The Big Five of big cubes

There are many methods to solve big cubes, but not many methods are really good

Here, 5 best methods for big cubes

Yau method

Yau method is a 4x4 speedsolving method proposed by Robert Yau. Yau is a most frequently used speedsolving method for the 4x4x4 cube It has an easy dedgepairing, and the cross is done when you start the 3x3 stage. But for bigger cube, it not the best

See Yau method

Hoya method

The Hoya method is a 4x4 speedsolving method proposed by Jong-Ho Jeong. It can also be applied to bigger cubes, and is frequently done on both 5x5x5 (usually under the name Hoya5) and 4x4x4. It's a sub-method of Reduction. It has an easy dedgepairing, and the cross is done when you start the 3x3 stage. However, it's slightly higher movecount compared to Yau on 5x5 and larger puzzles. Though the movecount is similar to Yau on 4x4.

See Hoya method

ZZ44

This is a new method, it was proposed in 2019. ZZ44 is a method for ZZ user to solve the Big cubes. Different from 4Z4, ZZ44 has a very easy EO step. The move count is the same as with the Hoya method. You can get a high TPS with ZZ44 because mostly just use Rw, Lw, U, D, L, R move.

See ZZ44

Meyer method

Meyer method is a 4x4x4 speedsolving method proposed by Richard Meyer meant to suit users of the Roux method. It can also be applied to bigger cubes. See Meyer method

Shadowslice variant Initially proposed by Joseph Briggs (a.k.a. "shadowslice") in 2015, this method also focuses on creating a 4x4x4 reduction method that will lead up to a Roux 3x3x3 phase. It differs from the Meyer method in that after the 1x3x4 block on the left is formed, a second block, in this case, a 1x3x3 block on the right, is formed. This is to reduce the number of edges that are "hidden" (i.e. cannot be seen without rotating the cube -- it has only 1 compared to 2 for Meyer and Yau). Interestingly, this method was proposed semi-independently as a "sort of variant" of Yau as Briggs had no prior knowledge of the Meyer method, although he later decided that his method was indeed a variant.

Redux method

Reduction, also known as Redux, is the current dominant group of methods for big cubes speedsolving, and the dominant method for 5x5x5+ that solves centers and matches edges to "reduce" the puzzle to a 3x3x3.

Almost every speedcuber uses the reduction method for 5x5 and bigger cubes. Reduction was formerly the dominantly used method for 4x4 as well, however the Yau method has recently taken over. It can also be used as a beginner's method. See Reduction method

Freeslice variant The Freeslice method is a variant of reduction, the most common variant of Reduction used in speedsolving and also the most common big cubes method. The only difference between the Reduction and the Freeslice method is the edge pairing stage because this is done via Freeslice edge pairing in the Freeslice method. Although not really a method in its own right, calling Reduction with Freeslice edge pairing the "Freeslice method" is common to prevent mistaking it for the Reduction method used by beginners (where dedges are formed in pairs of two or sometimes even only one).