Up to $200? Man. You can get virtually anything except rare and titanium yoyos.
Without price as the limiting factor, there’s not even a good place to start. Select whichever one you like the looks of, and if you really want a second opinion, post it back here. If whatever you’ve picked is truly awful (doubtful) you’ll hear it from a few people.
However, I suspect you’ll pick something well-loved.
Without knowing more, it’s impossible to make recommendations.
Once you hit $65, pretty much anything is gonna be great. Even so, God Tricks has amazing budget-friendly metals. The DiBase for $55 is also a winner too. I also strongly recommend RecRev for mind-blowing performance at prices that are too low to logically make sense.
Look at all of their yoyos and pick one. They all have people who love them and people who are indifferent to them. By far the most widely recommended one is the Chief.
But you don’t need to stick to Caribou Lodge.
If you’re not the impatient type, there are so many good brands. Just start going through them and identifying models you like the looks of. Narrow it down to a few and post back here for opinions on them. Not necessarily “which is better” (which will earn you some flak!) but “how do these 3 compare to one another in terms of feel and play?”)
An awesome yoyo. Smaller, lightner, slightly less powerful spins than many other CLYW, but plenty to get you through your combos. My first choice if I ever get around to buying a CLYW.
You and I will probably always disagree on this one, Nathan. On two levels:
Not everyone just bashes their yoyos into the ground, even when they’re a new player. Yeah, I’ve dinged mine a few times, but it’s rather rare. Moreover, yogeek never said it was their first yoyo, just their first metal. However, since dings DO happen:
You just keep playing it! It’s not suddenly diseased because you get a ding.
Furthermore, when you finally get that “nicer” yoyo, there’s no magic cure for carelessness. You might still ding that one. When I was new to yoyo (well, I still am, but I mean in the first few months) I hardly dinged my yoyos at all. It was only later that I’ve occasionally not been giving the yoyo its full attention and have dinged it. Waiting and getting better will still never prevent dings.
I just don’t see there being any reason to get an intermediary “beat this one up first” yoyo because nobody intends to beat up ANY of their yoyos and you’re just as likely to be careful as a beginner (maybe moreso!) as you are as an “expert”.
There’s no need to get a beater unless one wants to. Also, dings happen, it’s just life. They can, will and do happen regardless of our skill level and how careful we are.
If one wants to buy a new metal, then do so. If one wants a used metal via BST, then hey, nothing wrong with that route as well. I just fail to see the logic being buying a beater to just beat one up. Then again, my mindset is to take care of what I have, regardless of what I have. Even so, I do get dings once in a while, and when I do, I mourn the mistake, then keep on playing.
With that sort of budget, the whole yoyo world is your playground! It’s very hard to find a metal over about $60 that’s going to be bad. There will be plenty that won’t fit your preferences, but that doesn’t make them bad. What are your preferences as far as weight, size, shape, and play style go? Maybe we can help you narrow down your choices a bit if we know what you’re looking for.
C3YoyoDesign, Clyw, Turning Point, YYR, OneDrop and General Yo are my favorites. Just play eni meni minee moe, or pick one that you think looks cool, or smells good, or looks awesomely like spinning Godzilla dumpings, with 200 you can’t possibly get anything bad unless you’re scammed or something.
I haven’t tried out many yo-yos and i’m still learning the tricks so I don’t know what shape or play style i like. so I’m looking for a good all around yoyo.
Ehhh… when you’re still learning, anything stable-ish and mid-to-full-sized-ish is a good all-around yoyo. I’m starting to develop preferences, but I have always bought based on variety and the truth is that if you take two dissimilar yoyos out of my case and hand them to me, I’ll be able to do the exact same tricks with the exact same skill of execution on both of them.
Pick one that has a shape and colour you like, and buy it.