Tabletop Game / Beyblade

3, 2, 1, LET IT RIP!

The anime and manga series are, like many other Merchandise-Driven series, a vehicle to advertise toys and other products. Starting in 1999, the series has been around more or less in some form constantly since.

Inspired by the traditional beigoma tops, and as such the basic premise is the same as the much older toys. Two tops spin together in an enclosed area of some kind, and the last one left spinning is the winner. Other battling top games have existed throughout the world before the introduction of Beyblade, but it introduced a novel concept to the game - customization. This allowed for strategic play beyond "try to make your top spin faster."

The series has gone through several iterations, usually with a major Mid-Season Upgrade. Each version is considered to be part of a unified system, which has on occasion been updated to replace specific parts with others.

• Plastic Generation (Beyblade 1999, V-Force, G-Revolution; 2000 - 2004) — The first generation was introduced with a key feature of customizability, allowing each Beyblade to be able to split into several layers of parts that can be swapped amongst each other to affect its performance.
  • Initial System: The first system of parts. Notable in that a screwdriver was needed to assemble the Blade Base. Additionally consists of the Attack Ring, Weight Disk, Bit Chip, and Bit Chip Cover. All tops released during this time were right-spinning. Setting a precedent for future lines, only a few Beyblades were made in this system before being upgraded to the next.
  • Spin Gear System (SG): The first major update to the line. The Spin Gear was added and the Blade Base no longer needs tools to assemble. The Spin Gear is made up of a plastic shell, a small metal ring, and a piece that depends on the Blade Base's tip. The Bit Chip was also lengthened, so that it wouldn't require a cover. The spin direction of the Beyblade is now determined by which Spin Core is included but requires separate launchers for each direction.
  • Magnacore System: Added small magnetic pieces inside the Spin Gear and magnets into the base of the stadiums. This allowed for more dynamic play by having the magnets attract or repel the tops as they moved around the stadium. The Magnacore system also introduced Support Parts on certain beys, which functioned as essentially a secondary attack ring and added more weight.
  • Engine Gear System (EG): Replaces the Spin Gear and Blade Base. The tip has a wind-up motor built in, which will activate during battle. They can do so in a number of ways, including taking enough hits or immediately after landing in the stadium. This allowed the Beyblade to regain speed, which could help it recover but also potentially cause a spin-out.
  • Hard Metal System (HMS): The point where the the "Plastic Generation" name became less meaningful. Unlike previous updates, this is a completely new system made up of a Running Core (or Running Tip), Weight Disk, Attack Ring (which now contains metal), and the Bit Protector. Some used a Customizable Weight Disk with included a plastic frame, which could either spin freely around the Disk or clip into the notches on the sides. The tops and winder were both designed to allow spin in either direction. Takara Tomy decided to call a hiatus while they reworked the franchise after this point.

• Metal Saga (Metal Fusion, Metal Fury, Metal Masters, Shogun Steel (Zero-G in Japan); 2009 - 2014) — Introduced with the key feature of having metal attack wheels, this line of Beyblades combine the Attack Ring and metal Weight Disk into a single Metal Wheel that comes into contact with other Beyblades during battle, allowing for heavier impacts and metallic clangs as per Rule of Cool. It can be seen as a successor or evolution of the Hard Metal System from the last season of the original series.
  • Metal System (MS): A completely new design, partly inspired by the HMS. Beyblades in this series are made of a Performance Tip, Spin Track (core), Metal Wheel, and held together by a Face Bolt. Tops in this series were only released in Japan and didn't appear in the anime, only the manga (with the exceptions of Aquario 105F and Poison Virgo ED145ES, which appeared in Metal Masters).
  • Hybrid Wheel System (HWS): Known as the Performance Top System (PTS) in Hasbro regions. Replaces the Metal Wheel of MS with the Fusion Wheel (main point of contact) and the Energy Ring (where the Launcher holds on). Besides this, all of the other parts are carried over from MS and new Spin Tracks and Tips were backwards compatible. Some Energy Layer/Fusion Wheel combinations could behave differently depending on which way the two were stacked, called "modes". Spin direction requires both the Energy Layer AND Fusion Wheel to allow the correct launcher to attach, though some very rare ones allow spin in both directions (for HWS, this was exclusive to the Gravity fusion wheel and Destroyer energy ring, which were only compatible with each other).
  • 4D System: Introduced 4D energy rings, 4D Wheels and 4D Bottoms. The main focus for the line is mode-change gimmicks. 4D rings had metal shavings in them to add weight, although the effect was negligible. 4D Wheels could either have a single metal wheel which built-in mechanical gimmicks or have multiple parts that were only usable for that particular wheel. Some of the latter may have rotating rings or metal parts that could be flipped upside down; others might simply have a metal wheel with a plastic core that doesn't require an Energy Ring. 4D Bottoms could have automatic mode change, such as having a retracting or extending tip, or manual ones that the player could switch between battles in a match.
  • Synchrome System (Zero-G): Sold under the Shogun Steel banner. Replaces the Fusion Wheel and Energy Layer with the metal Warrior Wheel and the plastic Element Wheel. These two pieces can be attached to the Spin Track with either facing upwards, which could have an effect on the performance of the top. Also, the Element Wheel can be replaced with a second Warrior Wheel to make a super-heavy Synchrome Beyblade. The other main change is that the stadiums have round bottoms that allow the whole setup to rock back and forth, hence the series' Japanese name.
  • eXtreme Top System (XTS): Made up of a few series of non-customizable tops that all had a built-in gimmick.
    • Tornado Battlers: Extra tall Beyblades. Supposedly to make them wobble more during battle.
    • Electro Battlers: Built in lights and sounds. The lights can be used to figure out how fast the Beyblade is spinning.
    • Stealth Battlers: Built in, spring loaded weapons. Weapons are deployed when a button on the Beyblade is struck in battle.
    • IR Spin Control: Uses an infrared remote control to control spin direction and speed. The controller also has battle sounds.
  • BeyWheelz: a spin-off created to fill the gap between Metal Masters and Shogun Steel. The associated toyline involved rolling two wheels made of multiple interchangeable parts at each other, using ramps to create a mid-air collision. While not as popular as the main toys, it was moderately successful.
  • BeyWarriors: uses small monster action figures with gyroscopes built into the base to basically work the same way as regular Beyblades. While the main body was firmly attached to the base and therefore couldn't be changed, the arms of the figures could be swapped. While this was meant to keep the Bey name on the shelves, Shogun Steel sold well enough to continue distribution during most of this period.
  • BeyRaiderz: A spin-off of BeyWheelz, each player has a small, ripcord-powered car that moves forward a certain distance before automatically returning. The goal is to hit a target before the other player, knocking a disc off to score a point. Got a second wave under the name BeyWarriors: Cyborg.

• Burst (Burst, Burst Evolution (Burst God), Burst Turbo (Chouzetsu/Cho Z/Super Z), Burst Rise (GT/Gatinko), Burst Surge (Sparking), Burst Quad Drive (Dynamite Battle); (2015 - 2023) — While initially going back to using plastic attack parts, this generation of Beyblades feature the Burst gimmick, where Beyblades can come undone and burst apart when dealt with the right amount of damage, allowing for a new way to win in battles.
  • Single Layer System: A three-layer system that uses a Performance Tip (or Driver), (Forge) Disc, and Energy Layer. Made of two layers of polycarbonate, one colored and one clear. The clear layer is the main point of contact between Beyblades.
  • Dual Layer System: Uses Energy Layers where both the colored and clear layers are points of contact. Besides allowing for more diverse designs with more contact points, mostly the same in terms of performance.
  • God Layer System: AKA SwitchStrike in Hasbro territories. Energy Layers have built-in moving parts, such as spinning rings or spring-loaded points. Forge Discs now include a plastic Disc Frame that can affect the properties of the Bey, such as increasing the number of attack points or making them harder to topple. New Performance Tips with gimmicks similar to those from the 4D System were also introduced.
  • Cho-Z Layer System: Energy Layers introduced in this system replace the clear polycarbonate layer with metal instead. Unlike previous Burst systems, there is no Bit Chip-like circle in the center, opting instead to have ornate designs that take up more area. In place of it is a common gimmick of the Energy Layers having a hollow diamond-shaped hole, meant to be filled in by a ring-shaped piece that fits underneath known as a Level Chip that would greatly improve a Bey's performance.
    • SlingShock System (Turbo): Hasbro's release of this system however does not use metal parts, instead continuing to use polycarbonate in place of originally metal parts except in a small number of specific Beyblades. It also replaced many of the mostly typical Tips with variations that can either change height or contact points, allowing them to more easily connect with and grind on Rails on the edges of the Beystadium. These rails are typically oriented in such a way as to speed the Beyblade toward the center of the battle area for heavy clashes.
  • Gatinko Layer System: Energy Layers are now split into 3 parts: the Gatinko Chip (housing the teeth for the locking mechanism), the Layer Weight (adding weight and affecting weight distribution), and the Layer Base (main contact points). Forge Discs with built-in moving parts were also introduced.
    • HyperSphere System (Rise): The Hasbro adaptation of the the Gatinko Layer system, it removes the Layer Weight and replaces it with plastic details molded into the Layer Base. The GT Chip determines the spin direction of the Energy Layer, while the Layer Base determines Attack, Defense, and Stamina. Forge Discs with moving parts were replaced with ones that are compatible with Disc Frames. Unlike Gatinko, new, mostly rounded Hypersphere Tips are used to allow Beyblades to climb the walls of Beystadiums more easily. This allows deeper Beystadiums to be used than before, and also makes it easier to escape Ring-Out Pockets.
  • Sparking Layer System: Energy Layers of this system are split into 3 parts: the Sparking Chip, the Ring, and the Chassis. The circular part in the center of the Bey has been reintroduced as the Chip Core, a part considered a part of the Sparking Chip. Chassis have 2 variants; the Single Chassis that is compatible with Forge Discs, and the Double Chassis that does not allow Forge Discs to be used, integrating them into the Chassis itself instead. While the Sparking Chip in general is compatible with the Gatinko Layer Weights and Bases, some Sparking Chips have an additional ring or other features around them edges that prevent them from being backwards compatible. There is also a Sparking Core part that can be used with certain Beyblades, but offer little in the way of tactical advantage.
    • Speed Storm System (Surge): The Hasbro release merges the Chassis and Ring, much like it did with the Layer Base and Layer Weight in Rise. In fact, the Chip and Frame design is mostly the same but changes how the Chip locks into the Base. Instead, the line focuses on new Performance Tips and Beystadium features. Tips are tall like with SlingShock but for the most part no longer change modes. Instead, they are meant to interact with "Surge Pockets" in the Beystadium - smaller round bowls on the edges of the larger main one, meant to encourage movement and speed of battling Beyblades. The taller tips also make them compatible with the Rails of SlingShock Beystadiums while still able to climb the walls of HyperSphere Beystadiums.
  • Dynamite Battle System: Energy layers are comprised of a Dynamite Core (similar to GT and Sparking chips), a Blade (main contact points), and an Armor (similar to the GT layer weight). All DB beys can change modes. Low Mode has the Core above the Blade and the Armor underneath. High Mode has the Armor over the Blade and the Core underneath. Low Mode makes the bey shorter and High Mode exposes the disc more. Low Mode can only be used with DB discs, as a DB bey using an older disc will only be able to use High Mode.
    • Quad System (QuadDrive/QuadStrike): The Hasbro release maintains Dynamite Battle's High and Low modes renamed Apex and Core modes respectively. Additionally, an armor tip can be applied to the Performance Tip to create an additional Normal Mode and Plus Mode, changing the Beyblade's type and allowing for four modes of play. Of course, being a Hasbro release, other changes have been made, mainly within the Energy Layer. The armor on the energy layer is changed to plastic (renamed Gravity Ring). The core (renamed Drive Chip) also uses a twist and lock system rather than Takara Tomy's tabs. This does cause the Drive Chip to be unaligned while the Bey is in Core modes. In transitioning to QuadStrike, the system stays very similar with a few changes, mainly the Armor Tips which feature tips with wide rings surrounding them.
  • Pro Series: Not a new system per se, but rather unaltered releases of the Japanese versions in Hasbro territories. Due to the relatively high demand from teenage and adult players for the more competition-focused features and gimmicks, this line was introduced to give an option for fans who would prefer not to pay the sometimes ludicrous markup for imports. The first wave included three Cho-Z Beyblades - Cho-Z Achilles, Cho-Z Valkyrie, and Orb Egis, with the metal, grooves, and decals for the Energy Layers included. They also include the Light Launcher, rather than the Starter Launcher that they were released with in Japan. Since Pro Series Beyblades use the Japanese molds, parts compatibility between the main line and Pro Series is the same as between TakaraTomy and Hasbro main line Beyblades. See below for details.
  • Beyblade Micros: A tie-in line with ~1 inch wide^note about the same size as traditional beigoma tops based on their larger brethren which consist of two parts, an Energy Layer and a Tip. The Tips are specialized like the larger ones but are smaller and more simple. The Energy Layers for the Micros tops can also be attached to the normal Burst Performance Tips to make a narrow but comically tall top. The American release of Micros was sporadic, with most retailers only having them available regionally for a long time. Others seemingly never picked up the brand.
  • For the international release of the toyline, Hasbro made a few changes, some of which had a fairly significant impact on performance. Changes made to the toyline as a whole include:
    • No decals were included, instead replacing them either with more basic paint applications or replacing them with different details entirely. SwitchStrike was the first to try to stick closely to the Japanese designs for the "primary" release of a given Layer, which would continue with all subsequent series. Some minor visual differences still occur as a result of limitations in using paint, such as gradients being replaced with solid colors.
    • The grooves, or "teeth", on the underside of the connector ring in the middle of the Layer were replaced with a slope ending in a single, shallow groove. Rather than trying to lock the Tip in place and clicking into the next position with a hard enough hit, the slope would change the amount of pressure on the Tip's spring. Under certain circumstances, this design had the advantage of causing the Layer to tighten itself back down. While early Beys sometimes had different performance compared to their Japanese releases as a result of this change, later ones were very similar if not identical.
    • The center post on the Performance Tip and the connector ring on the Energy Layer were both lengthened very slightly, making Japanese Drivers unable to connect to Hasbro Layers. While they technically can connect if enough force is used, this slightly distorts the post on the Driver, which can affect how securely it connects with Japanese Layers. As a result, the WBBO fan group banned the use of Japanese and Pro Series tips that were forced onto Hasbro Layers.
    • Some Forge Discs, on a case-by-case basis, were altered slightly to have deeper grooves or divots to make them lighter. However, the majority were unaltered and even seemingly use the same exact molds as the TakaraTomy releases. Starting with HyperSphere, discs were modified to accomodate frames when the original ones weren't. This meant that many gimmicks were removed (like Hurricane's free spin or Blitz's wings). Some of them would later be released in the same style as the Japanese toyline, but only a limited number got this treatment.

• X Series (X); (2023 - Present) — Marketed as a fusion of all three previous generations' key features (customizability, metal attack layer and burst) along with a new feature known X Dash - The Bit is designed as a gear to interact with the Xtreme Stadium's X Lines, a ring of gear teeth that outline the bowl, which accelerates the Bey and sends it towards the center allowing for high speed clashes. This provides a significant fair-play advantage for Attack-types which have a notorious disadvange of flying to the sides of the Beystadium and completely avoiding contact with Beyblades of other types that stay in the center due to their strong centrifugal force unless launched with specific angling techniques.
  
  In Q4 2023, Hasbro announced it would once again renew its partnership with TakaraTomy to bring the series to Western markets in Fall of the following year. To the surprise of many, they specified that their releases of existing Beyblades would be identical in weight, feel, and performance so that players in all markets could have the same experience.^note It's speculated this is either due to them realizing they had underestimated their target demographic, which is the same age range as in Japan if not slightly older, or to allow better integration of both markets into officially sanctioned international tournaments. Additionally, they stated they would be designing their own Beyblades to the same design and performance standards which could theoretically be licensed back to Asian markets by their Japanese partners.
  • Basic Line: Beyblades under this system are labelled with the product code BX.A three layer system that consists of the Blade, the Ratchet (a centerpiece that has its own protrusions to either aid the Blade in attacking or act as a weakpoint that dislodges upon impact to trigger a Burst, and determines its general height), and the Bit. Its burst mechanics differ from the previous generation in that burstability is determined by the Bit, where Attack and Balance-type Bits have generally a tighter lock than the other types.
  • Unique Line: Beyblades under this system are labelled with the product code UX. While operating on the same three layer system as the Basic Line, the metal is mainly distributed along the outer perimeter of the Blade, creating higher Outward Weight Distribution (OWD) and greater stability of the Bey. This is achieved with Launcher Hooks made of resin, rather than metal. Beys of the Unique Line each have their own unique gimmick, hence the "Unique" part of the name, that heavily sets them apart from Beys of the Basic Line and from each other.

The game's mechanics are simple. Each player can have up to three tops available to them. Two players each launch a top into a bowl-shaped battle arena, and the last one left standing is the winner. Winning can either be from knocking your opponent out of the ring (Ring-Out Finish) or making their top stop spinning (Survivor Finish). Each win earns a point, and the first to seven points wins. A Burst Finish, where a Burst Beyblade flies apart when it loses, nets the winner two point. Later Burst tops include instructions for a shorter 3 point match, mirroring the accompanying mobile game's mechanics - players try to score three points before their opponent but are only allowed one Bey. Another variation has the player select up to three tops, selects which order they will be played in, and the winner is whoever gets best of 3. The Battle Tower Stadium set introduces 4-player battles, having a standard 2-player Beystadium on one side and a 4-player one on the other. Battles in the Xtreme Stadium is played with a first to four points and a reassessment of the points. Survivor Finish are 1 point, Ring-Out and Burst Finishes are both 2 points, and Xtreme Finishes (where instead of one of the two pockets, the bey falls out in the center and out of the ring) is 3 points.

There are 4 basic types of tops: Attack, Defense, Stamina, and Balance. Counter-intuitively, Balance means having bits of the other three types all put together, rather than having a top that's good at balancing on its tip.

• Attack: Fast and made for hitting. Strong against Stamina, weak against Defense
• Defense: Heavy and hard to move. Strong against Attack, outlasted by Stamina.
• Stamina: Light, with focus on spin time. Good against Defense, but usually knocked out by Attack.
• Balance: Named as such due to being a mix of different types, thus having no weakness, but at the cost of having no specific strength as well. Hard to predict, and varies greatly based on actual parts used. They are also commonly mode-changeable as a Loophole Abuse of the "no parts changing" standard rule in-between rounds.

Of course, there are exceptions to rules here; all types may be either Mobile or Stationary, and may act more like one of the other types as a result. Despite this, their main type will be evident in their performance.

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Tropes specific to the tabletop game are:

• All There in the Manual: The names of the Hasbro Burst Forge Discs and Performance Tips are not mentioned on the packaging or in the instructions, which just uses their part numbers. However, they are given their proper names in the app/mobile game, viewable while editing a Beyblade.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • All Launchers in the DB Layer system are now dual-spin. So no matter what launcher you buy, or if your set comes with one it's compatible with every Beyblade and you won't need to buy two.
  • Beystadiums started utilizing "pockets" (and are now standard) where a bey would be knocked into instead of being sent flying out of the arena. This way, beys are no longer at risk of getting damaged by falling off tables. For Burst, it also prevents parts from getting lost by keeping everything inside the stadium during a Burst finish as well as projectile parts like the Bullet Driver or Phoenix armor.
• The Artifact:
  • Several Hasbro Burst Launchers, including the Duel Threat, Sword, and the Apocalypse Blade Launchers all have connectors to allow multiple to be connected, but don't use normal ripcords, so connecting them is basically pointless. The only real reason to do so is so the Super Grip Launcher can be used as a launcher grip, or for the Dual Threat Launcher, so the carabiner clip from the Xcalius Gold Launcher can still be attached. Speed Storm only included the male connector, meaning you'd need a launcher from an older series to use be able to use the multi-launch gimmick. Starting in Surge, they quiety abandoned the gimmick. This is partly due to the gimmick not being very popular, likely because the second launcher would have a predictably weaker launch and almost always lose.
  • To a lesser extent, compatibility with Disc Frames in Burst: Rise. No new Disc Frames were introduced, even when multiple Forge Discs were adapted to include compatibility^note During the Japanese equivalent, Gatinko, there was more emphasis on Forge Discs with non-removable plastic contact points; these were removed in favor of notches to attach Frames when localized. However, no Beyblades during this time were sold with Disc Frames, meaning you'd have to have older Beyblades that did include one to benefit from this change.
  • The franchise's tagline: "Let it rip". In the original series, ripcords were prominently used in the anime and toyline. Ever since Metal Fight, string launchers were given a lot more promotion and focus. Burst started to diversify ripcords and even make some stronger than strings with the drawback of not being as easy to launch, but eventually reverted to giving them less focus unless they were packaged with a set.

• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Making the heaviest possible build results in the technically best possible Attack or Defense Bey possible, depending on what tip is used. However, it will most likely launch much slower than a lighter build and not last as long if your opponent doesn't ring out. This is most extreme with Metal Saga Beyblades, since they have a much higher maximum weight than others. That is, if you didn't get the Rev Up Launcher.
  • Making the lightest build will result in a Stamina Bey that will launch easily and spin fast, as well as being able to stay away from the low center of the stadium. The downside is that it has no defensive or offensive capability due to its low mass, making it only occasionally effective against one build - the heaviest. Again, this is primarily a Metal Saga issue, since the original and Burst have a narrower range of weights to work with.
  • 4D Bottoms, as a general rule, are this. As fun of a concept as Cosmic Pegasus's Final:Drive may seem, you're better off with a Flat or rubber tip, rather than one that switches modes during play. And Diablo Nemesis doesn't really benefit from being stuck with one Spin Track with a 3 position tip when the individual tips are also available. Even though the tips can be switched between rounds in a match (otherwise against the rules), a single tip is still preferable. When using the X:Drive there's also the top of the bey to consider, despite most wheels being round they aren't all multi-use. A wheel like Twisted may benefit from this due to having offensive and defensive properties but a wheel such as Big Bang can perform well as an attacker but lack the properties of a defender.
  • Hasbro Burst launchers can clip end-to-end to launch two Beys at once for solo play or 4-way matches between two players. However, the added weight of a second top more often than not causes a slow start up. It also makes aiming into the stadium harder and more likely to land one or both in a ring-out pocket. Add that on top of the fact that the early Hasbro Burst Launchers have a tendency to slip off one side, it might take several attempts to get one successful launch.
  • Several Performance Tips in Burst and its sublines. Variable is at its peak either mint or when its first set of spikes break, and becomes mostly unusable when their second set give out. This also means to a collector who also plays, they risk damaging their toys. Beyond that, much like with Metal Saga, Performance Tips that have three choices that can be changed between rounds in a match are less practical than any of the individual Tips they copy^ExplanationThe Zeta Driver while versatile, uses an impractical Quake for its attack mode, for its defense mode it uses Massive without the brakes that gave it KO resistance, and it used Fusion for its stamina mode; a balance tip that might act aggressive. Xtend+'s attack mode is too uncontrollable due to the plate and flat bottom making too much contact with the stadium and speeding up, the defense mode lacking in KO resistance, with the stamina mode being the only one seeing competitive used due to excellent stamina and Life-After-Death. . At least they allow whatever Forge Disc the player wants now, compared to Metal where it replaced both the Tip and Spin Track, severely limiting what could be done with it. Reboot and Ultimate Reboot have the same issue Final:Drive did in Metal Masters, though Reboot doesn't use rubber which makes it somewhat more reliable.
  • The Sparking Beylauncher creates actual (harmless) sparks by pulling on the string rather than being a boring old launcher and is supposedly more powerful than previous versions. Despite this, many claims it breaks too easily and has the lowest life span out of all the launchers.
  • Engine Gears from the original series. While they sound awesome in practice, often times do not perform very well, if they activate early they break flower patterns and sometimes self-KO's. This issue was rectified withe the Long Sparking Launchers, which are more durable and have more power.
  • The launch styles of the Burst anime are some of the coolest and best looking. Attempting to do them in real life WOULD look as cool, if not for the fact your Beyblade would be incredibly inaccurate and unstable. You are almost guaranteed to miss or mis-launch while doing backflips, sprints, spinning, or tossing your launchers in the air. The only exception is hand-launching Fafnir, since its slow starting speed will sap strength from the opponent faster - too bad it's illegal.
  • Dynamite Belial's Evolution Gears provide it with additional abilities such as spin stealing, a generous amount of metal in the layer, a wider rim of the tip that tightens the driver, and a frame for the disc. It is possible to equip the Perfect Gear (all of them at once) to give Belial every upgrade, however, doing so makes it incredibly heavy and hard to launch. The Perfect Gear parts also conflict with each other such as the S-Gear causing the combo to scrape which reduces the LAD provided by the V-Gear. The L-Gear which forces the combo in high mode makes it more prone to tipping and wobbling due to the excess weight and tall height, which imbalance then causes the aforementioned problem with the S-Gear. High-mode will also reduce the efficiency of the F-Gear's spin equalization due to being taller and hard to reach for low-sitting beys, who will now hit the much thinner S-Gear. Using them all at once is highly impractical and one is better off using one or two upgrades individually.
    • Dangerous Belial improves upon this by making the gap between the S-Gear and Layer smaller which lifts it higher and removes the scraping problem, but doing so reduces the exposure of the F-Gear's spin equalization. The V-Gear still has its own problems with the All-Might Driver, making the surface area too wide, too uncontrollable, and burn stamina faster, akin to Xceed X+. The required High-mode for the L-Gear still makes the thinner S-Gear the contact point for lower-sitting beys. The new fully customized launcher that comes with the set also rectifies the weight problem the Perfect Gear brings.
• Battle Tops: The basic premise, obviously. The last one standing is the winner.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • For Metal Saga, the most effective and utilitarian tips are the more simple ones (Sharp, Wide, Ball, Flat, etc.) compared to the more gimmicky ones (Quake, Left Flat, Hole Flat/Sharp).
  • Among gimmicked parts, the less complicated ones are also the ones that tend to perform best. In Metal Saga, Rubber and Metal variations of basic tips tend to be more effective more reliable that those that can be flipped or rotated to change their battle properties - many have a tendency to move out of position during battle, or have their locking mechanisms break over time.
  • In the Metal Saga, Light Launchers and String Launchers have the longest spin time and have a simple straightforward function as opposed to the Digital Launcher, Duotron Launcher and BeyBlaster which are incredibly weak but are super gimmicky.
  • Balance Beyblades built to maximize Stamina and Defense are this most of the time. Attack types have low Stamina and may even knock themselves out of the arena due to their fast movement or recoil. Staying still and maintaining spin time while absorbing hits is the most reliable way of winning. It's also the easiest to build as you simply need to choose round and heavy parts with a tip that has good stamina, since you're not meant to move around the strategy is universally applicable to any stadium while offensive builds need to take into account any walls or the size of the stadium.
  • The very premise of the game itself can count, compared to many other toys that have come and gone. The very foundation of Beyblade is based on the very simple concept of spinning tops, a toy that can be traced back for millennia. Nothing overly fancy or 'futuristic' compared to many other toys out there, yet it was this simple premise that likely it gave it staying power when compared to other 'fad' toys like Bakugan or Battle B-Daman. This video goes into more detail.
  • Even the competitive scene qualifies. A lot of the best combinations don't rely on the really cool automatic switching or parts with the gimmicks that look cool only in the anime. The best parts are the ones that have one function but does it really well. The once top-tier combo Tempest Solomon Wheel Xtend+ 1S has gimmicky parts (Tempest has an automatic mode change and Xtend+ has a manual mode change) but never used these gimmicks, instead using Tempest due to its round shape and Xtend+ due to its great opposite spin stamina
  • Ripcord Launchers are treated as weaker than String Launchers, (which they normally are), but upgraded ones such as the Metal Saga Light Launcher 2, Sword Launcher, and Long Light Launcher are comparable in power to them. Unlike a string connected to the launcher, the ripcords are a separate piece which means they can be pulled at full strength and won't risk breaking while String Launchers are given extra caution while shooting which means you cannot pull at it at full strength without the risk of breaking.

• Bribing Your Way to Victory:
  • In every series to date, a tier list has been available from day-one and updated frequently. A large part of the metagame is buying specific parts (or the set they're released in) second-hand, mainly from eBay where they can go for as much as $100 US for rare or high-demand tops and launchers. Part of this was due to the extreme levels of scalping involved.
  • Better launchers, grips, and other accessories are often what determines a match. The person with the string launcher is pretty much guaranteed to win, if both players don't have one. The short-run Rev Up launcher (Only released in the US and Hong Kong during the Metal Saga) is one of the most expensive items on eBay due to it being both incredibly rare as well as the absolute best launcher for Metal Saga and Shogun Steel Beys.
  • In the plastic era the customized 10bBistool was practically invincible, especially in tournament play. Winning basically boiled down to if you had the money to get one, again second-hand because they did not stay on the shelf for long.

• Brought to You by the Letter "S": It's subtle, but you can see the first letter of the beys from the Burst generation incorporated on the contact layers. For example, Valkyrie's blades are V-shaped, Spriggan's decals form an S-shape, Fafnir's rubber is F-Shaped and Longinus's metal dragons are L-Shaped.

• Call-Back: The DB Layer System's discs are designed after the Single and Dual Layer Forge Discs. Some even come with the bey the originated from in their stock combo
  • Nexus is based on Force. Both are attack-type discs with 4 large spikes.
  • Giga is based on Gravity, they debuted with Ragnaruk beys. They were the heaviest (uncustomized) discs at the time with an octagon shape.
  • Tapered is based on Armed. Both are round and have a downward slope.
  • Over is based on Spread, both came with Spriggan. The two are completely circular and fairly heavy discs for their generation.
  • Karma is based on Nine, both of which came with Longinus. They're both designed like saw blades.
  • Legacy is based on Boost, which both debuted with Valkyrie. The two are designed to create a lot of downforce.
• Closest Thing We Got: The meta of competitive Beyblade heavily relies on a few very specific parts. However, more often than not it is possible to swap out a less desired piece and still have a viable combination. Notable ones include Screw Trident as a substitute for Deep Chaos, World often took the place of the Tempest ring, and Hunter was a common alternative to Xtreme.
• Combinatorial Explosion: Even through the design of a given era of Beyblades is basically self-contained, just within each generation the number of possible combinations is insanely high. This tends to only jump in orders of magnitude as time goes on, as certain part types will be broken down into more parts. For example, the Japanese version of Burst went from 3 parts to at least 5 but as many as 7, depending on specific parts^note Later Forge Discs have an optional Disc Frame, while the Energy Layer was reworked twice to have three separate parts, with the second time also giving a swapable Core to specific Beyblades.
• Continuity Nod: Of a sort. Both the Metal Saga and Burst are designed in a way to combine elements of both the Spin Gear System and the Hard Metal System (both from the original series), but in different ways.
  • The Metal Saga uses a "Spin Track" that all other parts are attached to similar to how the Spin Gear was the central connector but with the metal upper wheel and screw-on top piece of the Hard Metal System.
  • The Burst System has the tip as the piece that the central part with a metal ring fitting around it like the Hard Metal System, but with the Energy Layer twisting into it in much the same way as the Attack Ring did with the Spin Gear. The Gatinko and Sparking Systems also added a Chip in the center, in much the same way as the Bit Chip of the Spin Gear System though also making it the part the holds the whole thing together similar to the Bit Protector of the Hard Metal System.
  • The ripcord for the left-launching L-Drago series in Metal Saga all had a dragon-shaped grip, just like Tyson had for Dragoon's various forms.
  • Zero-G, the Japanese version of Shogun Steel, had the assembly tools built into the launcher just like the Hard Metal System's launcher had the tool for the Bit Protector on the end of one of its ripcord slots.
  • Shogun Steel included Beys based on the original series, including one called Dragoon. The others - Garudas, Genbull, and Byakko - instead have names based on their original inspirations.
  • Burst included Beys based on the first and second forms of the main four from the original anime, but not the earlier versions used in both the toyline and manga. Wolborg also got a release in Burst form. In addition, several Metal Saga Beyblades^note Storm Pegasus, Lightning L-Drago, Rock Leone, Flame Sagittario, Earth Eagle, and Burn Fireblaze got reimagined as Burst Beyblades.
  • The Variable and Evolution Drivers requiring the rubber nubs to wear down is a possible nod to the practice of wearing down rubber tips for better performance due to fresh ones being too uncontrollable to use.
  • X seems to do this for all three previous generations so far. It uses gears for more speed much like the Plastic Generation's Engine Gears, the blades are metal, of course borrowing from the Hard Metal System but mostly the Metal Saga, and the Beys can still burst like in Burst.
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • Several packaged Beyblades are built specifically for one purpose, rather then being designed to be playable. Some are specifically designed to go against another specific Beyblade, and the two are usually packaged together. However, they are usually released this way to introduce new parts into the game rather than to be use as-is.
  • Competitive customization often defies this. Popular builds are about maximizing offense or defense, but always ensure to not sacrifice its weakest stats. Attack combos would always try to use anything aggressive that allows the bey to maintain good stamina, while Defense and Stamina are often paired with each other to cover their weaknesses. Then in deck-building, other beys are often their just to counter any counters the primary build may have.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: Not quite explosion, but the concept behind Beyblade: Burst is that defeat makes your Bey fly apart. Beyond that, it was fairly common for the Attack Ring or Blade Base of an older or improperly assembled Bey to fly off in the original. More distressingly, certain Metal Saga Spin Tracks were prone to catastrophic failure if the Face Bolt was tightened too much, which damages the threading.
• Death or Glory Attack:
  • The Final:Drive included with Cosmic Pegasus F:D has a tip which retracts as the Beyblade loses spin. Once it fully retracts, it becomes a wide rubber flat tip meant to give one last Desperation Attack before spinning out.
  • Burst's Reboot tip is basically the same, but narrower and without the rubber. the sharp tip retracting gives the Bey greater mobility at the cost of depleting the last of its stamina. It's somewhat more effective than Final:Drive. Ultimate Reboot adds to that a rubber base with the same "stabilizers" that many Burst tips have, again meant for a last-second increase in mobility. Ironically, Ultimate Reboot's best trait is that it has very high LAD for an attack tip, letting it outspin most opposite-spin attack types
  • The Judgement Layer Base of GT was one. Its rubber contact points are unlike Fafnir or Spriggan's as it was designed to be for attack instead of absorption. Its hook-like shape meant that if it were to collide with a same-spin opponent, it would burst very easily. However, if it had weaker burst resistance than its opponent then the Judgement combo would burst due to high friction working against it.
• Desperation Attack: Metal Sagas Final:Drive and Bursts Reboot and Ultimate Reboot tips have a tip that retracts once the Bey equipped with them slows down enough. This causes a more aggressive second tip to connect with the stadium floor, increasing movement speed and hopefully turning a stalemate or close loss into a win. However, they are very much Awesome, but Impractical due to the low velocity making for weak hits, while the increased movement speed from higher friction means it will lose stamina much faster. Reboot is slightly better than F:D because it lacks rubber and has a smaller secondary tip, but Ultimate Reboot more or less recreates F:D's impracticality to the letter.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Balance types. Getting juuuust the right parts is really tricky, but can have awesome results. For example, a Burst Beyblade with a high stamina tip, heavy Forge Disc, and a good Attack type Layer or Frame results in a solid counterattack specialist that has minimal movement and heavy deflective power.
  • Ringing out a heavy Defense build, or most Stationary builds for that matter. Because they tend to stay near the center and return there as quickly as possible if moved, forcing them out of the ring can be a personal victory since it means making something with enough force to overcome its advantages. The worst culprits are those that use ball bearing bases like Fortress, Orbit, or Atomic, but in Burst the toughest is Liner due to its extremely niche feature of being the fastest to return to center at the cost of some stamina.
    • It should be noted that all the aforementioned tips, due to their free spinning nature, have moderate to high mobility at the start of the match, making their biggest weakness attack types that ring them out in a few secons. If the battle lasts longer than that, however...
  • Spin Stealing. All spin-stealing builds require rubber on their main contact wheel.
    • If your spin is opposite to your opponents, you'll steal spin, if the direction is the same you'll increase friction and lose more stamina. The case is worse in Burst where Left-Spin and Dual-Spin Beyblades are common.
    • If your opponent's Beyblade has a smooth and wide area of contact, it'll grip and you'll steal spin, too many jagged and spiky points, minimal contact and it won't steal. Additionally, if your opponent has a free-spinning layer, it won't grip at all.
    • If you start with a slower spin, you'll steal more from your opponent, if you spin faster, your opponent steals from you.
    • Eventually, the speed will equalize. If you have good Life After Death (When a Beyblade continues to spin even if knocked over), you outspin your opponent, if your opponent has better Life After Death, you lose.
    • Starting with Burst, you also need good Burst Resistance. Rubber is easier to grip than plastic, which makes it easier to unlock a Beyblade.
  • Attack Type builds aren't as tricky as Balance builds, but can still be challenging. Common problems to overcome include a tip too aggressive that it would be uncontrollable, a weight not enough to provide attack power and prevent self Ring-Outs, a layer shape that has great attack but not too much recoil, and maintaining banking patterns to avoid riding the ridge and miss defensive and stamina builds. In Burst there's also the problem of Burst Resistance and choosing a launcher that isn't too powerful to prevent your Bey from having poor control.
• Double Knockout:
  • Double Ring-outs.
  • Double Burst Finishes in Burst.
  • Also possible but but less common are double spin-outs, where both Beyblades stop spinning at the same time. This almost never happens because the fight ends when one of them stops spinning; rolling around on its edge is still considered active. Sometimes, though, they'll bump into each other while rolling and just stop, while other times they'll simply be too close for most people to be able to tell.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect:
  • While a full-powered launch is preferred, shooting too hard can cause stationary beys to start moving around fast and might ride the tornado ridge with the attack build it's trying to avoid. Launchers such as the Digital Sword Launcher may be too strong if hard launched which is why a standard gen string launcher is commonly preferred. Even when later releases surpass the sword launchers in power, its ability to be soft-launched easily allows for better control.
  • When it comes to choosing the best parts for the bey, the Driver or Performance tip choice requires a little restraint. For example, fully worn down Variable and Evolution are the fastest in the game, but its much wider rubber surface makes it too uncontrollable and provides too little stamina which is why Xtreme became a top-tier attack bottom due to its much easier control despite the lower (but respectable) speed.
  • Low attackers can't be too low as they run the risk of scraping too much while tall-sitting beys can't be too tall as they'd wobble too easily.
• Dub Name Change: Extremely common.
  • Starting with Metal Fusion (originally Metal Fight Beyblade), every series except Burst has had a new name outside of Japan. Metal Fight became Metal Fusion, Burst God became Burst: Evolution, etc.
  • The names of several Beyblades, including almost every single one in Burst, are changed for different reasons. Sometimes it's marketing, sometimes it's cultural or religious sensitivity.
    • Metal Fury's Fusion Hades was mainly changed to avoid confusion: The Fusion Fusion Wheel sounds redundant, and there is a Hades Fusion Wheel, meaning it would be possible to make a Hades Hades Bey. As such, it was changed to Firefuse Darkhelm.
    • Almost every Burst Beyblade got a new name in the US for marketing purposes, as well as shying away from the mythological angle that most got their names from. Most of the few that didn't already had names altered from the mythological being they were based on. It would be a hard sell in America for a kid's toy to be named Satan.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The first series had tops which were much different than anything after them, and had the greatest variety of part types. Some were only barely compatible with previous sets, to the point that Basic series parts became unusable. The first Blade Base had to be assembled with screws, and the second was also held in by clips that slid into the sides.
  • The first four waves of starter sets of Metal Fight Beyblade had used a single Metal Wheel rather than the Energy Ring/Fusion Wheel combo that came after them. They got replaced to add more variety to the game and also to address launchers having their prongs broken off.
  • At least for the Japanese release, the first several waves of Beyblade Burst had basic Energy Layers and simpler Drivers and Discs, with the Dual Layer sets released later and having a mix of gimmicked and simple types for other parts. Hasbro reworked several of these to follow a more straightforward Power Creep, with some pushed all the way back to Burst: Evolution.
• Elemental Powers: Shogun Steel Beys have Crystal/Element wheels that show through the metal wheel as an "Element orb". The element of the wheel is determined by its color, but otherwise doesn't affect performance in any meaningful way.
• Expy:
  • A dragon themed Beyblade that spins left and has a jerkass Blader in the anime - are you talking about L-Drago, Ronin Dragoon, or Luinor?
  • Inferno Ifrit/Ifritor I2 is based directly on Samurai Ifrit's facebolt insignia from Shogun Steel.
  • The Dragoon, Garudas, Genbull, and Byakko Shogun Steel Warrior Wheels are based on the same motifs as Dragoon, Drazer, Draciel, and Driger respectively.
  • The main four from the original series (Dragoon S, Dranzer S, Draciel S, and Driger S), its upgraded variants (Dragoon F, Dranzer F, Draciel F, and Driger F), as well as Wolborg, Gaia Dragoon, and Dragoon V all have Burst Energy Layers based on their attack rings, with similar tips when possible.
  • Storm Pegasus, Lightning L-Drago, Rock Leone, Earth Eagle, Flame Saggitario, and Burn Fireblaze from Metal Fusion all got a similar treatment, released in the GT/Rise line with the Energy Ring and Metal Wheel fused into Energy Layers.
  • The Dragon Avatar from Beyblade Burst Rise comes across as an attempt at updating Dragoon for the modern line. It has a more detailed appearance, but is still a large blue hybrid dragon with prominent claws.
  • The Wheel Forge Disc is based on the Libra Metal Wheel from the first set of Metal Fight Beyblade releases. This is somewhat odd as the Forge Disk is more equivalent to the Spin Track of the Metal Saga design than any version of the Wheel part.
• Fashionable Asymmetry:
  • The Shogun Steel wheels were never fully symmetrical. This was specifically so that none of them would be "overbalanced" to the point that they couldn't be knocked over. The hole and peg in each wheel guaranteed that no perfectly symmetrical designs could be made. The only way to get perfect weight distribution is to have two of the same Metal Wheel in a Synchrome configuration.
  • The Valtryek Energy Layer and its upgrade V2 both have a left-facing Valkyrie with three spikes on the edge of the wheel. Most other Burst Energy Layers have minor details that are different on one side than the other.
  • Doomscisor and Doomscisor D2 both feature left-facing grim reapers with the blade of his scythe forming the edge of their energy layers. His SwitchStrike version has him facing forward finally, but still uses the scythe for half the outer ring.
• Fragile Speedster: Attack builds can move very quickly, but a heavy Defense type can stop it or ring it out just as quickly. Especially light ones, which improve their speed and power, have much higher knock-back as a result and tend to send themselves flying after hitting a heavy opponent.
• Fusion Dance: One of the gimmicks of Shogun Steel: two metal wheels can be placed together to form a Synchrome Beyblade.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • The Bistool Attack Ring in the Spin Gear system was so good at beating just about anything, regardless of being Attack, Defense, Stamina, or Balance, that the metagame eventually devolved into "just buy the 10Bistool Starter Pack."
  • The design of the early Metal System wheels led to a few issues that affected gameplay. First, the all-metal construction of the Metal Wheel put more stress on the prongs of the launcher than the later Hybrid Wheel System did, resulting in broken launchers. The second was the Libra wheel, which had such effective defense and stamina that a Balance type build using it would be basically unbeatable and was banned from the very first official tournament.
  • The Maximum Garuda Energy Layer in the God Layer Burst series was designed to have really good stamina and defense, but really poor Burst Resistance. By replacing the God Chip or by using Takara Tomy parts with Hasbro parts, the combination becomes incredibly tight. With a completely smooth and circular surface, it becomes an unburstable Defense and Stamina hybrid.
  • Dynamite Cores' teeth were observed to wear down rather quickly even with regular drivers. A dash driver's tighter spring would wear it down faster and it didn't help Dynamite Battle released plenty of metal drivers whose lock cap would wear the teeth down even more. This greatly reduced the usability of Beyblades, notably Savior Valkyrie whose rubber blades and bound layer made it prone to bursting for an Attack-Type.
  • The Belial II core that comes with Divine Belial had a mold error: The burst lock was too tight and could not be disassembled even by hand and it takes a screwdriver or small tool to force it back in.
• Gratuitous English: Most of the tops have English names in Japan. Burst in particular has all of the Dual Layer, God Layer, and Super Z Layer pieces include a common English word. Plus, all Spin Tracks and Performance Tips in the Metal series and Discs and Drivers in Burst have English names in Japan.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Occasionally happens with the English names, like Bakushin Susano-o.
• Hellhound:
  • Cerberus is a common motif. Kerbecs in Metal Fusion and Kerbeus in Burst. In fact, the first one was released as the Hades Kerbecs build just to drive the theme home.
  • The Wolf series of parts is based on the constellation Lupus. In the anime it's owned by one of the main antagonists and treated as The Dreaded. Not so much with the real toys, where it's bottom tier.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • Deathscyther and Dark Deathscyther are some of the worst attack types because they're too round to have any significant attack power and their ability to burst is negligible. Paired with a heavy disc and passive driver, it becomes an incredible defense or stamina bey due to having a broken pairing of a round layer and strong locks.
  • Maximum Garuda is in a similar boat to Deathscyther. Its smooth and round layer that comes in a large size gives it a great flywheel effect along with great defenses but becomes unusable due to having only a single shallow lock making it burst instantly when hit hard enough. Against opposite-spin beys however, the gear-like movement prevents it from unlocking as fast which lets it use the high defensive properties it has.
  • Averted for Greatest Raphael. At first, it appeared to be another "gimmick bey" that was fun to use but not good for competitions due to its halo gimmick. As it turns out, the almost round shape is has great defenses and stamina especially with the metal inside. It also comes with top-tier parts in the heavy Over disc and High Xtend+' which has amazing stamina and LAD. The dash driver coupled with the spring burst locks also help reduce a common weakness of passive combos. The halo mode also doesn't need to activate fully, even when slightly raised does the completely round surface becomes the point of contact.
  • The Astral Hello Kitty promotional Beyblade. It's really just a brand collaboration, but it's essentially a recolor of Astral Spriggan, which is quite good in its generation. Its parts are also fairly good competitively with Revolve' being a true stamina dash driver with the strongest spring lock.
• Lethal Joke Item:
  • The Wall disc frame is quite heavy but facing downward causes it to scrape the floor and cripple LAD. Paired with Atomic or Bearing, it becomes incredible for stamina and ironically Life-After-Death combos.
  • Ultimate Reboot suffers the exact same problems as Final:Drive and appears to exist solely for fun play. However, once it spins on its rubber tip it has surprisingly viable LAD due to moving around with a very stable bottom. With the right set of parts it can outspin plenty of competitively viable beys.
  • The 2D Chassis that comes with Variant Lucifer drains stamina incredibly quickly in exchange for amazing damage cushioning. When used against an opposite-spin opponent it becomes great at wearing down their stamina while preserving its own bey's, especially with high stamina tips.

• Lightning Bruiser:
  • The Twisted Fusion Wheel combined with a low Spin Track, and a variation of the Flat Tip creates a frightfully fast and heavy Balance type Bey with little recoil capable of Smash Attacks. However, it does run out of steam rather quickly.
  • This was the intent of the L-Drago series, though some specific Beys pulled it off better than others. L-Drago Destructor LW105LF was the most successful of these. It has high weight, high mobility, and decent stamina that made it capable of quick ring-outs.
  • Luinor L3 Destroy continues the tradition, being very fast and heavy with little self-recoil and high Burst resistance.
• Merchandise-Driven: And how. The entire franchise exists to sell toys, and the cross-sell is particularly heavy since you can't just buy one top and be able to play. Even the interchangeability is meant to convince kids to keep buying more since not only do you get more toys, you can customize them into even more combinations.
• Metagame: Boy howdy. Most types of wheels aren't even considered in the Metal Fusion tournaments, being severely outclassed. There's even a whole website dedicated to the meta, the World Beyblade Organization. It's better in Burst where most parts are usable in at least one combination. Fortunately, tier lists aren't quite as common anymore because of how debatable the utility of any given part has become. Many old metagame tactics have been beaten using parts combinations previously snubbed as being too niche or luck-based.
  • The Limited and Classic formats were created because of this. Limited has an extensive ban list that allows previously mid to low-tier parts to be competitive, and Classic doesn't have to deal with Power Creep
• Mid-Season Upgrade:
  • Around the middle of each season, the anime gets an upgrade for the characters in the form of new parts, launchers, and other accessories. This is also the time that new equipment shows up on the toy shelf.
  • Starting with Metal Fury and continuing up through Shogun Steel, the characters have had their Beyblade evolve (either directly or through acquiring new parts) around the mid-point of the season, with corresponding toys at the same time. Burst bucked the trend by having the basic version as a Single Pack and the Dual Layer version for the first four available from the beginning, as well as having the odd distinction of not necessarily being an actual upgrade; some basic Burst Beyblade are actually better than their Dual Layer counterparts.
• Mighty Glacier: Defense Beyblades. They're heavy and ponderous but designed to last against strong attacks. Their mass lets them turn an Attack Bey's momentum against it, as well as helping them stay near the bottom of the stadium. If something manages to move them from their spot (either the opposing Bey or a high-mobility tip), the return trip packs a solid punch.
• My Little Panzer: Granted, while obviously nowhere near as bad as the anime, always make sure the components for the Beyblades are on tight and never stand too close to the arenas while playing. Stray Beyblade parts and/or the Beyblades flying out of the arena after a big hit have been known to cause some nasty bruises. Burst isn't as bad since they're meant to come apart, and aren't under as much pressure by the time they, well, burst.
• Mythical Motifs: Several sets throughout the franchise have been based around related mythologies and legends.
  • Aztec Mythology: Quetzalcoatl is a recurring motif, having a Beyblade released in every series so far (sometimes multiple), even if it doesn't fit in with the general theme. For example, Metal Fusion had a Quetzalcoatl wheel with Fusion and 4D wheel versions later despite most of the rest being based on Western constellations. Beat Kukulkan, AKA Khalazar K3, is based on the Mayan interpretation of the figure and has a very similar overall design to Burst's Quetziko, apparently meant to be an upgraded version of it.
  • Classical Mythology:
    • Zeus (original), Jade Jupiter (Metal Fury), Zeutron Z2, and Galaxy Zeus/Zeutron Z3 (Burst).
    • Most of the Metal Saga Beyblades were based on constellations, in turn, based on Greek and Roman mythical figures.
  • Eastern Zodiac: The original series and Shogun Steel both have Beys based on The Four Gods.
  • Egyptian Mythology:
    • Horus: Horuseus (Metal Masters) and Horusood/Horusood H2 (Burst).
    • Anubis: Anubeus (Metal Fury) and Anubion A2 (Burst).
    • Sphinx: Desert Sphinxer (original) and Sphinx S4 (Burst Turbo)
  • Excalibur: Xcalius and Xcalius X2. Both are themed after swords and have more full-layer pieces than others in their class - Excalius has two exposed layers while X2 has 3. Sieg Excalibur, the SwitchStrike upgrade, continues the motif. Buster Xcalius continues the trend into Turbo.
  • The Four Gods: The original four from the first series: Dranzer (Suzaku), Driger (Byakko), Draciel (Genbu), and Dragoon (Seiryu). Returns in Shogun Steel with the Phoenix, Dragoon, Genbull, and Byakko. Updated Re-release versions of the originals were added to the Burst lineup.
  • Japanese Mythology:
    • Metal Masters has Bakushin Susanow, based on the storm god Susano-o.
    • Shogun Steel had the Orochi Metal Wheel, based on the 8-headed serpent that Susano-o slayed. Also referenced by Guilty Longinus, which has 8 dragon heads including the two hidden under the Blade.
    • Burst has Amaterios, based on Amaterasu-omikami, Susano-o's sister and goddess of the Sun.
  • Kraken and Leviathan: Both are present in Shogun Steel.
  • Norse Mythology: Particularly in Burst with Valkyrie/Valtryek, Ragnarok/Roktavor (in name), Odin/Odax, Yggdrasil/Yegdrion, and Jormungand/Jormuntor.
  • Orochi: A Warrior Wheel in Shogun Steel. Takara's Guilty Longinus also has a total of 8 dragon heads on it, including two on the underside of the Blade.
  • Pegasus:
    • Flame Pegasus in the first series.
    • The Pegasus series in Metal Fusion and Shogun Steel.
    • The Pegasus Gatinko Chip in Burst GT.
  • Unicorn:
    • The Striker (Ray, Blitz, etc.) series in Metal Fusion. It represents the constellation Monoceros.
    • The Unicrest series in Burst.
  • Western Zodiac: Most of the Metal Fusion tops are based on Western constellations.
  • World Tree: The Yegdrion Layers are based on Yggdrasil.
• Nerf: Occasionally done when localizing new Beyblades outside of Japan.
  • Very common in Metal Fusion. Both of the top tier L-Drago wheels got a significant weight reduction when Hasbro licensed them. The version of L-Drago Destructor included in the Hyper-Strike Battle Set being the one exception, where it was only a few grams lighter and had very similar performance to the Japanese version.
  • Burst takes the cake. The Japanese version has small grooves cut into the bottom of the Layers to accommodate the tabs on the Drivers. This made it a bit harder to Burst the Beyblade, while also adding some strategy to the game. The Hasbro version omits them entirely, using a nearly identical sloped surface on all Layers instead. This was primarily due to play wear greatly effecting performance. Despite this, some like Dark Deathscyther/Doomscizor D2 have nearly identical performance.
  • Burst Turbo onward has seen the biggest Nerf of all time with the removal of all metal parts on most Energy Layers, including in Beyblades whose selling point was their metal parts. Nightmare Luinor L4 is the first Luinor with no metal at all, and Galaxy Zeutron lacks the bearings that make its Japanese counterpart as good as it is. Additionally, mechanical gimmicks like Krusher Roktavor R4's blades are no longer moving parts but instead just static molded details. But this isn't all bad, since Cho-Z Beyblades had the distinction of rarely if ever bursting, despite this being the main gimmick of the line. Turbo Beyblades burst much more often than Takara look-alikes, and the lack of part gimmicks prevents newcomers from being overwhelmed and older parts from being significantly outclassed. Some Wave 3 Turbo and onward Beys have their Takara counterparts' gimmicks included, and Xcalius X4 finally became the first Turbo Energy Layer to include metal. However, QuadDrive and QuadStrike both altered the way the Layer parts connect and went back to no metal and simplified gimmicks.
  • In general, the shooters (AKA launchers) are weakened somewhat in the American release:
    • Hasbro never introduced the updated Metal Saga Light Launcher 2. It also skipped the String Launcher L in America, mostly because left spinners have an advantage over right spinners (the majority of Beyblades) already.
    • Burst's American early launchers were based on the Japanese Entry Launcher, but are technically superior to it due to having more teeth in the ripcord. However, before the series was even localized TakaraTomy had moved on to the Light Launcher and Long Winder, which addresses issues with the Entry Launcher; namely, that the lack of a ratchet makes the tops prone to slipping off while setting them up to launch which results inmisfire. As a result, the Hasbro releases of the toys are prone to the same issues as the Entry Launcher despite technically launching as fast as the Light Launcher. The release of the String Launcher outside of Japan seems to have finally put them on equal footing, and Evolution introduced an upgraded two-direction String Launcher. Starting in Turbo, pack-in Ripcord Launchers started incorporating ratchets as well, though the two-direction String Launcher continues to be the best option available.
• New Season, New Name: The original became V-Force and later G-Revolution. Metal Fury became Metal Fusion then Metal Masters. Burst got a new title for every season after the first: Burst God/Burst: Evolution, Burst Super Z./Burst: Turbo, Burst GT/Burst: Rise, Burst Superking/Burst: Surge, Burst Dynamite Battle/Burst: QuadDrive, and finally Burst QuadStrike'' (the only season with the same name in both markets).
• Ninja: An Element Wheel available in Shogun Steel is called this.
• Not Quite Dead: Zombie builds. They keep spinning even when knocked over, which counts as still being in the game.
• Not the Intended Use:
  • Happens quite a bit with modders. Some have designed custom parts that let you omit Spin Tracks or allowing right spin tops to spin left. Launching them edge-wise to see how far they'll roll was popular enough to create a spinoff series.
  • Some spin-stealing Beyblades can be launched by hand and may do better that way than with a launcher. Spin-stealing relies on the opponent's Beyblade starting out faster than yours, so a weak launch can slow another Beyblade down faster than if the spin is close to equal.
  • On that note, an exceptionally fast spin-stealing Defense Beyblade can be used to speed up an opposing Beyblade. This may not sound very useful, but if the opponent Bey has a high mobility tip, this can lead to an easy ring-out.
  • The Mobius and Drift Drivers of Lucifer were built for a Defense Type but a popular use for them is with Attack Type combos. It is not uncommon for Mobius/Drift to lose control and speed up, thus many have weaponized it due to having really good stamina and Life-After-Death as well. If these combos don't KO the opponent, it will outspin it.
    • Rage Helios II Drift 3A was considered the best combo in Sparking. Rage and 3A are top-tier due entirely to their attack power
  • Deathscyther and its Dual Layer version are attack-types but almost used exclusively for stamina and defense builds due to having a very round shape and strong teeth, a rarity due to balancing reasons. As such it got banned from tournaments.
  • Due to the lack of launcher accessories from Hasbro, it was common to use other launchers as grips and weights due to the feature of clipping launchers together (see The Artifact above).
• Our Dragons Are Different: Many of them spin left. They're also usually a cross between Eastern and Western style dragons. Beyblades based on Wyverns^note Which can be considered a type of dragon, on the other hand, typically spin right.
  • Beyblade 2000 0- G-Revolution:
    • Starting with the Spin Gear system, Dragoon in the original series could spin in either direction depending on its Spin Gear. It looks mostly like an Eastern dragon but with huge claws and a stockier, more Western body. Strata Dragoon, considered a different Bit Beast than Dragoon, had a similar but white and gold design for its monster. Its actual Beyblade parts are generally purple and include mechanical gimmicks in its parts. It's also a right-spinner, which makes it stand out among Beyblade dragons.^note The very first Beyblade, Spin Dragoon, was not particularly noteworthy compared to other early Initial System toys.
    • Wyvern DJ from the Hard Metal System incorporates the letters D and J into the design of its Attack Ring. The dragon heads sculpted into it appear to be based on Strata Dragoon. One variation included a free-spinning Weight Disc Frame that made it perform much the same as Strata Dragoon, as well.
  • Metal Saga:
    • Metal Fusion has two motifs. L-Drago's series all have three heads detailed into them and have more variations than any other beast. Omega Dragonis is the odd one out in that it is a right spinner and is themed on a Western dragon. They share similar design cues due to being based on the same constellation, and in the anime being Dragonis is used by Ryuga's younger brother Ryuto.
    • Dragoon in Shogun Steel at first appears to be a new version of L-Drago (including its counterclockwise spin), but has wings and Fashionable Asymmetry. It also got two stand-alone variations that both used the Ronin Element Wheel - one plain silver, and one painted black, with different Spin Tracks and Tips for each.
    • The Wyvern/Wyvang Wheel in Shogun Steel and Wyvron Layers in Burst are both based on the two-legged dragon variety, and both are right-spinning. Wyvron W3 is designed as a call-back to Gaia Strata Dragoon, having a free-spinning ring to deflect attacks built into its Energy Layer.
  • Burst:
    • Luinor L2 and its upgrade Nightmare Longinus appears to be an Eastern Dragon, with a fiery mane and long body. It also has bat-like wings and a horned crest on its forehead. The dragon-head designs (2 on L2, 4 on Nightmare) are made of metal, the first and only of its kind in Burst until Chou-Z/Turbo. Furthermore, Nightmare Longinus has a built-in Forge Disc, meaning only the Tip can be swapped out. Bloody Longinus, its Chou-Z version, has 4 dragon heads akin to Fight Dragoon from the original series with a larger fifth one in the center.^note The Beyblade Burst Turbo version released by Hasbro and its partners doesn't include any metal at all in its design, which is different in its own right. Zwei Luinor, from Burst: Rise, stands out from its predecessors in that its dragon design is much less sinister. It has two metal heads on its default Layer Base (Zwei) and two plastic ones on its GT chip (Luinor), and appears to take more after the original than either of its prior updates. Rage Luinor has only two heads on the outer edges and one on its Sparking Chip, but also has an extending "blade" that protrudes from under the Layer Base. It cannot also use a Forge Disk, and incorporates elements of all 4 of its previous incarnations.
    • Drain Fafnir is specifically designed to spin-steal, and the first to do so specifically for Burst. It's also three Nordic-inspired serpents in a striking orange and blue design. Its Bey Spirit design (seen in the app and anime) had 6 eyes. Geist Fafnir, its upgrade for Turbo, has even larger rubber contact points to improve its spin-steal ability. Burst: Rise adds Wizard Fafnir, which keeps most of the same design elements and abilities.
    • Balkesh B3 (Arc Bahamut) has a rotating inner ring that fills the gaps between its contact points as it gets closer to bursting. As a left-spinner, it also has a reduced burst rate against right-spinners. Dread Bahamut from Burst: Rise seems to keep this gimmick.
    • Salamander S4 has a moving set of spikes that can be locked in place or move freely, altering its Attack and Defense properties. It also comes with the fairly unique Operate Performance Tip, the only perfectly round tip without "stabilizers". Operate can also be pushed off-center to improve its attack potential and potentially hop.
    • Burst: Rise has the Dragon Gatinko/GT Chip, included in the Rock, Ace, Grand, and Command Dragon combos. Appearance-wise, it's a loose Expy of Dragoon^note The anime and tie-in app give it red claws, but are gold on the toy.. Command, though, is unique among Gatinko Beyblades in that it doesn't take a Weight, having an extra-heavy Layer Base. It also doesn't have a Forge Disc, due to its Performance Tip having one built in.
    • Leviathan is a water-themed winged serpent, and unusual as both a Hasbro exclusive Avatar and the first Western-exclusive left-spin chip.
  • X:
    • Dran Sword and its evolution Dran Dagger are blue European style Bit Beasts that spin right, bucking the general series trend of the first major dragon being a left spin. The points on their blades also share more design elements in common with Valtryek and its variations rather than other prior dragon Beyblades.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: Minoboros and its Dual Layer M2 upgrade in Burst are meant to resemble a Minotaur.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Beyblades with the spin-steal ability, like L-Drago Absorb and the Burst Fafnir line. Beyblades that spin the opposite direction as their opponents tend to equalize spin, gaining speed when contacting a faster Beyblade. This means during the initial few clashes, a slower left-spinner will drain a right-spinner's stamina while speeding up and gaining balance. Those with soft rubber parts are better at it but a round and jaggy contact area such as The End and World can do it too, but not as well. A few rare right spinners can as well, but only against left spinners; otherwise, they actually lose stamina very quickly.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Zombies are builds that have the "Life After Death" feature, which means that they're really good at spinning even when on their side. Since a Beyblade is only considered to have lost when it stops moving, they're still technically in the game despite being on their sides. They tend to have relatively smooth, round outer edges and Defense or Stamina parts.
• Palette Swap:
  • For Metal Saga, Hasbro released most of their tops in a standard release and a Legends version. For the Spark FX version, they were recolored compared to the Japanese version of the same parts. The Legends version would be the show accurate version and more faithful to the TakaraTomy release.
  • Both sides of the pond love to make limited edition all-gold versions. Probably because they sell really well.
  • For Burst, almost every Hasbro Beyblade came in a single pack and a double pack, with different colored Layers and Tips between the two. The QR codes on them even unlock different colored versions in the app. The versions that came in Starter Packs and Starter Sets, as well as the special multipacks with several extra Performance Tips, also had their own coloration and QR codes. Additionally, several Energy Layers got rereleased in later sublines with new colors and their names updated to match the current gimmick. At first the app treated these as variants of their earlier versions, but later changed it to separate them. For example, Blizzard-X Gaianon G4 was originally treated as Gaianon G2 but now has a separate entry in the Beylocker.
  • Most Gatinko Beyblades’ Layer Bases and GT Chips have a golden variant, dubbed Gold Turbo^note dubbed as Hyper-Flux by Hasbro versions. They are sometimes included in place of their normal versions.
• Power Creep: Every series has an escalating series of upgrades introduced as a Mid-Season Upgrade or as So Last Season. Several former top tier parts are now barely used except in really esoteric builds. Fortunately tends to reset with each new iteration of the franchise.
  • Metal Saga was particularly prone to this. Libra was so common in the initial Metal metagame that Takara banned it from tournament play, but by the time Twisted Tempo came out was so outclassed that it was useless. Even then, while Metal Saga and Shogun Steel parts are technically compatible, the former are at a disadvantage even in a regular Beystadium.
  • A lesser example was with the Evolution upgrade for Burst. Since Discs and Tips are interchangeable with Energy Layer and Dual Layer Beyblades, there are still some uses for earlier parts.^note Since SwitchStrike Discs are only notably differentiated by weight since they all use plastic frames, some players prefer the more varied gimmicks of early Discs instead. However, the (re)introduction of Spin-Stealing with Drain Fafnir means earlier Layer pieces won't stand up to it. The delay in introducing Gyro and Orbit until Evolution in the US was a deliberate attempt at enforcing this.
  • Beyblade Burst Rise finally pushed Burst over the edge with the Gatinko system into full-on Power Creep territory. The ability to adjust the weight and burst resistance of an Energy Layer due to having multiple interchangeable parts and the reintroduction of gimmicked center parts. There's also the Hybrid and Ignition' Performance Tips, which have battery-powered spinning tips to extend spin time. While the remote controlled Digital Control Kits for Genesis Valtryek and Fafnir gave improved control to the player, the electric tips for Rise can overpower even those and are allowed to be used in tournaments, unlike the Digital Control Kits.
• The Power of the Sun:
  • The Sol Fusion Wheel and Blaze Energy Ring are themed after the Sun, with the shape particularly inspired by prominences.
  • Burst's Amaterios Aero Assault is based on the sun goddess Amaterasu-omikami, with the Forge Disc being shaped very similarly to Blaze. Its upgrade, Amatereos A3 Aero'Angle Anchor is even more sun-like with numerous flares and prominences.
• Rage Helm:
  • VariAres, Gravity Destroyer/Perseus, and Fusion Hades/Fusefire Darkhelm have this as their Face Bolt motif.
  • Gigant Gaia/Gaianon G2 has two of these on its Energy Layer.
• Required Secondary Powers:
  • With every new generation in Burst making the average weight of combos heavier than the previous one, the toyline releases upgraded launchers as well to make sure heavy combos can spin at full power. Especially in the DB layer system that has some of the largest completely metal Forge Discs to date and can create combos about 100 grams in weight.
    • Succeding regular Light Launchers, is the BeyLauncher that uses an easier to pull string.
    • The Sword Launcher having more teeth than a regular ripcord making it stronger than string launchers.
    • Light Launchers now having longer, more heavy-duty ripcords.
    • Long BeyLaunchers have more string, thus more rotations.
    • Sparking Launchers and their successors with a longer string.
    • DB Custom Launcher with a customizable gear ratio, for more rotations.
  • Attack-Types in Burst have high Burst Resistance in general. The stock combinations of attack beys typically have stronger teeth or dash drivers. Since the shapes of their layers have a few but large protrusions or are designed to grip the opponent's layer, they will need it to prevent themselves from bursting while trying to burst the opposing bey.

• Samurai: Another Element Wheel.
• Serial Escalation:
  • Each new version in Metal Saga adds more weight to the tops. Shogun Steel even allow twice the amount of metal per top, making some of the heaviest builds possible.
  • Burst started out with fairly basic Beys with simple designs and few gimmicks. As the series has progressed, more gimmicky parts have been introduced up to Evolution and the SwitchStrike system, which adds plastic frames to Forge Discs and Performance Tips with moving parts built in.
• Shoddy Knockoff Product: Rapidity. Made by a company called Hongyi, they contain toxic chemicals that can leak acrid gas when heated. Like if left in a car on a hot day, which no child has ever done. They break faster too.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • The Slide Shot, where a Beyblade is launched while moving the launcher in a specific direction above the stadium. When done right, it causes Beyblades Attack type tips to move in a flower pattern, while Defense or Stamina tips will circle the outer stadium or Tornado Ridge more easily before spiraling into the center. Learning to do it isn't difficult, to the point that more players than not use it frequently.
  • The Metal Sharp and Metal Ball tips in Metal Fusion are some of the best available, and only notably different because of material.
  • Free-spinning tips like Eternal Sharp, Bearing:Drive, and Gyro give a tremendous advantage even though they're not much more complicated than standard tips. Hold, on the other hand, is Difficult, but Awesome due to its unusual contact surfaces.
  • Trans is the first multi-mode tip to get to top tier largely due to its simplicity; it changes modes with a twist, locking in place as either Attack or Stamina. This allows players to switch between Mobile and Stationary which can make a Bey much more effective, especially when up against a type it's naturally weak to. This also makes it difficult to accidentally knock into the wrong mode mid-battle.
  • Of all the God Layers with crazy gimmicks in them, the ones who made the Ban List were Maximum Garuda and Spriggan Requiem. The only way these layers can be used is to leave their God Chip and spin direction unmodified respectively.
    • Spriggan has no crazy springs, wheels, or switches in it, but just having a bit of rubber contact points and a Metal God Chip make it one of the best wheels of the generation. Even more, when the only thing special about its shape is that it can spin both left and right.
    • Garuda takes it a step further. Despite having one set of teeth which has the worst Burst-Resistance, its completely circular and round shape make it difficult to grip the layer and unlock its one click. Replacing the God Chip removes the weakness and tightens the combination as if Hasbro and Takara Tomy parts were used together (Mind you, those were so tight it could even break it).
  • The Quattro Driver is a Simple, yet Awesome-ception. It features a locking mechanism similar to Zeta to prevent it from changing into the wrong mode mid-battle. Instead of three, it has four modes for each Beyblade type. Unlike Zeta, the shapes of the tips are from really good drivers with improvements made. The materials of the tips have also been changed from regular plastic to rubber and metal to further improve their qualities.
    • The Attack mode features a mostly unchanged rubber tip from Xtreme, an already good bottom for attack combos.
    • The Balance mode is the Unite tip with a bit more rubber to be more aggressive instead of acting as breaks.
    • The Defense mode features a free-spinning metal ball like Orbit, a staple of LAD builds before Atomic.
    • The Stamina mode is a sharp metal tip like Wedge without its height problem.
  • Out of all the 4D bottoms available in the Metal Saga, the best one out of them all is the Bearing:Drive. Unlike the others, it cannot switch tips nor can it automatically change modes. Its strength relies on the simplicity of a ball bearing, a device designed to reduce friction (A common hindrance of free-spinning parts) on the tip.
  • A general rule is that simpler gimmicks yield more viability than complicated ones. For example, the Ignition' driver has a motor that lets the bey speed up in battle and also allows it to spin in the opposite direction. The recovery is helpful but with no way to control when it happens you may end up speeding up at the wrong moment and getting yourself K.O'd, additionally going the opposite direction results in a loss of momentum so you need to pick up speed again which can give your opponent a window of opportunity to attack or return to the center. Compare it to the Destroy driver, whose only gimmick is a free-spinning plate and a jaggy bottom but has become a highly used tip due to having high attack and life-after-death.
• So Last Season:
  • For the original series, each new season was marked with a new build system being introduced. First the Spin Gear System was upgraded to the Engine Gear system, then replaced by the Hard Metal System.
  • In Metal Saga, the only real case was with Fury's introduction of the 4D system. If one considers Shogun Steel to be part of it, then it can be seen as a case since the anime is in-continuity.
  • The upgrade to SwitchStrike parts for Burst doesn't quite preclude the need for earlier parts, but any viable Beyblade needs at least one new piece to hold up.
  • Averted with Turbo. Many Beyblades are merely different from the early Evolution designs, rather than being objectively better. Played straight with its Japanese counterpart Cho-Z, however; the extensive use of metal increases spin time and durability significantly, resulting in longer battles with fewer Burst Finishes.
• Spin-Off: Heh.
  • BeyWheelz, which rolled the tops along their edges instead of their tips. Based on the special ability of the Running Core of the original series and a popular case of Not the Intended Use for the special spin tracks included in the Destroyer Dome Beystadium. Like Metal Fusion, the wheels are made up of several parts bolted together.
  • BeyWarriors, which used action figures with gyroscopic tops built into their bases. Like the other series, they could swap parts to create customized fighters but doing so had little effect on gameplay. Only the arms were swappable, with the flywheel, figure, and tip all part of the same piece.
  • BeyRaiderz, introduced as part of BeyWarriors. Small cars with large flywheels in the center. Players rev them up before sending them rolling towards a goal to try to hit a target and collect a token if it hit. It uses an odd number of tokens to prevent ties. The player with the most tokens wins. Lacked any customization but included an "automatic return" gimmick, where the cars would roll backwards once they slowed down.
  • Beyblade Micros uses extra small versions of the Burst Beys while retaining some of its customization features; the two-part Micros Beyblades can replace their tips with those from the main Burst toyline to make rather silly looking tall, narrow tops, in addition to being able to swap their own parts around.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Attack < Defense < Stamina < Attack, in general. Balance types are harder to place.
• Updated Re-release:
  • Some of the Legends sets released near the end of the Metal Saga were Hybrid Wheel versions of the original, Japan only Metal Wheels. They were only released by Hasbro, seemingly to give an option with similar properties that was consistent with existing products.
  • The first version of several Metal Fury Beys, like VariAres and L-Dragon Destructor F:S, lacked the gimmicks of the Japanese version of those toys. The version released under the Hyperblades moniker used new colors but included the gimmicks left out of their initial release.
  • The Dragoon, Dranzer, Draciel, Driger, Wolborg, and Gaia Dragoon Attack Rings from the original series, as well as the Storm Pegasus, Lightning L-Drago, Rock Leone, Earth Aquilla, and Flame Saggitario combos from the Metal era were adapted into Burst Energy Layers.
• Xtremely Kool Letterz: The way they capitalize "eXtreme Top System" is meant to invoke this. Also possibly what Xcalibur and Xcalius are spelled that way. And then there's X and its "Xtreme Gear Sports" and "Xtreme Stadium".