# What is the easiest WCA event to get world class at?



## Exotic Butters (Oct 13, 2019)

I want to know what the easiest WCA event to get world class at is. This is in terms of the amount of time you need to put in to become good, number of algs you need, etc.

leave your suggestions below and explain why you believe that the certain event is the easiest.


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## WoowyBaby (Oct 13, 2019)

Clock

Not many people do it


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## CurlyFries (Oct 13, 2019)

WoowyBaby said:


> Clock
> 
> Not many people do it



I second this. It’s not hard, and basically all you need is to do some solves.

I think megaminx would be easy as I’ve heard basically all you need is to grind solves, but there are a large number of algorithms.

2x2 is easy, you have to learn a number of algorithms, but then your already there.

Really all you need is to practice and motivation, it’s just a matter of time.


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## xyzzy (Oct 13, 2019)

(Disclaimer: 99% speculation, possibly nonsense.)

All the n×ns (including megaminx and OH, not including 222) rely very heavily on looking ahead and maintaining a near-constant high TPS at world-class speeds. Algs are useful, but beyond the fundamentals (e.g. full OLL), are not the determining factor.

Square-1 might have been a reasonable answer a few years ago, but these days all the top people use CSP and a whole bunch of weird tricks.

222 and skewb are largely determined by raw turning speed, and to a lesser extent willingness to learn loads of algs. Pyraminx and clock mainly require "only" raw turning speed. Raw turning speed is something you either have or don't, and if you don't there's nothing you can do about it.

3BLD has gotten to the point where you need to be really good at memo _and_ have really high turning speed. 4BLD/5BLD/MBLD might be easier for now; especially for multi, it seems like if someone really good at memory sports comes in and trains 3-style solving for a while, they could have a decent shot at becoming world-class.

Pretty sure that just leaves FMC, and lately I've been seeing a _lot_ of crazy-good FMC results from people who haven't even been doing it for a year. So that's my answer.


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## Parke187 (Oct 13, 2019)

Either 2x2 or clock.

2x2 is literally just turning fast, looking ahead, and learning algs.
Clock is planning more of your solve in inspection, and turning faster.

Either one has reasonable answers to why they are the easiest event to get good at.


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## Nmile7300 (Oct 14, 2019)

If top 1000 is world class enough for you, then Pyraminx is easy


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## GenTheThief (Oct 14, 2019)

Depending on what you mean by world class, I would definitely say Feet.
If world class just means top 100 (~40), then _for sure_ Feet. If world class means a barrier, for example, sub 30, then I'm not sure, but probably still Feet.

I can't be bothered to look for them now, but in a Feet-race-to-sub-x thread, I have some posts talking about my progress and goals. Sub 2 only took something like 150 solves. Sub 1 took a little bit more effort, but that wasn't too difficult either iirc (sub1 officially was an entirely different story).

Honestly, I think 1000 solves could be enough to get sub 1, but that would assume a good grasp on 3x3 in general, probably if you already average ~15 (I think that's about where I was). A lot of consistency and another couple thousand should be enough for sub 40.


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## tx789 (Oct 14, 2019)

5BLD


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## David ep (Oct 14, 2019)

Square 1


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## One Wheel (Oct 14, 2019)

@GenTheThief is absolutely right: feet. I think I’ve done maybe 5-600 timed solves and average around 1:35-1:40, my 2-hand 3x3 average is only around 27 seconds, but with another 500-1000 solves I believe I could get my feet times down under 1:00.


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## One Wheel (Oct 14, 2019)

Dr. Lube said:


> What are the characteristics of a good foot puzzle? Is most of the work done by the toes or is it mostly foot?


Mostly toes. Personally I use a Big Sail that I restickered with a high-contrast scheme and magnetized with very strong magnets. I don’t have one, but in my observation the GTS3M should be an excellent stock cube for Feet. I believe that the ideal foot cube would be about 60mm, and have ridges and very strong magnets. Stability is far more important than speed.


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## One Wheel (Oct 14, 2019)

Dr. Lube said:


> Big feet, big cube? I have a HeShu 9cm that might work.


I have larger than average feet, and I feel like my 68mm Big Sail is on the large side of optimal. When you’re first learning to turn with your feet bigger cubes offer a little more flexibility, but as you get better I feel like all sizes of feet will likely converge with an optimal size in the 56-60mm range.


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## alexiscubing (Oct 14, 2019)

Honestly I would say Pyra, 2x2, or Skewb. With minimal practice you can get your times very fast, and the difference between world class and average is 1-2 seconds


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## One Wheel (Oct 14, 2019)

alexiscubing said:


> the difference between world class and average is 1-2 seconds


This is why it’s really hard to get world class on these puzzles. There’s also the issue that most people who are world class or anywhere close on these puzzles are using close to the optimal solution the majority of the time, meaning that TPS is much more important than for more complex puzzles. TPS can be trained, but there is also an age/genetic limit. I will never be a world-class pyraminx solver, not will I ever be a world-class marathoner, although I will doubtless work on both. I just don’t physically have the capability to be really good. Something like Feet or Megaminx results are much more closely tied to how much work you put in and physical capability has very little impact on your personal performance ceiling.


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## Dylan Swarts (Oct 14, 2019)

I recently look into my ranks and where my BLD PB's lie in the world ranks. It was interesting to see that for Multi-BLD, my PB put me ~73 and recently I've been averaging around 90th place. For 3bld the 100th best result (iirc) is 26 seconds and my PB is 47.25.. I must say I've done almost more multibld attempts than 3bld (not really but close tbh) but yet since more people do 3bld, my pb puts me at a very lower rank.
Similarly, for 5bld (which I don't practice that much anymore but will after my comp this weekend) my pb puts me around 110th place or so in the world, and I do not practice much. Probably done <40 solves. But for 4bld, which I practice a little bit more, I rank much lower once again with my pb of 5:00. 
So basically this means that in less popular events, it is easier. Although these events are much harder sometimes eg. 5bld, 15+ cubes multibld and is thus why they are less popular or competed in.
So, in my eyes multi-blind actually seems like the easiest one, but hey, I've done almost 200 attempts over ~280 days (aka this year) which is a lot, trust me. So maybe because I am so focused on the event, it makes the goal seem easier and more reachable. Perhaps all this practice is the cause why I say multi-blind is the easist to get world class. To get top100 you need 16 points. Which, with lots of dedication, you could probably reach in a year. *I mean lots and lots of dedication.* 
Cheers!


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## Underwatercuber (Oct 14, 2019)

Clock is mostly just practice and getting good hardware, you could probably get WR within a year of first learning how to solve it.


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## sqAree (Oct 15, 2019)

Pretty sure that FMC is the objective and only answer?
You can get to a decent level (means being able to win any local competition, and with some luck also major comps) by just reading the tutorial and do a few solves. This takes nowhere near as much time as any speedsolving event. Of course in the end it depends on how you define world class.

EDIT:
To back this up a bit, my best world rank ever was FMC single (#28 or something like that, can't remember exactly), with a 22. Considering my global at home (~sub30) this is not an unreasonable result to get (means it sure required some luck, but was bound to happen eventually).
I think FMC might be literally the event I put the least effort in. I just read the tutorial and did like 20 solves at home. I also barely learned any algs (5 algs max I'd say, because most of the cycles are intuitive).

EDIT2:
I'm not saying I'm world class, but you get the idea, it's just super easy and fast to become decent, get a good world rank etc.


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## Lapse. (Oct 15, 2019)

just git gud dude.

Real answer, according to WCA statistics, theoretically megaminx and clock would be the easiest event to get world class in. I solve mega in about 2:20, and i rank about 200 in my country, which places me about 170 in my country, and 8000th in the world. For clock i place 100th in my country and 7000th in the world, and my only result for clock was 1:30(fail solve lol my clock got jammed and the other solves did not make cutoff or got DNFed). This is just a statistic, however, so it might not be actually easy to be world class in it. 

But what do you mean by world class anyway? The definition might be very different to some people...


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## One Wheel (Oct 15, 2019)

Dr. Lube said:


> Predict what puzzle the WCA will choose to adopt after they kick feet to the curb and start practicing that. My money is on either 'interpretive snake' or 'watch', which is the 2x2 version of 'clock'...


I’m not a bookie, but if I was I would put the chance of WCA going through with eliminating feet at about 35%. All the arguments for keeping it are sound logical reasons, and the arguments for eliminating it boil down to “I don’t like it.”


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## Cuberstache (Oct 16, 2019)

xyzzy said:


> All the n×ns (including *megaminx* and OH, not including 222) rely very heavily on looking ahead and maintaining a near-constant high TPS at world-class speeds. Algs are useful, but beyond the fundamentals (e.g. full OLL), are not the determining factor.


I know you said this is just speculation but as a world-class megaminx solver I'd like to respectfully disagree with you on this. Megaminx doesn't require turning as quickly as people think. I think I average somewhere in the range of 3-4 TPS. That's a 15 average on 3x3, which I think most people would agree is mediocre. Also, learning alg sets is pretty important. On average, a one-look PLL is about two seconds faster than a two-look. That might not sound like a lot but the difference between a 35 and a 37 is pretty big. Phillip Lewicki is probably the best example of this. He's sub-40 with almost no PLLs and if you ask him he'll say he could be quite a bit faster if he knew PLL. I just recorded some solves with a headcam to reconstruct them and find out what my actual TPS is, so I'll get back to you on that.

Looking ahead is incredibly important though


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## xyzzy (Oct 16, 2019)

CuberStache said:


> That's a 15 average on 3x3, which I think most people would agree is mediocre.


wow are you calling me mediocre Anyway, that's a good point, and input from someone who's actually world-class is definitely more relevant than my wild speculation, haha.

Assuming a megaminx solve takes ~160 moves, you would need 5 TPS to get to 32 seconds. While 5 TPS really isn't that high if you compare it to the 8-10 TPS people are getting on 3×3×3, I'm also wondering if there's a much lower TPS cap on megaminx compared to the cubic puzzles. If, for example, for megaminx the TPS cap is like 6 TPS and you need 5 TPS to be world class, then that seems to be harder to achieve than 10 TPS on 333 with a 15+ TPS cap.


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## Cuberstache (Oct 18, 2019)

xyzzy said:


> wow are you calling me mediocre Anyway, that's a good point, and input from someone who's actually world-class is definitely more relevant than my wild speculation, haha.
> 
> Assuming a megaminx solve takes ~160 moves, you would need 5 TPS to get to 32 seconds. While 5 TPS really isn't that high if you compare it to the 8-10 TPS people are getting on 3×3×3, I'm also wondering if there's a much lower TPS cap on megaminx compared to the cubic puzzles. If, for example, for megaminx the TPS cap is like 6 TPS and you need 5 TPS to be world class, then that seems to be harder to achieve than 10 TPS on 333 with a 15+ TPS cap.


This is pretty off-topic now so I made a separate post about my findings: https://www.speedsolving.com/thread...e-world-class-at-megaminx.75480/#post-1335197


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## Reizii_ (Oct 21, 2019)

Clock.

1.) learn it
2.) know how to set it up
3.) practice


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## kadabrium (Oct 21, 2019)

xyzzy said:


> wow are you calling me mediocre Anyway, that's a good point, and input from someone who's actually world-class is definitely more relevant than my wild speculation, haha.
> 
> Assuming a megaminx solve takes ~160 moves, you would need 5 TPS to get to 32 seconds. While 5 TPS really isn't that high if you compare it to the 8-10 TPS people are getting on 3×3×3, I'm also wondering if there's a much lower TPS cap on megaminx compared to the cubic puzzles. If, for example, for megaminx the TPS cap is like 6 TPS and you need 5 TPS to be world class, then that seems to be harder to achieve than 10 TPS on 333 with a 15+ TPS cap.


going through cubesolv.es, the top tps reached on 6x6 and 7x7 is in that range too. 5x5 which is a slightly longer event with comparably hardware quality does go easily to 6 though.


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## Exotic Butters (Oct 26, 2019)

My definition for world class is top 30 or top 25


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## parkertrager (Oct 29, 2019)

honestly i think it depends on the person. some are definitely easier than others but none are "easy". But the easiest are probably FMC, 2x2, skewb, pyra, clock, mega, oh, and feet. all of these events require very little knowledge to be known just some basic algs and a lot of practice. i got world class at pyra oh and feet by just doing 1000s of solves. for pyraminx it was a bit more complicated as i learned over 20 methods sand became method neutral but there are people much better with much less knowledge.


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## ProStar (Oct 29, 2019)

Exotic Butters said:


> I want to know what the easiest WCA event to get world class at is. This is in terms of the amount of time you need to put in to become good, number of algs you need, etc.
> 
> leave your suggestions below and explain why you believe that the certain event is the easiest.



Nothing is _easy _to get good at. No matter what event you do, it will take a long time to become top 1,000 or 100.


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## ProStar (Oct 29, 2019)

Exotic Butters said:


> My definition for world class is top 30 or top 25



In that case, you need thousands or solves, a bunch of algs, and pretty much addiction.


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## Underwatercuber (Oct 29, 2019)

DarkSavage said:


> In that case, you need thousands or solves, a bunch of algs, and pretty much addiction.


Unless it’s clock
Source: I was 43rd in the world for clock average at some point and I’m sure if I could have attended more competitions and practiced a little more I could have gotten top 15 without much effort


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## ProStar (Oct 29, 2019)

Underwatercuber said:


> Unless it’s clock



It would still take a lot of practice


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## Underwatercuber (Oct 29, 2019)

DarkSavage said:


> It would still take a lot of practice


No where near as much as anything other event


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## KingCanyon (Nov 16, 2019)

If you mean world ranking, then probably 2x2 or big blind.


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## cuber314159 (Nov 16, 2019)

All it takes to become world class at 7x7 is alot of solves, as long as you have good 3x3 efficiency. It took me about 6 months and about 2000 solves to go from 4 minute average to 2:45 and I got a good official single back in June of 2:38 that put me top 100 in the world at the time. As long as you know the basics it's just practice to get faster, sure some l2c and l2e algs are helpful but no algorithm is going to make a huge difference over a 2:45 solve


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## ImmolatedMarmoset (Nov 16, 2019)

DarkSavage said:


> Nothing is _easy _to get good at. No matter what event you do, it will take a long time to become top 1,000 or 100.


nah. clock can be world class in like 5 months
EDIT: it’s true that it’s not easy, but there are some events where it’s physically impossible to become world class in 5 months.


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## BradyCubes08 (Nov 16, 2019)

I think that all popular events (nxn's skewb pyra etc.) are actually the hardest to get good at because there are so many people doing them. 
Sub-4 on skewb and sub-10 on 3x3 are about the same barrier but that skewb average ranks me ~150th in the world while the 3x3 average ranks me ~1300th in the world.
I really think that most of it is popularity and how optimized the event is (clock is an exception lol)


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## Cubing Forever (Nov 11, 2020)

1 year bump.
I'd say clock is the easiest since a sub 8 average puts you in the top 100 (right now)


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## sqAree (Nov 11, 2020)

Cubing Forever said:


> 1 year bump.
> I'd say clock is the easiest since a sub 10 average puts you in the top 100 (right now)


Nope, rank 100 has a 7.12 average, no idea where you got your number from.


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## One Wheel (Nov 11, 2020)

Clock has the flattest curve of any event. Megaminx has the steepest curve. The most likely explanation for that difference is that hard work is a larger proportion of the outcome for Megaminx and natural ability for Clock. Megaminx is likely the "easiest" event to get world class in, and Clock the hardest (unless you have the natural talent for Clock).


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## BenChristman1 (Nov 11, 2020)

One Wheel said:


> Clock has the flattest curve of any event. Megaminx has the steepest curve. The most likely explanation for that difference is that hard work is a larger proportion of the outcome for Megaminx and natural ability for Clock. Megaminx is likely the "easiest" event to get world class in, and Clock the hardest (unless you have the natural talent for Clock).


What would you consider “natural talent”? After just 2-3 weeks of practicing clock, I’m sub-15, so I’m not sure how fast a person’s improvement should be if they’re “naturally talented” as opposed to not.


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## One Wheel (Nov 11, 2020)

BenChristman1 said:


> What would you consider “natural talent”? After just 2-3 weeks of practicing clock, I’m sub-15, so I’m not sure how fast a person’s improvement should be if they’re “naturally talented” as opposed to not.


I don't think there's very much difference in time between "very talented" and "not talented." In my opinion the relatively flat line between the best official clock times and the worst official Clock times means that it's relatively easy to reach your potential in the event, so many have. The relatively steep slope of the line for Megaminx suggests to me that comparatively few people have reached their natural ceiling in that event, so with a lot of work even a person without a lot of natural talent can compete with someone who has more talent but doesn't work as hard.


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## Cubing Forever (Nov 12, 2020)

sqAree said:


> Nope, rank 100 has a 7.12 average, no idea where you got your number from.


I saw the NAR ranking and thought it was the world ranking. Oops


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## Owen Morrison (Nov 12, 2020)

Clock is definitely the easiest event to get world class at. It took me about a month of practice in which I did 2000 solves to average 6.1.


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## abunickabhi (Nov 12, 2020)

_Its easier for 5BLD event, since many people don't practice it consistently. And we just have to beat one dominant Cuber, scalpel._


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## Cubing Forever (Nov 12, 2020)

abunickabhi said:


> _Its easier for 5BLD event, since many people don't practice it consistently. And we just have to beat one dominant Cuber, scalpel._


_4BLD is the next most easiest_ _event_ _right ? again, not that many practice it and scalpel is the only guy to beat.
(If only it was that easy lol. (doesn't mean that I won't explore bigBLD events. ofc I will but not now))_


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