen), and more recently Ciaran (Worlds podium 2019) with Yau on 7x7 (I'm one of the biggest Yau fanboys and even I think redux is clearly better for 7x7)
Choosing a more fun method can be a smart idea if you know for certain that the "status quo optimal method" bores you to tears
Basically just don't go overboard with this and choose a trash method like Petrus for 3x3, because I can almost guarantee that you'll enjoy being a few seconds faster more than you'll enjoy using some niche snowflake method
Usually with each event, there's going to be one clear "best" method (or combination of methods), and then one or two "other" methods that are up there, and then countless methods that are clearly garbage
Avoid the clearly garbage ones, and you'll be able to get the best of both worlds in terms of using a method that's fun to do, and also using a method that allows cubing to be fun in the form of fast time dopamine hits via PB’s (and also just being fast!)