the making of oblivion
Regionals: 2nd at PNWR, 2nd at NER, 1st at MWR.
Nationals: 2nd.
Worlds: 3rd.
Chandler Steele is special.
After he competed at US Nationals 2024, I approached him with an idea of making him a signature yoyo for 2025. He was planning on using the Nation at the World YoYo Contest, and he sent me some yoyos that he had previously been using, for me to get an idea of what he liked, and what I should make for him.
Immediately, going through his freestyle history since 2015, I noticed a pattern: his tricks were getting significantly more dynamic, requiring larger movements. He had actually injured his hands many times, so for his safety, I wanted to make a yoyo with plastic rings to help him with making impacts less substantial.
We started off with Devotion as a base, and made it slightly wider and more angular to accommodate for his less technical/more catch based tricks. We also added the bump near the bearing seat that we had originally designed for the Flashback onto the yoyo, to help Chandler with his very committed horizontal tricks.
Originally, referencing his previous yoyos, I thought that 64.5g would be perfect. However, either because of his evolved style, or because of the new (to us) plastic on stainless steel construction, the yoyo did not have enough spin time.
first prototype
The second prototype added 2 grams to the outer rim of the aluminum body. This was his favorite horizontal yoyo, and as he described it, “felt like cheating.” However, after some trials, Chandler also wanted to see how a standard bimetal construction would play as well.
second prototype
For prototypes 3 and 4, we attempted to remake the 1st and 2nd prototypes as normal AL/SS bimetals without the plastic ring in play. However, it just didn’t feel quite right. After over 7 months of testing and multiple stage appearances on the 2nd prototype, Chandler confirmed that it was perfect for him.
left to right, proto 1, 2, 3, 4, TiSS
I decided to do my full due diligence, and make him a TiSS version as well. This yoyo was insanely powerful, yet light. However, the horizontal just didn’t match the ability of the second prototype. After 5 prototypes, we were certain.
TiSS
That is the yoyo you see today, the one that Chandler used to place 2nd at PNWR, NER, 1st at MWR, 2nd at US Nationals, and 3rd at Worlds.
Chandler made this entire journey, from not making it out of semi finals at Worlds in 2024 to not missing the podium for a single contest in 2025 with the Oblivion. Would he have done just as well without the yoyo? Probably. Did the yoyo help him? Also probably. Would he have rather used anything else? Definitely not.