Butterfly Marcos Freitas ALC

Recently, I experienced a serious equipment junky relapse, resulting in me buying the new Freitas and Apolonia blades. While my bank account is significantly smaller, both of these blades are actually worth the large cash layout in my view. My Freitas feels not too heavy and not too light (probably 82 or 83 grams). Close to the table, it's pace is very close to that of the Garaydia alc/iolite neo, However, unlike the Garaydia alc, the Freitas maintains its bite at mid-distance and beyond. The blade's respectable pace makes its rock solid control all the more impressive. In fact, the control of the Freitas is not too far behind that of my beloved Basaltec Outer blade (which has nowhere near the speed of the Freitas). In my opinion, the Freitas has excellent feel for a carbon composite blade. For the sake of comparison, I find it to be noticeably less numb than the garaydia alc and even the tb spirit. At the same time, it possesses that glorious "crack" when you catch the ball just right. My short game (always a liability) was fine with this blade, but not spectacular. The Freitas pairs extremely well with both soft and med/med-hard rubbers. I use tenergy 80 on fh and vega euro on bh, and the blade gets the most out of both. This blade will best suit those who appreciate a spinnier, dwelly (you know what I mean ☺️) blade that still has plenty of backbone and venom from any distance. Update: my rating of the stiffness (7) is a bit higher than I'd like. The only options are 5 or 7, but, in reality, I'd rate the stiffness a 6

Pretty low throw and speedy. Found it worked best with tenergy05 and high throw rubbers. short game had trouble being to low throw and couldn’t flip or push with enough spin over the net. It was a bit hard to open since it was low throw. Overall, an average blade for those who can open well and like to keep the ball right on the net. Good dwell and feeling over other outer ALC blades. Would sugggest for those who want low over the net shots and like to counter topspin or really hit the ball hard with a bit more open face. Didn’t hate it but it’s a bit lower arc compared to viscaria or TBALC. Not safe if you don’t have good technique to lift backspin, everything else seems to play extremely well.

I am an 1800 rated player who loops/drives both sides and have been using the MF ALC for a little over 3 months. The blade is made of high quality, yet the design is a little understated. The blade feels "woody" on contact compared to other ALC blades, it reminded me of the TB ZLF in that respect. Light contact shots are very controllable (pushes, blocks). Away from the table, harder contact shots (loops/loop drives) the flex of the blade is apparent, which reminded me of some of the 5 ply blades I’ve used before, but with more power. The blade plays best with medium hardness rubbers.

Najlepsza deska

The Butterfly Marcos Freitas ALC is a 5+2 OFF outer carbon blade (Limba-ALC-Limba-Ayous-Limba-ALC-Limba). This blade has the same wood plys as the: BTY Korbel, BTY Primorac, Tibhar Stratus Power Wood, et al. with slight variations in handle shapes, and placement/lack of fiber layers. The handle of the MF ALC fills the hand nicely with a larger neck and a moderate flare at the base. The blade has a good finish with the handle and wings sanded smooth. The blade I have for my review is 89g (self-selected) with a thickness of 5.9mm. This blade suited for mid-range looping characterized by MF's play-style. The thick outer limba plys allow for controllable slow gear for service, short game, and slow loops. When applying more power the thicker core provides stability, the outer carbon provides extra power, while the limba plys provide good control and dwell. The carbon reacts proportionally to the effort given to strokes. This is a nice feature as some carbon blades tend to be reactive where a stroke generates a ball that was not intended. The amount of kick and lethality when looping is proportional to the effort you apply in the low to mid-range, with a little extra kick in the high-power range. This blade has a medium feel, due to thicker limba outer plys. With the vibrations being precise and near the top of the handle at the thumb and base of the index finger. This blade is very stable, consistent, and controllable and is well suited for euro-loopers. The thicker soft top plys in combination with the outer carbon and stiff core pair well with medium/hard springy tensors providing a direct feeling at ball contact. For folks that have a compact loop stroke outer ALC provides more reactive speed and power that may be lacking in a wood blade. The Butterfly Marcos Freitas blade is an excellent looping blade and I highly recommend it to folks that are coming from Korbel type constructions looking for a bit more controllable speed.