Puzzle & Dragons up almost 1000%

[Blake]

just read a pretty good post on orb manipulation

I realized the other day that very advanced player probably approach the board in a similar way to solving a rubiks cube. It's been a while since I learned the simpler methods but the # of algorithms committed to muscle memory vs max solve time goes something like this. (5 - 2:30, 20ish - 30 sec, and hundreds to break the 20 second barrier). I fall near the 30 sec category (although 30 sec would be a very good solve for me)

The more algorithms a method uses the more specific most of them are. (More squares are displaced and then moved back while obtaining the desired result).

When you see a very good matcher do a bunch of stuff and the pause they are probably are figuring out which algorithm to use and then execute it using muscle memory. This would remove the requirement of thinking about how to actually get stuff to where you want it to be, which is how a rubiks cube can be solved very quickly very consistently. The chart above could be considered the next "level" of algorithms because a more complex result is obtained in a single algorithm. I do wonder how complex the algorithms which elite players know are. As seen by elite rubik's cube solvers the human brain can learn and almost instantly recall a fairly large number of them. At advanced levels a rubick's cube algorithm might require looking at one whole side and the connected faces for a total 21 faces considered. Fortunately the brain is pretty good at image processing