Who Predicted NAC 2026 Best?
One entrant beat hundreds of others in a championship filled with upsets, surprise winners, and nearly impossible calls.
Purpleus Wins NAC 2026 Prediction Challenge
The winning ballot scored 83 points with 24 exact podium hits during a championship filled with unexpected winners.
Predicting a major championship is never easy, but NAC 2026 made it especially difficult. Across 17 events and 51 podium positions, several heavy favorites delivered exactly as expected. Others were replaced by winners that almost nobody saw coming.
When the final scores were calculated, the entrant using the display name Purpleus finished on top of the NAC Prediction Challenge with 83 points.
How Purpleus Won:
Each exact podium position was worth three points, while correctly selecting a podium competitor in the wrong position earned one point.
Purpleus correctly identified 35 of the championship’s 51 podium competitors, including 24 in their exact finishing positions.
The winning ballot perfectly predicted the entire podium in two events:
Square-1
5x5 Blindfolded
Purpleus also hit two exact positions in 2x2, 5x5, 6x6, 7x7, Megaminx, Pyraminx, and 3x3 Blindfolded.
That consistency was enough to finish three points ahead of Joseph Passer.
How The Community Did:
Using the most common selection for each podium position, while preventing the same competitor from appearing twice in one event, the community consensus ballot scored 74 points with 22 exact hits.
That total would have tied for 10th place on points.
The community’s best performance came in 3x3 One-Handed, where the consensus podium was completely correct:
The most-picked event winners finished first in 10 of the 17 events.
The safest selections included Stanley Chapel in both blindfolded big-cube events. 100% of entrants picked Chapel to win both 4x4 Blindfolded and 5x5 Blindfolded.
Max Park was also heavily favored throughout the big cubes. He received 102 first-place picks in 4x4, 104 in 5x5, 94 in 6x6, and 104 in 7x7. He won all four.
Other favorites who delivered included Sujan Feist in 2x2, Luke Garrett in One-Handed, Hassan Khanani in Square-1, and Tommy Cherry in 3x3 Blindfolded.
The Predictions Nobody Saw Coming:
Skewb was the hardest event to predict.
Entrants averaged just 1.12 points out of nine, and 35 ballots received no points at all. Dominic Redisi was the community favorite with 67 first-place selections, but Dean Jacob Adamo Susskind took the title.
Not one entrant picked Susskind to win.
Fewest Moves produced another unexpected winner. Levi Gibson led the community vote, but Aedan Bryant won with a 21.00 mean. No entrant selected Bryant in first place.
Only three people picked Aaron Jake Wong to win Clock, while 61 selected Brendyn Dunagan.
The biggest surprises came in two of the championship’s most recognizable events. Only one entrant correctly picked Kyle Santucci to win 3x3, and only one picked Matthew Liong to win Megaminx.
Remarkably, both selections came from the same person, Yili Yi.
Bold Predictions That Came True:
Several entrants went beyond their podium ballots and correctly called memorable championship storylines.
Jacob Levie predicted a Skewb podium for Sid Shivnath, who finished third.
Nathan Leung predicted that Max Park would finish third in 3x3. Park did exactly that.
Yili Yi predicted that Kyle Santucci would win gold. Santucci went on to win the event.
Daruma Cubing predicted that NAC would produce a World Record. Max Park delivered with his 1:30.59 7x7 single.
Miguel Duarte Afonso Pais predicted a continental podium for David Andron-Silva, who went on to win Pyraminx.
Closest Tiebreaker Prediction:
The combined winning time for 2x2 through 7x7 was:
1.31 + 5.63 + 21.00 + 34.65 + 1:08.64 + 1:40.10 = 3:51.33
Twan Dullemond submitted the closest prediction at 3:51.52, missing the final total by only 0.19 seconds.
Alexander Wheeler was next closest at 3:50.90, just 0.43 seconds away.
The tiebreaker was not needed to determine the overall champion, but predicting six winning averages and means within two-tenths of a second remains one of the most impressive calls of the challenge.