[Member Intro] Long Time No See

[JLarsen]

Hello Everyone. I first joined this forum in 2008 as an overly eager 16 year old who insisted on commenting on every single thread in existence. I went by the alias SneakyPanda. I'm a petrus solver and I haven't cubed seriously in quite a few years now. I'm hoping to hop into a Discord and get back into the community and I've got a few obligatory questions for you guys. Who is the top dog in Petrus at the moment? It was Erik Johnson back in the day. I need some content to analyze to try to up my game. Example solves and the like. Recommend me a dank cube? The most current 3x3 I have is a Zhanchi to give you an idea. Any note worthy things to mention in the community or cubing in general? I look forward to talking with you guys again. Hell. I might even go to another WCA event.

 

[Tao Yu]

Hello Everyone. I first joined this forum in 2008 as an overly eager 16 year old who insisted on commenting on every single thread in existence. I went by the alias SneakyPanda. I'm a petrus solver and I haven't cubed seriously in quite a few years now. I'm hoping to hop into a Discord and get back into the community and I've got a few obligatory questions for you guys. Who is the top dog in Petrus at the moment? It was Erik Johnson back in the day. I need some content to analyze to try to up my game. Example solves and the like. Recommend me a dank cube? The most current 3x3 I have is a Zhanchi to give you an idea. Any note worthy things to mention in the community or cubing in general? I look forward to talking with you guys again. Hell. I might even go to another WCA event.

Hey, nice to see you back! I remember watching some of your videos a long time ago.

As far as I know, I'm the fastest Petrus solver right now (I use CFOP in competitions though). My global average is about 9.5, and my PBs are 1/5/12 6.27/7.90/8.51, and 9.8x/12.xx/13.xx one handed. I have lots of Petrus solve videos on my youtube channel, and some example solve videos as well. Vincent Wong(kangaroux), Matt Dipalma, Sebastiano Tronto and Kole Hedrick(2180161) are also pretty fast with Petrus and also have some videos on youtube.

2180161 and I wrote this guide for improving with Petrus recently. You might find it interesting.

I don't know much about hardware, but magnets in cubes are a thing now. I personally think the Weilong GTS2M is pretty good, but other people will probably offer you other suggestions as well.

As for noteworthy things: tons of world records broken, more fast Roux solvers (including Kian Mansour who now has a 6.86 official average) and Feliks lost his world championship title to Max Park. 3x3 UWRs are now 3.01 single, 4.99 avg5 by Feliks.

 

[JLarsen]

Jackpot. Forgive my ignorance, but what is meant by a global average? You mean to say you are consistently sub 10? That is actually insane. I think EJ was somewhere ~12 second average in 2012-ish and I was ~14. Magnetic cubes? Crazy. What are the most popular vendors to purchase cubes from now? Cubesmith appears to be called Cubelelo now and the prices are in "reward points"? xD The internal structure of the GTS2M looks so friggin' cool. I'd anticipate an increase in turning resistance as a result of adding magnets, no? Perhaps that resistance is offset elsewhere in improvements in geometry. The torpedos appear to be lower profile and the edges quite well rounded. No more dremil work for me I suppose.

Edit: New and trendy lubricants? I can't even recall the name of what I used to use (Lubix?) but I know I have none left. I've got a bottle of 10k silicone oil but I recall using that exclusively for big cubes.

 

[Pyjam]

Cubes are dramatically better now and times have decreased accordingly. In the official ranking, the 72th cuber has an average of 7.99 and a single of 6.19.

 

[Rubix Cubix]

The most popular sites are the cubicle.us and speed cube shop I think, they are both based in the USA. There is also a few popular ones that ship from China, so cheaper, such as lightake. If your search the buy/sell section of the forum you will see plenty more.

If you live in a different country, there is probably a local online store your can use as well, there seems to be quite a few popping up recently.

As for the most popular cubes, it's hard to say but as well as the GTS, the valk and gans air are also very popular. The MF3RS is also a very good budget cube released recently, about $5 I think.

 

[Tabe]

Magnetic cubes? Crazy. What are the most popular vendors to purchase cubes from now? Cubesmith appears to be called Cubelelo now and the prices are in "reward points"?

Magnetic cubes are the hot innovation of the last year or so. Makes a big difference in stability on cubes.

As for vendors, Cubesmith is gone now. Other sites:

The Cubicle - Excellent selection, decent service, high-ish prices, innovative R&D department
Speed Cube Shop - Excellence selection, outstanding service, good prices
Cube Depot - Meh selection, excellent service, cheapest prices among US-based sites
Cubezz - China site with good selection but basically no 5x5 or higher cubes, great prices, slow shipping
Lightake - China site with the best overall selection, great prices, terrible service, slow shipping

 

[JLarsen]

Thank you all for the warm welcome and the helpful answers. I know I could have found the answers for myself with enough time reading the forums but you saved me a lot of time and I appreciate you answering what are really frequent questions. The only thing I really need to know to get back into things at this point is what kind of lubricant to use since I am fresh out. What do you Weilong GTS2M users fancy? I don't know much about how crispy/smooth it is so I can't make a very accurate guess regarding what kind of thickness would work well. Any up to date middle ground suggestion would be fine to start with I'm sure.

Do you like my PLL V ? R U2 R u2 R U' R' D' R U R2' F2 R D' L2

Interesting.

 

[Pyjam]

I use the Maru for my GTS2M. It works very well with my PLL V.