OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I have been using Stiga Carbonado 90 for 1,5 years, and before that Carbonado 190 for almost a year. The C90 is a blade with a thin carbon layer, rather woody feeling and a low throw. It has a huge sweet spot and got a decent top speed. C190 has a thicker carbon layer, harder feel, lower throw and higher top speed, but is more difficult for looping against back spin. In top spin rallies the C90 grabs the ball a little better and you can control the ball and its spin better.

These are good blade for my game, blocking with anti on BH, pushing agressive against back spin with anti, returning most serves with ant and looking for a push or weak shot to the middle or FH side to start attacking with FH and hopefully win the point.

I have been using DMS Reflection 0.9 mm on BH and Yinhe Jupiter II on FH this season, but I have also used Diabolic Extra Slow and tried DrN ABS 2 soft over the summer.

Now, I have been a little bored with C90 and wanted to try a faster blade that also keeps the blocks lower. I bought a couple of Palio TCT (very cheap in comparison to Stiga) and a few days ago I got the Barna Triumph, the blade Amir Ahmed is currently using. I have also brefly tried DMS Deluxe Carbon (similar to Revolution but with carbon) and Barna Victory (a thinner and slower version of Triumph) that a friend has and uses (Marcus "Magoo" Johansson). So I will try to compare these blades and describe how they work with frictionless (slick) anti and with sticky FH rubbers. Bear in mind that I only uses the Stiga Perform ball (ABS, the least spinny ball I guess) since that is used in like 95 % of the competitio s and league matches here in Sweden. So maximum back spin from blocking and lowest possible throw angle is very important to be able to play this style with that ball.

The Deluxe Carbon (Marcus current blade) blocks the ball very low and with some speed. The feeling in the blocks is controlled but also with some nice acceleration that puts the opponents under preassure. It is a stiff blade, it feels very solid and stable when smashing, looping and blocking with inverted. But it is not so stiff that you have trouble imparting spin at loops or serves (but this is not as easy as with C90). It also has a nice sweet spot, although not as huge as C90. I like it a lot. Oh, it also works very nice with Mega Block for some reason .

The Triumph is at a first try rather similar to Deluxe but with some more speed and a little higher throw. There may be a little more spin reversal from Triumph compared to Deluxe. Som blocks are very good but I had some.troubles with agressive pushing against back spin. With the low throw th ball shoots straight without arc when doing that shot, so I either put the ball tomthe neg or tol far. The blade also feels very stable and solid. It is clearly thicker than the other blades but not so thick that it bothers. Well, serving is a little more difficult with this blade, partly because of that and partly because of the short dwell time. The ball leaves this bat very quickly, so it is a little difficult to impart spin at loops or looping soft against back spin (like when you have to move towards a push and loop it back from lower than the table's surface). But smashing and fast looping against back spin is good. To me this blade is very nice but I would need to practice with it a lot to get safe with my FH. So it is not an easy transition from C90, but I may do it after the next league match. Also, the sweet spot is a little small for someone like me, who only practices two times per week.

The Barna Victory I only tried a few minutes and without any rubber on FH side. Marcus tried it a little more, also with a FH rubber, and he also tried Triumph. The Victory is the same blade as Triumph but with thinner woods in the middle. The outer ply is the same on these two, as well as.the thin center ply. So, the Victory is slower and gas a higher throw than Triumph. But the spin reversal from blocks with anti is perhaps even better than with Triumph. Victory feels less hard, less stable and stiff. It reminded me a little of the blade Terror. So if you arena more new to this game or plays on a lower level, this is a very good blade for blocking with anti, since it is more forgiving and perhaps more easy when looping against back spin. To mee (and Marcus) it is too slow, slower than Deluxe, perhaps even slower than Revolution.

The Matador of Dr Neubauer comes in 3 versions, original, with some kind of carbon (Texa) and with balsa and carbon. I owned a Texa Balsa that I sold. I only tried it briefly with anti. So here I will shortly describe the original Matador. Like with Victory and even Deluxe I have not used this blade a lot, only a couple of minutes trying some blocks, some pushes and some loops. But it is a very nice blade, perhaps with too small handle for some. It feels line a fast allround blade. An ordinary player (double inverted) would not notice anything special about this blade, almost like my C90 - made for modern table tennis (not for junk material ). So FH is very nice, good speed with some gears, medium arc (higher than C90), very controlled but perhaps a little softer or "weaker" feel than C90 (not as stiff) and far less stiff than Triumph or Deluxe. So you get rather surprised when you block with anti the first time, because it is really good for this. Again, not extreme low throw like Deluxe but low and controlled and with good spin reversal, just not as much as Deluxe. I am not sure if C90 returns more back spin than Matador. But the feeling is a little different, C90 having good dampening without killing the back spin, while Matador may send the ball away with a more direct feeling at blocks. Anyway, this is a very good blade and I think texa version is even better but it could be too fast for a thin anti (I believe texa is a little faster than Deluxe, not sure).

Now, the Palio TCT. I found this blade when searching for the stiffest blade at Revspin (https://revspin.net/blade/). There was one blade for sala at a webshop in Sweden, I told Marcus about it and he bought it. We both tried it and it liked it a lot for blocking with anti. It sends the ball flat, with some speed but still not too fast. Kind of similar to Deluxe, but still with a very different feeling. But this blade is a real monster when it comes to FH looping, smashing and blocking. The sound when hitting the ball is super high pitched, scaring the opponent away . And when blocking with inverted rhe ball shoots straight out, like from a cannon. Smashing is very easy, the spin on incomming ball never bothers you. So against a defender this blade is a dream, just hit through the spin. So I ordered a coupme of more blades from China, since they only costs like $20. But the quality is not top notch (not expected with that price), the outer ply is very fragile. So seal it before you even breathe at it and make sure to have a few back up blades.

Now, in theory, this blade should be excellent for anti-blocking. But for some reason it kind of kills some of the back spin. The ball goes flat and you can control the length rather good, concerning how fast then blade is. But opponent can loop it back more easy than with any of.the other blades, at least with Diabolic ES. A thicker Reflection works a little better. So I guess a really slow anti, like Reflection 1.5 mm could do the trick, but there would still be less back spin than from C90 with Reflection 1.2.or 0.9. But perhaps it would be sufficient for my game? Not sure. Amir has also tried this blade and not found an anti that works with it.

So I really wanted to get this blade to work with anti because I line it so much for the rest of my game. I figured that a harder sponge might do the trick. The only one I had was a 1.8 mm ABS2 soft that I had gotten from Marcus, a bit torned and very wrinkled. And to my surprise it worked rather good. It was not as super fast and uncontrolled as I would have expected (I was expecting something like Gorilla on a fast blade). The throw in blocks was low and straight. There was, probably, enough back spin for my game, although not as much as from Reflection 0.9 on Triumph or C90. So I need to investigate more and therefore I will get a new, fresh ABS2 soft in 2.1 mm to try.

So I now have 3 paths in front of me. First, I will stay with C90 and Reflection 0.9 over the next weekend when the next league match is taking place. Then, in mid December, I have the next league gathering. It may be a little tight to make any changes in that time but it depends on how it goes next weekend.

So the next path would be to learn to play with Triumph or perhaps Deluxe, I think my game would benefit from a faster and stiffer blade.

The third path, a long term path, is to develop my game so I can use the TCT with some anti. This would help me put more preassure on my opponents and help me take another step up in my game. But I guess I would need the long break between seasons for that change. To start with Triumph may be a good step.

Also, there may be other blades with similar characteristics as TCT that is bwtter with anti. I know many lile the Yinhe T-series for this game - anyone with such experience?

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

Its a minefield mate.
Personally i make my judgement on what my play is like against the top players in the league.
If the bat works at that high level then i know things are right for me.
Ive had to change my game and attack more with the f/h.my blade is faster and i mainly chop now with best anti.
i really want to block at the table but my average is a lot better when i dont and play with a faster set up.
i play in three first divisions so base my gear to my performance.
Ps i wish i had your budget lol
pps-a blade with a low throw makes a lot of sense so the ball doesnt pop up.
as u know you get a blade and the b/h side is great but the f/h side is compromised.

Def Attack, I have experience with Deluxe and I must say the blade is great for the anti.When I tested Reflection in 0.9mm + Deluxe Carbon the blocks where loaded with huge backspin and the control was good .I remember it blocked really well with inverted .Speedwise,it can make the combo off+ if you play with max thickness.

As I have not been able to change to anti due to not having enough time before the season started ,then, I tested Deluxe with pips and it worked great , more backspin and speed, however, for my style I don't need such a stiff blade .I would have to play with a really slow pip like TM , which worked great but I need more disruption . The added speed of Deluxe works great ,anyway .

I still have to test Deluxe with other combinations of inverted and pips.The speed of Deluxe makes one use a slow pip and for my forehand the thinnest sponge possible as I want control in my loops and blocks .

Bottom line, Deluxe as you may have been told is a quality blade but how you choose the rubbers is essential so the blade offers all its advantages .

Now i use Dr Neubauer Bloodhound carbon blade for fanti. Not the stiffest or hardest but the control very good. But i find this blade little slow for me and i like to buy some faster harder stiffer blade.

I just know many player in Germany use Yinhe T6 blade. Stiff and hard and Off- speed.

I think if you have very slow anti that maybe good with faster Yinhe blade like T7s or T8s.

https://tenismejashops.wordpress.com/pr ... -t-series/

I got 2 sheets of ABS2 2.1 mm, both soft and regular, to try on the Palio TCT blade. I have tried ABS2 soft.earlier on different blades but it felt, well, not as good as Reflection or Diabolic ES. But since those won't work good on TCT I figured I might try a hard anti on TCT. I had a wrinkled and worn sheet of ABS2 soft 1.8 mm that I tried and it worked unexpected well on TCT. I imagined it would be way too fast but the blde with that rubber dampened the speed well if I used a soft touch.

So I tried both soft and regular 2.1 mm on my two TCT blades. Very nice! Especially the regular version was very good with nice spin reversal, low throw and enough speed reduction to be able to black even hard loops. With my regular setup, Carbonado 90 and Reflection 0.9 mm the back spin is a little better and the fluttering is a little more obvoius due to the slower speed, but the throw is lower (I think) with ABS2 on TCT and the ball approaches the oponent much faster, which can be both good and bad. I have only tried it a few sessions, so I need to evaluate more. But I really like this blade and I would love to find an anti that works with it. This may be it .

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

I tried the Palio TCT-blade again, this time with Dr Neubauer ABS2 top sheet on the sponge delivered with Spinlab Vortex (red, 1.2 mm, very soft and slow). On FH I use my regular Galaxy Jupiter II. Here is a clip with two sets against an opponent that is VERY used to my gamestyle and anti. Some easy misstakes from me (and from him), some because I was not used to the blade or the anti.

https://youtu.be/Df7Z7RMapX8

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

Thanks for posting the video. Good backhand looping when twiddling!

You are using the sponge from Vortex - does that mean you've tried Vortex also? Would you have any videos of you playing with Vortex?

Yes, I did try the Vortex for like an hour on my Carbonado 90-blade. It felt rather similar to ABS2 but with better attacking abilities against no spin and also slight top spin. But the ball went high on blocks and aggressive pushing against back spin were not very good, poor spin reversal. But the ball stayed low on that stroke, so I could be rather aggressive.

I may give it another try, with the same blade as in the video above. But like with the ABS2, I would like better reversal on blocks, so the spin builds up for every loop (this of course also depends on opponents spin), so they can't just loop on safe on my BH and then go for then kill. Here I have some options, to place block well and low, to keep block it short, to back away from the table, or to have a setup that keeps the spin in the ball so that most opponents can't loop with more speed on 2nd loop, but instead must lift the ball more and most likely creating more spin and making next block even spinnier. This last scenario is possible with Diabolic ES and Reflection 0.9 mm (but there are other flaws, like durability, here) on Deluxe Carbon or even on my Carbonado. With Palio TCT the spin reversal is poor with those antis. And although the ABS2 top sheet on red sponge was good on this blade, I am not sure I would be able to use that combo for that scenario. The spin reversal was sometimes very good on slow spinny loops, but not against harder loops. I will have to try and see

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

Thanks for sharing your experience. I was under the impression from noppentest forum that Vortex was very high reversal against loops. As with so many aspects of the material game, it may just be highly blade dependent.

The DMS Revolution was the best blade for blocking with fanti for me. Shite for an inverted forehand though.

It is good. But perhaps not soo much better as many would like it to be .
Deluxe is like Revolution but for me, better for FH. I did not like Revolution for looping.

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

how about returning to the 190? I'm currently using the 190 but thinking of changing to 90. Would you say the 90 is better on forehand than the 190.

For me 90 is better in terms of spin, looping agInst push and control.190 has better sweet spot and is faster. Blocks are lower but not clearly with more backspin.

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

Hi Def-Attack.

Do you know the wood composition of Barna Triumph and MSP Deluxe Carbon by any chance ?

Kind regards,

Rinforzando

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Setup 1
Blade - Gerry Viscaria Super ZLC
FH - Tuttle G20 President
BH - Slick antispin

Sorry, no.

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube