Ask the room: MoYu speed cube questions

Yes, and not in a qualified way. MoYu cubes are used in competition at every level, the flagship WeiLong and AoLong families compete directly with the most expensive puzzles on the market, and the budget RS3M and MeiLong lines are the cubes most commonly recommended to beginners precisely because they turn properly at a low price. The brand has been making speed cubes since 2008 and has held a reputation for mechanical reliability for most of that time. The fair criticism is not quality but choice: there are so many near-identical listings that picking one is genuinely hard, which is the problem this catalogue exists to solve.

At the top of the range neither, and anyone certain about it is telling you about their turning style rather than about the cubes. GAN flagships tend to feel lighter and looser and reward very precise hands; MoYu flagships tend to feel more planted and more controllable and forgive a harder turn. Both are competition-legal, both hold world records in the hands of different solvers. Where MoYu wins clearly is the middle and bottom of the range — there is no GAN cube at the price of an RS3M that does what an RS3M does. Where GAN tends to win is smart-cube integration.

It is a transliteration of the Chinese name of the company, MoYu Culture, based in Guangzhou. Mo carries the sense of magic and Yu the sense of domain or realm, so the name reads roughly as magic realm — which is also why so many of the listings use the words magic cube. You will see the related names MFJS and Cubing Classroom on MoYu packaging as well; they are the company's own sub-brands rather than separate manufacturers, with Cubing Classroom used mostly for the budget MeiLong line.

The plain MeiLong 3M on the everyday bench is usually the least expensive magnetic 3×3 in the catalogue, and it is a real speed cube rather than a compromise — stickerless, tension-adjustable and competition-legal. For a few dollars more the RS3M V5 adds external adjustment, which I would take if the budget stretches. Below those, the non-magnetic MeiLong 2×2 is the cheapest puzzle here outright. I would not spend less than the MeiLong 3M on a 3×3 you intend to practise on, because that is where magnets stop being included.

There is no single answer, which is why this site lists seventeen of them with their specifications instead of picking. The WeiLong WRM line is the safest recommendation for most people: stable, quiet, deeply tunable and hard to dislike. The Super WeiLong V2 is the most-engineered cube MoYu makes and the one to buy if you tune constantly. AoLong V5 is the choice if your current cube feels too heavy and planted. If you have never owned a flagship, buy an SE edition first — same mechanism, plainer box, much less money to discover your preference with.

A mix, and it changes every few months as new models are released. At the top level solvers use flagships from MoYu, GAN and QiYi roughly in proportion to which maker shipped the most recent well-received cube, and many of them switch after a bad competition and switch back later. What is consistent is that they tune obsessively — the same model set up two ways feels like two cubes — and that very few of them use the most expensive available option simply because it is the most expensive. The cube matters far less than the hands, which is not what a catalogue is supposed to tell you, but it is true.

Up to a point, and that point arrives early. Moving from a toyshop cube to any magnetic MoYu speed cube with adjustable tension will take seconds off your solves immediately, because you stop losing time to lock-ups and misalignment. Moving from a good budget cube to a flagship typically buys consistency rather than speed, and you will only notice it once your technique is good enough to be limited by hardware. If you are solving above thirty seconds, practice is a better investment than the next cube.

Mostly longer. A 7×7 uses the same reduction idea as a 4×4 — build the centres, pair the edges, solve it as a 3×3 — so there is little genuinely new to learn after your first big cube. What changes is duration and concentration: a solve runs for many minutes, a single mistake costs a long correction, and the puzzle is heavy enough that your hands tire. Buy a 6×6 first, go up one layer at a time, and buy the magnetic version if you already know you enjoy the format.