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*mumbles to self in fetal position, trying to resist making a LF D7 post *
“company bad yoyo sexy, company bad yoyo sexy”
Seriously though… that thing looks fantastic man.
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So nice. I was hoping to grab a pink one not too long ago!
3 Likes
66% 888 loaded up with Werrd Top Hats. Cant even begin to describe how fun this one is. Expected the top hats to add a bit of vibe or wobble but its dead smooth 
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Funny you would post this, I was working on my cubes while watching TV tonight. Hadn’t messed with them in a few months. If you walk away from a 4x4 or 5x5 for a period of time, there’s stuff you forget (at my age, anyway!). This was a challenging evening. They sure are a wonderful mental exercise.
5 Likes
I have two top decks. When I bought the first one I was disappointed. I felt it was a stable and comfortable yoyo, but the finishing was terrible for grinds and, most important, I felt it was not very powerful. I changed the bearing several times with no results. Then, I decided to buy my second one, thinking that there was something wrong with the first. Everybody talks how powerful the top deck is, so in my mind there was probably something wrong with the first. Well…the second one was exactly the same. No power, my combos always end before the time. So, until this day I think the top deck is overhyped. All my bimetals are more powerful than the top deck, and several of my monometals are also more powerful, including the standard yoyo: wide angle shutter.
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Interesting. It hasn’t been until the current release that I’ve seen anything negative about the TD. I’m still waiting for the YYE drop and will get one, but definitely coming down a notch or so.
1 Like
I have a Top Deck and WA Shutter and I’d say the spin time is about the same, as well as the power. I find the TD a bit more comfortable in the hand too. Now if I want a powerful monometal, I grab my General Yo Prestige.
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I think in general people are hesitant to comment in a public forum when a yoyo is mid or just whatever, because the community is so tight and they don’t want to offend manufacturers, who are often just one or two people, who are sometimes making it their living.
I think another factor could possibly be lack of access to lots of throws. If you’ve only played or owned a few yoyos, you’re probably more likely to think “Wow this yoyo is great/awesome” if that’s one of the few you’ve tried/owned. The more yoyos I acquire, the more my “spectrum of throws” grows, and I have better reference points for what’s good and what’s not. It is especially awesome if you’re able to go to meets and try stuff there. SoCal luckily has an awesome scene and I’ve quite literally been able to try hundreds more yoyos than I would be able to afford myself. The more stuff you’re able to try, the better you can judge a throw due to having more reference points.
Another component that I could see tying into this is the “honeymoon phase” that most of us go through when getting a new throw. A lot of the hype for certain throws is created shortly after people start getting this or that new release in, and post about it, etc. That’s what gets seen. What doesn’t get seen very much is the “cool off” phase from that throw. Everyone wants to post their shiny new throw when they get it, but no one really ever posts about how eventually (a lot of the time) that throw ended up in a case, and that case is thrown in the closet while the new stuff gets its turn before the cycle begins again.
I personally see latest Top Deck release as kinda a “rose tinted glasses” situation. It was (justifiably) well loved upon release, and a demand began brewing over the years due to the lack of recent releases. But now I can see why they weren’t putting this out in favor of other or newer models. It’s a design that was at the time great for 2016 when it was released, but it’s been 6 years since then, and 6 yoyo years is like jumping from the original iPhone to what we have now lmao. On the whole, throws/designs have simply gotten better since then. I said it before but will say it again, despite me catching heat for it: the Top Deck in 2022 feels like something mid development. With a few tweaks, I feel like it could be a great yoyo - it really is almost there IMO. But damn dude, those edges are just too sharp, and it’s clunky feeling due to the weight. Throwing a Free Solo feels like a breath of fresh air after throwing the Top Deck.
Anyways - in an attempt to wrap up this 4AM stream of consciousness/wall of text and tie it all in: I don’t think people should hesitate at all to point out when throws are mid. I actually think it’s a great thing because it encourages discussion on WHAT makes that yoyo mid, and thus pushes design further. If all you hear all the time is “this yoyo is definitely one of my new favorites and one of the best in my collection,” not only is that grating but does nothing to push yoyo design further (and I have DEFINITELY been guilty of that, which is why I’m trying to go more in this direction of thinking instead lately). We’re probably paying on average $75-100 a pop for these MFs. It’s okay to point out when one of them could use some tweaking. Brandon Vu is an amazing example of this. One of the biggest complaints about the Outlier 2 was that the rims were sharp as hell on the catch. He addressed that problem on the Outlier 3 and rounded those bois right out. If we talk about it, they’ll likely listen and people will benefit, but if all we say is “this is great, this is the best” we’ll just keep getting the same old stuff.
So yeah… TDLR (
)… I’m with this dude:
16 Likes