OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Blocking with slick antis is just a matter of angle. You gotta adjust how far you open your blade. Robot training or so helps decisively in adjusting. With a typical slick anti, the angle is almost not spin-dependent, but speed certainly matters.

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Equipment: Dr Neubauer Firewall+ - Butterfly Tenergy 05 - Spinlab Vortex 2.3 (red sponge)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... P8VROwh9cc here is a video .I block with Nightmare.

Hi, fans of ooak!

Since there are not many founded reports on the Beast in this forum yet, I want to report a little about my experiences. I test the rubber since its market appearance for altogether some 30 hours since then.
Regarding myself. I play tt in Germany, in a local league right now, in my best times I played 1. Bezirksliga, which may translate into 1. County league or so.
I use to play Joola Timeless (TL in the following), and Nightmare (NM in the following) before, among short test of a couple of other sleek antis in between. I mounted the Beast on the same blade as the other two are, which allowed for a direct comparison. This is a "Piet" blade with two decoupled balsa cores and a cherry outer ply on the backhand side. The forehand was equipped with Andro Rasant on all three blades.
The first impression was that the Beast drastically alters the sound of the entire blade, quite amazing. The weight of the Beast is a little below the NM and remarkably higher than the TL.

Attack
the Beast is a dream for attacking: especially against underspin very fast, unpleasantly flat bouncing, precisely placed pressure-chops are possible; also topspin movement may be possible, which has - unexpectedly for most opponents (expectedly for the insiders) - less spin reversal than the chops. In this respect the Beast is by far superior to all antis I know. Also slow, spinny topspins, which are usually a little high but difficult to counter effectively with TL or NM (at least for me) can be countered at a glance with a chopping-like motion.

Blocking
The outgoing angle of the Beast is between TL and NM. Contrary to the slow topspins (ts in the following) mentioned above, the Beast works best against ts when not supported by any wrist or arm motion but just with a passive block, only on very heavy ts a slight withdrawal of the blade allows a shorter return. The sponge is very effective in slowing down especially hard spins, which tend to touch the wood with the TL, while it slows down slower ts not that much so that the return is usually faster than with the TL though not as fast as with the NM.

Safety and control
a. Short game
This is not the absolute domain of the Beast because some balls get too high and may be flipped by a opponent who knows they have no spin.
b. Angle dependency
in this respect the Beast is by far less sensible than the NM, though it does not reach the TL. Especially against ts at a speed a little above average it tends sometimes to do what it wants - you don't know what you might have made wrong. But for most other balls this is not a great problem.
c. Placement
Excellent! If angle dependency does not strike you, the ball usually really goes where it is intended to. Here the Beast is superior to all antis.

Disruption
a. Jitter balls
Against sidespin the Beast can produce jitter, though not as much as the other two.
b. Discarding
Making a quick rally slow suddenly ist possible, though I do not master it as I do with the TL. This is especially a problem against defenders or mid-distance offenders, whom I usually allure out of their comfort area to loop the subsequent ball quick and long. This, however, may be a matter of training and time.
c. Reversal
My first attempts werde quite dissapointing because I put the rubber out of the box onto its blade. After AA-cleaning reversal was at abount the same level as TL and NM, with most looping opponents feeling even less comfortable with the blocks on ts compared to the TL because the returns are typically faster.
d. Empty game
Experienced opponents do not feed the anti with spin. This is the most effective weapon against antis, as you know. My judgement on this is still a little open. I personally feel less comfortable with my returns on empty balls than I do with the TL, but most opponents tell me they feel less comfortable against the Beast. I have to do further testing to resolve this discrepancy.

As a summary, this is for me the best anti on the market after the TL; but the TL is no more sold by Joola so people have to seek for alternatives in the near future, and this absolutely is one. Its few shortcomings may well be solved with more practising. If you are interested, I will report on my advancers if there will be any.

Anyhow, I could beat a frequent training partner who successfully plays 1. Bezirksliga for the first time ever even after a few hours of practic with the Beast.

Have a good time all of you.

Great review, thanks Arno_K! Welcome to the forum?

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Mine has arrived, all made up. Thanks Guido for great service.

Can't help wonder what is in the anti cleaner. Is it 100% legal or could it be classed as treating the rubber? I guess any cleaning agent does this anyway. Should I use anything specific to apply it and how much do I need?

Still unsure what to put on the forehand side. Part of me hankers to try inverted once again, but my head says if it ain't broke don't fix it!

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Tango Ultra 2mm black, DMS Storkraft 1.6mm red, DMS Invictus
Well done bat!

Very interesting report, Arno_K; thanks and have my welcome, too.

Fortunately I play in a league that does not care much about all those crazy money-making ITTF rules, and I will certainly play Timeless until I can't get any more of these. However, thereafter the Beast seems to be very worth testing!

MNNB, you wrote the Tachi is not well suited for the Beast - what are your other impressions on it?

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Equipment: Dr Neubauer Firewall+ - Butterfly Tenergy 05 - Spinlab Vortex 2.3 (red sponge)

I tried it a couple of sessions on the Tachi. On that blade it was difficult for me to keep hard hits from going long. Also I thought the trajectory was too high from a neutral bat angle making it hard to keep the ball low. I tried the rubber as is and then cleaned and found no significant difference. Spin-reversal was nowhere near frictionless pips levels. Everyone told me that they would much rather play against the Beast than the long pips I usually use.

Perhaps it would be better on another blade.

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The MNNB Blog has had some pretty amazing stuff lately. Just click this text to check it out. | My OOAK Interview
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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

The Tachi has a soft outer ply, doesn't it? Maybe this makes the difference.

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Equipment: Dr Neubauer Firewall+ - Butterfly Tenergy 05 - Spinlab Vortex 2.3 (red sponge)

I think it's a very thin hard outer ply with a very thick balsa ply directly underneath.

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The MNNB Blog has had some pretty amazing stuff lately. Just click this text to check it out. | My OOAK Interview
Table Tennis Video Links: itTV | laola1.tv | ttbl | fftt | Challenger Series | mnnb-tv

My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

It is 100 % legal.With cleaning it will not be more frictionless only the frictionless will come back after it get dirty from dust.
Spray only 1-2 times direct on the rubber and clean with a soft rag (i use microfaser).
Dont press on the rubber only polish

Welcome Arno also from me.You will see OAK forum is much more friendly than any german forum.
I use it to learn better english and it becomes better and better.
For the blade I would say BEAST ANTI is better with hard fast blades like Spinhunter.
NIGHTMARE is better with slow soft blades.

But like everytime it is individual...........

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Blade: der-materialspezialist INVICTUS /ST handle
Backhand: BARNA ORIGINAL SUPER GLANTI red 1,2mm
Forehand: der-materialspezialist HARDCORE black 1,8mm

http://www.der-materialspezialist.com
https://www.barnaoriginal.com

According to my experiences, most slicks do not work well with balsa blades with a single core. Two uncoupled cores, contrariwise, usually are a good choice. I have never tried the Nightmare with a soft wood because I had not expected this to be a wise option, so maybe the manufacturer is right and my problems with his previous rubber were from choosing the wrong blade.

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Equipment: Dr Neubauer Firewall+ - Butterfly Tenergy 05 - Spinlab Vortex 2.3 (red sponge)

Hi Everybody

Things seem to have gone quiet on the Beast front! Has anybody adopted this as their main backhand rubber? Has anybody used it in competition? I gave Timeless quite a few competitive attempts and would try The Beast in my Summer League if any of you could give some further feedback.

Bulldog.

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Tibhar Stratus Power Defense
Tibhar Evolution ELP
Tibhar Grass DTecS Ox

For me, so far I've only had limited time with this. Instinctively it doesn't feel the right route for me as the angles and touch required are so different to how I currently play. My summer experiment is therefore going to me about a forehand switch to inverted not backhand switch to anti.

I do think the rubber has potential in the right hands. Just not in mine. It sends back seriously odd awkward balls. It's just too slow for me too.

If anyone wanted to make me an offer I'll sell on my whole set up including the cleaner. It cost me around 110 pounds but I'd happily sell on for around 65 including a sheet of Tango Ultra on the forehand. Pm me if interested. (What a bargain if I say so myself)

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Tango Ultra 2mm black, DMS Storkraft 1.6mm red, DMS Invictus
Well done bat!

Hi dingwol2

My teammates have persuaded me to stick to lps on my backhand for the Birmingham Summer League season but I might give the the DTecS another try. It worked for a couple of seasons.

I enjoyed your play in the Ipswich closed.

Bulldog.

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Tibhar Stratus Power Defense
Tibhar Evolution ELP
Tibhar Grass DTecS Ox

I also had abit of that problem of angle dependency with the 1.2 Beast. With the 1.5 these seem gone. There is almost no angle-dependency, as the 1.2 still had. Reversal is the same but all aspects of safety are improved. attacking on the other side is more difficult with the 1.5. The only disadvantage compared to the timeless I still encounter is that wobbling curves occur much less often.B ut some training partners told me they did not pay as mucxh attention because of the lacking wobbling and found the beastmore dangeros because of their own mental attitude.