When doing my normal restocking I was unable to order any more Tornado V3 Pioneers, however, on this occasion I was not told it was just temporarily out of stock at my supplier but that it was discontinued. I was quite surprised to hear that a popular product such as the Tornado V3 pioneer would be discontinued so asked for some more details - and yes apparently they are slowly discontinuing all the Tornado V3 options to eventually bring in a Tornado V4.

Unlike other cube brands, QiYi have a weird policy of discontinuing their old products when releasing new products, they seem to not like the old models to still be available once they have released a new product. I find this very strange since Gan and MoYu seem perfectly happy to have many old options available as well as their latest option, while they do discontinue some products, this is often only after a long time.

I first got to try the Tornado V3 at Euros 2022 in Copenhagen, I tried Patrick Ponce's sample he was sent before it was released to the public and I was quite impressed, it was never a cube I used for long as there were many other releases but some cubers have really loved the Tornado V3 and stuck with it, including world record holder Max Park. When Max Park achieved his world record single of 3.13, I felt that would be milked by QiYi for marketing for at least another year but it seems that QiYi may have decided that they are better off releasing a new version for 2024.

Releases from QiYi do seem to come more suddenly than other cube brands, with less teasing beforehand, so we will have to wait and see when the Tornado V4 does come out and whether it is better than the Tornado V3 and also, whether it can divert attention away from MoYu's many 3x3 releases in 2024. It would also be nice to see some other puzzles being released as many popular products are incredibly old, I recently got to scramble 4x4 finals at Stevenage May 2024 and noticed Tymon Kolasinski was still using an AoSu GTS2M - a discontinued 4x4 from 2018!

If QiYi is able to release a 3x3 that Max Park prefers then they deserve significant respect from the cubing community, as MoYu release their endless stream of new 3x3 speedcubes, and Gan can't seem to produce a cube that top cubers prefer over their Gan 12 from 2021, QiYi can set themselves apart by releasing a good 3x3 that people actually want - and hopefully not with too many different options.

Update: the Tornado V4 was released on September 20th and is now available.