On the power side, it responds well when you have time to put a big swing on it. The spin allows you to be more aggressive around the court, especially on drives, serves, and returns. The paddle has some nice attacking qualities that enhance your offensive ability. It’s a great facing material that adds plenty of spin and lasts longer than spray on type grit surfaces. It’s essentially a couple of grooves built into the edge guard and it’s supposed to help with aero dynamics though I doubt it really does much.įinally, they are using a raw carbon fiber face that was made popular by Electrum and is also used in CRBN, Engage, Joola, and a few other smaller brands. The biggest drawback to the original Warrior was its heavier weight so they addressed that with the Edge.ĭiadem also introduced what they are calling their Aero Guard. This is thinner and lighter than their original Warrior which was 19 mm thick and 8.5 oz. It has a 16 mm core and is 8 oz in weight. The bottom of elongated paddles are pretty dead and I think there are more benefits to a longer handle than leaving that dead space there. Diadem went with a 5” long handle though I would have liked to see them make that at least 5.25” or even a little longer than that. The Warrior Edge has a traditional elongated shape that’s 16.5” long and 7.5” wide to give you some extra reach and moves the sweet spot up on the face. It has a nice feel that is controllable in most cases but I was less consistent with drops from the baseline. The bottom line: The Warrior Edge has a nice combo of spin, speed, and decent pop that improves your attacking ability. I think if I kept playing with the paddle I’d get my thirds to behave like I wanted but it didn’t come to me in the two weeks I played with it. This might be the first paddle I’ve played where I could take pace off the ball well with blocks, but didn’t have that same touch with my thirds. I kept floating those more than normal during the entire two weeks I played with it. Routine dinks, drops from the midcourt and blocks all performed well but my drops from the baseline weren’t quite the same. My soft game didn’t take a big hit and it still performed well there in most cases. I never knew for sure if I hit it well or if I popped it up a little. I liked the feel of it when you hit the ball but wasn’t 100% in tune with it. It was a good combination of spin, speed, and decent pop that enabled offense well. I never felt behind the ball in hands battles and it was easy to accelerate through the ball with any stroke. It’s a midweight paddle at about 8 oz but it is well balanced and moves easily in your hands. It wasn’t a power paddle but it did have more pop than their original Warrior and enough to put in the all-court category. When it came to attacking, I was surprised how much power it had. You can see the ball dip a little more on your serves, drives, and rolls at the net. You notice real quick that it has a high spin rating and joins the ranks of the many other raw carbon fiber paddles that also have higher spin ratings. But after a week of drilling and playing with it nearly everyday it broke in a bit and that semi-hard feeling went away and was replaced with a more soft, plush feel. The paddle had a crisp, light, and semi hard feeling to it and was semi poppy out of the box. I’m categorizing this one as an all-court paddle.
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