It’s easy to get started. The Manta Ray, the Legend Wing, and the Butterfly all punch above their price point. Butterflies are getting a new release this week.
Edit: if I was buying one to try it out and I wasn’t married to all wood, I’d go Manta Ray.
I’m gonna second what @TryCatchThrow said. The Legend Wing is fantastic and holds its own against any of the best wood yoyos. There’s also the Manta Ray and other great fixed options for under 10 bucks if you aren’t dead set on it being wood.
The handmade boutique fixies are awesome, but they’re not really going to offer you a whole lot in terms of play if you’re new to 0A. A legend wing will do you just as well as a (now) 100 dollar TMBR yoyo as far as actually playing the yoyo is concerned.
I 100% agree with @mable. The Legend Wing is an amazing wood fixed axle and are great for 0A. I think I have about 6 of them so I’m never too far away from one.
That being said, my go to wood fixed right now is from @Eric_Newlin. It does all the stuff the Legend Wing does, but with a little more weight and more importantly knowing it was handmade. I’m a sucker for quality handmade stuff that works the way I want it to.
Just my opinion though.
At least they moved on from “Can you DNA with…” on every yoyo Tiktok. The yoyo audience on Tiktok seems to be comprised primarily of young kids who, as any parent will tell you, have an infinite appetite for watching the same bit over and over again.
I’ve heard that from many others, and I think we can attribute that to the lack of exposure to modern yoyo play for the general population. But the kids who follow yoyo on Tiktok are now well versed in top-tier modern yoyo play. If they keep asking to see DNA or Godspeed, it isn’t because they don’t know about anything else.
The last time it happened was right before I won the yoyo string lab nitro plus giveaway. I put that little tube that he sent me in my bag with extra strings in it and a bearing and it hasn’t happened since.
I would like to apologize for this even though you didn’t get a yoyo from me lol.
I stopped including string at all when doing BST stuff because I figured other people already had their preferred strings and weren’t exactly going to be thrilled to get a basic yellow kitty string in the box. Especially people who are more used to playing boutique nylon strings and such.
I will go back to including a string in the box, I never really considered your scenario.
Getting a throw in the mail that got half swapped when you didn’t see it half swapped in the description/pictures. I’m not gonna nit pick and complain too much because I like the throw overall, but I actually don’t like half swaps very much. I just think it woulda been nice to know that that was gonna be done before shipping it out to me lol.