5 out of 5 rating for Garaydia ZLC
Hi all, this is my review on the Garaydia ZLC which has been released in 2015 designed for the plastic ball. The ZLC is from the Garaydia series, Butterfly’s latest line of carbon blades.
The blade is of 5 plies and has a excellent finish. On the underside of the blade is a holographic lense to stop counterfeit products. Watch the video review below, the rubbers used on the blade are the Butterfly Tenergy 05.
Overview
The thickness of the ZLC is the first attribute myself and Tom noticed in comparison to other Butterfly blades. Notice how much thicker the core is in the image below. The ZLC has a thickness of 7.1mm, whereas the Jun Mizutani Super ZLC has a thickness of 6mm. The core of the Garaydia is thicker to produce greater speed.
The ZLC blade uses Japanese hinoki wood as the outer layer on the blade which gives the blade a soft feel maintaining the control of the fast blade. Zylon Carbon is the composite used.
The blade weighs 88 grams.
Speed
The Garaydia ZLC, felt fantastic and really worked well for my style of play and had similar dwell to the ALC. This dwell gave me high arc in my strokes, a feature that I really enjoyed with this blade as it allowed me to produce lots of spin and safety with my topspins.
I really noticed this safety also when playing against backspin using my backhand flick and when opening up. The ball soaked into the hinoki/Zylon Carbon and created a lot of rotation on the ball. This blade felt similar to the Butterfly Amultart and the Zhang Jike Super ZLC which we reviewed last year. When going explosive shots the the Garaydia ZLC blade felt very quick, however not as fast as the T5000 which gave me great stability in my play. I would not recommend this blade for people who are early level players/improving players, this is blade for intermediate to advanced level players who have a high level of skill.
Spin and Dwell
Although this blade is fast as it uses ZL Carbon, I found I could produce a lot of spin when playing against backspin. You get a crisp feeling and this blade gives you the ability to produce a quality shot with minimal action.
Conclusion
The soft feeling you get with the ZLC, due to the outer hinoki wood and the Zylon carbon fibres, give great spin and dwell in your shots. The hinoki wood helps absorb incoming spin which particularly helps in the serve and receive area to get good bite and zip on the ball.
The ZLC blade has a very good speed to control ratio and is extremely well balanced. This is definitely my blade of choice within the Garaydia range as it suits my style of play well, playing mid distance to the table generating spin and safety in my shots. I like how I can get a lot of power and speed whilst the control is maintained.