How good are their yoyos in terms of quality and play?
Great quality. Great play. It just depends what you want to spend on a yoyo. It won’t make you better, so get what you can afford. Just like buying a Ferrari won’t make you a better driver.
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Not even if I get a red one?
To the OP, excellent quality and excellent play but very very competition orientated and lifeless.
Yuki
Amazing. Get an Isotope 2 if you can afford it. They’re still available at a couple locations.
I have a Prominence which I like a lot. They are sold out basically everywhere except here actually. That’s because the initial price was $200 when they were selling internationally for like $155 but Andre dropped the price to $180 which is more reasonable. It’s a sick 5A throw. Probably excellent for 1A too, but if you’re more into that I’d get an Isotope 2 or Leviathan 5 or Leviathan 4.
@MiamiBuddha: I disagree…I think good yoyos will make you better. It’s easier to learn new tricks on good yoyos. I started getting drastically better after spending lots of money on high-end throws as they are easier to learn on, for me at least.
Progression is all in your head anyway.
Well a track car will improve your lap times, but not all Ferraris come ready for the track. Equipment makes a difference or else everyone would be happy with their FHZs.
I can’t agree more with Yuki on this one.
Every time I throw a TP yoyo I have this exact thought
But in terms of performance, they are a high step above the average indeed
Jeez… everything within reason. Yes, a Pagani is better than a Civic. Obviously I shouldn’t have used cars for the analogy but you know what I mean. You can play just as well with a FHZ as you can with a PSG. You can play just as well with an Avalanche as you could with a Leo Sniper. Yoyos have their own “feel”. If you feel that the “feel” is making you a better thrower, then it probably is. Everything is perception. YOU aren’t going to place any higher at a contest if you used an Isotope as opposed to a Shutter.
I’ve noticed this but the leviathan series has some life to it I’ve fealt
Throw a leviathan, leviathan 2, and 4b and they were all fun
The positron however was all competition though
can u elaborate on “lifeless?”
I am actually thinking of getting the Isotope 2B. Does it have the same performance as an Isotope 2?
How shall I put this…
They are throws I didn’t enjoy much playing. I liked the fact they were extremely performant, but they are extremely docile.
When I first threw a Sleipnir, I could feel its thirst for speed. Today I think it’s almost a crime not play fast with a Sleipnir.
When I first threw a Positron, I couldn’t tell how it was supposed to be played, what it was designed for, which was pretty destabilizing.
And I felt the same about the Levs, the RT, the Solenoid…
They are excellent yoyos, but they are not very demanding, they just suit any style of play.
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Well I, and most of us, are not at the level where a super high quality yoyo vs. a high quality yoyo will affect contest placement significantly.
But there must be a reason so many of the world’s best players use Draupnirs and not Shutters.
Not sure. Probably close, but there are doubtless some subtle differences. You’re better off getting the Isotope 2 since you can, though. You have to go overseas but you’ll get free shipping so it will probably come out cheaper.
There are two light blue Isotope 2’s and one red Isotope 2 in stock at a major overseas site for 24,800 yen. If you don’t know where I’m talking about PM me and I’ll send you the link.
And I don’t know what people mean calling Turning Points lifeless. Is a Ferrari more lifeless than a Corvette? I don’t get it. Personally I love my TP Prominence and the Isotope 2 is high on my wish list. If I can still find one in a month or so when I have some more discretionary funds I’ll probably pick one up. Either that or a Leviathan 5. But I only know of one Leviathan 5 that’s still available so odds are it will be gone by then.
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I think that reason to be preference. Most Asian players, I believe, use the Draupnir because it fits their preference, or because it is considered the best competition yoyo. The availability also comes into play. YYR yoyos are more available in Asia than there are in the US. In the US however we find more people using CLYW and One Drop yoyos. They use them because they are more available in the states than the YYR yoyos. It also not only suited for availability but also for style: as Asian players like the Draunir more because it has speed stability and long spin times. In the US, it varies there are somsome who like do more intricate slack tricks, and some who put more speed to them. I don’t believe that the competitors use the Draupnir all the time. It gets kind of boring, as it doesn’t have much of a personality.
I’m speculating here, but I imagine the reason that competitive American players use One Drops and CLYWs more than YYR (though some are on YYR like Samm Scott) or TP is because they are more likely to get sponsored by English-speaking shops than Japanese ones. And once you’re sponsored you’re pretty much stuck with that company until you leave.
Anyway about the Isotope 2, it’s gotta be great for slacks because Takeshi Matsuura just won Japan Nationals with it doing tons of slack tricks.
I think there’s room in everybody’s case for a pure performance machine. I’d love that machine to be the Isotope 2. 
I have lots of quirky yoyos, too. I would hate for my entire collection to look homogenous. But man… if I could say, “here’s my weird lightweight organic… here’s my huge diameter floaty throw… and THIS one is my no-holds-barred competition machine…” that sounds like a good thing to me.
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My yoyos are almost all of the “competition machine” variety but there is still a great deal of variance in how they play. For example, my YYM Agonist is a mid-sized, 62 gram speed demon, wheras my Sturm Panzer Eclipse Ogre is a 70 gram force majeure of angular momentum.
I don’t buy this “There are competition yoyos and there are fun yoyos” dichotomy I see popping up everywhere. (Not saying you said this, Greg, but the idea is all over this thread and many others).
wt crap is a fun yoyo?
You don’t buy it because you don’t believe in fun.
Nah, just kidding.
I buy it to the extent that a “competition” yoyo is generally meant to maximize stability, spin time, and catch zone/trapeze width. But that’s not always fun. However, you can compete with yoyos that don’t strictly maximize those things, and you can have “fun” with yoyos that do. I suspect many people fall into the latter category (having FUN with “competition” yoyos!) and therefore they don’t find any use in the distinction.
The distinction’s totally artificial.
But I’ll tell you what: The Werrd Pacquaio is not likely a yoyo people will compete with, but it is fun! Same with the Duncan Mosquito. Or any number of other yoyos that people don’t immediately think of as being the best choice for a competition. There are hundreds. “I enjoy playing this yoyo, but I can see why it might not be the best choice for modern competitions”. That’s all that’s meant.
Someone asks me, “what is your most fun yoyo?” I might be tempted to cite the Pacquiao. Someone asks me, “which yoyo would you likely choose to compete with?” I would go with something different like the Prestige.
It’s disingenuous to say you can’t recognize what people mean by that artificial distinction.