Butterfly Innershield ZLF

A soft feeling but a stiff blade! ZLF layers add stiffness to this blade, but it has a very soft feel, which is great. In my humble opinion, Innershield ZLF is suited to long pimples with sponge, at least 0.5mm, and a medium to hard backside.

My personal setup is Grass D-Tecs (0.5mm) and Hurricane 3 Neo (orange sponge). I managed to solve the equation of the plastic ball, which was hard as hell and led me to try so many materials. The search ended with this blade and those rubbers.

This is one of my favorite blades ever, although it’s on the expensive side.

Very nice blade for chops and lobs. It has a slow speed with lots of flex. Due to its strong deadening effect, the ZLF doesn’t play passive shots very well. It requires active, spin-based strokes to truly excel. Blocks go back shorter than imagined, making it unsuitable for power blockers.

Despite its limitations, the ZLF offers several gears and can attack relatively well. It’s primarily designed for spinning the ball rather than smashing it. However, even loop drives can feel somewhat flimsy due to the blade’s high flex and “give.” The lack of a crisp sensation is noticeable compared to harder, more attacking blades like the Joo Se Hyuk.

The Innershield ZLF generates significant vibrations, reminiscent of a tuning fork. This can be problematic for players who experience carpal tunnel syndrome.

While the ZLF is a capable defensive blade for choppers, it falls short of being the best. There are better pure chopping blades and blades that excel at both chopping and attacking.

I do not know why many people looked down on this blade. I have tried it with T05 and TSP Spectol. My first impression is that it is a slow blade, quite like a Def+ blade. However, its flex is really high. It can generate the power of an All+ OFF- blade when needed. The dwell time is very high, and I feel that I can generate massive spin on it. The one small thing that I dislike about it is that its handle is quite thin for me, even though I am an average-sized Southeast Asian guy.

Best defensive blade ever. It can be used for attacking and even far table counter loop. It performs better than my other two defensive blades overall (Joo Se Hyuk, Xiom Aigis) and even attacks better than my all round blade(Stiga AC) in some circumstances.

You can’t imagine how much power it absorbs on chops and blocks from even the most powerful top spin shots. It’s very user friendly on chops and forehand lob/blocks. I currently use it with 2.1mm bryce speed fx And TSP curl 3-6mm.

It’s the best defensive blade for counter attack of that I’ve tried. It has unrivaled build quality and design and paralleled performance on the other hand.

The only drawbacks are the high price and the vibration, flex on impact.

A top-quality Japanese-made blade, featuring premium wood and materials.

However, selecting suitable rubbers for this blade proves challenging. Renowned Butterfly and TSP long-pimpled rubbers (excluding possibly TSP Curl P3 R Alpha OX) appear incompatible. This is a letdown.

Equally difficult is finding a forehand spinny rubber, especially one geared toward defensive players. It’s an enigmatic blade, capable of playing both fast and slow, depending on the rubber used.

Its speed is comparable to the M Pro, but falls short of the M Pro Special and JSH blades. It bears similarities to the old Grubba Pro All in terms of speed and certain playing characteristics.

Despite its high price point, the blade’s performance is inconsistent. Good luck.

This may be Butterfly’s biggest lame duck ever. At over $200, there is nothing remotely special about this blade, other than the fact that I pulled off splinters the first time I took off a rubber. This never happened with the other dozen Butterfly blades I’ve owned.

The blade has so much vibration. The vibration is crazy. It’s very flexible. It’s also very slow. It’s not easy to attack with. Also, the handle is smaller than other Butterfly blades.

This is an extremely overpriced classic defense blade. The ZLF fibers do nothing to help with vibration, sweet spot, or power. Epic fail by Butterfly.

This is a good defense blade, except for its price. It is easy to control and chop at every distance. However, if you are looking to add more spin to your game, it may not be the best choice.