If you could use the Red/Black, the Mastermind is an obvious step up.

Yes, it might be too aggressive with its stock surface, but that surface is a brutal 1500 grit. Anywhere from 2500 grit to 4000 grit would certainly make it much less aggressive and less early.

The Mastermind is an improvement over the Nexxus. You'll like it.

It's not that the Nexxus was (or is) bad. We could only compare it to previous releases.

Brunswick has progressed by leaps and bounds from balls that read the "midlane only", (according to some) to equipment that still reads the midlane AND finish stronger. As I recall, I liked mine with a small amount of polish. 

My Nexxus was good, and my Mastermind has been better yet.  It's purely a matter of opinion.  The next guy may find that the Nexxus was the ultimate ball for him.

Good points, I have seen and loved the Mastermind on the lanes also.

If memory serves me right it looked like Walter Ray had his Red Black a little polished maybe and was definitely getting the ball out over the foul line a good amount so that he had a penetrating trajectory.

As good as I have seen him look with the Mastermind on tour the one time I saw him this year the Red Black looked like a great match for him last year.

Of course the one finals match I saw him in at the Villages Parker and he threw bombs at each other for a complete game with the Masterminds at the Villages with Parker 28X to Walter at 26X.

Regards,

Luckylefty

I never got much use out of mine.  I threw it great on one of the longer patterns (Shark, Scorpion...?) when I first got it.  I was at least an arrow left of where I normally played.  It was my first oil ball that actually covered a lot of boards for me.  After that I was constantly dropping the ball.  After struggling with it I took it to another pro shop (original driller had moved from the area anyway).  Turns out the span was quite a bit short.  Got it fixed and it felt much better.

Since then it didn't impress me on oil.  On the few longer/heavier shots like Badger it was no stronger than my Black Widow Bite.  Now the Bite's pin is below my middle finger with a P4 weight hole and 2000 abralon while the Nexxus is pin above bridge (no WH) and 1000 abralon.  That generation of Brunswick covers is very clean through the front part of the lane.  I had to add surface to most of them to get the right read on sport patterns.  Anyway on Badger the BWB was earlier and stronger in every part of the lane.  The Nexxus would skid much further and was more angular, but really didn't read the dry part of the lane enough to be more effective.  The newer stronger cover on the Nexxus should have really shined on Badger, but it didn't for me.

Unfortunately between the bad original fit and limited use on longer/heavier shots before it cracked I didn't get a lot of time to find where the ball really shined.  Hopefully it was just a bad matchup for me (like the red Ringer  ) and the replacement will be the bomb.

I will take the other side of the Nexxus vs  Mastermind discussion.  I bowled very well with my Nexxus on a lot of tougher patterns.  Havent found anything other than THS where my Mastermind was very good.  I could always get the Nexxus into a roll.  Mastermind is like a lot of other super aggressive solids I have thrown.  Burns early with factory surface, and wont get into the kind of roll I want when I go to 3 or 4000.  Bowled on a the Badger a couple of weeks ago.  Nothing hooked, but I could get my Marvel Pearl to roll up and hit better than the Mastermind.   

A little polish on the Mastermind will make it cleaner through the front without giving up the midlane and backend movement.  On shorter house shots, I have used 500/1000 with a light coat of Beans polish and killed it.