(Part 2) Best products from r/Throwers

First we need to figure out your budget.

If you're in the $7-14 range there are a few gems but not a lot and honestly, if you're willing to pay just a little bit more, you can get a lot better quality. In this range though.

OneStar by Yoyofactory: A decent yoyo at $10 that is on this page. It's unresponsive but with a flat bearing so it's going to bind very easily. It's a decent beginner.

K1 by Magic Yoyo: A budget brand, this is a decent yoyo as well. Arguably better than the onestar in terms of performance, but the pads are bad and will wear out quickly so you'll either want to get extra pads or use silicone.

Stepping up to the $15-$25 range there are a lot of very strong options, these following are bit for bit as good as the entry level $50 ones.

N12 by Magic Yoyo: Like all tbhe MYY brand yoyo's, the response pads are pretty bad and will wear down quickly. Other than that this is easily one of the best yoyo's sub $60. If there's a trick you can't learn with it, it's likely not the yoyo.

Replay Pro by Yoyofactory: It was used to win the US championship in 2015. Should say enough about it's quality.

Skyva by Magicyoyo and Jeffery Pang: This is the hot ticket right now, and it's entirely deserving of the hype. It's produced by Magicyoyo but designed by Jeffery Pang. It uses Luffpads instead of the usual MYY pads so they are significantly better, it also has a centertrack bearing that is very strong. These days this is my recommendation for new players as it's arguably the best yoyo at the price. I prefer playing with it over my Shutter ($50 retail).

Stepping up to the $25-$50 range there are 3 options I can recommend.

DV888 by Yoyofactory: By default, this is responsive, so you'll want to pick up a spare bearing as well.

Shutter by Yoyofactory: The golden egg of yoyofactory right now. It's considered the best first yoyo available and it isn't just hype.

Horizon by Yoyofactory: This yoyo is probably my favorite overall. It's very stable and smooth and a joy to play with.


At the end of it all though, of the entire above list, the Skyva is my recommendation. It's a perfect allaround yoyo to get you started, can be used for any trick out there, and it's very forgiving in it's shape.

As a response lover, I thought I'd pop in here. Seems like a lot of the answers your received at trying to convince you to play unresponsive or "get with the times," which I find pretty sad.

The modern responsive yoyo has generally been abandoned - very few models exist with the intention of being played responsive. Even the Walter, from 2013, was criticized for being too high maintenance, since it required regular lubrication to keep responsive. But it is the nature of the physics - modern yoyos are purposely designed to not respond.

The qualities of a modern yoyo are what make it difficult to respond:

1. Larger bearings - smoother - more area for string tricks - way less friction - way harder to get responsive
   
2. Recessed/smaller pads - way less friction - only enough for a tight wind/throw - way harder to get responsive
   
3. Wide gaps, wide catch zones, strong rim weight - all of these work against responsiveness
   
   So what can you do?
   
4. Lube the yoyo like crazy - keep it lubed - brain lube (which is a rebranded version of this stuff http://www.amazon.com/10-pack-Purpose-Synthetic--Based/dp/B00ZW7V07I/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1458319108&sr=8-3&keywords=super+lube+51010 ) is pretty thick and long lasting (compared to a thinner lube), but depending on how hard you play you'll still lube your bearing every 2-3 days, or daily if you're steve brown.
   
   
5. Buy a nasty bearing, like this one : http://www.vxb.com/10-R188-2RS-1-4-x1-2-x3-16-inch-Miniature-p/kit807.htm . These are greased and sealed - they play terribly and get worse before they break in. I've used one of these for a month plus without having to do any maintenance/lubing. Spin times suffer, but response thrives.
   
   
6. Play with "beginners yoyos" like mentioned in the comments- butterfly XT - stuff designed to learn on and be responsive, or a yoyo that comes with a half-spec.
   
   The half-spec is also a suggestion - but for many yoyos that would mean filing down the bearing post and finding a shorter axle - which can damage the yoyo.
   
   Some models are designed to take both - but often this falls back to #3 - playing with beginner oriented yoyos.
   
   The other issue with half-spec is I don't think half the gap is exactly what you want. In my experience, the best playing responsive yoyos have a smaller gap than a modern, unresponsive yoyo, but not as small as a half spec. That is why I slightly recessed the bearing to get to a ~3.5mm gap on Walter. Half-specs, IMO are too thin. Where are the three-quarter-specs?
   
   Anyway, responsive is fun. I see a value in it - it forces you to be smooth and fly aways are super steezy. It punishes you for playing sloppy, and forces you to play inside physical restraints. Slack must be thoroughly within your control or the yoyo bites...movements must be smooth and polished.
   
   But for most it is too frustrating, too steep of a hill to climb, hence the surging popularity of unresponsive play in the modern yoyo. It is super rare to see yoyo designed for response in the higher-than-$20 pricing category.
   
   If you really want to make some modern throws responsive - I highly recommend the nasty bearings. They spin terribly - get worse before they get better - and really force you to hone your skills.
   
   Hope that was helpful...
   
   TL;DR: Modern and responsive are opposites - you have to sacrifice sleep time to get a yoyo responsive. Lube is the simplest option: least damaging, but higher maintenance.

You need to know one important thing first: good yoyos these days are different and, not to put too fine a point on it, better - prettier, more durable, better-balanced, and more capable. All the crazy tricks you might have seen on the internet are underwritten by a huge change in the way axles are made. For decades, the axle of a yoyo was a solid plastic or wooden cylinder. Modern yoyos have replaced that with a ball bearing, reducing the friction of spins to an almost negligible level - minutes of spin time are common. The gaps between the halves are larger, which also reduces friction from the string, and lets us do string tricks with a reliability and ease that simply couldn't have been achieved on old fixed-axle designs.

That also means that modern-style yoyos don't come back when you pull the string. We call this "unresponsive" play, and it lets us do tricks with slack strings - on an old-style yoyo, even with a good sleeper, letting slack into the string would bring it back. You need to do a simple trick, called a "bind," to bring it back. It's not a hard trick, and as you get further down the rabbit hole, there are dozens of increasingly exotic and flashy binds to choose from. But you should be aware of this distinction.

You can still buy a responsive yoyo. You can buy a really good one! Some of us enjoy responsive play, or use it to help learn certain tricks, or play in a deliberately throwback style. Fixed-axle yoyos are still a thing, and there's a whole new world of tricks invented in the last ten years for those, too, and some people are making beautiful fixies these days. But odds are good you're going to want an unresponsive yoyo.

We usually recommend that new players get a yoyo that can be easily converted between responsive and unresponsive play, as it's easier to learn many fundamentals on a responsive yoyo (and they're easier to wind up). If that is a direction you are interested in taking... I note that no one on Amazon is selling our usual recommendation, the Recess First Base, but there is the Magic Yoyo V3. I've never used it, but Magic makes good enough yoyos on the whole.

But if you're feeling like diving in headfirst at the deep end - which is how I did it, and a lot of other people here did as well - it would be hard to go wrong with whatever YoyoFactory aluminum yoyo looks best to you. I love the Horizon. Everyone is going to yell at me, but I think it's a really solid choice for a beginner with adult-sized hands. If you're smaller, maybe it's not a great choice.

God, this is something I've thought about a lot...

I lived in Japan when I was in college, and one of the biggest things I noticed was the huge difference the two cultures have on learning, what I ended up calling The Cult of Originality and The Cult of Mastery.

In The Cult of Mastery, the Japanese method, originality isn't valued as highly as the complete mastery of the fundamentals, followed by the mastery of an already existing style. After multiple styles are mastered, that's when the learner can start melding them together, to create something unique, and perhaps his own style, but this is an afterthought, not the goal.

The other side of the coin is the American Cult of Originality, in which the goal is to create new material from day one, and the fundamentals are only a stepping stone to that creation of your own new material.

To put this in return top terms, in Japan, a flawless execution of a routine in Jensen Kimmet's style will score higher in a competition than a flawed original execution. In America, the reverse is true, originality will always win.

My biggest takeaway from all of this, as an American, is to not give a shit if people think my style is derivative. I've only been taking throwing seriously for about nine months, which ain't a long time. I will keep drilling the fundamentals, and mimicking styles I like, all with the faith that originality will come at when those fundamentals are not enough.

If you like this line of thinking, I would really recommend the books The Art of Learning (by the guy who Searching for Bobby Fisher was based on, who became a world champion in martial arts later on in life), The Road to Excellence (which is expensive, but you can find pdfs of on the internet), Malcom Gladwell's Outliers, and The Book of Five Rings

In case you're curious

• I use thin trumpet valve oil, I happen to use this brand https://www.amazon.com/Al-Cass-Valve-Oil-fluid/dp/B002LI4Y92 but honestly pretty much any thin oil will work just fine, but it's gotta be thin!
  
  
• I use a metal precision oiler which is awesome and I highly recommend https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002LYQALQ
  
  Like Mr. Throws and Brews, I subscribe to the theory of "one drop of thin lube" as soon as you get a throw.
  
  https://youtu.be/GoGKRyksrbM?t=12m35s
  
  YOU ARE CORRECT SIR! Lubing your yoyo bearing is essential. Smoother, quieter. Raw metal on metal contact without lube doesn't work for engines, and does not work for bearings either. Rubbing steel on bare steel isn't awesome. Rust isn't awesome. Unlubricated bearing vibe isn't awesome. Eventually locking up your bearing isn't awesome.
  
  However, it is definitely true all you need is a teeny-tiny amount of THIN ONLY lube. Definitely don't use more than one drop! Don't obsess over the particular size of that one drop, but do limit yourself to one.
  
  After the one drop of thin lube, I then spin the bearing around with my finger, both directions a few times.. you should get 6 seconds (more is better but not required) of spin otherwise you're gona have some responsiveness. Just after you lube, you will not have that, but wait, here it comes.. next, use compressed air to push the bearing around at super hyper speed, this breaks it in (think of it as hours of hardcore yoyo play elapsing in seconds), while also pushing out any extra oil. Have a tissue handy to wipe away that excess.
  
  This one drop of thin lube plus compressed air megaspin technique works brilliantly for me, and all my throws are suuuper smooth. Cheers!

Just to add to the great advice jazooka is giving you, you're probably used to and expecting to play what is now called responsive, where the yoyo comes back when you tug it. It's pretty satisfying just as a fidget or chill toy, even without bothering with tricks =) you'll probably want to order a pack of cheap strings as well from wherever you buy your yoyo.

To that point, the Sage is a fine yoyo, if it's available near you. If you can get a Recess First Base, even better imo.

If you want to go full premium, you can check out a One Drop Deep state, or an alleycat.

The links I provided are all to yoyoexpert, and I have no idea if they ship to turkey, but you might be able to find a site that does. And if not, or if you don't want to pay quite that much, or don't need a metal yoyo, the first base and sage are sincerely great, and unless you did eventually decide to play unresponsive for crazy tricks, you will never feel the need for another.

OH, just checked, there are some on Amazon that are eligible to ship to TR! Cant say what shipping costs, but there's both Deep states and a yyf replay, another good responsive. But I can't speak for how easy or reliable buying through the Amazon global store is (disclaimer though: I work on the team that set up that feature, I just haven't used it, let alone to ship to turkey.)

Edit: tl;dr you probably won't like the magic yoyos, as they're unresponsive.

I think so.

Hang on, do you just want the absolute best performance for the price? Check out Magic Yoyo's, Particularly the N12 Shark Honor. It's a dam solid Metal yoyo for about 16 to 22 dollars on Amazon, depending on colorway. I tried a friends, and it was smooth as butter.

https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-MAGICYOYO-Yo-yos-Strings-Aluminum/dp/B01LPMBAIM/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1480223567&sr=8-5&keywords=n12+magic+yoyo

I own the N9 Floating cloud, which is a bit smaller and cheaper, but comes with Hubstacks.

https://www.amazon.com/Original-Professional-Floating-Aluminum-Children/dp/B017R12DYA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480223689&sr=8-1&keywords=n9+magic+yoyo

The M00 1 Silencer is also a cool ... I think it's actually a bi metal.

https://www.amazon.com/MAGICYOYO-Silencer-Aluminum-Professional-Unresponsive/dp/B00YA1OEL6/ref=sr_1_14?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1480223773&sr=1-14&keywords=magic+yoyo


All of those are really quite amazing for their price. Great beaters due to their low cost. I might still reccomend the Skyva or Replay first due to plastics inherently better durability, but these are nothing to skoff at, and play like a metal should. Just search for them in the side bar, I'm not alone.

TBH, 5 years old is early. We have little kids, under 7 years old, try yoyos at our club and they never seem to really get into it. Most 5 year old don't have the coordination or the stick-to-it-iveness. (Fun fact, most high level "professionals" start learning around age 10-13 and hit their stride between age 15 and 18)

That being said. Something like a Yomega brain, Duncan Reflex, or Blazing Team Beast Wrangler have auto return features that make them easier to use. Something like the Yoyoball or Blazing team Battlespin are even easier to use. And if you really think the kid is going to go all out, I'd recommend the Duncan Butterfly XT, yoyotricks.com Sage, or YoYofactory One. Maybe once he is confortable with a Yomega Brain, then we can get him something more similar to what Uncle Matt is using.

All that to say, The Yomega Brain is fine. No one has made a self returning yoyo that is really better than that.

Optimistic: https://www.amazon.com/YoYoFactory-ONE-Ball-Bearing-YoYo/dp/B00C7Z0XC6

Realistic: https://www.amazon.com/Duncan-Reflex-Return-Yo-Yo-Color/dp/B000PNUZW0

Pessimistic: https://www.amazon.com/Yo-Yo-Ball-Assorted-Colors-Patterns/dp/B001GOMIOU

this will depend on what specific formulation you are buying/looking to buy as a lot of sealant/silicone manufacturers sell different formulations for different purposes and this can have an affect on how well it works for yoyo response. It helps to read the packaging to see what it's intended use case is (waterproof, high temp, high friction, chemical resistance, etc etc). I don't think color really tells much as it's just a coloring that gets added to the mix, it's not like there's a set color standard across manufacturers to indicate particular dominant attributes.

i've been using DAP auto/marine sealant for about half a year now, got the tube on sale at my local Home Depot. It's not flowable meaning you have to shape it after pouring but it's a pretty durable silicone, lasting roughly around the same range as the usual permatex flowable. Easy to carve out a recess after pouring if you like doing that.

i might buy some of the permatex ultra series stuff to try it out, see how it compares to the standard permatex flowable.

I wouldn't suggest that sandpaper is necessary. A small file will smooth any burrs down sufficiently so they will not cut you. I use the file on a Swiss Army Knife if you have one of those. If you don't, I suggest getting a rambler for your yo-yo bag. It's my favorite model and comes in super handy for things like cutting string, filing burrs, prying bearings, digging out knots so you don't have to unscrew your yo-yo, etc...

O'keeffe's working hands is the best hand cream I have ever used.

https://www.amazon.com/OKeeffes-Working-Hands-Hand-Cream/dp/B00121UVU0

lot of good advice here.

I would just add that o'keeffes working hands will help heal those cracks.

Assuming you are knowledgable about this (im not) ive used this stuff once and it seemed ok, is it good? http://www.amazon.com/2-8-Ounce-Silicone-Rubber-Marine-Sealant/dp/B000PSB1VY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419450192&sr=8-1&keywords=dap+auto+marine+sealant

for heavy, I use super lube with PTFE https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BXOGHY/

I'm not a huge fan of five-fingered gloves, personally. However, the only other options on YYE are at least $9. If price is not a huge factor, I really liked my duncan glove ($11). They don't last forever, though. These pool gloves from amazon are MUCH cheaper. The seams are a bit thicker, which could be a huge downside. I don't mind it much though, especially for 4a.

https://www.amazon.com/Champion-Sport-Handed-Gloves-Package/dp/B00O9AKQ6K/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1509498936&sr=8-17&keywords=pool+glove