I am always in search for the ultimate combination with frictionless anti and a blade that keeps the ball low, does not kill any of the spin in the ball when blocking, and at the same time is nice for FH looping, especially against back spin. This is fairly difficult combination to find, and if you change just one parameter, like sponge thickness, very much can change.
For a game with blocking with anti close to the table, and aggressively pushing against backspin with the anti (or fast lifting back spin), the frictionless anti Barna SuperGlanti is the best for me. DMS Störkraft is really good but is does not give as much back spin when blocking loops (but it is more controlled and better for attacking). I have tried all three different sponges of SuperGlanti and some works good on some blades but not on other. The Absorber is great on the Victory blade and ok on Palio TCT (but not better than original sponge, just different). The Attack sponge works nice on slow stiff blades, like Stiga Defensive Pro (I have not tried that sponge very much, just a few hits).
So far I have found that the Palio TCT is a very good blade for SG 1,6 mm. Very low throw and massive back spin on blocks. But this blade is not very easy for looping against back spin, since it is stiff like a metal plate. So Yesterday I got to try two new blades. First the expensive Stiga Legacy with a very thin but very hard carbon layer. This is a great blade, even better for blocking than Palio TCT, even lower throw and perhaps more back spin. And I felt very confident with this blade - FH loops against back spin or top spin was very easy and accurate. So a fantastic blade that made me want to attack with FH and also twiddle and attack with BH a lot. Only downside is the price
. And for me, the fact that when it comes to real matches I know I will hesitate a lot more about twiddeling and attacking.
Side by side with the Stiga Legacy I also tried the Barna Winner for the first time. This blade is a light and verty stiff blade with good speed and also nice control. THe really odd thing with this blade is that when you block with anti (I tried 0.8 and 1.2 Super Glanti original sponge) the ball goes rather fast and super low, with lots of back spin left in the ball. And when you loop with FH the throw is rather high, making it easy to loop against back spin. And just for making spin. And the low weight (75 gram) makes shifting from BH to FH for emergancy blocks very fast, this gives confidence.
At fist the high throw on attacks is difficult to handle and many attacks went long, as well as FH blocks. But this is rather easy to correct with some practice. The main benefit in the anti-blocking-game with this blade is that you keep the ball low and rather fast, and your attacks against pushes can be very deadly. Another interesting thing with this setup (Winer and SG 1,2 mm) is that when you push aggressively against a push, or more do a side sweep against a push, the ballcan have some back spin for the opponent, instead of top spin as it usually have. Agasint less experienced players this is not good but agasint most players at my level or above this is very helpful. Most players loop with little spin against my BH and wait for my block. Then they push or guide the ball back for me to push. And then they know they have a nice slight top spin to just attack as good as possibel. If that last push from me sometimes has back spin the opponent gets confused and needs to be more cautious, and that helps me a lot.
So, I have only used the blade for about one hour but it feels very promising. This session I only played matches and against opponents very familiar with my style. I played the first two sets with Winner and 1,2 SG and then two sets with the Stiga Legacy and 1,6 SG. Results were about the same but with Legacy I play almost exactly as with Palio TCT (but better consistency on FH loops) and with Winner I play more active with the anti, and do more with the anti. I also missed a lot more with FH with the Winner due to the higher throw but I feel that the Winner has a little more potential.
So, next session I think I will use the Winner all through the session. And I will write more here about the blade then.
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