I don’t even have words for what Gearbox has managed to create with this new Pro series. If you guys ever have watched my channel, you know that I have been a big critic of Gearbox and the performance of their paddles. They’ve always had the most durable paddles in Pickleball, but the performance was subpar and most polymer paddles were preferred by the market.

When PaddleTek announced the new Tempest line of paddles, it was immediately met with skepticism, memes, and low expectations. They haven’t updated their Tempest line in 3-4 years. So, when PaddleTek announced the paddles with identical graphics and hardly anything different on the spec sheet, people were rightly skeptical.

After play testing them, I think there’s more to enjoy than we may have thought. Read below to find out why.

Today we are taking a first look at the new Vatic Pro Alchemy which is Spencer Smith’s signature paddle.

Vatic has been on a huge run the last few months with new paddles that have been really popular. Can they continue that run with the Alchemy?

It’s that time of year again where I create a tier list video and rank the companies from best to worst. As always, this is meant to be more of a light hearted video rather than 100% science. These are my views and opinions on the companies after playing with their paddles, seeing how the business handles certain situations, and a number of other factors.

If you are a player who likes to dink, block, reset, and drop, then this is the perfect list for you. Today we’ll be discussing the best paddles you can buy when it comes to control.

There are hundreds of options on the market that you could choose, but this is what I have narrowed down as the top 5 that should cover a wide variety of players at different performance levels, price points, and shapes.

When Vatic came to market, their claim to fame was producing high performance paddles at a much cheaper price than the market was used to.

With the new Vatic Pro Prism, they have continued this tradition by creating a $100 paddle that competes with paddles well over $200.

The Pickleball paddle market has seen significant price reductions in the last year. In years past, price was highly correlated with paddle performance. In 2023, many brands have broken this norm and created paddles for $100 or less that compete with paddles that are $200+

The highly anticipated Joola Perseus is finally here. Ben Johns and the Joola team have been teasing this paddle for half of 2023. It is the successor to the very popular Joola Hyperion CFS that launched last year.

Can it possibly live up to the hype in a sea of amazing paddles?

There are several notable things I'd like to mention right away. The first is the handle on the new Ultras.

The old Engage Pursuits had exposed polymer. If you've followed me for any time, you know that I think this is an absolute cop-out cheap thing to do on a paddle.

Unfortunately, the Pursuit Ultras STILL have exposed polymer in the handle. In 2023 where $100 paddles have no exposed polymer, there is zero excuses to have such a poor handle design on a $260 product. Everyone loves to quote USA-made paddles as being "better built," but there is nothing about the Ultra handles that feel more premium than even a generic $100 Chinese paddle.

Vatic Pro is one of the new companies on the block. Having only launched toward the end of 2022, they have sure made a lot of noise in the Pickleball industry.

One of their standout selling points has been their very reasonable price of $140 for their paddles which is exceptional given their performance. They currently offer two paddle lines with a third on the way. Today we will be focusing on the Vatic Pro Flash.

I didn't expect to enjoy the Model E Elite. Electrum has been falling behind, and I thought this would be another thermoformed paddle that started to blend in with the others. I was wrong. I ended up loving this paddle; every play session, I had a huge smile on my face.

The SixZero Double Black Diamond is undoubtedly one of the best paddles on the market, both in price and performance, and it has been my go-to paddle for the last month in all my drill sessions and high-level games.

With the success of the Head Radical Tour Co, I had high hopes for for the 2023 line of Head paddles, but unfortunately the Head Extreme Tour Max didn’t meet those expectations

One of the biggest changes to the CX14 Ultimate is the new swing weights. If you watched my CX11 review, you might remember that I said the reason Gearbox paddles lack power is that their swing weights were VERY low. Well, Gearbox must have agreed because the new models have gone up quite a bit.