Wizard Tachyon Outer

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Oh boy this is a hard one to talk about, better strap on.
To start it off light heartedly this is just an initial impression, since I don't have enough play to fully understand this blade, but I am quite good to pick up things quickly and when something is new and different one can give better comparison to "standard carbon blades".
I have been playing with carbon blades basically most of my life. ALC, Tamca, ZLC, TeXtreme etc etc... I like the speed and quite frankly I like the feeling of carbon blades. What I don't like about them is their control over the table. Touches, pushes, serves; these are not techniques that they excel in normally since they bounce. On top of that I like koto outer ply, I think if someone has _the_ technique a blade with koto top ply can make more spin than for example limba.

Before I jump into it Wizard is a small blade maker shop they mostly cater to Japan market. Their website is in Japanese only, since I only understand very limited Japanese speach, I cannot read, but google translate is a good friend. So I basically just copied their email address into gmail and wrote them a mail if they deliver their new Tachyon blade internationally. I got a positive response in a few hours and so began this whole experience of blade purchase trough email from a very kind and helpful lady who also used google translate to understand me and respond to me. One would think this is the recepie for disaster, but quite the opposite, it was very successful on my part at least.

If someone has read some of my reviews or rants they know I am very fussy about handles. I would swear that the handle and the hand grip of a blade makes more of a difference than rubber + blade construction. I mostly used FL handles since those are the most safe, but many FL handles are kind of crap on big brands blades. From the mass production brands I think Yinhe has the best FL handle style. Yinhe makes their handles a bit thicker which just fits in the hand better of men. I would say Stiga is also quite good. And the rest of the brands are just a hit and miss crapshoot. I have a Xiom Ice Cream AZX blade that is very nice, but it's handle is so thin that without a grip tape it is unusable for me. A bad handle can also cause some wrist problems down the line so everyone should be really careful.
Thankfully the good people at Wizard are extremely concerned about handles and they are aware it's effect on performance too. Since they are a small shop they have the ability to have many configurations. A big manufacturer doesn't have this "luxury". On top of making the best possible handles Wizard recommends the best handle type for you personally. As I said I mostly used FL, but I actually like anatomic the most. However anatomic is quite rare, not many blades have it as option and not many distributors have it in stock. To not drag about on this Wizard will help you to choose the best handle for you and they will make the best handle. It is not made from epoxied sawdust either, they use real whole wood.

Tachyon Outer is an about 6.4mm thick outer carbon blade with koto top ply and ayous core. If the dear reader is quite sawwy in blades then they know this is not a combination that occures often. Koto outer ply and ayous core is quite rare to begin with and this used with in combination of a pure outer carbon is kind of unprecedented.
Probably there is a reason why most manufacturers don't use such combinations. For me it was very intriguing since this year I have been playing with an Innerforce ZLC which has an ayous core (and it had anatomic handle) and a Nexy Eucrasia that is an inner ALC carbon style blade and has koto top ply (with a rather bad FL handle). Tachyon sounded like a mix of both at the same but with outer carbon.

I might be a bit boring with going so much in dept of blade types and constructions and all this information might be irrelevant to those who have never tried the mentioned blades but hear me out.

Blade construction:
1-7 Koto 0.6mm
2-6 Sigracet carbon 0.25mm
3-5 ayous 0.6mm
core ayous 3.5mm
~88g

What the hell is Sigracet carbon? Well basically it is a non-woven carbon that is used in electric car batteries if I'm not mistaken. Why is that good? Well you can read all the small details on Wizard's website about the blade design, but as I understand it, it tries to achieve the same thing Butterfly tried with the Revoldia. Creating a non-woven artificially made fiber that can be glued using a different technoligy or with different glue. With a woven material you need to fill in the gaps with glue and with a specific glue that can adhere wood with carbon and arylate or zylon. With a non-woven fiber you have different options and it can change the blade feel. Many people swear by all-wood blades since they have a different feel. Well the Tachyon and Revoldia both have an almost all-wood like feel with enchanced bounce.

Tachyon outer has more tricks up its sleeve. The feeling of the blade is very hard to describe and quite frankly hard to belive too. I have done the usual ball bounce test on the wood to check the frequency of the blade. My copy has 1270-1290Hz. That sounds awfully low, around the All+ and Off- range. Faster all wood blades have this pitch and slow inner style ALC blades as well. I have been previously talking about Innerforce ZLC and such blades so why am I shocked? I am shocked since the blade is only this slow on light contact. If you hit the ball a bit harder the ball is bouncing more. If you hit hard enough this blade is very comparable to my Ice Cream AZX blade that has 1550Hz pitch. So this is blade is kind of like an all wood blade on light touch but it's like a fast carbon blade once you start swinging.
I have not finished with the tricks. Tachyon has no carbon feel. It feels always like an all wood blade, even when it bounces a lot at a hard swing. I have never ever felt this sensation. There are blades that can do one or the other, but to be this bipolar at the same time... Never felt it before. It might actually be faster than an Ice Cream AZX to be honest, it might be around a slower Primorac Carbon level, it's really hard to determine since it feels so soft all the time.

On the Wizard website they describe many new technology they have came out with to make this blade. For one it has a special varnish on the bladeface, varnish on the edge of the blade, they use different glues to laminate the blade, and they started to use this Sigracet carbon. They also do what they call accoustic aging of the wood and what they talk about makes a lot of sense even if it sounds a bit gimmicky.

On their website the recommend rubber combinations and I have took their advice and the advice of the forum of Joola Golden Tango PS on forehand and Tibhar Aurus Select on backhand. I am a left handed player so I block more hard shots on my backhand than most players. I think this is a good formula for this blade. Neither rubbers are fast, but the blade makes them fast so I had no speed issues on my first time trying it.
Speaking of which I did the second most dumb thing any player can do. I used the blade straigth off on a training match. I had no training with it before. Both rubbers and the blade were new too. It was a friendly match with another club that won their league in a different region. I played 4 singles match and 2 doubles and I have to say in singles I only lost one set. The very first set of the first match. And then I just started to get the hang of the blade so my previous experiences are from match situations. Won both doubles match too by the way.

Besides the great speed and all-wood like feeling the other best aspects were the low to the net pushes that bounced minimum 2 times on the table and the excelent block control too. Open ups were very spinny, then the 5th ball could be finished since the speed. I have no complaints so far. Serves were also more spinny than with my previous blades.

I really struggle to find any negativity of the blade's performance. So far I can't say anything bad, and I am really sorry about that since I do want to sound too one sided.
This blade is really tremendous, and if you are an attacking player be it a carbon blade user or all wood used this could be for you if you want to step up in speed or feeling.

The price of the blade is 27.500 Japanese Yen, which depending on the exchange rates is around ~220EUR~250USD. It's not cheap, but you're not only getting a blade that performs better in most conditions than literally all blade on the market, but you get the customization, the advice and the personal support as well from the Wizard team.
Let me put it in another way so it looks like even better value. Joola Golden Tango PS, and Tibhar Aurus Select are both very cheap rubbers. If you used something more expensive and chances are you did then over a short period you will make more saving on the rubbers.

Just some final words before I have more practice with it and more experience: if you are looking at buying a new ALC, ZLC inner or outer blade you might want to not buy that and instead get this.

Pics and links:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nGxII6tdBygfscjBXjgdw7e9BprPDBZw
https://wizard-tt.co.jp/tachyon-pr/
 
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Never felt it before. It might actually be faster than an Ice Cream AZX to be honest, it might be around a slower Primorac Carbon level, it's really hard to determine since it feels so soft all the time...I end here and first think is Xu Xin Dynasty Carbon which has ayous core and koto as top ply and it is slow in short game and the textreme+ is like carbon with wood feeling and Stiga Master is good handle, but you will like Legend handle more so I end here because this is first thing close to my mind
 
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Never felt it before. It might actually be faster than an Ice Cream AZX to be honest, it might be around a slower Primorac Carbon level, it's really hard to determine since it feels so soft all the time...I end here and first think is Xu Xin Dynasty Carbon which has ayous core and koto as top ply and it is slow in short game and the textreme+ is like carbon with wood feeling and Stiga Master is good handle, but you will like Legend handle more so I end here because this is first thing close to my mind

Ah, you're right I totally forgot about the Xu Xin Dynasty is an ayous core koto outer carbon blade too. I would probably like the legend or winner handle, but I just did a quick check on contra.de, tt11 and spinfactory and Stiga's store and it's only available in classic and master handles or pen. I wanted to talk about this before that Stiga handles are quite nice but legend and winner is usually never available. Anyways it's 280EUR... And I don't fancy Stiga's quality to be honest. I had a Carbonado 290, it was nice, just heavy. I could tell that it was a carbon blade, but felt different to other outer carbon blades for sure. I have also tried my teammates Carbonado 145's, he had like 3 and 2 of them were super mediocore and one was terrible.
The Dynasty could be good tho, I never tried it, but 280-300EUR I doubt I would fork out for a Stiga blade.

 
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You will take 30% on tt11 which is good boost.
I had carbonado 290 which was crazy for me and the work from Stiga at carbonado series is not my favorite but yeah then IT comes Stiga dynasty carbon which has own quality, own vibe own sound and you like blocking on bh side which is the best quality shot if I compare every blades at the area.

 
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Zwill did you used Trinity vyzaryz?

Yes, I have. If you are a limba fan it's really good. Not that many good limba outer blades for a good price. Maybe Victas has a few products that are better value.

I have about 10+ hours of play in the Tachyon Outer and I love it. What I don't particularly love is the Joola Golden Tango PS. I dunno what is with this rubber, but it just doesn't bounce. If I hit a 60% strength shot it's almost the same speed as I hit a full strength shot just that I'm sweating blood at the same time. The rubber acts like a shock absorber, the harder you hit the less it bounces. I honestly feel like an unboosted H8-80 will be significantly faster, especially if I start hitting hard. If it's not enough then I will try D09c.
Last time I had this feeling was with Aibiss, but that was even slower.

I'm sure the blade is very fast as the Aurus Select is fantastic. It has awesome speed and spin and control too, I have no complaints. And that rubber is not a speed monster. If I hit hard backhands it's at least as fast if not more as the Ice Cream AZX or a Mizutani SZLC. The blade has that piercing power. But it can be used close to the table as well as it doesn't repel the balls like the mentioned other blades, it gives you a lot of contact time.

 
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Yes, I have. If you are a limba fan it's really good. Not that many good limba outer blades for a good price. Maybe Victas has a few products that are better value.

I have about 10+ hours of play in the Tachyon Outer and I love it. What I don't particularly love is the Joola Golden Tango PS. I dunno what is with this rubber, but it just doesn't bounce. If I hit a 60% strength shot it's almost the same speed as I hit a full strength shot just that I'm sweating blood at the same time. The rubber acts like a shock absorber, the harder you hit the less it bounces. I honestly feel like an unboosted H8-80 will be significantly faster, especially if I start hitting hard. If it's not enough then I will try D09c.
Last time I had this feeling was with Aibiss, but that was even slower.

I'm sure the blade is very fast as the Aurus Select is fantastic. It has awesome speed and spin and control too, I have no complaints. And that rubber is not a speed monster. If I hit hard backhands it's at least as fast if not more as the Ice Cream AZX or a Mizutani SZLC. The blade has that piercing power. But it can be used close to the table as well as it doesn't repel the balls like the mentioned other blades, it gives you a lot of contact time.

I remember that you had some words about tmxi by xiom that's why I asked and tried to find your posts. I AM not into material, composition. I see innovation and I cant ignore it because the good price as 2nd blade user is very tempting. I dont know if IT will work for me.

The pink sponge from goldentango ps is made for backhand and you need to Play 50-60 hours and IT will be better but for me you saw on different forum why people didnt like hybrids because it is not linear with performance, that's why I think about h880 because Chinese best factory is working 24/7 just to get the best product for their market.


I AM using right now koki niwa wood which makes me happy about playing table tennis and sometimes IT is the most important thing to be happy with equipment

 
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Hi Zwill, great review! I like your writing style in general and how you incorporate stories and anecdotes in particular.

I was wondering why you stopped playing with the Wizard Tachyon Outer and how you would compare it to, say the Joola Zhou Qihao or the current blade you are using.
 
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Hi Zwill, great review! I like your writing style in general and how you incorporate stories and anecdotes in particular.

I was wondering why you stopped playing with the Wizard Tachyon Outer and how you would compare it to, say the Joola Zhou Qihao or the current blade you are using.
The Tachyon is a lot softer and has a lot more wood feeling than ZQ S-ALC or a Viscaria even.
If someone is looking for an all-wood feeling with carbon then it's perfect.
My biggest problem with it is the varnish it has, my glues don't stick too well to it. I would probably need to use a German glue that is designed for varnish like Donic Formula First or there are a few other ones, but the problem with that glue is that it's impossible to remove from the sponge. So if you use it you need to be very committed.
 
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