Columns First - underestimated method?

[Ollie]

I love this, though once I'd solved the F2L slots and the upper corners the temptation was there to use 3-style BLD edgecycles to solve everything else. I'm averaging ~30-35s in the first hour of practicing solving it that way

[5BLD]

Just to add, To make your inspection time as efficient as you can be with roux or cfop, you would need to be able to plan your first 3 pairs. I'm no expert, but I can't see that being easy.

Actually this isn't too hard..

[Endgame]

Before we can polish these methods, we should put more effort in building a stable foundation and a better documentation for these methods, but that's just my opinion.

[qqwref]

I have a 13.30 avg5 and 14.17 avg12 with this columns first method.

[JonnyWhoopes]

I have a 13.30 avg5 and 14.17 avg12 with this columns first method.

And with only about an hour or so of practice, I average 15-17ish with that variant.

[Athefre]

Patch PLL into any method and suddenly it appeals to more people.

[qqwref]

It's not just "oh, it's PLL, I'll use this method", though - I honestly do think that when PLL is a choice you need a pretty solid reason to choose something else. PLL has had a ton of experimentation go into every single case, has pretty short and fast algs on average, and has easy recognition (permutation only, so you can literally look at only one sticker from each piece, which also means good lookahead). It's certainly worth it to try to improve on it, but honestly I think the vast majority of ideas end up slower.

[Athefre]

If it's fast, it's fast. And PLL is fast. I'm saying that I think it's possible there are fast alternatives that better fit the theme of a method or make the method more its own thing. Or at least wish more people were spending time searching for these alternatives.

[Ickathu]

I was actually just thinking about a similar method
4 F2Ls
CMSLL (Corners [ignoring M and S] Last Layer)
F and B centers + DF, DB
cube rotation <<<
LSE

I was able to get sub40 with it after just a few minutes (normally 26)

[HelpCube]

I have a 13.30 avg5 and 14.17 avg12 with this columns first method.

I'm getting a bad request error.

This seems semi-decent though, very easy to sub-40 with 5 minutes of practice. Might have to try it some more later.