I can only partially agree to the latter statement, since i am the "kid with tons of time to train"
But a decent blade will definitely give you a very instantaneous boost to your game. a 20 bucks 5 ply will not have enough power away from the table and definitely cant carry out certain techniques in the current meta as well as some of the more recent/blades you see pros use. Back hand flick/mini loop for instance, I can carry it out at a pretty high success rate with a vis/CCA Limited/Boll ZLF/Infi VPS, but i couldnt do it as well with an Avalox P777 or the good ol' Donic PPP.
Also, for the case of viscarias, their quality varies quite heavily and will make pretty noticeable difference in you game. I have tried this blade of my friend's who was in Singapore, SEA Commercial stock. No fish-scale patter on it at all. The blade felt hollow and the ball drops when I try to go mid table to counter loop, and when I tried my chinese teammate's blade he got from Japan, cherry picked by himself out of 50 samples, with the most consistent and small fish scale pattern on the surface i have ever seen. With the same rubber set-up (National Oragne Sponge H3+T80-FX XO coded) as my own viscaria (cherry picked out of 5 TW stock), his simply feels more solid and when the ball hits through the sponge to the blade, the power level of the mid table loop is just mind blowing even for a viscaria.
Also, I didnt realise we were talking about how equipments maximise the potential of an amateur player. I thought we were talking about how you stated Viscarias have the best material for 130 while the Hurricane Long requires you to pay a premium to get the best composition, and somehow that makes DHS an "evil company" when compared to BTY lol
well the fact that butterfly has only one viscaria and it costs 130 is good because you can expect to get the best stuff they can offer at 130.
dhs to start sells hurricane long v at 150.
hurricane long v does not have a different technology than innerforce alc from butterfly and the latter one costs 135.
then dhs goes and says "the hurricane long v we sell is not the best stuff, if you want the best stuff you need to pay 190 for a national blade".
personally I use a zhang jike alc (the new one with black handle), weight at this point after use and all must be around 95g.
I bought this from a korean shop, they get pretty good stuff.
I can see a bit of a difference with the 84g viscaria I bought from hong kong, but really thinking that this will change your game in any way is self delusion.
I know guys who use butterfly alc, mizutani, tenergy, etc and they get beaten by guys with a basic donic 5 ply and two bluefires.
why?
simply the guys with donic play better (that's probably the reason they got a donic sponsorship and use their stuff).
and this is at pretty high level, not beginners.
