EJ juices started to flow when I heard about the unicorn from hell hanging out with the gangster
I saw the videos on youtube on hellfire x and Dr. N gangster ox, both LP for the plastic ball and I had to try them. I am 1700's usatt. Playing with LP about 14 months. This is a non-methodical highly subjective review.
I tried gangster ox on many blades defensive to off+ (cwx, jsk, matador, jackpot, grand master, s3, chen defender, spinlord ultra def, tbzlc etc...), surprisingly you can play on those faster blades with gangster ox whereas with dtecs ox (my first ox rubber) it would be uncontrollable. It was slow enough that I could block short. I do chop blocking a lot as my first lp blades was firewall plus with dtecs ox, so I compare all chop blocking to that original combination I used. The previous statements are also true for hellfire X
chop blocking: This is key for me. I want adequate spin reversal. gangster actually had decent spin reversal, I have to add when you watch those youtube videos, their opponent madly tries to fh loop to the lp guy obviously you will get great spin reversal in those situations. But when you play against knowledgeable opponents, who give you no spin balls and light spin balls with most of the shots to your bh, gangster stands out, it still was able to get some spin reversal but hellfire x easily got smacked.
Blocking: Both are awesome for blocking, and depending on the blade the blocks may take a dive after blocking and may even have funk. I found that gangster ox played well on both the jsk blade (regardless of fh rubber) and the violin (need heavy rubber fh rubber). On the jsk, gangster ox had just enough speed to be aggressive, on the violin something about the violin, the chop blocks were great and when blocking balls nosedived the most and had some funk. But violin was so light, even with t5h on fh I could not get much power in my fh. and the blade seemed so small I kept missing some shots or hitting my finger especially when my opponent gave me heavier side spins. (I am waiting for the violoncello to arrive). Blocking for the hellfire x was somewhat similar to the gangster ox. I mostly tried hellfire X on the unicorn. This is a very light combo with t5fx on fh, it also played well with heavier fh rubbers, I tried rhyzer 50 pro. I also tried on acoustic, was not as good.
Hitting topsin or nospin: Hellfire x seems to hit better than gangster ox, I have not figure this out yet, but for gangster ox, I seem to need more wrist motion.
unicorn with hellfire x: Great combination, very light with enough speed to compete. I cheated I actually preferred the gangster ox on the unicorn for chop blocking, and that worked even better in my opinion, not sure sauer and troger will agree. With gangster ox on unicorn, the chop blocks and lift blocks (yeah I made up a word) seemed easier, little bit higher throw over the net.
I also tried gangster ox on the matador texa as recommended by maximum-tt, in fact I also tried it on couple of matadors i had with different weights it was OK. But on the texa it became very aggressive in a good way.
Gameplay, I played hellfire x on jsk and matador texa I lost more matches than I won. The following day I used JSK with gangster ox against a pips player I often played against but have only won one match against him ever. Note that this is the first time I have used gangster on JSK and in any match. I proceeded to beat him 3-0; I did chop blocks chop lifts and a splattering of fh loops because he played all balls to my bh.
Chop from distance: Both sucky, lack of spin, have to chop really hard to get some spin. I will try gangster 0.5 next.