I remember when Advance Striker came out, there was a lot of talk about it ... but lately nobody seems to consider it. I'm preparing to write the Advance Striker article so I did some tests.

Now obviously there is no shortage of Attack-type RCs ... and my tests with Metal Flat Core didn't have the best results. The slick metal just isn't as controllable or forceful as the three varieties of rubber tips we have for Attack, and I can't see myself picking it over Metal Change Core. So I focused on Advance Attacker.

Advance Attacker's Upper obviously isn't as good as Circle/Samurai Upper ... but it has something those ARs don't. The ends of the Upper Ramps are quite wide and have better Smash Attack than most HMS ARs have. In addition, its a very compact AR and has a very high spin rate. I wanted to see if I could use this to my advantage.

I did these tests in TA and TB against Wolborg MS. The goal wasn't to beat it, but to see how close I could get.

First, I tried Metal Semi-Flat Core from Averazer ... the results weren't bad at all. Using Sliding Shoot, I was able to hit Wolborg MS heavily and repeatedly from the opening. I managed to get a few KOs and out-spins with this RC.

Then I decided to try Metal Change Core. The results were impressive. I managed to outspin and KO Wolborg MS several times. However, I noticed the Smash I was excited about was lacking ... of course, it's too low to smash Wolf Crusher effectively.

So next I tried Metal Sharp Core. The spin rate was obviously very high and managed to get a few KOs ... but a lot of times I would come very close to winning and then run out of spin. I thought to myself, "If only there was an RC that was like Metal Sharp but with some more Survival ... ah!"

So I tried the Free Shaft Core from Dranzer MF. Um, this was a mistake. It may have had better Survival, but I never got to see it, because the damn thing went off balance almost immediately every match and threw itself into the stadium's floor. So, that was a bust ...

Overall, I was pleased with the results. If you combine Advance Attacker with high velocity RCs, you can use its Smash and Upper well.

Very nice, can't wait to read the article.

Did you try out it's Force Smash mode at all? I haven't used it all that much before.

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I didn't do much examination of its Force Smash mode. I can't see many situations where it would be particularly useful, but I will try it out.

Free Shaft core Force Smash?

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I'd stick with Metal Sharp Core (+ Circle Heavy) for the force smash mode. Do the test again vs WBMS and see how it does compared to the one in upper mode. It's a shame this RC isn't slightly taller as force smash would work better.
Also, if you want smash attack to work at lower heights, just use the AR in force smash mode.
I think the biggest advantage of Advance Attacker is still being able to use upper attack in either spin direction.

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ahh, my first HMS and imported blade which I got from HLJ back in October 2004. I liked it and still have it. I found that the tip becomes more useful and easy to control after lots of use when the metal edges wear down. It is far easier to control now than when I first got it. At first it would only rapidly spin in a circle, but now the sliding shoot technique helps it attack something that does not spin in the outer rims. Overall it is a fun beyblade; if you want to have a battle between two attackers, watching Advance striker is a lot of fun. I thought it was a good buy.

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Thanks to Kai-V for the avatar and signature!