I wonder why I bought this rubber. Here are some facts. At the US Open table tennis 2007, I bought this rubber because of some hype from Butterfly that they have a new Long Pips rubber out, and is good for attacking. Anyone at the Butterfly booth at the US Open knew little about this rubber. They had only 1.7 mm, so I had to get satisfied with that version.
I tried the Butterfly Feint AG Long Pips 1.7 mm rubber on my Dr.Neubauer Combination Effect paddle. The rubber has very soft pips on a medium soft sponge of density 28. The pips have excellent quality as any other butterfly products carry.
The first stroke I tried - as I do every time - was chopping. After try after try, I decided myself that this rubber is not for chopping – close to the table or mid to long distance from the table. This is not good for block chop also. You can easily get punished for such strokes from your opponent. The chop strokes can’t generate any spin variation, and the opponent will become comfortable with the dead balls easily.
Another downside is you can’t play a defensive game with this rubber on your backhand. The rubber is fast because of the high tension technology built into the rubber. The short strokes can generate enormous speed. Irrespective of the sponge size, this rubber can’t slow down the opponents attacking. In essense, it is equivalent to using a regular inverted rubber having light grippy surface. A defensive player having this rubber, going for a rally with his agressive opponent will surely loose the match.
Who is this rubber for? This rubber is for attacking players like hitters who have used short pips or medium pips before, but need some extra boost to their aggression. On your forehand, you can absorb any spin with this rubber and hit back – under, top or side spin. Such strokes have good sinking action, and the opponents will have difficulty to return it. I tried hook loops with this rubber, and is very satisfied. You can push, block just like an inverted rubber. I love the third ball attack also when I used this rubber. To my surprise, I felt I was not using a long pips on my forehand – it can do whatever an inverted rubber can do except the fact that the spin for your opponent is almost to nothing.
Try this rubber on a paddle (bat or racket) with a tacky regular inverted rubber on the other side. Don’t try this rubber if you are a defensive player – this rubber is for an hitter only. If you’ve just started playing table tennis, and would like to learn smashes, pushes, blocks or flips, you can try this rubber. You can move on to a different rubber after you learn these strokes.
I don’t know any world class player using this rubber. Butterfly might have released this rubber as an experimentation to compete with other manufactures like Dr.Neubauer who have excellent all round attacking long pips rubbers.
Sponsor Ad: TableTennisStore.US - 1000 XIOM, TSP, JOOLA, CHAMPION table tennis products!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I guess the 1.7mm soft sponge would make almost any long pimple rubber feel like an inverted rubber. In fact I’m even surprised they would sell it that thickness… the long pimple effect would be hardly noticable. Too bad that’s all they had… I think your conclusion is right for this sponge thickness… it may be very different on a thin sponge though…
I use 1.3mm ver. The chop action is ok, but not as good as Feint II. I can attack easier.
I’ve used it once. I had better success for defence, although it is not a choppers rubber but does some things nicely. I do agree it is a hitters rubber for people who previously used short pips. It is not a classic long pip attacking rubber because it is much trickier to vary the spin. I was going to continue and develop it but thought just shift to D.techs with sponge or else TSP P-H or P3a its easier.
Is it possible to do loops(backhand specially) with this similar to inverted rubbers?