Eternal Throw Elysian
Reviewed by Chris Rhoads
September 1, 2014

Introduction

Eternal Throw dropped into the community two years ago with the phenomenal Victory, a V-Shaped, double rimmed, Side Effect enabled beast of a yo-yo that quickly impressed me with what this indie developer had to offer. Since then Hinton and Sage have kept quite. They would show bits and pieces of their upcoming throw, teasing the community with the next release but nothing materialized… until now. Almost two years after I reviewed their freshman release, Eternal Throw has come out with the Elysian, named for the ancient Greek word for Heaven. As I said above, I enjoyed their first release quite a bit. Will their sophomore release leave me just as excited or does it need to be banished to Hades?

Specs

• Diameter: 56mm
• Width: 43.5mm
• Weight: 67.6 grams
• Bearing: Flat Buddha Bearing
• Response: One Drop Flow Groove Pad

Construction

The Elysian has an extreme H-Shape profile with large rounded rims that feel great during play. The catch zone is wide open with a slightly scalloped cut to the wall that forces more of the weight to the rims and tapers down to the no walled gap. The profile fits perfectly in my meaty paws with my middle finger resting entirely within the catch zone. The cup of the yo-yo has a flat outer rim that extends down covering the deep IGR cut into the underside. The concave cup flows towards the tapped throw central hub where there is a divot cut for easy finger spins. The Elysian is blasted with a gentle medium giving it a velvet feel that should result in decent grinds without causing excessive string wear. The overall design of the Elysian is quite impressive in my opinion. Usually extreme H-Shape yo-yos sacrifice some comfort during play in order to get the most rim weight possible. It is refreshing to see that Eternal Throw put some thought into pushing the limits while retaining a great deal of comfort for the player.

Weight

The Elysian’s 67.6 gram body is solid and stable on the string and easily stays on plane even when you knock it about during tricks. This is more of a medium speed player but can be pushed faster if you want to. For me, this would be a good relaxing yo-yo and also a flashy yo-yo that would be easy to track when I am demonstrating to my students or teaching tricks to kids.

Response and Bearing

Eternal Throw has stuck with the One Drop Flow Groove Pads whichgives grippy binds and dead unresponsive play. Flow Grove pads have moved out into the community becoming a standard unto themselves.

The bearing is a flat Buddha bearing that played slightly louder than a 10-Ball but gave the same level of smooth, long lasting spins.

Playability

Smooth and easily accessible are the first two things that come to mind with the Elysian. The spin times are amazing and the wide catch zone is a breeze to hit. No matter what trick I threw at it, the Elysian performed beautifully. I found that it excelled quite nicely at horizontal play and was a snap to transition from vertical to horizontal play during a Gyro Flop. One feature of the Elysian that I absolutely loved was the horizontal finger spins. The cup design guided your finger to that central divot and allows for longer spins even if you are not precise with the landing. This is one of the few yo-yos that I have been able to hop from my left to my right hand during a finger spin. Grinds were great thanks to those high spin times. I had pin point control while it was on my finger or my arm. While it is hard to see in the photos, there is a seriously deep IGR under the lip of the rim so extra long thumb grinds are not a problem.

Final Thoughts

No banishment here, the Elysian lives up to its name and is one heavenly yo-yo. (Bad pun, no I will not apologize) This is an excellent yo-yo to practice on and a great one to use while teaching others, making this an easy yo-yo to recommend to a wide range of people. On a side note to Eternal Throw… please don’t wait another two years between releases.