Yes, you are reading correctly. MF L Drago 90 WF, not MF Lightning L Drago 90WF. L Drago is a Wheel that was neglected almost immediately after it's release. I think perhaps this was too swift of a conclusion. Before I explain more, let me just cut to the chase and show you my results:
MF L Drago 90WF Testing
Attack Stadium
MF L Drago 90WF shot second
Beylauncher/Beylauncher-L
vs. MF Earth Aquario C145B
L Drago win percentage: 96% (24/25)
vs. MF Earth Aquario C145WB
L Drago win percentage: 88% (22/25, with 2 ties)
vs. MF Virgo C145WB
L Drago win percentage: 84% (21/25, with 1 tie)
At the start of the new year, I was playing around with L Drago for some reason, and happened to stumble upon this custom completely by chance. After spending countless hours testing it, I was still unable to define what exactly it was! It didn't fall into any of the conventional types most other Beyblades fall under. The one word I had in mind was "destabalize", and mid-way through January Hiro made this post:
"destabilizing attacker" is the perfect term for this Beyblade. I am unsure of how Flame 90SF turned out, and have not tested it myself, but what I do know is that MF L Drago 90WF, technically an Attack-type, has an almost 90% win percentage against three top-tier Defense customs.
For it's type, this is unheard of, but how it works is exactly what the name suggests: it destabilizes the opposing Beyblade with it's extremely low height in conjunction with WF. This is easy to accomplish for MF L Drago 90WF because of it's height, but mostly due in part to the C145 Track which is surprisingly easy to knock off balance. If this same thing applies to GB145, ED145, etc, I do not know. If someone could test this, I would appreciate it.
Outspin is the most often method of winning you will experience using this custom, and usually by a very small margin. Ideally, you will shoot with a perfect Sliding Shoot, thus knocking the opposing Beyblade off balance immediately, which results in it swirling around the stadium on an extremely steep angle where it slowly works its way towards the middle where MF L Drago 90WF has settled. Even if you screw up and end up circling the stadium, you will still have a great chance at victory if your shot was strong enough.
I did notice that it did happen to KO and just generally knock-around MF Virgo C145WB much more than the Earth customs, though this is not reflected in the results of my 25 test battles.
Now, does it have a weakness? Yes, and a glaring one at that. Replace WB with WD on any of the above Defense customs, and L Drago's win percentage drops dramatically. I didn't record any tests for this, but believe me, it's win percentage is almost zero. This is obviously because of WD's increased Stamina over B or WB. The Battles are extremely close, but the WD custom almost always pulls through.
How does it fair against Stamina customs? Not so good either for the most part ...
vs. Virgo DF145SD
L Drago win percentage: 68% (17/25, with 1 tie)
vs. Earth Gemios DF145SD
L Drago win percentage: 20% (2/10, with 2 ties)
vs. Earth Gemios DF145WD
L Drago win percentage: 53% (7/15, with 2 ties)
vs. Flame Gemios DF145SD
L Drago win percentage: 90% (9/10)
L Drago has more recoil when facing Virgo, which results in more KOs on L Drago's part. The difference between SD and WD is clearly illustrated with those next two results. And against the Flame custom is does as Attack-types should, but mostly because Flame is so thin and is easy to knock around.
Could F be used with this instead of WF and achieve similar results? Probably; it would of course have more Stamina that way, but with WF already good enough to get the job done, I see no reason to sacrifice movement speed for Stamina.
Using a Metal Face was a personal choice. The increased spin velocity at the start might help increase the likelihood of a KO, or at least, increase the power of it's hits early on in the battle. Like WF, I see no reason not to include it for these reasons when it is still able to consistently beat it while using it.
Clearly, this is a very niche custom, one that could become obsolete very easily, and might already be if Tracks like GB145 and ED145 can counter it's "destabilizing" strategy, but I figured it would be best to post it now in case something displaces C145 soon.
MF L Drago 90WF Testing
Attack Stadium
MF L Drago 90WF shot second
Beylauncher/Beylauncher-L
vs. MF Earth Aquario C145B
L Drago win percentage: 96% (24/25)
vs. MF Earth Aquario C145WB
L Drago win percentage: 88% (22/25, with 2 ties)
vs. MF Virgo C145WB
L Drago win percentage: 84% (21/25, with 1 tie)
At the start of the new year, I was playing around with L Drago for some reason, and happened to stumble upon this custom completely by chance. After spending countless hours testing it, I was still unable to define what exactly it was! It didn't fall into any of the conventional types most other Beyblades fall under. The one word I had in mind was "destabalize", and mid-way through January Hiro made this post:
(Jan. 15, 2010 1:02 AM)Hiro Ayami Wrote: Flame is a nice flat wheel, it's ability to get beneath the opponents combo is pretty good. I remember Brad playing around with a Flame 90SF after the Vancouver Tournament last August to try and make a destabilizing attacker, don't think that was ever followed up on.
"destabilizing attacker" is the perfect term for this Beyblade. I am unsure of how Flame 90SF turned out, and have not tested it myself, but what I do know is that MF L Drago 90WF, technically an Attack-type, has an almost 90% win percentage against three top-tier Defense customs.
For it's type, this is unheard of, but how it works is exactly what the name suggests: it destabilizes the opposing Beyblade with it's extremely low height in conjunction with WF. This is easy to accomplish for MF L Drago 90WF because of it's height, but mostly due in part to the C145 Track which is surprisingly easy to knock off balance. If this same thing applies to GB145, ED145, etc, I do not know. If someone could test this, I would appreciate it.
Outspin is the most often method of winning you will experience using this custom, and usually by a very small margin. Ideally, you will shoot with a perfect Sliding Shoot, thus knocking the opposing Beyblade off balance immediately, which results in it swirling around the stadium on an extremely steep angle where it slowly works its way towards the middle where MF L Drago 90WF has settled. Even if you screw up and end up circling the stadium, you will still have a great chance at victory if your shot was strong enough.
I did notice that it did happen to KO and just generally knock-around MF Virgo C145WB much more than the Earth customs, though this is not reflected in the results of my 25 test battles.
Now, does it have a weakness? Yes, and a glaring one at that. Replace WB with WD on any of the above Defense customs, and L Drago's win percentage drops dramatically. I didn't record any tests for this, but believe me, it's win percentage is almost zero. This is obviously because of WD's increased Stamina over B or WB. The Battles are extremely close, but the WD custom almost always pulls through.
How does it fair against Stamina customs? Not so good either for the most part ...
vs. Virgo DF145SD
L Drago win percentage: 68% (17/25, with 1 tie)
vs. Earth Gemios DF145SD
L Drago win percentage: 20% (2/10, with 2 ties)
vs. Earth Gemios DF145WD
L Drago win percentage: 53% (7/15, with 2 ties)
vs. Flame Gemios DF145SD
L Drago win percentage: 90% (9/10)
L Drago has more recoil when facing Virgo, which results in more KOs on L Drago's part. The difference between SD and WD is clearly illustrated with those next two results. And against the Flame custom is does as Attack-types should, but mostly because Flame is so thin and is easy to knock around.
Could F be used with this instead of WF and achieve similar results? Probably; it would of course have more Stamina that way, but with WF already good enough to get the job done, I see no reason to sacrifice movement speed for Stamina.
Using a Metal Face was a personal choice. The increased spin velocity at the start might help increase the likelihood of a KO, or at least, increase the power of it's hits early on in the battle. Like WF, I see no reason not to include it for these reasons when it is still able to consistently beat it while using it.
Clearly, this is a very niche custom, one that could become obsolete very easily, and might already be if Tracks like GB145 and ED145 can counter it's "destabilizing" strategy, but I figured it would be best to post it now in case something displaces C145 soon.