OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Amidst every year's flood of genuinely new and me-too products, what are some recent (say, since ~2015) examples of blades, rubbers, shoes, balls, etc that stand out to OOAK members as particularly impactful in the sport, or potentially enduring, and why?

I don't mean equipment that was significant in a negative way, like pre-ABS DHS 40+ balls. I mean gear that'll make a name for itself, like Sriver, Mark V, Acoustic, Tenergy, TBS and so on did.

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"Once you get past a certain threshold, everyone's problems are the same: fortifying your island and hiding the heat signature from your fusion reactor." –Doctor Impossible

Can't really think of any. Tenergy's still the No. 1 rubber, and most of the top players play with blades that have been around a long time (e.g. Viscaria). Maybe one or more of the Ma Long blades?? And the new stuff from Butterfly - has any of it caught on in a big way? What sort of name is "Garaydia"?

Iskandar

The very nature of a "classic" is that is has been around for a while, and is still highly regarded. That being said, I think most new rubbers are unlikely to achieve classic status, because the drive is now towards technology, leading to new rubbers coming out regularly. If MX-P stays on the market, it could come to be regarded as a classic.

In blades, the contender for me would be the DHS H301, which really has a touch of greatness about it for a reasonable cost.

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Other setups:
SDC Custom Blade/Butterfly Dignics 80/Butterfly Glayzer
BTY Viscaria/Tibhar K3/Tibhar K3

I'm a bit more cynical. I don't think it's technology that's driving the introduction of new rubbers, it's the fact that if you don't constantly release new rubbers every year you'll lose market share, because your competitors ARE releasing new rubbers and generating buzz. Tenergy does seem to be an exception to this (people keep buying it and buying it even though it's what - 10 years old already and Butterfly charging arm-and-leg prices for it), but even Butterfly has to keep introducing new rubbers (Bryce Speed, Rozena) - to fill "niches", they say. Note that ALL the new European rubbers are OEM'ed by one company and have pretty much the same level of technology in them. Yeah, they may be slightly different, but they're very similar. Meanwhile, Tenergy remains the one everything else is compared against. (Note also the new, as yet unseen, Tenergy variants in the latest LARC - 05N for instance. No scuttlebutt on them as yet..)

Iskandar