The World Cube Association has made its decision on Clock final.
After nearly two months of community debate, petitions and additional consultation, the WCA Board of Directors has reaffirmed its decision to remove Clock as an official event following the 2027 WCA World Championship.
“This decision is final,” the Board said.
You can read the full text of the Board’s decision here on the WCA Forum.
The announcement leaves unchanged the timeline first announced on June 24. Clock will remain generally available at WCA competitions through July 18, 2027, with the 2027 World Championship serving as its final official competition.
But the WCA’s latest statement provides considerably more detail about what happened after the original decision was met with significant opposition from parts of the speedcubing community.
According to the Board, it reviewed emails, forum messages and petitions before reevaluating the decision.
The WCA also gathered in-person feedback from Volunteers and community members, met with senior Volunteers at the 2026 North American and European Championships, received detailed input from Team and Committee Leaders and Senior Delegates, and conducted a vote among WCA voting members.
Those voting members include Full Delegates and other senior WCA Volunteers.
The Board said voting members preferred keeping the original decision over the alternatives presented.
That result came despite what the Board described as stronger public voices calling for the WCA to reverse course.
The WCA said successive levels of input continued to show support for maintaining the original decision and that it believes removing Clock remains the right choice for the organization’s future.
Tiered Events Were Considered
The announcement also addressed another idea that gained attention following the original Clock decision: creating different levels of recognition for WCA events.
Under a tiered system, some puzzles could potentially remain recognized by the WCA without receiving the same status or championship requirements as the organization’s core events.
The WCA said approaches that would formally reduce the status of some events did not receive broad support in surveys conducted earlier this year.
However, the Board acknowledged that tiered approaches became more widely suggested and discussed after Clock’s removal was announced.
The WCA will now support an existing cross-functional working group considering a framework for how events could be changed in the future.
Importantly, the Board said it does not plan additional event changes without a more transparent process and greater community consultation.
That marks a notable shift from the uncertainty left by the June announcement, when the WCA said it would continue exploring how other events should be managed, particularly at championship competitions.
Why the WCA Is Removing Clock
The WCA said the additional review did not change the factors behind its original decision.
In June, the organization described Clock as unusually prone to incidents despite several changes to the Regulations.
It also cited the difficulty of scrambling Clock correctly, the different procedures and equipment needed to run the event, and the challenge of following a Clock solve from a spectator’s perspective.
The WCA also argued that Clock is fundamentally different from the three-dimensional geometrical twisty puzzles that make up most of its event list and said removing it would strengthen the organization’s identity around those puzzles.
Those arguments were heavily debated following the announcement.
The original community and Volunteer surveys also showed different preferences over which event should be removed.
Clock received the most selections for removal among WCA Volunteers, while 5x5 Blindfolded received the most selections among broader community respondents. The WCA maintained that those surveys were only one of several factors used in reaching the original decision.
The latest announcement goes further.
Rather than relying only on the surveys conducted before the June decision, the Board says it reconsidered Clock’s future after the public response and sought additional feedback from several levels of the organization.
That process ultimately produced the same result.
Clock is still leaving.
Clock’s Final Season
Clock competitors now have less than a year remaining before the event’s WCA era comes to an end.
The event will remain generally available through July 18, 2027, before receiving a final appearance at the 2027 World Championship.
FTO, meanwhile, will become official on January 2, making it the first new WCA event since Skewb was added in 2014.
For several months, FTO and Clock will coexist on the official event list.
After Worlds 2027, they will not.
The debate over whether Clock should remain may continue within the speedcubing community, and discussion over tiered events appears likely to continue as well.
But as far as Clock’s current status is concerned, the WCA Board has now removed the remaining uncertainty.
The decision has been reconsidered.
And it is final.