Returning Player

Salutations, everyone! It's good to be back, it's been over a decade.

I'm Kenni from Vegas, I used to play the OG BeyBlades in elementary/middle school and then moved on to Metal Fusion in High School. After I turned 18, my BeyBlades were stolen from me.

I'll be 27 this year, and I wanna get back into the game! I use have an old account here and went to a few tournaments at the Toys R US and the library. 

As a returning player, is there anything I should know? Any changes? Is Hasbro and TT still in charge of making BeyBlades?

Should I watch the current show or read the manga?

Is there a list for ex. Attack type BeyBlades, Defense type, Stamina type, etc.?
Hey Kenni! Hasbro and TT are still in charge of making Beyblades, however Korea's distributor has changed from Sonokong to Youngtoys, hence why many of TT's random boosters with remakes in them have different names and colors in the Korean versions. The Biggest change from your previous beyblades to the current ones are the ability to explode during battle, or "Burst". The current beys are no longer assembled with tools, now they are able to be self assembled, by twisting the parts together. Here are some key things to note:
Burst beys come in 3 major parts, The Layer, The Disc, And the Driver. TT Layers cannot mix with Hasbro drivers, and vice versa, unless you want to risk damaging your parts. Later on, Layers are subdivided depending on which burst system your are using, Such as the GT system having a chip, a weight, and a layer base.

The layer is what decides your contact points. More aggressive shapes will result in better attack, and more circle shapes will result in better stamina and defense. Some layers have special gimmicks like rubber or spring attack/defense.

The disc decides the weight, Life After Death/LAD(The ability to wobble for longer periods of time), and weight distribution. It is similar to the plastic gen's metal cores. Some Discs can have plastic "Frames" attached to them to modify the shape of the disc and add weight

The driver is the part that decides the movement and LAD of the bey. In general, the shape and material of the driver that makes contact decides the type. Flat for attack, ball for defense, and spike for stamina. Rubber grips onto the stadium, which is good for attack and sometimes defense with Drivers like Keep(Burst version of RB). Plastic is generally the most common one. Metal grips less, but has more stamina, and some have a special Smooth POM plastic that gives more stamina in exchange for less KO resistance. Some drivers have free spinning tips.

There are some special drivers that come later on that have different types of locking mechanisms. Some drivers are called "Dash" Drivers, represented by an apostrophe at the end of the driver name (i.e Xtreme', Atomic', Survive') Dash drivers have a red cap and a gold colored spring inside, which give it greater burst resistance. The other type of special driver are "Metal Drivers" known by the word Metal before it's name (i.e Metal Xtreme, Metal Survive). These drivers have metal on their caps, making it stronger than normal drivers, but weaker than Dash Drivers. Metal locks used to wear down TT Layer's teeth a lot, however the problem has been since fixed.

Hasbro and TT have different bursting systems, with TT layers having "Teeth" or indentations within the layer to produce a clicking sound. The drawback of this is that they will eventually wear down and burst more. Hasbro has a sliding assembly mechanism, or "Slopes". These sometimes have better burst resistance and have little to no wear. Hasbro's beys are considerably lower quality since 2019's SlingShock system, with the removal of gimmicks and butchering of cosmetics. Drivers no longer having rubber and the releases being much lighter than their TT counterparts, with hollowed discs and removal of metal. If you want hasbro, buy releases before 2019, or their burst and Switchstrike system beys. This is similar to how Hasbro Butchered Metal Fury, but they did it even worse. Just look up "Savior Valkyrie" and "Salvage Valtryek"

Hasbro later released a separate series called "Pro Series", similar to Hasbro's Hyperblades, which use TT's teeth system to release beys with accurate gimmicks, with proper weight, and TT compatible parts. However Hasbro uses a cheaper plastic, which cause the beys to be more fragile, wear faster, and have horrible teeth wear, with the exception of a very few miniscule releases that use the more expensive plastic, such as Command Dragon and Lord Spryzen.

If you want to watch the show or read the manga that is fine, The show should be fully publically available in both Sub and Dub, however the manga cannot be read online past chapter 15 for an unknown reason. If you want to read the full manga you'll have to get physical copies of it.

I'm not sure if there is a full list of all the beys, but always check the wiki. It's a helpful place. https://beyblade.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page