Polaris
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Polaris is a speedsolving method created by James Straughan in 2010. It was designed with the purpose of solving the problems with Orient First, Belt, and Columns First methods.
Steps
1. Solve EOLine on the left. All edges are oriented and the FL and BL edges are solved.
2. Solve a 1x2x3 block of oriented pieces on the D layer and a 1x2x3 block of oriented pieces on the U layer. Both blocks typically require only a few moves.
3. Orient the remaining four corners on the right side while positioning the remaining E layer edges. There are 41 cases in this step.
4. Permute all pieces.
For step 4, there are many ways of finishing the cube. The simplest way is to first permute all corners then permute all edges. Users can also build a 1x1x3 at DL then a 1x1x3 at DR, use a COLL variant, then L6EP. Another way is to blockbuild a 2x2x3 at dl and continue from there.
Advancements
One advancement idea is to, in Step 2, solve a single oriented piece 1x2x3 block and then an oriented piece 1x2x2 block. Step 3 will then orient the five remaining corners while moving the remaining U/D edges to the U/D layers. Even more advanced would be to simply build an oriented piece 1x2x3 on one face, then orient the six remaining corners while positioning the U/D edges.
