How to solve a Mirror Cube? A Shape-shifting Cube with no Colors.

Mirror Cube is a modified version of Rubik’s cube, with the same color on all the pieces. You gotta be thinking I’m kidding, because how will anyone solve a mirror cube with all its sides of the same color.

But yeah this cube has all its sides of same colour, silver and gold being the most common.

All the pieces are of different sizes, which gives the pieces its uniqueness. This uniqueness helps to know the original position of the piece, and hence we will learn how to solve a mirror cube with relevance to the 3×3 Rubik’s cube.

Get to know about the Mirror cube

1. The Mirror Cube
2. Identifying the pieces
3. Relevance to 3×3 Rubik’s cube
4. Solving the Mirror cube
5. FAQ

The Mirror Cube

• The mirror cube is similar to the 3×3 Rubik’s cube. It also has 3 layers. Each layer being of different widths.
• Only the centerpieces are of square faces, and the remaining pieces look rectangular in shape.
• The smallest piece is one corner piece which is diagonally opposite to the largest piece of the cube, which is also a corner piece.
• After the 3×3 Rubik’s cube solution, learning how to solve a Mirror cube is the best option to start with. It will impress your friends too.

Identifying the pieces

This cube is available in many mods but we will be discussing the cube with three layers.

The layer with the greater width becomes the bottom layer or the first layer, then the middle layer, then the layer with the smallest pieces becomes the top layer or the last layer.

All the centerpieces are square-faced but of different lengths, which helps in differentiating the layer.

There are a total of 8 corner pieces, whose position can be identified by their length and breadth aligning to its three centerpieces perfectly.

Any wrongly placed corner piece will pop out in any of its three faces which makes it oddly aligned with the centerpiece.

The edge pieces are also identified by its length of two faces aligning perfectly with the two centerpieces. If the edge piece is wrongly placed, either one face or both the faces will pop out making it oddly aligned with the centerpiece.

In the picture above, you can easily see the bottom and middle layers are solved, in which all the corner pieces and the edge pieces are in the correct positions making a perfect alignment.

While the top layer has all the pieces wrongly placed, which looks very odd.

Therefore, the centerpiece helps in identifying the correct positions of all the pieces of the mirror cube.

Relevance to 3×3 Rubik’s cube

Solving this cube isn’t easy for beginners but not too difficult for the ones who know how to solve a 3×3 cube. The solution is the same as that of 3×3 Rubik’s cube, only the identification part is different.

So now you know how to identify the pieces of the Mirror cube, you are good to go. If you don’t know how to solve 3×3 cube, then I would suggest to learn it on my blog “How to Solve a Rubik’s cube in 1 minute? A Beginner’s Guide.” This will help you solve the mirror cube without any confusion.

Solving the Mirror Cube

Like every other cube, we will start with solving the bottom layer of the mirror cube, then proceeds towards the middle and finally the last layer.

Here we will take the layer with the longest length pieces the bottom layer, because the cube with large pieces in the bottom makes is convenient to hold while solving the 2^nd and 3^rd layers.

We will start by making the cross of the bottom layer, which you have to do it yourself, there are no algorithms for this.

First Layer

• Identify the edge pieces of the length equal to the bottom layer centerpiece, and match it with the side face’s centerpiece.
• Do this until all the edge pieces of the bottom layer are placed correctly making a cross.
• Now search for the corner pieces with the length equal to that of the bottom layer centerpiece, and find its original position by matching it with two side faces centerpiece.
• Now that you found the desired position of the corner piece, now hold the cube with the desired position facing front-right-up, and the corner piece just below its desired location in the bottom layer facing front-right-bottom.
• Perform the algorithm Ri Di R D until the corner piece aligns itself perfectly.
• Repeat this corner piece steps with all the corners. This will complete your first bottom layer.

The cube will look like this after solving the first layer.

Second Layer

Now comes the second layer, where we have to push the middle layer edge pieces to its original position. From now onwards you will hold the cube will the solved first layer in the bottom while performing the algorithm.

1. Looking for the desired pieces in this step is a little bit tricky. Rotate the top layer and see if the front-facing edge piece of the top layer is matching with the front-facing centerpiece. If none of the edge pieces matches, then move to another side and match again.
2. Once you get the edge piece of the top layer matching with the front-facing centerpiece, then you need to move F or Fi to notice the desired edge piece matching either with the left side centerpiece or with the right-side centerpiece and perform the algorithm respectively. Before performing the algorithm, make sure you bring the front face back to its position at the starting of Step 2.

If the edge piece matched with the left side centerpiece, then perform – Ui Li U L U F Ui Fi

If the edge piece matches with the right-side centerpiece, then perform – U R Ui Ri Ui Fi U F

• Repeat these steps for every edge piece to complete the middle layer.
• If any of the edge piece if already in the middle layer but wrongly placed then pull it out by pushing any other edge piece to its location by performing any of the algorithm in Step 3, then push that edge piece to its desired location.

These steps will complete the middle layer and the cube will look something like this.

Orienting the Top Cross

So, now the two layers are solved, and there remains only the last layer which contains only the small thin pieces. These small pieces are easy to handle while performing the algorithms.

You will notice the top layer having some pieces popping out upwards as in the picture given above as the solution of the middle layer. If all the pieces are lying flat matching with the top centerpiece, then you are good to go to the Permutating part.

A correctly oriented top layer of the mirror cube will have the pieces lying flat, making a flat surface along with the top centerpiece as in the picture given below.

Now that only the top layer is left, we can assume it to be the yellow layer and match the cases with an example of 3×3 Rubik’s cube. To match with the Cases, you have to assume the top facing side of the piece to be a yellow color.

First we will orient the edge pieces and then the corner pieces. Identify the already oriented edge pieces of the top layer and match with the Cases given below, and perform the algorithm to complete the cross.

Case 1. Proceed to the “Orienting the Top Corners” step.

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Case 2. Perform the algorithm: F U R Ui Ri Fi. Now match the position with Case 2 and Case 3 and proceed accordingly.

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Case 3. Perform the algorithm: F U R Ui Ri Fi.

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Case 4. Perform the algorithm: F R U Ri Ui Fi.

Orienting the Top Corners

Now that we have the Top cross, we need to orient the corners to complete the layer orientation. After making the cross, you will get many cases like

Case 1. None of the corners is matching with the centerpiece. Then rotate the upper layer to get the left facing flat surface piece in the left, as shown in the upper picture, and perform the algorithm given below.

Case 2. One Corner is perfectly aligned with the top centerpiece. Then hold the cube as shown in the middle picture and perform the algorithm given below.

Case 3. Two corners are perfectly aligned with the centerpiece. Then rotate the upper layer to get the front-facing flat surface piece in the left, as shown in the bottom picture, and perform the algorithm given below.

R U Ri U R U U Ri

After performing the algorithm once, match the positions with the cases above and perform the algorithm accordingly. Repeat it until all the top corners gets oriented. The cube will look something like this.

Permutating Top Layer

Now that we have all the corners oriented, we need to position the pieces in their correct locations. For this we have to first position the corners and then the edges.

Corners

First, we need to observe the correctly positioned two corner pieces, it may be either adjacent like A and B or diagonally placed like A and D, or B and C. You need to rotate the upper layer to check the correctly positioned pieces.

Case 1. If the two adjacent corners are placed correctly, then move them to the back then perform the algorithm

Ri F Ri B B R Fi Ri B B R R Ui

Case 2. If the two diagonal corners are placed correctly then perform the above algorithm once then look for two adjacent corners fixed correctly, place them back and perform the same algorithm again. It will fix all the corners in their correct position.

After successful corner permutation, we need to fix the edge pieces.

Edge pieces

Now comes the last part, fixing the edge pieces. Here you will see either one of the edge piece is placed correctly or none of them is placed correctly, and if lucky enough all the edge pieces may be placed correctly, which means the cube has been solved.

Case 1. One edge piece is in the correct position. Then perform the algorithm given below accordingly, while holding the cube with the correct piece at the backside of the cube.

Case 2. None of the edge pieces is placed correctly. In this case perform any of the algorithm given below then follow Case 1.

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Algorithm to rotate EGF clockwise:

F F U L Ri F F Li R U F F

Algorithm to rotate EFG anti-clockwise:

F F Ui L Ri F F Li R Ui F F

Congratulations!!! You have finally learned how to solve a Mirror Cube.

FAQ