When Should You Get a New Cube

Hello J Perm .

I am sub 40 with a YJMGC elite .

Should I get the GT three M or the Tangy V two ?

I'm 12 years old .

By the way , I ask myself every day why I keep getting questions like this .

The thing that determines which speed cube you should get is not your age or your average .

And there are a lot more options than just these , as I've mentioned before .

There are no better cubes for different levels of progression .

You just want a good one and that's pretty much it .

But if you're in a situation where you have a cube that is not so great to turn and it makes certain finger trikes harder , then you should probably get a new one .

Pretty much .

All you want is a speed cube that can turn decently fast and also can corner cuts .

And that allows you to achieve higher turn speeds and be able to use harder finger tricks that you may not be able to do on something that isn't a speed cube .

So technically , you could just get any good speed cube such as the J Perm R S3 M 2020 from speed cube shop dot com .

Use the discount code J perm and then you can pretty much just use it forever .

I have a video on the best speed cubes , which includes not just three by three , but here is the list for good three , three s and here's the other part of the list because there's too many .

The cubes here will vary in a lot of ways , but all of them are viable and probably will be viable for several years , if not forever .

But taking care of your cube is actually really important .

And just because you have a good speed cube , that doesn't necessarily mean that your cube is good .

If you don't lobe and clean it once in a while , it can start to look like this .

This was actually my GT S3 M from a long time ago .

I have a full guide on how to do this .

And if you regularly use your cube , you probably want to do this at least once every 1 to 2 months .

So does that mean you should just buy one good cube and never worry about buying cubes again , you can just get one cube and pretty much use it forever .

That's what people who use the VK have been doing since 2016 .

And there are actually advantages to sticking with the same cube .

Of course , you can save money by not buying more three by three and maybe even put that money towards other events .

Like a good two by two or four by four .

Also , you can understand that chances are your cube is not what's holding you back .

If you average 20 seconds on a decent cube , there is no cube change that is going to make you average 15 seconds .

That difference in time is made up through your own skill .

And if you're busy out there looking for just the right cube for you , then that can actually just be a distraction .

So there are advantages to just sticking with one cube .

And this is all to say that you can just stick with one cube .

But that doesn't mean that you should as there are advantages to looking at other cubes as well .

Of course , there are physical differences between the cubes .

You can think of it like each cube has different stats .

For example , this could be speed control corner cutting and flexibility .

Now it's not that simple because a lot of the good cubes have ways you can customize it , which means that they can change their own stats .

But each cube does kind of come with its own set of stats .

For example , the again 11 M pro , if you set it up to be fast , it comes naturally with a very high stat .

If you set it up to be slow , its control stat doesn't seem to be as good as another cube .

One set up slow .

So basically , it's complicated .

But what I'm trying to say is if you have a cube that is highly customizable , that doesn't mean that this can give you everything .

There will still be other cubes out there that may be better under certain other settings .

Now , the stats of the cube are important because they need to complement your own stats .

For example , if you turn very forcefully , then you'll want a slower cube .

So it doesn't overshoot .

And if you turn more relaxed , you'll want a faster cube .

If you have high turning accuracy , then you can tolerate a cube that has lower control with that .

All in mind defining the stats of the cube and your own stats as a cuber is actually really difficult .

So how it's usually done is just try a bunch of cubes and see which one you like the best .

So you might be thinking OK , I just need to find the best cube for me and use it forever .

But that's not really how it works .

This may not be true for everybody , but I find when I use the cube , I initially have a learning curve with it and then I get better .

And then at some point , I'm very good with that cube .

But then over time , I get worse and it's not because the cube is getting worse because even if I get a new cube and break it in again , I'm still getting worse now to show what I mean , imagine you using the GTs two as your main , this cube is really , really fast .

So if you use it a lot , you will be pretty good at controlling a fast speed .

But the corner cutting isn't so great during solves and that can make it .

So you have to turn more accurately to have this as your main .

So you can deal with speed and you turn very accurately .

Now imagine you switch to the GTs three , this cube is also really , really fast but its corner cutting actually works better in solves and it's a lot more flexible .

And then during some of the harder algorithms , it will just finish your turns for you .

When you make this switch , it will immediately feel like an upgrade because not only is it fast but it tolerates more mistakes from you .

So clearly , this cube is just better .

But then once you use the GTs three for long enough , then you're going to start abusing the flexibility and corner cutting where you start not finishing your turns and turning really inaccurately .

So by taking advantage of the corner cutting , you're actually becoming faster .

But just remember no matter what cube you use , you're going to start pushing its limits .

If you use this for long enough , maybe you'll start doing some of your Alex faster , but you'll start turning a lot more inaccurately and eventually that will make you worse on this cube and even worse if you tried to switch back .

So because you will always try to take advantage of what a cube has to offer .

You will develop habits that actually change your own stats .

And that's why a cube that is , for example , more or less flexible or more or less fast is not always better than the other because it all depends on you .

Not only could there be a best cube for your current turning style , but as your turning style evolves , it could be advantageous to have switched between different cubes on the way that way you can perform well on a variety of cubes and have a better chance of finding the one that really works for you .

In the end .

If you choose to buy a new cube , there can also be a psychological advantage .

Ever since the VK five came out , I believed it was the best five by five that pretty much like everyone should use .

I use this for a long time .

But my progress really stagnated around one minute and one or two seconds then came the YJMGC and I always felt these are about the same .

I'm used to the VK , so I'll use the VK .

But at the beginning of this year , I decided I'm going to switch to the MGC .

And what happened ?

I dropped my average to 50 eight seconds , but I still don't think this cube is better when I use the VK .

My average is 58 seconds .

My theory is pretty simple .

This cube felt different , different felt fun and I had more fun while practicing the fact that I still average the same on both cubes goes to show that these cubes are equally good for me .

I think if the MGC came out years ago and the VK was new and I made the switch this way , the exact same thing would have happened .

My improvement had nothing to do with which cube was better .

It's just the fact that I switched a cube that you like more than the one you had before can actually boost your confidence and make you feel like you have more potential .

And even if you don't necessarily do anything different , when you practice just feeling this way can help you improve faster .

So clearly , there are advantages to sticking with one cube and advantages to experimenting with many cubes and seeing what works best for you .

As always , I think the answer for what you should do is somewhere in the middle .

Don't just use one cube forever as you can develop bad habits specific to that cube .

And you miss out on finding a cube that is more suited to you .

But also don't constantly switch between cubes because the cube is usually not the problem .

Sometimes it's easy to forget that 99% of your improvement comes from your own skill and not from the cube you're using .

What I like to do is give a few cubes a fair shot and then pick my favorite out of those .

Then I'll use that one cube for an extended period of time , which is usually a few months to a year .

Sometimes I'll feel like that cube really isn't the one and it is discouraging , but I'll try not to let one or two bad days change my mind .

Instead I trust the decision I made and keep at it because no matter what cube you pick as your main , you are going to have days where you don't like it .

I think it's important to spend a decent amount of time with one cube as your main before switching again because you need time to develop your own skills and not worry about the cube that you're using .

If you switch means too often , then that's just a distraction from what's really important after many years of cubing and having been on both sides of the extremes , this is what works best for me , but just because that works for me , that doesn't mean you should follow any sort of strict process .

If there's one cube out there , you haven't tried that has good reviews and just speaks to you for some reason then yeah , maybe you should go for it as that lingering thought would be a really annoying distraction as you're trying to improve .

Unless you feel this way about every single cube .

Then I don't know what to say .