L-Drago Destructor F:S

L-Drago Destructor F:S or L-Drago Destroy F:S (エルドラゴデストロイF:S, Erudorago Desutoroi Efu:Esu) is an Attack Type Beyblade released as a Starter on April 23, 2011 by Takara Tomy in Japan. It was featured in Beyblade: Metal Fury as the evolution of the Meteo L-Drago LW105LF, owned by the series' deuteragonist, Ryuga.

Takara Tomy would later succeed L-Drago Destructor F:S with the release of L-Drago Guardian S130MB. Hasbro later released L-Drago Destructor F:S as part of the Spark FX Hyperblades series in December 2012 in the Hyper-Strike Battle Set.

Parts Overview

Facebolt: L-Drago III

The L-Drago III Face Bolt depicts "Draco", one of the 88 constellations in space. The design features a dragon facing the left. The Metal Face Bolt version released with L-Drago Destroy DF105LRF (Gold Armored Ver.) is a Chinese dragon head design, facing downwards. This version is the heaviest Face Bolt in the Metal Saga toyline.

4D Metal Wheel: L-Drago III


 * Weight: 44.33 grams

This Metal Wheel is made up of two parts: a Core and a Metal Frame. Unlike other 4D Metal Wheels, the Core is made of rubber/plastic and sits below–rather than above–the Metal Frame, which comprises the bulk of the Metal Wheel. This follows the trend of the other L Drago Wheels.

Metal Frame

 * Weight: 38.51 grams

The Metal Frame is the largest part of the Metal Wheel and therefore makes the most contact with opposing Beyblades. Like previous L Drago Wheels, the three-sided Metal Frame is shaped to resemble three dragon heads. It is much wider, has larger gaps between each head, and is significantly heavier than each of the former L Drago Wheels, many of which were notorious for their extremely light weight. While made entirely of metal, it was given a gunmetal finish upon release. Its relief features some slight, jagged bumps instead of being very smooth, to create an overall fierce design.

Core

 * Weight: 5.82 grams

L-Drago Destroy's Core is made of PC (plastic) as well as PVC (rubber), continuing the trend started with Meteo L-Drago. It is comprised of six protrusions which act as the teeth and lower jaw for the dragon heads; all six contain rubber, but only three expose rubber on the outside, while the other three expose plastic. The rubber protrusions can assist in spin stealing from right-spin Beyblades.

Like all 4D Metal Wheels, L-Drago Destroy features a mode-changing gimmick. It works by rotating the Metal Frame while the Beyblade is disassembled. The two Modes are:


 * Attack Mode: In this mode, the rubber protrusions on the Core are aligned with the front of the dragon heads on the Metal Frame.


 * Absorb Mode: In this mode, the Core is rotated 180° so that the plastic protrusions on the Core are aligned with the front of the dragon heads of the Metal Frame.

Attack Mode is widely considered to be superior to Absorb Mode for Smash Attack. The rubber protrusions on the Core are covered for the most part by the dragon heads while in Absorb Mode, allowing for the plastic protrusions to make the most impact in combination with the Metal Frame. In Attack Mode, L-Drago Destroy can be considered an upgrade to the popular Lightning L-Drago, but it has since been outclassed generally by Metal Wheels like Blitz, Flash and VariAres.

Use in Attack Customizations
Though it has less pure Smash Attack power than Metal Wheels like Flash, Blitz and VariAres, what L-Drago Destroy does have is less Recoil. This can make it a somewhat more reliable choice to play against Stamina customizations, which do not necessarily require the same huge amount of brute force to be KOed as the force found in Blitz and VariAres. The customization MF L-Drago Destroy BD145MF can be used for this purpose; the reliability of L-Drago Destroy and the controllability of the MF Bottom combine to make a usable Smash Attacker versus lightweight and tall Stamina customs.

MOLD VARIATION: Hasbro's version
Left: heavy mold (TAKARA-TOMY, Hasbro Hyperblades); Right: light mold (Metal Fury, Hyperblade Legends)

Hasbro's first L-Drago Destroy release features a much lighter Metal Wheel Mold--a characteristic common to all Metal Fury Beyblades. That mold is 10 grams lighter than the original Takara-Tomy release, due to the hollowing of the underside of the Metal Wheel in the dragon neck areas, leaving the Metal Frame a simple shell sitting on top of the Core. Hasbro released the heavy mold alongside L-Drago Destroy's gimmick Bottom with the Metal Fury SparkFX Hyperblades series. However, the Legends release again features the light mold, despite being also labeled as a Hyperblade.

F:S is a completely automatic Bottom, switching between "Hole Flat" and "Sharp" tips as its spin velocity lowers. The gimmick of this 4D Bottom is the contrary of Big Bang Pegasis' F:D: instead of beginning at a Stamina tip and ending with Attack, F:S starts with moderate attack, and ends up with a Stamina-type tip to try and give it a boost of spin time and win more by equalizing with the opposing Beyblade's spin. This mechanism works in a similar fashion to F:D: tabs on the side of the big base pop in or out depending on the Beyblade's Spin Velocity and the consequential centrifugal force affected to the spinning top. However, as good as the gimmick sounds in theory, in practice, there are many disadvantages. The HF tip, which is slightly wider than the regular HF Bottom, has trouble maintaining a Sliding Shoot pattern, and the change between tips causes a disruption in the Beyblade’s balance, especially given the notorious balance issues of Sharp Bottoms. This Bottom therefore has absolutely no use competitively.

IMPORTANT: Mold Variations
Final:Survive has two different molds. One is from the original TAKARA-TOMY L-Drago Destroy. This mold has the tabs protruding outwards more. The other was released by SonoKong, and it has the tabs built into the core piece to form a more shield-like design. There is no reported difference in the performance of the two molds, besides the occasional trouble with the sharp tip clicking out of the bottom, but this can be fixed by using this 4D Bottom a few times. However, this different mold remains unable to give F:S any competitive use anyway.

Anime
It will appear in Beyblade: Metal Fury.

Game
L-Drago Destructor will be released in Wave 7. It is an Attack type Beyblade. Like all L-Drago variants, It can change modes by turning the Energy Ring 180 degrees.

Face Bolt: L-Drago III
L-Drago III bears much resemblence to L-Drago II, except for the fact that the spines on the dragon appear bigger and both claws are now visible, with the left claw replacing L-Drago II'S stylised L.

Energy Ring: L-Drago III
Unlike most Energy Rings, this Energy Ring is made completely out of metal. Like all other L-Drago Energy Rings, it is only compatible with the Destructor Fusion Wheel. However, it is relatively light and makes the Beyblade topheavy, making it very unbalanced in a 230WD combination.

Fusion Wheel: Destructor
Unlike most Fusion Wheels, Destructor is made of plastic and rubber, similar to the L-Drago II Energy Ring. It is only compatible with L-Drago II and III, and can switch from Attack Mode to Absorb Mode by rotating the Energy Ring 180 degrees. Absorb Mode it the preferred mode, where the dragon heads are on the blue jaw and the red jaw is exposed. However, this change is negligible on the Spinmaster Beyblade, as the Fusion Wheel is entirely plastic.

4D Performance Tip: Final Survive
F:S works much like the opposite of F:D, in which it starts out as an aggressive HF, but as the Beyblade slows down, the centrifugal force holding the tabs out wears off and the tip switches to S. This often causes Balance problems as F:S is rather tall and S's fine point has poor balance. It is much like the 4D version of HF/S.
 * *NOTE: This part is only available with the Takara Tomy/Sonokong version of the Beyblade.

Spin Track: Left Wing 105
LW105 has 3 wings protruding from it's circumference. These are facing diagonally downwards in the left spin direction. This feature is intended to create down force in the left direction, in order to stabilise the Beyblade in which it is being used. However, this effect remains negligible, and LW105 has found no competitive usage.
 * *NOTE: This part is only available with the SpinMaster version of the Beyblade.

Performance Tip: Left Flat Edit
LF is a mirrored version of R2F, however is made completely of plastic. Due to the nature of rubber bottoms, R2F is tall relative to plastic bottoms, and consequently, so is LF. LF appears to be a flat bottom with 6 equal protrusions facing the anti clockwise direction (when viewed on an upright Beyblade). LF gives an aggressive movement pattern akin to other flat bottoms, however due to it's jagged form, is more aggressive than other flat Perforance Tips made of plastic. Like all other flat plastic Performance Tips, it fails to fully retain a flower-like pattern when used with sliding shoot, or banking. As a result it has found recreational use for players who wish to have a more controllable bottom than RF/R2F with increased stamina.
 * *NOTE: This part is only available with the SpinMaster version of the Beyblade.

Trivia

 * It is similar to the Zero-G Beyblades, as it has metal on top of plastic.
 * F:S is the only 4D Performance Tip that doesn't end in D.
 * L-Drago II may be placed on Destructor, but that is not an intended use, nor is it very effective.