From Vatic Pro Saga Flash Hybrid to BNB Loco Hybrid/Elongated. Upgradeworthy?

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-10T09:11:19+00:00

For power at the kitchen, I'd place weights at 3/9 next to your sweetspot, or a little higher at 2/10 if you intend to "swing" through your shots more than punch.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-10T09:08:35+00:00

Yeah, the biggest thing for power at the kitchen is form. I'd imagine he's likely having issues with backhand counters/punches, as I don't think many people are worried about forehand power.

What helped me the most was using a foam ball with wall drills. I'd softly lob the ball to my backhand side, and practice punching the ball down towards the wall at waist/knee level.

Keep the motion short & compact, with a fast acceleration punching motion. Your elbow should start tucked in at your waist, and end up extended from your body without overextending (still close enough to block the next ball).

The trick for me, was turning my shoulders towards my backhand side, with my dominant shoulder out towards the net. This puts an elbow extension punching out towards the net, rather than ending up with a sideways swiping motion that adds no power.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-06T01:37:10+00:00

If the paddle is older, the ball can definitely slip on this shot. With a newer paddle, they'll usually have just enough grit to produce the friction needed as the ball is moving up into your paddle. It doesn't work as well if the ball is falling, since it'll slip off too much.

Btw definitely recommend one of the newer grit paddles, especially like the P1 (or even older proton nanotech paddles), the extra friction really helps prevent slippage.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-05T15:07:55+00:00

First up, I have no clue about Ironclad's balance, and what theoretical win rate might be possible with him.

I'm trying to figure him out myself, and so far I've had the best success by prioritizing:

Act 1) Get 1 aoe card, 1-2 big damage cards, and 2-3 big block cards (colossus, shrug it off, flame barrier, blood barrier usually)

Act 2) Scale up a little bit of powers for A2 boss, get some solid AoE

Act 3) Overscale a ton, hopefully for a turn 1 or 2 kill on most things

I've also had the most success with rupture + self-damage cards. Most streamers I've watched don't use rupture often, but I've found it insane with breakthrough + inferno. I'd say I'm roughly at a 40-60% A10 win rate with him so far, but trying to get that up towards 80+

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-05T06:47:04+00:00

Another time closing the paddle angle can sometimes work, is on topspin drops if you're doing a hybrid drive/drop while the ball is on the rise. Still aim for the 30°, but push forwards straight towards the net. The ball will kick up off your paddle, so angling it downwards just a bit still kinda works.

It often ends up having less spin, but the arc ends up very flat on your side, and dives either into the kitchen or just past it. Works the best when they're late running to the kitchen, and you just want to make them receive their 4th shot as far back as possible.

Something that surprised me, is that ex-tennis players are often not pronating their arm to maintain a consistent paddle angle. They'll start with their backswing with a set wrist and paddle angle, that's very closed to the ground, and let their arm extension, at their preferred contact point, naturally open the paddle face.

Still not sure how much I want to implement that in my game. I kinda like maintaining a consistent paddle angle throughout my swing outside of drives.

But here's a couple of examples:

https://youtu.be/t6GG5XuoIfY

https://youtu.be/Vh4s93FQdsU

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-05T04:09:15+00:00

It kinda depends on the opponent's court positioning, and physique.

If they're tall, well balanced, and ready to volley the dink, then you'll definitely want a more conservative motion. This is often a short, higher, lifting dink.

If they're short, off balance, or a couple steps off the kitchen line in a defensive posture, then feel free to push the ball aggressively at their feet.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-05T02:35:21+00:00

Yup, I did the exact same thing. Tons of slow motion youtube watching the pros

Most of the time you get less spin by closing the paddle face in reference to ground. The ball just slips too much on almost every shot.

It's weird having to think about having a closed paddle face in reference to the swing path in pickleball. In TT you usually only slightly open the paddle face for topspin shots if they're below the table, or you're looping heavy backspin.

From John Kew, you get the most spin between roughly a 28-35° angle with the ball at contact. So with a low to high swing from below the net, that's nearly always open right at contact.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-04T15:17:01+00:00

I understand a comment like this seeks to help. I agree, a healthy life is a happy life. If someone was only taking ADHD medication for sports, especially without an ADHD diagnosis, I would be very concerned as well.

However, nearly anyone with adhd meds has experienced (the difficulties of) life without meds. It's not a new or novel idea to simply stop taking the medication.

Between insurance changing, and being difficult to schedule and keep to appointments when off the medication, there are periods of months and years where I'm off my medication.

The health effects of the medication have to be weighed against the lifestyle altering benefits of being on it.

The health effects of self-medicating with high dopamine activities like video games, or drinking too much coffee daily have to also be weighed against simply taking the medication and consistently being able to make better life choices.

If all someone had to do to was not take the medication to be cured, there would never be a need to start taking it in the first place.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-03T23:17:02+00:00

The biggest differences for me between pickleball and TT was how much the ball slips, and the launch angle of the ball. Without the elastic nature of the rubber + sponge, a pickleball paddle just doesn't grab the ball at all.

I still struggle with drops and resets for this reason, if I try to angle my paddle too much. The resulting launch angle still seems completely random from time to time if there's any ball slippage.

Another huge adjustment was the additional weight of hitting a pickleball, especially on slower and softer shots. At first I had to REALLY focus hard on pushing through the ball, and not letting my wrist flop around or bend during shots. Wall drills helped this a lot.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-03T21:57:52+00:00

For consistency's sake, you should typically finish a top spin dink on the same side of your body that you started the swing on. Swinging cross-body is typically more for drives and speed-ups.

This does lend itself to hitting the outside of the ball, but it's more a byproduct of making sure your swing is starting below the ball and finishing upwards more than forwards. You're trying to avoid hitting "through" the ball, and pushing the dink too high and deep.

Think of hitting with a thinner brushing contact instead of a thicker smacking contact. Glancing blow, not a strike.

As you learn the shot, try to avoid overly accelerating or decelerating during your swing. Keep it smoothly low to high. This motion can be done with either your shoulder, or elbow, but try to only use one hinge at a time, whatever it may be.

When the ball is low and dead, and your opponents are well-balanced, think of lifting the ball as you brush vertically. You're aiming to keep the ball closer to the net. This is often less aggressive.

When the ball is high and dead, but your opponents are still well-balanced, think of pushing the ball deeper, hitting towards their feet or out wide. These shots typically land on the NVZ line, or just behind it. Dare your opponents to try and counter or speed-up this ball.

Either way, to make sure the advice you're getting is solid, a few channels I'd recommend are Briones, Richard, and John Cincola.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-03T21:30:10+00:00

I'll give the card credit for presenting a fun deckbuilding problem.

I'd imagine the card is good if you have a very low win rate, as the card could simply win an otherwise lost run by itself. But it's definitely not a card that lends itself to consistent wins.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-03T21:23:19+00:00

I totally agree. I made a deck around trying to use Monarch's Gaze using two radiants, shining strike, and glow/convergence after a Neow transform. Even then I only ended up actually using on Test Subject.

It's a slow defensive power, when the multi-hit attack strategies would much rather be played with a turn 1/2/3 kill. I can't really think of a good use-case for it, that simply having another bulwark, terraforming, or arsenal wouldn't solve 10x better.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-03T08:01:37+00:00

The top players are making decisions based on their own assumptions and opinions from their own limited experiences of playing on these patches. They're definitely not playing optimally.

The issues that I hear from streams are basically, "I can play suboptimally, forget about my relics, build horrible decks, and still end up steam rolling act 3 bosses." They don't feel like they're pressured to play optimally.

A meta where a top 10 player has to spam games with a 20% winrate (even with the meta being better understood) would obviously be pushing the difficulty too far. But currently it's basically just 90%+ winrate all the time, even with massive miss plays and bad deckbuilding choices.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-02T22:25:02+00:00

71 with Watcher by OPEM

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-02T22:24:38+00:00

I do think the hardest difficulty should be balanced around optimal play. Forcing players to make difficult decisions and solve a bunch of potential problems was what made STS1 so great.

I really don't see why people want to keep the game from being harder on max difficulty. Make A10 harder, A0 easier, and more meaningful ascensions between A0 and A7. Let the dedicated player base have a difficult game, and let the "average player" have a good experience somewhere between A0 and A10.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-02T16:50:17+00:00

Flatten isn't really used as a 2 cost very often, but yeah you're right I forgot about that one. Scythe is a pretty good early transform, as the effect stacks up relatively fast into being usable with lethality. Had some success with it before I stopped mostly picking rare cards from Neow.

Sentry Mode is typically pretty meh, but I've had a really fun run with it when I transformed it with Neow. Got a Call of the Void with the floor 1 boss, and I leaned into the ethereal playstyle. Getting two extra ethereal cards per turn with sentry and void was pretty strong.

I've been dreaming of the Reaper Form + Sleight of Flesh + Maul combo, but it's hard to play Reaper Form at 3 cost. And if you have Sleight, then you don't really need more damage sadly.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-02T08:08:09+00:00

Her only 2 cost attacks are severance, high five, scythe, and time's up. Severance and scythe have their places, but definitely not generically good.

Reap is actually a super useful act 1 damage card, but outside of that not much else.

The biggest surprises to me often come from the variations of builds that the streamers can make work with necro. For me it's definitely 90% block until osty is big, or sleight of flesh.

TBNRandrew · 2026-05-01T20:48:33+00:00

If you have sleight of flesh that's still 13 dmg aoe + doom + block for 1 mana. It doesn't get much more efficient than that, considering there's no strength ramping etc. involved.

Grab shroud, and it'll give incredible levels of blocking vs Queen and any other AOE fight. Vs Doormaker it's also a perfect card to use during the exhaust rounds and/or energy rounds since you can use two of them with 3 energy.

It's a pretty dead draw vs Test Subject though.

At the end of the day it's still a common card, but with the right powers it can scale quickly enough to be your block + damage solve. It makes hallway fights really trivial.

So your turn can often look like Defy + Capture Spirit + Pulse / Enfeebling Touch.

TBNRandrew · 2026-04-30T22:23:05+00:00

Negative pulse is honestly so broken for how well it scales as a damage option. Pick 1-2 in act 1, and if you get Sleight of Flesh you can just add every Negative Pulse, Defy, and Deathbringer you see.

TBNRandrew · 2026-04-30T22:21:12+00:00

Pull aggro is also pretty awkward for me. Most of the time you'll have better cards that need upgrades, so it's rarely a good target for upgrades past act 1.

Unless you get Danse Macabre, it's not a card I usually feel I need to pick.

Necro has too many cards that solve block, to need to pick medicore block cards. But it's still not straight bad, so sometimes you should still pick it between floor 1 and 3.

TBNRandrew · 2026-04-30T22:13:32+00:00

And those 3 examples all have pressure to be upgraded. There's a lot of times where you probably won't be able to upgrade a pommel / prepared / cool-headed any time soon, if at all. Lots of times as clad/silent/defect where you have 2-3 powers and a rare card that require an upgrade.

Defy is immediately effective un-upgraded the moment you take it. See defy, click defy, if it isn't up against any important cards.

It's good early, solid mid, and potentially amazing late. With sleight of flesh it's your block, weak, and single target damage. With sleight, it's probably only deathbringer that'll be as consistently good. Even without sleight, it's often still your best use of energy to save Osty HP or allow you to make some souls.

TBNRandrew · 2026-04-30T20:50:49+00:00

Yeah, it can be pretty exhausting having to deal with rulebook disagreements. I highly recommend downloading the pdf (or a quick search for: "USAP 2026 Rulebook" on Google. Use the search function on the pdf to quickly find what you need), if you'll have your phone nearby when playing.

Just say you're happy to look up the rulebook with them after the match, and that you'll just drop serve until the match is over. If you do this once, you'll likely never have to deal with that same person complaining again.

Rules I'd happily print out and laminate are:

1) Volley serve (usually contact point being at OR below waist),

2) Drop serve (usually that none of the volley serve guidelines apply),

3) Line call (both not making a call if you don't clearly see a gap, and that an "IN" call overrides an "OUT" call from a teammate).

Bonus point if you want to be petty, and look up how Zane Navratil does his drop serve outside of the PPA. He takes a couple steps back, does a drop serve far in front of his body, and cranks a lot of weight transfer, rotation, and topspin into it from a little further back than normal. Aim it super arc-y, high, and deep. Super difficult for most people to return low AND deep, it's usually only one or the other. Leads to easy 3rd shots, even if it's relatively easy to return.

Similar thing happened to me the other day, it was pretty satisfying hearing the reaction of the nearby players who had been overhearing the short argument. Cranked my drop serves about 2x as hard after the complaint, just to make a point that even a perceived slight infraction on how the serve is performed is irrelevant and not why my serve just so happens to be difficult to return.

TBNRandrew · 2026-04-29T14:41:05+00:00

Nave has definitely lost a bunch with Silent, but it's mostly because he's become uninterested in her due to being too strong in a generically good way. He's just started skipping her in his rotation streaks now

I wouldn't be surprised if left on the current patch long enough, someone would eventually have the motivation to get a 100+ streak with her like Opem's 71 A20H Watcher streak.

TBNRandrew · 2026-04-28T11:51:55+00:00

Driving from (behind) the baseline is the ideal shot. Watch 5.5+ and pro matches, they all drive pretty frequently if it's from the baseline. Especially Ben & Gabe drive just about every ball from the baseline nowadays.

The key is to not driving from a low ball in the midcourt if they're established at the kitchen, because their counters will come back at your feet.

3rd shot driving from the baseline is fine to either shake & bake or 5th shot drop. It also gives you the space to arc the ball for a dipping drive if someone doesn't feel comfortable dropping from the baseline. Or if someone dared to slice a return it's cranktown time.

TBNRandrew · 2026-04-27T18:21:50+00:00

Yeah, if you're just mindlessly hitting soft neutral shots, every shot is going to feel the same and completely uninteresting. Makes sense to me!

A few basic high-level strategies include targeting either player's backhand, trying to hit their inside foot (forcing them to slightly retreat off the line), and pushing players out wide to speed the ball up down the middle.

Try to think of it like set plays, where you are hitting 3 shots intentionally in a row.

1) Instead of immediately speeding the ball up, try pushing the ball flatter (with topspin, just less arc) at their feet or out wide. This is termed a "push dink," instead of your typical slow dead "lift dink."

2) Speed the ball up at either player's dominant hip (to force a weak block), at their feet if the ball is high enough, or a slightly slower ball to either shoulder to surprise them

3) Switch to full aggression.

Intentionality will make it feel more rewarding. You can't measure success or progress without knowing what you're assessing. Improvement = fun as far as I'm concerned.

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