Agree?
Let the debate and dissensions begin…
Although I haven’t tried the First Base, I have and love both the Replay Pro and the Shutter. I actually have three Shutters right now…
For what Jake is saying, i can see his point but that 1st Base gives more options out the gate. I would recommend that over his number one because being a noob sucks and you dont want the yoyo being in the way.
For a first plastic, I like to recommend the YoTricks Sage. It is durable (POM plastic), smooth, and W shaped for good performance.
For a first monometal I’d probably point newcomers to a MagicYoyo Y01 Node. As much as I hate to admit it the Node gives a beginner all the performance they’ll need at 1/3rd the price of a Shutter. And I say this as a fan of the Shutter (I own five of them)!
For a first bimetal I think it is hard to beat the price/performance ratio of either the YYF Superstar (bimetal) ($50) or the MagicYoyo Stealth ($55). Though in all honesty I would probably urge someone to try and save up another $15-20 and get themselves a TopYo Dominator ($70).
Magicyoyo T9 is AMAZING for $12.
- Includes bearing tool
- unresponsive bearing
- it’s ORGANIC.
Cannot go wrong.
https://www.amazon.com/MAGICYOYO-Responsive-Beginners-Replacement-Unresponsive/dp/B078JM38RR
I’m not so sure that organic-shaped yoyos are good for beginners. Beginners need as much stability as possible, and organics tend to be easy to knock off axis. I remember how much I appreciated the stability of the W shape over the O shape when I first started (last summer).
I started with a sage pro pack, and looking back on it, it’s super unstable and was really frustrating to use.
The thing that I do like about the sage on the other hand, is that it is a midsize plastic. I’m really not a fan of giant yo-yos, which most Plastics tend to be.
Quality control. I don’t trust it enough to suggest it.
I used my Sage to work through the YYE trick ladder up to, but not including binding. It was plenty stable for all of that basic responsive stuff, which is what I consider the “total beginner stage” of learning. As soon as I was ready to go beyond the trapeze, his brother, and maybe double or nothing, I jumped to an unresponsive monometal.
In terms of comparisons to the ones Jake demonstrates, I found the more organically-shaped First Base and Replay to be less stable than the Sage, and neither of them were as smooth. But that could have just come down to the bearings in each or the amount of vibe each randomly happened to have. Beginners aren’t going to know how to tune for vibe–I certainly didn’t–so it helps if a plastic yoyo is less vibey right out of the box, which I found to be the case with my Sage. YMMV.
buying a shutter and a replay pro tomorrow at PNWR