Are Gen 3 Paddles still Relevant?
All right it’s 2025 and foam core paddles have been taking over the market. But some companies are still coming out with Gen 3 foam enhanced honeycomb paddles like the Chorus Phoenix, Thrive Project Fury, and the Gherkin Wraith. But are these Gen 3 honeycomb paddles still relevant in today’s market? Let’s find out
Let’s back up first and talk some history. So foam cores started when CRBN launched their Trufoam Genesis at the beginning of the year. The main advantage to the core material switch they advertised was durability. A common problem with honeycomb cores was core crushing where the polypropylene cells would become compromised leading to drastic changes in paddle performance.
This was especially prevalent in heat molded thermoformed paddles where crushed cores gave paddles large spikes in power or deadspots. With foam, the claim is that it’s more durable and consistent so core crushing won’t be an issue anymore. Now in my personal experience and from what I have heard from others, this has been true so far. The durability has held up on all my foam paddles and I haven’t had any drashn tic performance changes on my foam paddles other than the face softening up after the initial break in.
Back at the beginning of the year, foam paddles strictly capped out at the high all court category and honeycomb paddles still dominated the power space. But in today’s market, several brands have been able to make performance power paddles with foam cores so the question now is, are honeycomb paddles still worth making? Well, let’s take a look at some recent Gen 3 releases and then afterwards talk about how they compare to the foam paddles out right now.
Let’s start by taking a look at the Thrive Project Fury. This comes in the Hybrid and Elongated shape with both having Thrive’s feature of letting you select your swingweight range at checkout. Construction wise this is very similar to the Joola Pro IVs, it has that double foam layer in the diving board style and it also has some foam inserts at the bottom corners as well. There are some slight differences though such as the core thickness being slightly thinner at 15.5 instead of 16mm, and the surface layers having one layer of fiberglass sandwiched between the carbon fiber instead of having an all carbon fiber surface. Playability wise, the overall feel is reminiscent of the Joola paddles but the Furies are just a tad stiffer and lighter feeling from the fiberglass and thinner core, which also gives them a slight increase in firepower over the Pro IVs as well. Overall a very solid release from Thrive giving them a more affordable competitor to the Pro IVs, at $180 after a code, along with the ability to select specific swingweights at checkout.
Next let’s take a look at the Friday Fever 102. This is going to be the widebody version of Friday’s Fever paddle series so it will share a similar Gen 3 construction. Both have floating cores in that diving board style of edge foam but the new 102 also has a rubber weighting system to give a 3rd layer of material around the core. The new rubber system makes the paddle slightly heavier compared to the elongated Fever so it's more stable with a better sweet spot out of the box. The other change is that it now uses wider 10mm cells compared to the normal 8mm, giving the paddle a more denser feel on impact. In terms of how it plays, I think dollar for dollar, it’s the best performance paddle you can get for beginner and intermediate players looking for their first serious pickleball paddle. It goes for under $100 which is a crazy good price and at that price point its main competition is going to be the Luzz Cannon, Vsols, Quantas, and older Gen 1.5 paddles. It doesn’t have the most firepower though at that price point, it’s power I would say is just a slight step down from an 11Six24 Power Pegasus but it has a massive sweet spot and the denser feel it has gives it a more pleasant feedback than the other paddles on this list. For me, I had no issues at all picking this paddle up and using it in a match and I do think it’s a paddle people of all skill levels can use.
Next up, let’s look at the Gherkin Wraith series. In a nutshell this is the power paddle version of their Nightshade series since it shares similar characteristics. It uses the wider 10mm cells and also has the CFC surface but it’s now thicker at 16mm for core thickness and it uses foam added in certain areas of the paddle. It’s not a floating core like many other Gen 3s but its foam is placed in strategic locations similar to what Pickleball Apes did with their Harmony series. Compared to the Nightshade, the feel is very similar since it has that combo of the dense 10mm cells and fiberglass in the surface but the Wraiths have a bigger sweet spot and more overall firepower. While the Nightshades were more high all court, the Wraiths are a bit higher but they still sit at the bottom end for power. I would place them just a bit above the Fever 102 but also below the 11Six24 Power series. Though the one thing I’m not a fan of in this release is the shapes, specifically the elongated and hybrid. They have a very sharp aero curve and they’re also slightly thinner than normal giving these below average sweetspots on the horizontal axis. The shape does give you more whip and maneuverability but it does come at the cost of a smaller sweet spot. Though this is mainly on the elongated and hybrid variants and doesn’t really affect the widebody which I found to be the best of the three.
Overall not a bad paddle from Gherkin and pretty solid at the $130 price point pre discount code. Definitely something worth checking out if you want an upgrade from the Nightshade series
Last paddle we’ll talk about is going to be the Chorus Phoenix. For construction this is going to be similar to the 11Six24 power series since it’s a floating core with a single layer of foam going all around the perimeter but instead the foam layer is going to be thinner. It also uses wider 10mm cells, a 14mm core thickness, and a CFC surface layup. Out of all the paddles on this list, this series comes out the highest in terms of pop. It’s got a very crisp feel on contact that’s very reminiscent of the Paddletek Bantam series. While the Thrive Smoke used to have the title of being the Bantam clone, the Phoenix in my opinion improves upon the Smoke by providing a better sweet spot and more firepower. These are going to come in Chorus’s 3 signature shapes of having tapered flat tops and in short I do agree with Rafa’s review from Pickleball Tech Dude, the Phoenix series overall is the more affordable and better performing paddle compared to the Paddletek Bantams and a very easy recommendation for people looking for a better alternative to them.
All right so that’s all the Gen 3s we’re going to talk about but let’s talk about how they compare to the foam paddle market. At a glance if we just take a look strictly at quantitative data, it does seem like the foam paddles all come out ahead. They match and exceed the Gen 3s for overall firepower, they’re coming out on top for durability, and for sweet spot and spin, they are keeping pace with the Gen3s. With Ronbus and Vatic Pro coming out with $99 foam paddles, they’re matching Gen 3s in value too so dollar for dollar it does look like on paper that the foam paddles are the better deal.
However, based on what I’ve seen in my own experience, not everyone has been a fan of the foam paddles. For example only 3 of my 7 interns have made the switch while the other 4 still prefer the feel of honeycomb cores and for reference, my intern team has hit basically every single paddle I’ve received so they’ve been able to demo and spend time with every foam paddle I’ve gotten. Even though honeycomb is less durable, for those that want to compete, they want the paddle that feels the best to them and what they connect the most with.
So even though the foam paddles appear better on paper one metric that is very important is going to be the feel. Oftentimes I’ll get people asking me what the foam version of the Joola Pro IVs are and while there are paddles that are close to it, like the Loco, none are quite the one to one match they’re looking for. They don’t want that denser feel of foam and want that lighter crisper feel that they connect better with in a honeycomb core.
So with the Gen 3s I covered earlier, while they won’t have that durability of foam paddles, I do think they’re still worth taking a look at.
For a while the Hybrid Fury dominated the hybrid power market since Joola never came out with a hybrid version of their Pro IVs. But today while it’s got much more competition with the Loco, V-Sols, and Quantas all having hybrids with high firepower and performance too, it still is the closest hybrid option to feeling like a Joola. Similarly with their new elongated release, it’s close to the Pro IVs but more affordable with a bit more pop and more customization from the swingweight selection. Even though the Fury doesn’t bring any new tech, I still think it’s worth it as a cheaper alternative to the Pro IVs.
The Fever 102 does bring some new tech into the Gen 3 space in the form of the rubber strip though I think the difference is a bit small and it mainly serves as added perimeter weighting. While it does have competition from the $99 foam options, I do think it’s the best beginner friendly option out of all of them.
The Gherkin Wraiths are similar to the Apes Harmony where it adds foam in other places and in short I think it’s a slight upgrade in power compared to those but this is the series that I think is for a smaller market of people that are looking for a specific feel.
Lastly the Chorus Phoenix is going to be similar to what the Thrive Fury is except it’s the more affordable alternative to the popular Paddletek Bantams instead but it’s also a better performing paddle than them.
Overall I do think there’s still a market for these Gen 3 releases, particularly for players that are concerned about the feel and don’t enjoy the denser feedback from foam or ones that are dialed into using honeycomb paddles. I do think the foam is going to eventually be the future once they either replicate the feel of honeycomb more or when the pro players start migrating away from it because of the better durability of foam. These Gen 3s I see as being relevant for now but I do think there’s not as much of a point in innovating within the Gen 3 space unless you can for sure improve the durability of the cores which we still haven’t seen yet.
All right that’s it for today’s video on the state of Gen 3 paddles in the market. I hope you guys enjoyed it and if you do want to support this channel and pick up any of these paddles, I’ve added my discount code as well as links to buy them in the video description below. All right, catch you guys in the next video.
Thrive Project Fury Code: DMVPBALL
https://bit.ly/3W4N8MI
Friday Discount code: TickleMyPickle https://www.fridaypickle.com/TICKLEMYPICKLE/fever102?verified=true
Gherkin Wraith- Code: DMVPBALL https://bit.ly/4hclPYn
Chorus Phoenix- Code: DMVPBALL https://bit.ly/46Ky4Hh
