So ill try to put down somewhat of a review about this blade after nearly 2 weeks full of training sessions + my first match with it.
As you already see from the fact that i did play a match with it my view seriously changed from the blade.
So first things first:
Currently i play with Battle 2 BS on fh and H3neo 37 on bh. Both sides boosted. For B2 one layer of FTL was enough while H3n needed one bigger layer and one thinner one. That results in a racket 209g heavy.
I suppose my mentioned issues with it here
https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/friendship-729-battle-3.30784/page-2#post-453213 were mainly because they were quite freshly glued onto the blade.
But i was kinda scared that i wasted money on that blade because i had zero feeling, almost no spin in my shots. That was especially sad because the handle is really beautiful. I mean it lies almost perfectly in my hand. I currently have almost no issues with it switching from bh shots to fh and vice cersa.
So 2 days later i trained with it again and the difference was huge. Now i had way more spin in my shots, decent amount of control and feeling. My shots had a pretty good arc again which was a bit further than before.
For some more details:
The blade is quite balanced although the rubbers, especially the B2 are quite heavy.
The blade weighs 89g.
The handle is wider and a bit flatter in hand than the more rounded one from the Sword Vsea.
It reminds me a bit of a Viscaria.
Gameplaywise i still need to check on some shots but these are details that mostly concern me an my playstyle.
The blade resolves the following issues i had before with the Vsea:
Stronger bh flicks or topspin.
While i was capable of looping and spinning the ball, i have struggled really hard to do really fast and hard shots with the Vsea.
The Atletico Power (AP) sends the ball way harder away if force is applied and has a higher throw. Therefore i dont need such a hard upward movement anymore and can apply way more force forward to pressure my opponent with opening flicks.
Getting the blade back in hand propperly after making a switch.
Although i am training fh to bh and vice versa transitions regularly i couldnt get used to grip the Vsea propperly. That forced me way too often to catch an edge because i tried to counterattack with the racket still too closed, because my indexfinger still didnt reached the bh rubber to force the angle open (i hope you get the issue^^).
The issue rarely happens with AP because my hand can grab the handle more naturally and it fits way better into my palm.
Harder fh loops.
While not really an issue because i can hit pretty hard either way, i often looped with a higher focus on spin than speed even though i wanted to kill loop. While that is more of technique issue i found that loopkilling is way easier with the AP. Timing got a little bit more important but is manageable for me and will get even easier when i learn to move faster.
The only little issues i have currently with the blade is one the weight because it kinda strains my wrist a bit how it lays in my hand and second getting used to the more direct speed i got. I do have no problem to block and counter with my fh but bh feels a bit off. I still need to get used to change the angle and movement of my racket to better block and counter several shots. But im quite sure this time, that time and training will resolve this itself.
So my current plan is to switch rubbers around in the upcoming offseason to see if i can resolve the weight issue. Gotta test Xuperman anyway and probably need to test a non chinese rubber on bh too, because i am curious of how Stiga Mantra pro will feel on an inner blade.
All in all im quite happy with how the blade turned out to be. I do wonder though how close it is to W968, but im quite sure that i wont find that out anytime soon, because i dont see a reason to pay 3x the amount of AP for a blade.
I just wished it would be easier to get my hand on AP in europe than it is currently the case.
