SpinLord Marder IV

Very soft, elastic and spinny top sheet on a ~45°-47° offensive sponge. The rubber feels a bit inconsistentwhen the rubber is brand new, so you definetely have to give it 2 or 3 sessions to "burn in" the until catapult effect and spin level become completely consistent and predictable. After playing the Marder IV on all-wood Stiga Celero ALL+ blade I now switched to a Lion Absolute Intact Off- blade which is reinforced with glass fibre. The Marder IV harmonizes even better with this stiffer and faster blade. Still with a good touch in short play and ball placement it now became very easy for me to attack against both underspin and topspin balls. This blade rubber combination is not the fastest, but fast enough and - even more important for me - very easy and consistant to play. A good rubber to compare with is the Tibhar Hybrid MK: One of my Club mates got it on a donic carbon blade (Off-, i dont remember the exact type) and I was able to play with his blade without any adjustment in my technique. The overall feeling and speed of the Hybrid MK is quite similar. I think the main difference of both rubbers is that Marder IV topsheet has very long pimples on the inside which makes it feel a bit softer and easier to play over the table and for passive blocks etc. In contrast the Hybrid MK has very short pimples, which makes it more direct and a bit more suitable for active strokes, especially for counterloops and flicks but also a bit more spin-sensitive, which makes it a little more difficult to control. The soft topsheet also causes the Marder IV to last not too long (i replaced it after 4 month with one or two weekly sessions), but I think this is a general problem of all the hybrid rubbers. Anyways, instead of buying one Hybrid MK I could buy two Marder IV for the same money, so I keep playing with Marder IV.

I used this rubber on a allround wood blade and this rubber surprised me. This rubber excels at close to the table plays such as drives and smashes, further from the table this rubber became much more of a pain to play with. The ball really launched off of the rubber for every shot I made which could sometimes make it hard to control. If you are looking for a fast quite direct rubber this could be the one for you ,but otherwise I would highly recommend H3 neo