Dear WCA Community,

The WCA Regulations Committee would like to inform you about the new version of the WCA Regulations and Guidelines, which are going into effect on January 1st, 2024.

You can review all changes in this comparison on GitHub. You can click on “Files changed” to see the complete files of the Regulations and Guidelines, where all changes and additions are marked green and removals are marked red.

You can view a more detailed announcement in this WCA Forum post. Below is a summary of the changes in the new version of the Regulations and the Guidelines.

Major Changes:

• Allow competitors to push Clock pins during inspection (changes).
• Allow 5x5 Cube misscrambles in competition under stronger discretion of the WCA Delegate (changes).
• Add an official Visual Guide for Regulation 3j (changes).
• Allow the region of representation to change at any moment under some circumstances (changes).

Minor Changes:

• Clarify what “using” means in 2i (changes) and remove 2i3 (changes).
• Clarify the starting state of puzzles for Fewest Moves Solving (changes).
• Explicitly allow multiple logos placed on one piece for speedsolving events (changes).
• Clarify inspection time frame – border cases grant greater penalty (changes).
• Change the recording of pre-solve penalties (changes).
• Clarify circumstances in which 2s can be applied (changes).
• Make regulations regarding cameras more lenient (changes).
• Clarify spectators interacting with popped pieces (changes).
• Update 2h (changes).
• Add a requirement to check for duplicate scrambles for Multi-Blind Solving (changes).
• Change “country” to “region” (changes).
• Allow competitors to contact WRT through a Delegate in 2c2 (changes).
• Remove 3j+ (changes)

Along with the changes above, a new version of TNoodle, the official WCA scrambling program, will be released. Pin states will no longer be included in official scrambles. The new version will go into effect on January 1st, 2024, at the same time with the new Regulations and Guidelines.