[Takara Tomy]  [BSL] Ace (Takara Tomy) Discussion

NOTE: At the time of this post none of the Takara Tomy GT Layers were unbanned in Limited.

Hey everyone, Recently LazerBeamz begun this discussion in the #burst-limited channel of the WBO Discord and later posted a thread about it as well, for context.

So, In the past, LazerBeamz has mentioned the TT Ace being surprisingly good for defense and I think KJ and bladekid have also mentioned that the Hasbro Ace is one of the best defensive layers. Just as a disclaimer, my collection isn't really built for limited (yet?) so I didn't really have any of the top level defensive Layers to test out, so I just used aC.

Ace Dragon 10Lift Ωcta GEN vs. Nightmare Longinus Glaive Jolt'
AD.10L.Ω: 16 wins (15 OS 1 KO)
nL.G.Jl': 4 wins (all KO)
AD.10L.Ω win rate: 80%

MGC Alter Chronos 10Lift Ωcta vs. Nightmare Longinuns Glaive Jolt'
aC.10L.Ω: 14 wins (all OS)
nL.G.Jl': 6 wins (all KO)
MGC aC.10L.Ω win rate: 70%

It definitely did seem to be better defensively, aC also lost many more clicks than Ace did. I also feel like my sliding shoot might also just be really out of practice, since I don't remember nL being this bad against opposite spin.

However:

MGC Alter Chronos 00 Revolve vs. Ace Dragon 00 Revolve GEN
aC.7.R: 10 wins (all OS)
AD.7.R: 0 wins
MGC aC.7.R win rate: 100%

MGC Alter Chronos 00Expend Atomic vs Ace Dragon 00Expand Atomic GEN
aC.00E.At: 9 wins (all OS)
AD.00E.At: 1 win (OS)
1 tie redone
MGC aC.00E.At win rate: 90%

Alter Chronos beat it pretty convincingly in most same spin matchups. Ace seems to be a little too wide to work well with Revolve, where it was easily knocked off balance. Atomic vs Atomic the matchups were a bit closer (and there were a few rounds where aC almost bursted) but aC still tended to win even when it was launched first.

So after this I'm wondering how the TT Ace compares to the Hasbro Ace, as well as other things that seem to have more defense than aC but less stamina (imperfect Phoenix? idk what else there is) because that seems to be where it is in terms of performance.
Hmm Ace seems like its Counterble

Easily by God beys
Personally I don't think Alter Chronos will see competitive use in Limited, but Ace Gen is rather interesting in that it does just die in same spin stamina.

I might get in on this and try out Slash and Erase. Slash seems fun and Erase shouldn't be unbanned (too defensive for left spin).
(Aug. 28, 2020  7:36 AM)AirKingNeo Wrote: Personally I don't think Alter Chronos will see competitive use in Limited, but Ace Gen is rather interesting in that it does just die in same spin stamina.

I might get in on this and try out Slash and Erase. Slash seems fun and Erase shouldn't be unbanned (too defensive for left spin).

I feel like Alter Chronos could become more popular if things like Shadow Amaterios and H4 become banned. It's got a bit more defense than mG, gZ, and dC (not sure about Caynox C3, aZ3, or Tidepod) at the cost of having less stamina, so I'm not totally sure if there's something that directly outclasses it defensively with those two gone.

After seeing bladekid's Testing Thread and stream, I saw Ace lose pretty easily to Myth, and this is the Hasbro Ace that is supposedly better than the TT one.
(Aug. 31, 2020  6:47 PM)bladekid Wrote: Test 5:
MJ5.00D.Ir VS AA5.0B.At-S (AA5 launched first, ties redone, 20 battles)
J5 Win rate: 65% (OS: 10, KO: 3, BST: 0)
A5 Win rate: 35% (OS: 5, KO: 2, BST: 0)
Ties: 1
So I decided to

Legend Spriggan 7Meteor Hunter' vs Ace Ashura 00 Keep' GEN
lS.7M.Hn': 9 wins (5 KO 2 OS 2 Burst)
AA.00.Kp': 11 wins (2 KO 9 OS)
AA.00.Kp' win rate: 55%

Legend Spriggan also put up a pretty good fight against the TT Ace. Side note, when I was doing these tests I realized that I probably shouldn't put Hn' on anything but tN or something else that has the weight distribution to make it move fast enough. It's now pretty clear to me that Ace is not so great at same spin defense as it is at opposite spin defense.
Did a random test to show the stamina potential of Ace against mixed attackers.

Ace Spriggan.00Proof.Atomic Gen vs Twin Nemesis.Outer.Assault'
(Alternating launches)
AS.00P.At Gen: 4 wins (4 OS)
tN.Outer.assault': 6 wins (6 OS)
Ties: 1

Ace seems to get destabilized super easily, so any mixed attacker or tornado staller should easily beat it. Perhaps I should have used Ds' on tN instead of assault' since that driver would allow you to compete with dF on Atomic and any gF combo.