How Good is Prominence Phoenix? (B-191 Beyblade Burst DB Review)

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The B-191 Overdrive Special Starter Set features eight brand new parts, a powerful new launcher, and several other useful parts to bolster your Beyblade Burst Dynamite Battle collection.

Perhaps other than the Bearing’ Driver, nothing else in this set quite matches the level of history and anticipation behind the release of Prominence Phoenix. This is thanks to the immense power of its predecessor, Perfect Phoenix.

In this review we’ll be focusing on evaluating how good the Prominence Blade and Phoenix DB Core are in terms of stamina, defense, and burst resistance.

Do either deserve a spot in your line up at tournaments? Let’s find out. 

Note: All tests conducted in the Burst BeyStadium Standard Type.

And if you buy something through some of the links on this post, you won’t pay any extra, but I’ll get a small commission. This helps me keep things running. Thanks for your support!

Product Details

• Brand: TAKARA-TOMY
• Product Code: B-191
• Product Contents:
  • Dangerous Belial Almight-2
  • Prominence Phoenix Tapered Metal Universe-10
  • Savior Perseus Giga Bearing’-3 
  • Full Custom BeyLauncher LR
• System: Dynamite Battle Layer System
• Series: Beyblade Burst Dynamite Battle

Part Weights

• Prominence Blade: 14.63g (Shield: 9.43g, Body: 5.20g)
• Phoenix DB Core: 7.52g

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Prominence Blade Review

How do you improve “perfection”?

That’s what the Prominence Blade is attempting coming off the heels of the infamous Perfect Phoenix Layer, which dominated the competitive Beyblade scene throughout 2019-2020 and was part of the number three combo on my Top 5 Best Beyblade Burst Combos list for 2020.

What is the difference between Normal Mode and Heavy Mode?

The Prominence Blade features the same “armor” detaching gimmick as the Revive Phoenix Layer and Dead Phoenix Layer.

This time, it is called a “Shield” and can be positioned in one of two modes: Normal Mode and Heavy Mode.

In Normal Mode, the Prominence Shield detaches relatively easily from the Body (the piece that houses the DB Core and attaches to the other parts of the Beyblade) of the Blade when struck by an opposing attack type Beyblade.

This mode is recommended for matchups against attack types where the Prominence Shield can interrupt their attacks once it detaches.

Heavy Mode on the other hand can be used by rotating the Shield 90 degrees and snapping it into place. In this mode, the Prominence Shield is much more difficult to detach, but not impossible.

Heavy Mode is recommended when playing against stamina types as without it, you lose a significant amount of weight which could adversely affect your stamina (usually more than the detached Prominence Shield could affect your opponent’s stamina). 

Does the Prominence Blade have good stamina?

Perfect Phoenix was one of the best stamina type Layers ever released in Beyblade Burst, but does the Prominence Blade surpass it and other contemporary Beyblade Burst Dynamite Battle Blades? And how does it do in opposite spin matchups, which are a key consideration for any competitive Beyblade player?

See my impressions and test results below to find out if the Prominence Blade has good stamina:

How good is the Prominence Blade’s same-spin stamina?

The Prominence Blade has very poor same-spin stamina.

The test results above showcase this, and the results against its predecessor Perfect Phoenix (a combination of the Revive Phoenix Layer Body and Dead Phoenix Layer’s Dead Armor)–a Layer which was released over two and a half years ago–in particular emphasize just how poor it is. There was no contest.

This is a textbook example of how it often is not about how heavy a part is, but where that weight is distributed that contributes to how much stamina a part has.

The Perfect Phoenix Layer with a Level Chip weighs around 28.15g. Prominence Valkyrie-2 (for example; the Valkyrie DB Core is among the best for stamina and 2 lines up well with Prominence) weighs 35.84g.

That’s a whopping 7.69g heavier than Perfect Phoenix (Level Chip). Yet, Prominence doesn’t surpass it for same-spin stamina. The reason is because Perfect Phoenix benefits from the large amount of metal placed near the perimeter of both the Dead Armor and Layer Body of Revive Phoenix. Prominence, on the other hand, weighs much more but has that weight more evenly distributed throughout its Shield and Body pieces.

Beyblades typically have greater stamina if their weight is focused closer to the perimeter, so this results in poorer stamina performance for the Prominence Blade.

Your results may vary, but my initial impression is that if you can avoid it, don’t use the Prominence Blade against stamina type Beyblades in the same-spin direction.

However, by no means is the Prominence Blade completely useless because of this. Next, we will evaluate how it performs in opposite-spin situations.

How good is the Prominence Blade’s opposite-spin stamina (LAD)?

The Beyblade Burst metagame for the past several years has been marked by the extreme importance of opposite spin matchups.

Up until now, for right-spin the metagame has been dominated primarily by the Dynamite Blade and Astral Blade on Drivers such as the Bearing Driver, Zone’+Z Driver, Drift Driver, and Rise Driver.

See my impressions and test results below to find out if the Prominence Blade has good opposite-spin stamina and can stand alongside or surpass the aforementioned Blades:

Prominence was the clear overall winner here, but Vanish definitely put up a fight with those eleven draws. Your results may vary as this matchup can depend a lot on how good or worn your Bearing Driver is compared to your opponents.

During these tests, when I swapped the Disk and Driver being used on both combos, Prominence had a much harder time winning. Yet, it usually resulted in a tie much more often than it actually losing.

For some context, let’s take a look at this benchmark test with the Dynamite Blade against the same Vanish Blade combo:

Although the sample size is admittedly small, the difference was clear enough to me and mirrored by experience in this type of match up at recent tournaments. It’s a bit of a toss up between Dynamite and Vanish and you can see that with just 4 draws compared to 11 in the previous result, it seemed more random and prone to the luck of how your Beyblade falls at the end of the match.

The Prominence Blade itself is thicker than Dynamite, which lends itself well to being able to steal as much spin as possible from its opponents. The more vertical surface area, typically the better in these situations.

I did a quick test of Prominence on an awakened/worn Rise Driver as well and the difference was even clearer.

Next, I took a look at the performance of the Prominence Blade on the Mobius Driver (Worn):

There’s two interesting nuggets of information to be garnered from these results:

1. The Belial DB Core works better than the Perseus DB Core on the Mobius Driver with Prominence.
2. The Prominence Blade in Heavy Mode works better than Normal Mode on the Mobius Driver.

At this point, I can only speculate on the reasons for this. With regards to Heavy versus Normal Mode, my hypothesis is that perhaps Heavy Mode is more stable because there is less opportunity for the Shield to shift slightly since it isn’t meant to detach while in Heavy Mode.

To properly evaluate how well or poorly the Prominence Blade performs compared to other options on Mobius, I performed a few benchmarking tests:

The benchmark tests confirm my sentiment so far that the Prominence Blade can be a little to a lot better than other currently available options for right-spin combos against left-spin high LAD combos.

The Dynamite Perseus and Dynamite Belial tests also confirm that the Perseus DB Core just isn’t that great on Mobius for some reason; it did worse on both Dynamite and Prominence in this situation.

However, do keep in mind that these are preliminary testings and that your results may vary.

The opposite spin metagame is extremely complex in the modern Beyblade Burst metgame due to a plethora of available top tier stamina Drivers with high Life After Death, so these test results are by no means comprehensive. But overall, my impression is that the Prominence Blade’s place–if anywhere–in the metagame is going to be as a specialized counter to left-spin high LAD Beyblade combos.

Does the Prominence Blade have good defense?

Weighing in at over 14.6 grams, the Prominence Blade is the second heaviest Blade released in Beyblade Burst Dynamite Battle behind the left-spin Guilty Blade. This makes it the heaviest right-spin Blade currently available.

But does this heavy weight, defensive shape, and shield detaching gimmick give Prominence sufficient defensive power to fend off the recent resurgence of attack types in the metagame thanks to the Savior Blade and Guilty Blade?

See my impressions and testings below to find out if the Prominence Blade has good defense.

Note: Bearing’ in the following tests was brand new/sharp and as such did not move much. I launched relatively hard in an attempt to activate the burst stopper of Belial 2. Xtreme’ used on Dangerous Blade and Guilty Blade was significantly worn, but circular indent on tip could still be seen.

Does the Prominence Blade have good defense versus right-spin attack type Beyblades?

The short answer is: yes. To find out, I tested with Prominence (Normal Mode) Belial 2 Over Bearing’-10 against top-tier attack combos using the Savior Blade (and also the brand new Dangerous Blade).

Prominence was bolstered by the incredibly tough burst stopper the Belial 2 DB Core comes equipped with as well as the new Bearing’ Driver, which is slightly tighter than the original Bearing Driver.

Right-spin attack types had been struggling since the incredible Judgement Layer Base slowly became outclassed throughout 2020 and it wasn’t until the release of B-187 Starter Savior Valkyrie.Sh-7 in July of 2021 that right-spin attack started to become a legitimate threat again.

In fact, I even declared it as one of the top three new Beyblade Burst DB parts for tournaments in one of my recent tournament reports.

As a result, I was eager to find out if the Prominence Blade was good for defense combos against right-spin attackers using parts like the Savior Blade. See my tests below: 

As you can see, Prominence performed excellently.

In my stamina testing up until this point, the Prominence Shield had not detached even once, but Savior was able to quickly and almost without fail knock it off in each round.

You might think that this would be to its benefit because it quickly eliminates nearly 10 grams of weight from the Prominence combo. The Prominence Shield is also lighter than the Dead Armor from Dead Phoenix, so it has a tendency to fly out of the stadium more often than the Dead Armor, which tended to usually land inside the stadium and be more likely to interfere with the Beyblades in the stadium.

However, often knocking off the armor so quickly at the start–the time that is so key to attack types ability to win–slightly interrupted its movement. This, combined with Savior not being able to inflict much damage on the Body of Prominence either afterwards made it very difficult for it to win.

The results do look very similar in each instance, but I will say that the final set with Xtreme’ and the two-thirds awakened Savior were the set that it felt like Savior had the best chance of victory. It also had the most KOs; in the first set of results Savior had three wins, but one was by OS.

If I had a better shot that day, I could see myself getting the win rate to 50% … but even that does not inspire a lot of confidence given that in a pressure-filled tournament environment, you can probably expect your win percentage to lower at least a little bit.

Next, I did a set against the brand new Dangerous Blade which is also included with the B-191 Overdrive Special Starter Set where you get Prominence Phoenix.

This was my first time using it and I just wanted to get a quick impression of its potential and whether the weight advantage it has over the Savior Blade would give it an edge in any way when playing against Prominence.

The results were technically better here, but two of the KOs were almost snipes at the very beginning of the round. My initial impression was that Dangerous wasn’t actually any better than Savior in this matchup. 

Does the Prominence Blade have good defense versus left-spin attack type Beyblades?

The final test for Prominence was to pit it up against the extremely powerful left-spin Guilty Blade. Guilty Longinus Giga Xtreme’-2 (and other similar variants) is arguably the strongest attack type combination in the game right now.

Left-spin attack types typically have a bit of a more difficult time against right-spin Beyblades due to the nature of how opposite spin direction Beyblades interact with each other, but similar to the test results against Devil (F Gear) Valkyrie Over Bearing-0 in my Guilty Longinus review, Guilty was able to dominate this matchup.

Interestingly however, unlike the aforementioned test results versus Devil, Guilty scored all of its wins via knock-out. It was able to easily knock Prominence out of the centre area of the stadium and then often follow up with a finishing blow closer to one of the exits for the win.

The Prominence Blade does not have good defense versus left-spin attack type Beyblades based on these results, but may have more success defensively on other slightly more defensive Drivers such as Zone’+Z. However, this remains to be seen and will require further testing.

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Phoenix DB Core Review

Does the Phoenix DB Core have good stamina?

Until now, the Valkyrie DB Core has been the best DB Core for same-spin stamina Beyblade Burst Dynamite Battle combos.

To find out if the Phoenix DB Core can stand up to the best of the best, I put it up against the Valkyrie DB Core in a mirror match:

Each win was convincing. It was clear after this to me that the Phoenix DB Core does not have top-tier stamina. But just because it can’t beat the best doesn’t mean it is useless. Next, I gave the same matchup a try but swapped out Valkyrie for the Perseus DB Core:

I stopped at six rounds because the result was the same.

For further context, here is a few benchmarking matchups I conducted:

The first one demonstrates that the Perseus DB Core is also clearly worse than the Valkyrie DB Core for same-spin stamina.

The second one demonstrates that the new Belial 2 DB Core that is also included with the B-191 Overdrive Special Starter Set is actually much closer to the Valkyrie DB Core and a better option if you are looking for a DB Core that might give you a slight edge in terms of same-spin stamina potential.

As such, I can say that the Phoenix DB Core does not have good stamina.

Does the Phoenix DB Core have good burst resistance?

DB Cores are not made by stamina alone; they also can earn a spot in any Blader’s combo or deck thanks to other benefits such as weight or burst resistance.

The Phoenix DB Core features three tall teeth and one smaller fourth tooth. The teeth fall somewhere between the thicker ones seen on parts like the Valkyrie DB Core and the sharper ones seen on some earlier generation Beyblade Burst parts.

The Phoenix DB Core’s burst resistance is–relatively speaking–high when physically assembled with other Beyblade parts.

However, the Belial 2 DB Core that is also included with the ​​B-191 Overdrive Special Starter Set features three teeth of similar height and thickness, and also comes with the added benefit of a built in burst stopper mechanism that activates during battle when the Beyblade is launched powerfully.

When its burst stopper activates, it becomes nearly impossible to burst … as a result, it makes the Phoenix DB Core slightly redundant. However, in certain situations such as WBO Deck Format, WBBA 3on3 Format, or WBBA 5G Format, you might need multiple strong DB Cores for your combos.

In these situations, if you’re not looking for stamina, but need burst resistance … is the Phoenix DB Core a solid option?

To find out, I put Phoenix along with many other right-spin DB Cores on Astral ? Over Bearing-10 up against Savior Ragnaruk Giga Quick’-2. Although the new Bearing’ Driver will likely be more common from now on, I figured using the original Bearing to demonstrate burst resistance likely would produce more measurable and significant results.

Obviously, there is a lot going on here. And you can dig into the full test results below, but my overall take is that the Phoenix DB Core has good burst resistance, but is outclassed by other DB Cores such as Belial 2 or Perseus due to their similar burst resistance and/or superior stamina.

At best, it is a third string DB Core that could be used if you are trying to build a deck of right-spin defensively minded Beyblades.

Phoenix DB Core Burst Resistance Full Test Results

The Phoenix DB Core was the third best when measuring only the “Clicks Lost Percentage”, but it also had a much higher win percentage than the Belial 2 DB Core.

Belial 2 suffered 3 KOs during its test results and Phoenix only lost to OS … which is something that would probably be less frequent when rounds are played with two people and not Savior being launched second.

I was surprised by Perseus DB Core being first place on the above list in the summary as in my hands it felt like it had slightly weaker burst resistance than Phoenix.

However, it’s close enough that it’s probably fair to say that it and Phoenix are close to being equal and that any variance can be attributed to the small sample size. Perseus did win all six of its rounds by OS though; Phoenix won four of six by OS and two by KO.

I can’t really explain the poor win percentage of the Belial 2 DB Core other than to say that it’s probably just a result of the small sample size.

In my mind, the Belial 2 DB Core is the best option currently available because of the burst stopper–which saved it multiple times–and its level of stamina explained in the previous section of this article.

The Valkyrie DB Core had somewhat surprisingly decent burst resistance given that it technically only requires two clicks to burst.

But if it gets smacked by a super strong hit at the beginning of a battle, it can burst. It suffered two burst finish losses, which was tied with Ragnaruk for the worst result. In a game where Burst Finishes are usually worth two points … might be worth considering this.

The Belial DB Core feels right at home in the middle of the pack. It’s a decent, inoffensive DB Core that can be used on almost anything when you aren’t trying to min-max your stats in a particular area.

The Spriggan DB Core and Ragnaruk DB Core are where the difference becomes a lot more apparent. Both of these DB Cores were constantly bursting or on the edge of bursting.

A few final testing notes:

1. Because some DB Cores have differing amounts of teeth, I decided the best way to measure their resistance in a comparative way would be to apply a percentage of clicks lost based on the total amount of teeth they have. I did eight rounds for each test set, so if a DB Core requires four “clicks” to burst, that means it had 32 clicks it could potentially lose throughout the set. In the case of Phoenix, it has 32 to potentially lose and lost 15 of them, meaning the Clicks Lost Percentage was 46.8%.
2. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyways: this is a small sample size and your results may vary. This is merely meant to give you a rough idea of what to expect. It is heavily reliant on the attack type user being able to inflict strong hits on the opponent. There were also some rounds where Savior might have scored a KO, but it was very quick after one hit, so it might not have inflicted as much “damage” or “clicks” on the opposing Beyblade as some of the longer rounds with several strong hits in succession. My hope however is that all of these instances average out with the ones that had an above average number of large hits to give a rough idea of which DB Cores have better burst resistance and where Phoenix lies within them.

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What do you think of Prominence Phoenix? Comment below!

If you’re thinking of picking up the B-191 Overdrive Special Starter Set and have any questions, feel free to ask below and I’ll do my best to answer.

And if you’ve already picked it up, I’d love to hear about your thoughts and testing experiences with it and Prominence Phoenix in particular.