Stiga Legacy Blade Review

Stiga Legacy Carbon

Weight: 88 grams
Plies: 7 (limba outer, 12k Carbon + pine with Ayous core)
Thickness: 5.86mm
Speed: Off+

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Stiga has released this black blade for the first time. Due to the Covid Crisis I only was able to get hold of this about 1 week ago upon posting this review. People to play against was a bit more scarce but luckily I could still play against one or 2 people to test this and even testing this blade using a return board. People ask what is a 12k Carbon and I will explain it on simplest of terms to better understand it. Each carbon layer has different kinds of weave. For example, a 3k carbon weave has 3000 filaments used hence the term 3k. the 12k Carbon has 12000 filaments per weave. The difference is that the 12k carbon has a bigger pattern when you are looking at it while the 3k carbon has smaller pattern of weaves. Both of this carbon types are also used in bicycle frames and parts. The 12k carbon is much harder compared to the 3k carbon weave.

I tested the Legacy Carbon with the Stiga DNA Pro H, RITC Battle 2 regular and another ESN rubber that is 60 degrees in hardness which I will not name. I bounced the ball on the bare blade and noticed that it has a lower ping sound compared to that of the Dynasty Carbon. I also saw that the bounce is much lower at about 6 to 8 inches in height compared to the Legacy Carbon which has a bounce of 7 to 9 inches in height.

I would say the Legacy Carbon is slightly slower than the Dynasty Carbon. This was very obvious the moment I hit the ball on forehand drive drills and backhand drive drills. I would place the speed near to the Carbonado 145/190 range but slower than the 290/245 blades. For other popular blades of other brands, I would say it is slightly more bouncy than a Viscaria with a difference that is almost negligible. In fairness, it is still a fast offensive blade that offers more than enough speed to have strong offensive shots be it a loop or a smash. It is has a medium stiff feel on all strong shots when using hard rubbers. What I find weird about this blade is that it is technically on the stiffer side but very hard rubbers seem to really excel with it. It felt softer than the Dynasty Carbon when I was loop driving the ball with a Chinese rubber, the DNA Pro H or even with the 60 degree ESN rubber. It felt weird not in a bad way but it really felt in a good and weird way. The feeling that you have when you are contacting the ball with the hard rubbers was pleasant. Normally, stiff blade with very hard rubbers has an unpleasant hard feel on every impact for me personally but with the Legacy Carbon, it is a bit unique honestly I prefer this over the Dynasty blade.

What are the Legacy’s strengths? It offers a wide variety of good performance on almost every offensive shot. It has medium to medium-high arc when I was looping against underspin and countering topspins. The arc was good enough that it offers more room for error. It is more forgiving compared to the Dynasty blade which has a much lower and sharper arc when spinning the ball. This is excellent up to middle distance only even with already very fast and hard rubbers. The Dynasty is much better on far distance from the table. The Legacy Carbon is excellent also in smashing with good amount of power because of its medium stiffness. I can say that the Dynasty is better at smashing. To compare the 2 blades, the Legacy Carbon is better on pure spinny looping while the Dynasty Carbon is better at loop driving. The Dynasty Carbon is better when your ball contact is involved more in compressing the sponge. The Legacy Carbon is better with looping when emphasizing on brushing the ball therefore it was really good to loop with using a hard, tacky rubber. The Legacy Carbon was also excellent when I was doing drop shots on service receives. Despite the hard ESN rubbers that I used, drop shots were easy to do despite the bounciness of the blade and rubber combination. It is given that when you use a Chinese rubber, it is easy to do drop shots or short pushes but with 60 and 50 degree rubbers that are both hard and bouncy, you will have some adjustments with short shots and control.

Now to address some issues before, I did test the durability of the top plies by gluing and re-gluing 4 rubbers alternately on the Legacy Carbon. There is a noticeable thin layer of lacquer on the top plies of the blade but it is not as thick as the ones found in the newer versions of Hardwood Series with metal logos. I did not notice any splintering on the top plies. This is after gluing and removing 4 rubbers. Despite the top plies holding its fibers tightly together, I would still strongly advise people to seal the blade even with just a thin layer of lacquer. Also, I would advise people to sand the handle as it is some roughness including the wing part or neck but these are things that only need sanding and not hard to resolve. I do wish they would bring back the Legend Flared handles as the handle for me seem a bit slender.

All in all, this is an excellent blade. I could say that the Legacy Carbon is a blade that was made for hard rubbers. I have to test this with soft rubbers but I am already confident to say that hard or medium hard rubbers are the best combinations for this blade. I could even say this was made for Chinese rubbers. If you would use a Hurricane 3 rubber on this blade, you will not want anything more from this blade.
 
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Aug 2016
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Thanks for the review

Does Legacy Carbon have a more woody feeling than Dynasty?
And what are the main differences you find between Legacy and Xiom 36.5?
 
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