729 Battle II Rubber Review

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I think I never posted my review of this on this forum. It's an old review, from a few months after I first found the magic rubber.
Hope it's informative and helpful:

So this is my favorite rubber. I don't hide that I'm "not impartial". It's getting the 10s. So bear with me. I'll try to describe the experience as well.
I compare it directly to the Evolution MS-X, EL-P, Hurricane 3 and Hurricane 3 Neo.


Technical Information:

Price: $15+-, free shipping (ali-express).

Weight: 47g cut. Surprisingly light given its other properties. Note that my blade head is larger than usual, so for you it may well be like.. a gram or two less. Not sure. MUCH lighter than the MS-X, about the same weight as the H3/neo. Given that the Hurricane 8 is said to be very heavy, this is an advantage for the Battle II in comparison to what is probably its direct competition.

Hardness: comes in two flavors, 45 or 47 hardness. HARD. Similar to the H3. Barely yields to finger pressure if at all. No visible pores.
The MS-X is hard sponged but a bit less than this. The EL-P of course is much, much softer.

Tackiness: Much tackier than any H3/Neo I ever used. They can't handle plastic balls at all while this rubber can. The thing though is that other than being very tacky, it's also straight up grippier than the H3/Neos. It feels like a very old school kind of topsheet that's nevertheless very well adapted to the plastic ball.

Consistency/Longevity: I got several sheets of this. Haven't seen one degrade seriously yet and it's been a few months. These tacky hard rubbers can last a LONG LONG time.

Regarding consistency, of course some sheets are slightly tackier than others, but none is less than spectacular. I haven't noticed any real inconsistencies in terms of play, none have bubbled up, none have separated, and none ever flaked away at the edges at all, which happened to me with a lot of ESN rubbers.
In comparison to the DHS rubbers, this is perfect consistency. With H3 Neos, some came out of the wrap nearly untacky, some had the red paint peel off with the upper layer of the topsheet when the packaged covering was removed, etc. Messy.

As a side-note, it'll lose tackiness during the practice so you have to clean it with about 2 little drops of water and dry well. The tackiness will return fully after you rest the rubber a bit. Not sure why it's like that but it's what I've noticed. Perhaps it's because of the humidity at my club (when practicing on my table which is in the back yard there's no such problem. Clean it and it's back to very tacky immediately. Cover it with plastic sheet and within a day it is SUPER tacky. Again, not sure why resting the rubber helps it become tackier. Possibly something to do with thermodynamics entropy laws)


Play Characteristics:

Serve: 10/10
Serves can be very spinny with just a small flick of the wrist. Couldn't get this much out of any other rubber ever. This is very important because you can get a ton of spin with a small movement, which means deception in serve is very easy, and after a certain measure of spin, deception is much more important.. Of course, with faster fuller motion it also serves spinnier than the MX-S and H3 because it can grab the plastic ball better and is non tensor so it's a lot easier to put a lot of oomph into the ball while keeping it short. Since it grabs the ball you can manage contact with a lot less forward momentum because the tackiness will pull the ball forward.

Serve Receive: 10/10
Nothing unpredictable here. A hard sponge ultra tacky rubber will always be the best for serve receive in my opinion. No catapult like the ESN rubbers so you can easily place it where you want with very little fear of error if you read the serve right.
Makes it very easy to return it with lots of backspin to wherever you want because you engage mostly the tackiness of the topsheet and none of the sponge (which is too hard for that).

Also very easy to do a brush return where you add to the spin already on the ball. It will not shoot out as it may do with a rubber that grabs the ball less.
Perfect.

Topspin 9.5
Tested to see by having a blade with Battle II on one side and the H3Neo on the other.
Behavior is very similar to H3, meaning that the ball flies almost straight (slight curve) over the net and then plunges nearly straight down by the opponents table edge.

Very hard shots were less spinny than the MS-X, but this rubber is better for spinning closer to the table and over the table. And in non-top-power shots it was spinnier than the MS-X. I'd say the two are comparable but have different strengths.
Battle II is definitely best suited to a player that stays closer to the table and has body speed.

Block: 9
In my opinion a little less controlled than the H3, but it's good. It won't shoot off like in the ESNs, so it will generally be a slower block but this is good, because it lets you control the speed and placement more easily. It's still not a slow rubber by any means, it offers a very good compromise. I wouldn't say it's a rubber made for blocking though. Not as consistent as other hard rubbers.

I'd rate the MX-S a solid 10 in blocking, in comparison.

Speed: 8.5
Ok, this was a surprise (I think anyone who uses this rubber will very surprised at its speed in comparison to traditional chinese rubbers, although if you're used to ESN it might be very slow for you).
I think there is some kind of catapult built into it, but it only activates when you hit quite hard and straight. I can't attribute it to the hard sponge because it's MUCH faster than the Hurricanes when you hit the ball directly with force, but is also simply faster in general. It's fast enough to use it effectively as a backhand rubber, which is very hard to do with the hurricanes. Of course, it's not ideal for that though. I tried it a few times and because of my technique I could not get enough speed out of it for backhand, so I use a dedicated speed rubber (Palio AK47)

So yeah, smashes are good, drives are very fast but similarly to the H3s you still need a bit of a brushing motion to get the most out of it. Slightly different stroke than the ESN rubbers. In straight forward shots it's nearly as fast as the MX-S/EL-P, considerably faster than the H3s. I rate it 9 when it may deserve.. like. 8.8(?) because of the surprise factor. It really feels like a modern rubber dressed up like an old one.


Conclusion:
Great rubber. Easily one of my favorites. It seems to do everything well and make everything easy.
It's fast-ish but without tensor/catapult unpredictability, it's extremely spinny with barely a touch, its the absolute best at serves and serve receive (which is my favorite part of the game really), and to top it off, you can get like 3-4 of these for the price of one butterfly rubber.

You need a lot of strength and technique to get good spin and speed out of it, but it has a higher ceiling than any ESN rubber I've known.




Update:
I scratched my rubber on the table edge today so I finally went fukit and ordered the provincial version. Will review when I get it :)
 
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You're welcome. I have no machine that checks the throw of a rubber so I can't tell you exactly. Probably towards medium-low.
 
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I think that I've managed to play with this rubber for about 15h now and it's great but there's one downside. It attracts dust like crazy. It becomes quite useless once it has attracted dust. I guess that this is due to the extreme tackiness?

I was playing in one of the bigger clubs here in Stockholm (proper TT facility with red flooring, pro tables etc) that doesn't seem hoover on a daily basis and the rubber became like an anti rubber after the initial hour.
 
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I think I never posted my review of this on this forum. It's an old review, from a few months after I first found the magic rubber.
Hope it's informative and helpful:

So this is my favorite rubber. I don't hide that I'm "not impartial". It's getting the 10s. So bear with me. I'll try to describe the experience as well.
I compare it directly to the Evolution MS-X, EL-P, Hurricane 3 and Hurricane 3 Neo.


Technical Information:

Price: $15+-, free shipping (ali-express).

Weight: 47g cut. Surprisingly light given its other properties. Note that my blade head is larger than usual, so for you it may well be like.. a gram or two less. Not sure. MUCH lighter than the MS-X, about the same weight as the H3/neo. Given that the Hurricane 8 is said to be very heavy, this is an advantage for the Battle II in comparison to what is probably its direct competition.

Hardness: comes in two flavors, 45 or 47 hardness. HARD. Similar to the H3. Barely yields to finger pressure if at all. No visible pores.
The MS-X is hard sponged but a bit less than this. The EL-P of course is much, much softer.

Tackiness: Much tackier than any H3/Neo I ever used. They can't handle plastic balls at all while this rubber can. The thing though is that other than being very tacky, it's also straight up grippier than the H3/Neos. It feels like a very old school kind of topsheet that's nevertheless very well adapted to the plastic ball.

Consistency/Longevity: I got several sheets of this. Haven't seen one degrade seriously yet and it's been a few months. These tacky hard rubbers can last a LONG LONG time.

Regarding consistency, of course some sheets are slightly tackier than others, but none is less than spectacular. I haven't noticed any real inconsistencies in terms of play, none have bubbled up, none have separated, and none ever flaked away at the edges at all, which happened to me with a lot of ESN rubbers.
In comparison to the DHS rubbers, this is perfect consistency. With H3 Neos, some came out of the wrap nearly untacky, some had the red paint peel off with the upper layer of the topsheet when the packaged covering was removed, etc. Messy.

As a side-note, it'll lose tackiness during the practice so you have to clean it with about 2 little drops of water and dry well. The tackiness will return fully after you rest the rubber a bit. Not sure why it's like that but it's what I've noticed. Perhaps it's because of the humidity at my club (when practicing on my table which is in the back yard there's no such problem. Clean it and it's back to very tacky immediately. Cover it with plastic sheet and within a day it is SUPER tacky. Again, not sure why resting the rubber helps it become tackier. Possibly something to do with thermodynamics entropy laws)


Play Characteristics:

Serve: 10/10
Serves can be very spinny with just a small flick of the wrist. Couldn't get this much out of any other rubber ever. This is very important because you can get a ton of spin with a small movement, which means deception in serve is very easy, and after a certain measure of spin, deception is much more important.. Of course, with faster fuller motion it also serves spinnier than the MX-S and H3 because it can grab the plastic ball better and is non tensor so it's a lot easier to put a lot of oomph into the ball while keeping it short. Since it grabs the ball you can manage contact with a lot less forward momentum because the tackiness will pull the ball forward.

Serve Receive: 10/10
Nothing unpredictable here. A hard sponge ultra tacky rubber will always be the best for serve receive in my opinion. No catapult like the ESN rubbers so you can easily place it where you want with very little fear of error if you read the serve right.
Makes it very easy to return it with lots of backspin to wherever you want because you engage mostly the tackiness of the topsheet and none of the sponge (which is too hard for that).

Also very easy to do a brush return where you add to the spin already on the ball. It will not shoot out as it may do with a rubber that grabs the ball less.
Perfect.

Topspin 9.5
Tested to see by having a blade with Battle II on one side and the H3Neo on the other.
Behavior is very similar to H3, meaning that the ball flies almost straight (slight curve) over the net and then plunges nearly straight down by the opponents table edge.

Very hard shots were less spinny than the MS-X, but this rubber is better for spinning closer to the table and over the table. And in non-top-power shots it was spinnier than the MS-X. I'd say the two are comparable but have different strengths.
Battle II is definitely best suited to a player that stays closer to the table and has body speed.

Block: 9
In my opinion a little less controlled than the H3 because it's a faster rubber, but it's good. It won't shoot off like in the ESNs, so it will generally be a slower block but this is good, because it lets you control the speed and placement more easily. It's still not a slow rubber by any means, it offers a very good compromise. I wouldn't say it's a rubber made for blocking though. Not as consistent as other hard rubbers.

I'd rate the MX-S a solid 10 in blocking, in comparison.

Speed: 9
Ok, this was a surprise (I think anyone who uses this rubber will very surprised at its speed).
I think there is some kind of catapult built into it, but it only activates when you hit quite hard and straight. I can't attribute it to the hard sponge because it's MUCH faster than the Hurricanes when you hit the ball directly with force, but is also simply faster in general. It's fast enough to use it effectively as a backhand rubber, which is very hard to do with the hurricanes. Of course, it's not ideal for that though. I tried it a few times and because of my technique I could not get enough speed out of it for backhand, so I use a dedicated speed rubber (Palio AK47)

So yeah, smashes are good, drives are very fast but similarly to the H3s you still need a bit of a brushing motion to get the most out of it. Slightly different stroke than the ESN rubbers. In straight forward shots it's nearly as fast as the MX-S/EL-P, considerably faster than the H3s. I rate it 9 when it may deserve.. like. 8.8(?) because of the surprise factor. It really feels like a modern rubber dressed up like an old one.


Conclusion:
Great rubber. Easily my favorite. It seems to do everything well and make everything easy. I couldn't find any rubber other than this that ticks ALL the boxes for me but there you go. This is why it's my favorite.
It's fast but without tensor/catapult unpredictability, it's extremely spinny with barely a touch, its the absolute best at serves and serve receive (which is my favorite part of the game really), and to top it off, you can get like 3-4 of these for the price of one butterfly rubber.


Get one and try it, it's almost free :p



Update:
I scratched my rubber on the table edge today so I finally went fukit and ordered the provincial version. Will review when I get it :)

Nice Review!! :D How performs BII in mid distance looping?
 
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Preforms fine in mid-distance looping. I use a fast blade so it's no problem really.
Because you can catch the ball at very steep angles though it's unparalleled at spinning close to the table. The ball will never slip.


About dust, you put 2 drops of water on it and wipe it in a circular motion until all the dust is collected into little strands and then you just wipe them off with the back of your hand and it's like new.
 
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Preforms fine in mid-distance looping. I use a fast blade so it's no problem really.
Because you can catch the ball at very steep angles though it's unparalleled at spinning close to the table. The ball will never slip.


About dust, you put 2 drops of water on it and wipe it in a circular motion until all the dust is collected into little strands and then you just wipe them off with the back of your hand and it's like new.
And comparing with 729-08? If you tried of couse. I Would like to know because B2 and 729-08 seems like the better alternatives to H3N Blue Sponge

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I haven't tried 8 but I think B2 is a much newer product? Though I'm definitely on board with your assessment, having once shelled out for the h3 blue sponge
 
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Lightly from what i heard your right its a newer one , Battle 2 provincial Blue Sponge is a alternative to the H3 Neo BS.
and Lightzy a interesting rubber i come across is the Provinal Tin arc 5 is like Battle 2 for backhand just and grippy not tacky and a little softer and plays basically the same. and your blade the H301 is that the cheap one or the expensive version ?
 
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It's the cheap one.

I need something drastically different for backhand, I need a lot more speed so I use AK47
 
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So I haven't hit enough with this rubber to give a full review but I have seen it in person and I have made some observations enough for me to think it'll probably be my next rubber I buy.

I like Chinese tacky & hard rubbers for the FH. Hard rubbers for power. Have tried almost every Chinese tacky rubber under the sun and it's my general feeling that the king of tacky is usually that H3 topsheet.

But a buddy did have this on his blade and when I inspected it, it was easily just as tacky as any H3 sheet I've ever seen which is rare from what I find. It is a firm sponged rubber which I like. I hit with it for about 5 minutes. Not enough time for a full review but enough time to confirm my basic impressions. It's fast with the hard sponge. It's super tacky & grippy with that crazy topsheet.

I've tried 3 DHS rubbers in the past. Loved them but they quickly bubbled on me with the topsheet separating form the sponge. After the 3rd one I said never again. I've had 729 rubbers in the past and they all seemed durable. Just the tack IMO never lasted that long. But certainly none of the 729 rubbers I ever tried in the past had this type of grip before.

I'll probably pick a sheet up in the next month or two.
 
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I haven't tried 8 but I think B2 is a much newer product? Though I'm definitely on board with your assessment, having once shelled out for the h3 blue sponge
Today my chinese trainer appeared with a 729-08(boosted) on his forehand and I ask him to try it. I've loved the touch, even that wasn't breaked in yet! I felt the rubber was both harder(but as I said, wasn't breaked in) and heavier than H3 NEO BS but was very good quality, and was very spinny. After this I think I'll not buy H3 NEO BS. 729 is alot cheaper, and if not better, rubbers are almost so good

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Is this true? 729 Battle II production will end?

https://revspin.net/rubber/729-729-08.html

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Every retailer here in the states have dropped it and according to Zeropong who i contacted as to why they no longer carry it said there were major QC problems with that so they pulled it.

The only place left that I know of to get it is Ali express. So I guess I wouldn't be surprised to hear they're stopping, or have stopped, production.

I guess get it while you can if it's your rubber of choice.
 
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Every retailer here in the states have dropped it and according to Zeropong who i contacted as to why they no longer carry it said there were major QC problems with that so they pulled it.

The only place left that I know of to get it is Ali express. So I guess I wouldn't be surprised to hear they're stopping, or have stopped, production.

I guess get it while you can if it's your rubber of choice.

Now it makes sense, that's why I don't see them in megaspin also! Well if it will be really discontinued at least for me isn't worth it.
 
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Got, glued and had my first practice with the Battle 2 Pro version today (on my hurricane 301 blade).

Comes in a more posh package than the regular version. Vacuum sealed, with this booklet kind of cardboard wrap that's really nicely designed.
Costs like $5 more than the regular version.

Not enough experience and the rubber is sure as hell not broken in yet but:
1) Definitely faster, though not by a lot.

2) A bit less tacky (still tacky to the extreme though. Just not as ridiculous as the regular version)

3) Higher throw, which I did not like at all (though it makes lifting backspin really a breeze).



As for my first impression, I like it less than the regular version because of the higher throw. It requires slightly different technique and while it's easier to lift backspin, for example, I am now producing more speed than spin, which was really this rubber's greatest strength.

Will play with it throughout next week (got 5 sessions next week) and report back
 
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