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There's not a lot of blades I would say can do anything. But this is one of them. As you develop your strokes more and more, you'll find that this blade is one of the direct causes toward how quickly you're improving.
Looping = Cake
Hitting = Cake
Blocking = Cake

Even coaches love this blade, they can teach every strokes extremely easily and control every ball with ease.

The only cause I could think of would be the lack of speed required at higher levels.

Firstly, this is the Innerforce ALC. This is different than the Innerforce Layer ALC ------- Also playing level reference= 1756 USATT .

The blade is a dream come true for players who love the feeling of all-wood blades. Since there's two layers of wood outside their alc layer, there's a very woody feeling felt through the vibration feedback you get when doing your strokes. The outside layers are made of limba, which is very soft providing additional control on passive blocks. If you're more of a passive blocker opposed to a counter hitter, this may appeal to you quite a bit. The blade is pretty thin, and with how thin it is, you can bet it's flexible.

Looping is super easy, mostly due to the flexibility and how soft the blade is. The ball is always loaded with spin on loops. However, this flexibility takes control away when trying to hit flat for a kill.

Recommended for players who like to spin the ball and like wood blades. This is really perfect if you're trying to transition to carbon.

Very good rubber, in some ways different from the usual tensors. High grip when you make contact and the topsheet feels hard even though the soft is relatively soft (about 43 degrees). Able to handle high levels of spin with control and is not bouncy. Requires active strokes to generate spin and speed (unlike say T05, which is designed to spin for you), but the spin levels are pretty high if you like to play that way. May not suit people who like bouncy rubbers like Tenergy and the like, but if you have short game issues and want something that you can play with in rallies where you generate your own spin and speed, this is it. Definitely not as slow as Chinese rubbers and would be a good replacement for someone who finds Omega V Asia too hard/slow.

IF you switch from Tenergy to this, you might be able to use a faster blade. I switched to this from Tenergy 80, went from a Yasaka Extra to an IF ALC and managed to beat players I had not beaten in leagues and tournaments in a long time.

I have used a few esn rubbers and actually used these after upgrading from Vega Pro after a season of use. Upon opening the packet there is a very strong smell from the internal boost, very strong compared to other esn rubber. It was sold to me as another Tenergy substitute but a Tenergy it ain't although it is still a very nice rubber and not massively different. So compared to the popular Tenergy 05 - 1st the speed about the same. 2nd little less spin. 3rd more control. I guess; as do I; prefer a little less spin if it gives me added control however it would be nice to have it all.
It is very similar to the tibhar evo mxp I would say, very nice at most things but low arc of the ball (especially against backspin) is where Tenergy wins I think. They have a nice crack sound when you get the ball sinking into the sponge and ball placement is quite easy with a nice kick as the topspin kicks on the opponents side of the table. One thing I didn't like was when hitting an hard smash/ flat shot it was quite unpredictable as to how fast the rebound would be, not very linear compared to Tenergy I would say, again I think MXp and other esn rubber are very similar in this respect.
Very good at blocking and counter hitting, serves were easy to generate spin as the top-sheet has quite a lot ofgrip. However, like most esn rubbers, the rubber seemed to wear really quick from its original colour and texture when new. Fingers marks and just a general fade in colour after only a couple of training sessions.
Still a very nice rubber that is great at most shots but I would say not spectacular at many. Saying that I would quite happily if given them free to play with swap my current Tenergy rubbers and use again as they are very easy to use.
Try it though and if you are not a Tenergy fan then I think most aggressive topspin players would be more than happy to stick with them. Very similar to the Omega pro and Vega pro rubbers if you have tried them, not a massive difference in any of them IMO. Thanks and hope it helps a little.

Quick review of the Innerforce Layer AL, it was actually a very head heavy blade which I had and the reason I got shot off. This is with Tenergy 05 both sides and was worse with MXS on, the blades weight, 85g. My friends though was much better balanced with MXS on both sides and felt much much different to play with, I don't know the weight though and if this is the difference. So with Tenergy 05 both sides knocking up fh to fh and bh to bh it felt crisp and sweet spot was quite nice also. Looping was easy with plenty of dwell but I didn't feel or get much feedback from the blade upon contact, which for me is important with composite blades. With the good dwell the open ups were really easy and counter top spins also but these were lacking a little power at far distance from table compared to a quicker carbon blade like it's brother the ALC innerforce layer. Blocking was also quite easy and could place the ball where I wanted but again lacked the 'feel' of the ball. With MXS it was actually very similar to using as with the Tenergy 05. Maybe a little more control and I'd say open ups were a little easier especially if not in perfect position to play the shot. Again, blocking was easy but the weight was just to uncomfortable for me. Using the blade after passing it on and sticking a friends Andro Rasant Beat on either side it is a totally different bat then. The very soft sponge on the AL made it feel quite mushy but the control was amazing, excellent control and great close to table. Away from the table a little harder to generate the speed and spin to win an outright point but placement was super easy.

Overall though if you can find one that is weighted or balanced more to the handle than the head of the blade then it is a great blade for fast attacking rubbers like Tenergy 05 and equally as good with harder ESN/tensor rubbers. Hope this helps.

Another good rubber from Tibhars evolution series. I played with MX-P/S fh and FX-P bh all last season in matches. So compared to those two where does El-S fit into the equation. I used it for a few practice sessions and also in a few league games. I think this is a great rubber actually, it has a nice grippy (not tacky) top sheet which generates lots of spin on serves and loops. Just warming up it had that nice feeling and could play most shots without adjusting my stroke to much. As said before in other reviews I think the arc is lower and it is a bit slower than the faster evo family but you gain extra control; and quite a bit extra I think. I used these again on a Drinkhall powerspin carbon and it is more suited to the bh I felt although if you don't worry about the extra speed from the MX series then the only other issue is the slight lower throw so is a bit harder to loop kill a backspin ball, not that it is impossible though. It has nice control very good at counter hitting and blocking heavy spin balls. I have heard some say they think it is quicker than the MXS but I would say slightly slower.
It is a good attacking rubber I think better suited to the back hand. It is about the same weight as most other med/hard sponge tensors but not as heavy as the mxs. As I said I didn't use it much at all but the top sheet was already showing signs of wear and the colour faded very quickly from its original new state, Finger marks showed up from serves etc almost instantly so not sure how long it would last.

Only used it briefly but first impression were (using tenergy 05 fh and 05fx bh) I found it to be easy to use in most shots but not standing out as spectacular in any. Knocking up with usual fh and bh drive and loops this blade felt and sounded lots like an all wood blade actually. Had more of a tock noise than the higher pitch crack from an ALC for example. I have been using power spin carbon for about a year now and compared to that it hasn't quite got the feeling or speed but control was great. As we know Tenergy is a fast aggressive rubber but it was still quite easy to place the ball where I wanted. Controlling a heavy spin shot from an opponents open up was no hassle either. It lacked that bit of speed off the table but was easy to place where you wanted during top to top points. It always felt safe. Touch shots and flicks were easy, the softer hinoki outer layer gave it good dwell so picking up the ball and spinning it back was easy. It just lacked; IMO, any feeling, kind of felt a little lifeless at times. With the drinkhall carbon I can kind of feel the ball grip which I like. I will try it with some mxp or fxp and update it to see how it suits those rubber.

Overall though I think it is a great choice for a player who is thinking of trying carbon for the first time. Or wanting the sweet spot of a carbon blade but that feeling of a soft wood blade. It is controllable and is plenty quick enough for a good league player. Might be a bit slow for the top top players who play an all out aggressive game though.

I wouldn't give this or any other product less than 5 stars, the reason: I don´t know an equivalent blade to compare. Any rating would basically depend on my skill and if the blade is for my style of game. Having said that, this is my review:


Thinks I don´t like:
- The ST handle is uncomfortable: I used sand paper to smooth the edges and somehow re-shape the handle for my hand, however it was thin so I put a grip and problem solved.
- Handle design: I believe is not very popular so not a lot of marketing around the design of the handle. Looks regular.


Thinks I do like:
- The colored layers wood, black and red, This blade looks mean.
- No vibration.
- It is fast but won´t do all the work for you, you need to do your job to actually trigger that potential (or almost any other hight end blade).
- The sound it produces with MX-P / S, lovely. Perform a high speed, strong shoot originated from your legs to your torso combined with arm acceleration and you will make that ball scream, you can hear a special sound when the ball sinks into the rubber/blade and the effect is created with hight speed acceleration (is like car drifting).
-Control, of course is not the blade with the most control, you need a lot of training, hard work and skill to control the ball when you need to, but more importantly this is not a blade for control, is blade for attacking players. Returning a server could be the most difficult (and one of the most important skills for a player) part, either control it a return the ball to a good place or attack the serve whenever possible, it encourages you to initiate attack as soon as possible.
-Playing close to the table, I prefer playing close to the table, a fast blade combined with fast attacks close to the table will drive you opponent crazy.
-It rewards your confidence and hard work: try a super strong and fast back hand flip, full, fast wrist and arm acceleration and you will see the results.


Keep your gravity center low, strike fast and strong, loop with strong and firm legs and torso... you will defy laws of physics.

Sadly I only owned one carbon blade before (TB spirit) which broke about 8 years ago so I can't really compare it to those.

The handle is relatively round which makes it a bit thicker but not uncomfortable to hold even though I don't have the biggest hands. In fact I think it makes it easier to switch between forehand and backhand grip which is very good for my play (I can see why Dima helped designing it).

The blade is quite hard but I am still able to make controllable blocks and slow topspins. I have never been so good at flipping with my BH and never felt such power in my shots. I also got better at the short - short game since it takes less effort than on my previous setup.

It is very well made and has a little Dima picture on the lower back side of the handle.

The first time I had it in my hand I bounced the ball a bit on it and was actually worried about the high tone compared to all wood and a little artificial feeling but most of it fades away while playing (I guess carbon blades always have a little bit different feeling than all wood ones).

Right now I am using Tibhar MX-P on FH and Donic Bluefire JP 02 on backhand.

I bought this blade because of very positive reviews and because of my backhand oriented play like Dimitrij and so far my friends at the club failed to serve spinny enough on my backhand that I couldn't flip. I don't think you can do anything wrong by going for this blade.

All in all, I have never been so confident in my equipment choice before. The true carbon is a rocket, a very controllable rocket.

Note: Was only played using celluloid balls.

Butterfly Viscaria Blade
Weight: 90g
Thickness: 5.8mm
Type: Carbon OFF
Composition: 7 ply (Koto, ALC, Limba, Kiri, Limba, ALC, Koto)
Rubbers used with blade: Tenergy 05

What’s going on guys, a month ago I attended the England vs Greece European Qualifying match and caught up with world top 50 player Liam Pitchford. Before the match I got some time with Liam to review the Butterfly Viscaria blade which Liam uses as his blade of choice. The Viscaria has been a very popular blade for a long time, and was made even more famous after London 2012 Olympic Champion Zhang Jike started using it.


Written Review:

The blade sits well in the hand and comes in the standard Butterfly packaging.
The Viscaria is one of first blades that made use of Aralyte Carbon or ALC for short, and has a composition of Koto, ALC, Limba, Kiri, Limba, ALC, Koto.



As such the composition and thickness is exactly the same as the timo boll ALC, with the only difference between the two being the handle and wings of the blade as seen in the photo below:



The wings and the handle on the viscaria are thicker than the Boll ALC. This influences the vibration and sound of the blade which adds a touch more feedback and slightly softer feel than the Boll ALC does.

If we compare the Viscaria construction to the new Tiago Apolonia ZLC, the viscaria uses koto, a harder wood, as the outer layer. This produces a harder impact and makes the blade more stiff than the Apolonia which uses a Limba layer as the outer wood, which is softer creating a softer impact and gives the blade more flex.

The Viscaria blade weighs 90 grams and has a thickness of 5.8mm.



Myself and Liam both use the Viscaria in the review using Butterfly Tenergy 05 Rubbers on both sides of the blade.

Topspin

My first impressions with the Viscaria blade was that it felt extremely well balanced and that the feeling was exceptional. The Viscaria is a topspin machine and I could feel the crisp large sweet spot right away. As with all the reviews I do with pro’s, it took a little time getting used to the sheer spin and speed that Liam could develop, however with the Viscaria It was less of a learning curve due to the great control and touch this blade gives you.

Liam combines the forehand and backhand topspin with supreme quality. The viscaria’s medium hardness gave me good control whilst also being very responsive and direct when blocking back the shots.

Plastic Ball

Liam talks about why he moved to the Viscaria. The reason behind his move to the Viscaria blade was due to the new plastic ball having less spin and speed. He felt the Viscaria gave more spin and zip to his play.

Backhand flicks

When asking Liam what he liked about the Viscaria he noted that it was excellent in the backhand flick department, you can see in the review Liam was able to impart a lot of spin and speed onto the ball whilst maintaining a high level of safety.

Spin - Forehand and backhand open ups

Once liam got in with spin I had absolutely no chance winning the point. The blades dwell really grabs the ball well, producing vast amounts of spin. The advantage with the viscaria is its balance between spinning the ball and playing strong on the 5th and 7th ball attacks.

Counters

I gave my best to put as much spin on the ball as possible however the sheer speed of Liam’s counter topspin is insane, once he made the right contact and timing it was almost impossible for me to return. The ball zips off the Viscaria at a tremendous rate but gives just enough dwell time to make counter topspins consistent.

Touch play

When touching the ball short the viscaria gives you a lot of feedback but not so much that it is overly responsive and uncontrollable and has a nice balance between the two.

Service and return

Service and return is perhaps the most challenging element of the game and the blade performed well in this area. You don't particularly get a lot of dwell time when serving but the blades feeling makes up for this. Here are some examples of serves where we were able to produce a lot of rotation on the ball forcing service return errors from each other.

Top to top

The Arylate carbon in the Viscaria means you can get high end speed but with enough Flex to produce a medium high throw angle increasing the margin for error. Speed wise it is feels just a touch slower than a Timo Boll ALC but slightly faster than the, recently reviewed, Tiago Apolonia ZLC.


Conclusion

We would like to thank Liam Pitchford for his time in helping us review this blade, a fantastic player and a pleasure to play against. The Butterfly Viscaria blade is one of the most popular blades of all time for a reason and after reviewing it, it became clear. The use of Arylate Carbon fibers has been a huge success for Butterfly since it was first used with the Viscarias release in 1993. It is extremely well balanced and provides great feeling and responsiveness. The Viscaria boasts a large sweetspot so almost wherever the ball makes contact with the blade you get a consistent response with good speed.

The dwell time gives you a greater margin for error which helps on producing spin than a more direct blade like the Butterfly T5000 model for example. Due to its high responsiveness and speed, we would recommend the Viscaria to experienced players that want a great, fast offensive, carbon blade.

The blades strengths lie particularly when playing fast aggressive shots and from mid distance to the table where you get to make use of its speed and trajectory.

Players that might not suit this blade are players that prefer a soft touch and less responsiveness. Or for those who prefer an all round or moderately offensive blade which the Viscaria definitely isn't.

After almost 24 years of its initial release the Viscaria is still a popular choice amongst pro players, which is miraculous considering the tech now involved in modern sports equipment. Especially in table tennis where there are now dozens of different materials and compositions used in the blade market.
The Viscaria really is, an all time classic.

I recommend this blade, because give me power for attack, I can topspin fast and get the power for mid distance looping, and still has control. And also good for touch play and pushing. This blade is quite hard and has nice sound when hitting the ball, with large sweet spot and mid dwell time. It has 7 layers and 6 carbon layers make this blade stiff and quite hard. I get different feel comparing with my last blade Hybrid wood, which is rather soft but Sense 7.6 is nice in hand and feel med hard, and not too weight (91 gr) so I feel convenience with this blade
I set up with Tenergy 80 on FH, DHS Skyline 3 neo on BH

Good rubber for controlled hitting. Fast when struck hard and with sweet extra clicking sound. It's grippy but not much spin can be produced. But very cheap though.

The Rising Dragon

After having opened the package i was a bit surprised because i've expected the rubber to come with some protection foil on the topsheet, but it didn't and i thought to myself: hmmm... but i didn't want to judge too quick and just glued it on my backup blade. My thought was, that the tack might get stronger once i played with it and out on a protection sheet after play.
To give you a bit more information, i used to play with a H3 National orange sponge before that, which needed to be replaced. Unfortunately I had no one around me using it, so i could try before i buy, which left me with the advertisement, which did sound quite promising to me, since i didn't want the hassle of boosting.

After the first hits, i was positively surprised about its speediness, but i was missing the tack and hence my serve receives and pushes missed the table and went pretty long, but nothing one couldn't get used to and kept playing.

Then i asked my practice partner if we could do what we call in german: einkontern, which basically means sort of driving with less spin [pretty close to flat hitting.] But i wasn't used to the low throw angle and nearly every ball touched the net. Took a little to adjust to, but after a while it got better.

So next my partner started looping and i was blocking, but finding the right angle took a little since i was used to a higher throw angle rubber. Some blocks went long while others landed in the net, which made me feel a little sorry for my practice partner, but after a couple of minutes it got better.

So next was my turn to loop, but the same as before some loops went long and others got stuck in the net and since i was used to something more tacky, the ball slipped once in a while on some brush loops with too thin contact. After a while this got also better as i've adjusted better. And then the loops were pretty spinny.
I left the rubber on my backup blade for about three months and in this time i've played 2 - 3 days a week with 2.5 to 3 hours of usage until i peeled it off my backup blade again.

So all in all i would say the rubber has a good quality. The topsheet's durability up to then was quite good and didn't show a lot of wear, except on the embossed printing you can see some wear from my thumb, but all my rubbers show this, and i think i could still use this rubber for at least 3 more months.

Generally i think this is a good rubber for someone who hasn't played with tacky rubbers before and wants to try out how it feels like. Coming from a tensioned rubber this is a good step to find out if one likes tacky rubbers. But i would place it closer to rubbers like Butterfly SpinArt than to Hurricane 3 Neo
Personally i was a little disappointed, 'cause i've been expecting something else, but for someone looking for the attributes i've described, this could be the right thing.

The new Robo Pong 2050 robot has a lot to offer. It includes:

- ball thrower with oscillation
- recycling net system
- side net extenders
- rubber tops packet
- full size didgital control box
- transformer
- connector cable
- owners manual
- setup DVD


The robot can produce topspin, backspin, left sidespin, right sidespin and a combination of spins in one drill. You can buy the robot on our website here: https://www.topspintt.com/products/robots/172/robo-pong-2050-robots

Unboxing
The Mizutani Jun SZLC blade comes in a beautiful presentation box in the same colors as his signature blade. The color scheme of the handle has change to a more modern design compared to the old blade. The colors are still red and black but for distinguishing between the ZLC and the SZLC, Butterfly have added a yellow stripe on both sides of the handle for the SZLC and white for the ZLC. The logo has change to red and white showing his initials and on the other side of the handle there is indication that this blade is the SZLC.
On the back of the handle on the newer versions there is a new green holographic sticker is placed for verifying counterfeit versions.
The quality and finish is superb as always when you buy a Butterfly blade and it looks like a has a fine layer of sealing from the factory.
















Composition: Limba-SZLC-Limba-Ayous-Limba-SZLC-Limba
Handle: Flared
Head size: 157x150mm
Thickness: 5.8mm
Weight: 94g

Test setup: FH DHS H3 Neo 2.10mm and BH Tenergy 05 2.1mm

Drive
When driving with the MJ ZLC I could immediately feel that this blade was fast. Even faster than the normal ZLC and Viscaria! But having that said the blade also had an amount of feel and dwell that you normally don't experience when blades are that fast. I think this might be due to the outer limba layer combined with the SZLC. The Super Zylon-Carbon layer adds lightness, stiffness and flexibility to the blade. Another thing that was noticeable was the large sweet spot.

Loop
When looping with the MJ SZLC I had just adjust my power due to the speed of the blade. After a while I could hit the ball on the table. The balance between spin and speed was more to the speed side. When finding myself with the blade I could make some super powerful loops.The arcs with H3 was low to medium and with the T05 it is more medium. The balance of the blade was to the middle even though playing with heavy rubbers.

Block
In the passive game here this blade really shines! I could really feel that the blade gave a lot of control, stability and consistency due to the large sweet spot and the composition of Limba and SZLC. Still if I was a bit active on the ball the blade still felt controllable. Directing the ball where you wanted was spot on even on powerful incoming loops.

Flick/short game
As I mentioned earlier in the review the MJ SZLC has a lot of dwell which is due to the outer Limba. On service receive I was able to make some quality receives, but you should have a good touch due to the blade is very fast. Flicks is also made with good touch concentrating the brushing more than adding force to the ball.

Conclusion
Butterfly has made another signature blade for Jun Mizutani. The price is very high at 349.90 Euro (in Europe) and 373.99 USD (in US). So is it worth buying the SZLC?The SZLC is faster and stiffer than the normal ZLC. Also the design is just flawless. If you are looking for those features then, yes! But IMO the ZLC is an overall better blade due to it is more forgiving to playing with and of course the price tag!

I would recommend the blade to players who focus on an offensive game with spin and speed and plays mid and away from the table. Also the player that favors the stability and consistency in their blocking and attacking game. If your money is unlimited and you are looking for features the SZLC provides, then this blade is for you!

Sticky and spinny topsheet with red sponge.Abit mushy for my liking.Average speed and power.Personally i would prefer dhs tinarc series/euro or japanese rubber for 40+ plastic ball but this rubber is recommended for backhand by some of the chinese table tennis magazines.

Above average power and speed. TG 7 blade is marginally better in terms of quality control and consistency. I prefer chinese rubber setup e.g. hurricane neo or sword palladin for this blade.Affordable setup for offensive beginners.

I have tried both this and stiga clipper cr blades.I am using fl version.Personally i prefer this blade over clipper cr for 40+ plastic ball offensive looping game.Both are all wood blades but samsonov pro is slightly more bouncier and more powerful loop and drives can be executed off table.Dwell time is above average.Most of my opponents would think I am using carbon blade during rallies.However in table control is slightly lacking as compared to clipper cr. My current setup with stiga calibra tour h backhand and nittaku fastarc g1 forehand.Highly recommended for offensive players.

Highly recommended.Great for attacking games e.g. looping and driving and serves.

Personally i like it better than my acuda s1 on the forehand.firmer,spinnier and faster than acuda s1.Control is above average. Good for both looping and drive rallies.