Learn · the other puzzles
Beyond the 3×3
The cube is one event of many. Some of the others are genuinely easier and make better first puzzles; all of them are real competition events with their own world records. Each lane here teaches a complete method, checked the same way.
The puzzle order people recommend usually reflects what they happened to buy first. If you are starting out, learn the 3×3 method and then pick whichever of these appeals, because each one reuses ideas you already have. The 2×2 reuses the Sune you already know. The Pyraminx reuses nothing at all and takes an afternoon. The Skewb looks like a cube and behaves like nothing else, which is most of its charm.
The big cubes are the exception to that freedom: do the 4×4 before the 5×5, because the 5×5 is the same method with more pieces and one fewer problem. Both lean on the 3×3, so leave them until that is comfortable.
an evening
The 2×2
The corners of a 3×3 with everything else removed. Two algorithms finish it, and one of them you may already know.
an afternoon
The Pyraminx
A tetrahedron whose corners can never swap places. That one fact makes it the gentlest puzzle in the sport.
a week or two
The 4×4
Rebuild it into something that behaves like a 3×3, then solve that. The hard part is the two positions no 3×3 can reach.
after the 4×4
The 5×5
The same method with more pieces, and one of the 4×4's two parity cases cannot happen at all. There is a clean reason why.
a long evening
The Megaminx
Twelve faces, and almost all of it is the 3×3 method with more sides to walk round. Four algorithms finish the last face.
two evenings
The Square-1
The puzzle that changes shape as you turn it. Four rules bring the cube back from any of its 170 shapes; five algorithms then finish the colours.
an evening
The Skewb
A cube whose cuts run corner to corner, so every turn swings half the puzzle. Two algorithms, both found by searching the puzzle itself.
What the maths says
every figure swept at build timeSmall puzzles are small enough to know completely, which is a rare luxury. A computer can visit every position a Pyraminx can reach in about a minute, so the figures on that lane are exact counts. The 3×3 is the opposite case, with forty-three quintillion positions, and the big cubes are further out of reach still, so those lanes prove things a different way: each algorithm is applied to a solved puzzle and every piece is compared with where it belongs, and the claims about parity are settled by algebra rather than by counting.
A method described here as always working has been checked against every position it can meet. Where one only usually works, that is said plainly.
Every event with a lane above has a complete method behind it. If you want the 3×3 first, the four-level journey starts here.