Tip: Control over the simulator on this page requires a little bit of getting used to. It is recommended to use the corner pieces for preforming moves.
The Skewb, orignally known as the Pyraminx Cube, is a very famous Pyraminx shape-mod. Shaped as a cube, this puzzle offers quite a different challenge than its predecessor, despite the fact they share the exact same 4-axis mechanism.
The Skewb is comprised of 8 tetrahedral corner-pieces and 6 square face-pieces. It rotates around its corners such that any move turns exactly half the puzzle. This results in over 3 million possible combinations (3,149,280 to be exact) - more than 3 times the Pyraminx's 922,120 possible combinations. Unlike the Pyraminx, it has no "trivial" parts and it is considered a harder puzzle to solve. You might notice, However, that the face-pieces of this puzzle lack a defined orientation - which make this puzzle a bit more manageable. Computer simulations show us that any of the Skewb's combinations can be solved in 11 moves or less. This puzzle also has higher-order siblings such as the Master Skewb and the Elite Skewb.
This beloved puzzle was invented by Tony Durham. It gained a lot of popularity and became an inspiration for a whole series of puzzles including the Skewb Extreme, Ultimate Skewb, Diamond Skewb, Twisty Skewb and many others! With it's increasing popularity it eventually became an official WCA puzzle. The current world record for fastest solve belongs to Zayn Khanani from the United States and is 0.81 seconds! This is especially incredible since it beats the Pyraminx's world record despite having over 3 times as many possible combinations.