YiHeng Wang is the current world record holder for the 3x3 cube and is also ranked 2nd in the world for 2x2 at the age of only 9 years old! He came very close to winning the world championships in 2023, missing out by only 0.01 seconds to Max Park.

In his official world record average of 4.48 seconds he set in June 2023, he was using a Gan 12 Maglev and he seems to still be using this cube right now, it is notable that he continues to use the Gan 12 despite the release of the Gan 13 and Gan 14, it suggests that top cubers are not satisfied with Gan's recent releases and prefer the classic Gan 12, it is notable that Tymon Kolasinski also continues to use the Gan 12. Gan have recently released a Gan 14 Pro and it will be interesting to see if any top cubers switch to this, it does essentially appear to be Gan admitting to having a problem with their cube which they now claim to have fixed. Inevitably Gan will release a Gan 15 towards the end of this year and we will have to wait and see if the top cubers switch to it. Matty Hiroto Anaba has also done quite a thorough comparison between the two cubes and says it is quite hard to switch mains at a high level when two cubes perform very similarly.

For 2x2x2, YiHeng Wang definitely used a Gan 251 of some variant in his cancelled 0.93 world record average, however, it is unclear which variant, the cube doesn't appear to be UV coated which would suggest it is either the pro or air, I suspect a top cuber would not like the really strong magnets of the Leap as he would need to be able to turn the 2x2 really fast.

He is also quite good at pyraminx but not quite at the level where people upload his results over the internet so we can't tell for certain what pyraminx he uses but I think its a pretty safe assumption it is a Gan Pyraminx.

So should you go and buy a Gan 12 right now?

While there is a temptation to be like some cube store owners and just say that its the best cube now because YiHeng Wang uses it and tell you to buy it, that would be dishonest. We know that Gan seem to have some control over the Chinese cube tutors and the young children they coach almost always seem to be using Gan products, they are likely receiving some reward for promoting Gan products and their students then have to use Gan products. The recent Gan releases are incredibly versatile so if you like their feeling then they may be a good option, however, you can get similar settings options from other cubes such as the Tornado V3. The Gan 12 is now cheaper than it was and one advantage it has is that it does not have edge-core magnets, I think that having an edge-core magnet as well as the corner-core magnet doesn't really add much, especially with Gan's magnetic core structure. While the Gan 12 is a good option, I think there are better releases to consider such as the MoYu Super Weilong, X-Man Tornado V3 and even more budget cubes such as the MoYu RS3M V5 and DaYan GuHong Pro