Very disappointing. I voiced my frustrations about that yesterday.
The variant counts towards the Hero Gallery total, so “completing” any hero’s cosmetic count will require they unlocked the Jade weapon variant during this competitive year. It’ll be weird seeing if new heroes even have a Jade weapon variant at all (since they will never be able to earn it), and if not, new players will be confused: “Why does Juno have Gold and Jade options while the new hero Jetpack Cat has only Gold and Ruby options?”
The only justification being that the variant color is supposed to represent playtime during that competitive year is silly. Players care about unlocking the cosmetics to complete collections and show off a fun color; they don’t care that it basically means, “I played competitive during a Drive weekend back in 2024 - NOT in 2026.”
It looks like the best we can hope for is that this next color is a big hit with the community, and they raise a bigger stink about losing it. Perhaps a stronger response from the community will let Jade come back as a legacy option in 2026, when they rotate out the comp year 2025 weapon variant.