Butterfly Jun Mizutani ZLC

FYI, the picture is old. It now looks like JM SZLC but with white lines instead of yellow. Its also 5+2 ply unlike the description which gives 3+2. This blade has great feel and feedback as the ZLC flexes and transmit vibration of the ball well, the top ply is also limba which helps. Looping is great as the ZLC flexes and provides dwell time but the ball will travel fast once it leaves the blade so you have the best of both worlds. Seems to compliment a chinese full arm style loop but europeon style works but not as well. You do have to come forward more and hit the ball slightly to the side which makes looping backspin on the BH tricky. Definately more suitable for 1 wing loopers who step around on the BH side.Punching and flicking is surprisingly great even against backspin. Counterlooping is amazing as the soft wood and ZLC will negate some spin and power from your opponents loop, this increases your margin of error. Throw angle is abit low but that could be due to my rubbers which also have low throw. Touch is controllable once you know the treshold of force that causes the zlc to flex. Any force below this treshold will cause the blade to play like an all wood blade. The treshold is quite low so be careful if you have bad touch. Similar to touch, the serve is tricky as sometimes you will engage the carbon and sometimes you dont. Due to the nature of serving, its harder to control when and where the the ZLC comes into play but with practice I'm sure this wont be an issue.

Overall a great blade. I like to refer it as the ZLC version of Viscaria. I believe anyone who can control ALC can control ZLC with practice and vice versa, the only reason you want to choose ZLC is for the playstyle it supports which is does for me.