Sledgehammer
Usage and Algorithm
The Sledgehammer is a move commonly used in F2L pair insertion. When an edge pair that needs to be inserted rests on the left of right face of the cube relative to the face towards you, and the cross color is facing away, usually you would have to do a cube rotation and insert it using either U' L' U L on the right or U R U' R' on the left. Instead, you could utilize the Sledgehammer, which, without a cube rotation, goes F R' F' R on the right or F' L F L' on the left.
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SLDGHMMR | F R' F' R |
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SLDGHMMR | F' L F L' |
Edge Control
This F2L pair insertion method is also often used for edge control. Instead of inserting the pair the usual way, say with U R U' R', which could leave you with a no-edges OLL, the Sledgehammer can be used to give you a more favorable, easy-to-execute OLL. This works, however, for only the final pair. If you look ahead to see that no edges are oriented for the upcoming OLL, do the Sledgehammer, and two non-existing edges will come up.
