OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Just received a red sheet of Firestorm Soft.

The sponge is bright yellow and at least as soft as the Waran's.
The pimples are conical, smaller and I'd say a little shorter than the Waran's. They also feel softer.

Looking forward to trying it out tonight!

In 1.8mm? Probably the best option if the sponge is indeed soft as 1.5mm could bottom out.

Your comparison against Waran will be interesting especially re how low the ball skids on blocks and drives i.e. what they seem to all call disruptive effect. I like Waran on the BH for attacking but it can be difficult to block hard shots short i.e. take pace off the ball.

It might seem a bit too lively on first go due to the heavily boosted sponge.

Unless this sponge is unusually soft, it's usually quite difficult to bottom out sponge with BH stokes. Is it possible that it's just really corky, i.e. a loud rubber?! Very soft sponges are often loud like this, and it doesn't necessarily mean they're bottoming out. As far as brushing with SP, you shouldn't need to do that unless you're deliberately trying to introduce spin variations. SP's strong suit is flat-hit balls that arrive on a beeline without any topspin to help your opponent lift their return over the net. Watch some Mima Ito videos on Youtube to get an idea of this. Of course, these are also the most difficult strokes to deliver, so less elite players like us tend to strike a balance between safety/success and the beeline drive. For me, the most rewarding SP drive is one that's so fast and spinless that my opponent hits it onto their side of the table first, as if they were serving.

I'd say the only short pips I've had that had a sponge that felt softer than Firestorm Soft was Dr Neubauer Pistol 2.

Had a fun time at the tournament yesterday. Was a giant round robin format and I was ranked 7th out of 8 guys, so playing mostly guys rated above me. Early on I started with the Waran II, thinking the harder sponge would be more necessary against the better players. But the fact was, I just couldn't control it against their shots. So I switched back to the softer Waran and started playing better and better as the day went along. After only winning 1 game out of my first five matches, I won my last two matches (one against a player above me, one against the player below), both 3-0. I stopped thinking technically about my forehand stroke and just played with feel, and started hitting some very good, well controlled forehand shots. Blocking with the softer sponge was much easier, and I could counter attack better. Earlier in the day players were going after my forehand as they could tell I was struggling. By the end, they were staying away from it, which worked well for me because I really like the ORKan on the backhand. Without swinging hard I felt like I was able to get decent enough speed with more spin than I expected. Had one opponent notice how often the ball was hitting his finger when trying to block my forehand shots, as I was getting more sidespin than he expected. I've still got a long ways to go, but considering I was able to play to my current rating with a setup I've only been using maybe 7 or 8 times prior to the tournament, with a completely different stroke on the forehand, this is very encouraging. I will be sticking with the regular Waran 2.0 mm sponge on my forehand for a while.
On a side note, it was fun to see a short pips penhold player in my group. His rating was in the mid 1900s and he took second place, and even beat the top seed, who was rated over 2200. He used Victas VO>101 very effectively. The amount of spin that he was able to vary on spins gave a lot of people trouble, and his flat hits would end points consistently.

Hi ChasFox, my Waran sheets have the more recent batch that you describe. I've learned to do soft loops against under spin with it, but against dead balls or top spin balls trying any sort of spin-type stroke is not possible. I do like that I can return a soft loop with a bit of top spin against just about any amount of under spin, as heavy under spin used to give me a lot of trouble. I might have to try the Firestorm soft. Also interested in trying the Victas VO>102 as I've read a lot of good things. I do have a blade with the TSP Spinpips Red on it. As others have noted, it is very different from Waran, quite spinny and sponge is faster. It also feels quite a bit heavier to me. I almost forgot, I also have a sheet of Globe 889-2 sitting around to try.
EDIT: Ordered a sheet of Firestorm Soft today!

Can anyone confirm that firestorm soft has the same disturbance of waran?