Decoy Board - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I have spent time on the MoonBoard, the OG Tension Board, the TB2, and the Kilter, but never touched a Decoy Board.

I am looking at putting an 8 x 12 board in my garage fixed at 40 and am wondering if I should go with Decoy - it is cheaper than a TB2 and a Kilter, but the holds appear friendlier and less tweaky than a MoonBoard. For reference I am a V3/V4 outdoor boulder (5.11/5.12 sport climber) and will project up to V7 in the gym. 

Does anyone have first hand experience with Decoy that they would be willing to share?

I have not climbed on a Decoy but went thru the same thought process.

What I can tell you is that Decoy is very very responsive to emails and questions. If my space allowed a standard board I would have gone with them.

The deciding factor for me was I need the cropped board in my space, and there were not enough set problems for that board on the app.  Decoy said they were working on it soon.

I climbed on it for a session and thought it was quite fun. Similar to the MB in terms of style, but not as stiff grading. Not as "fun" as the Kilter Board, but it seemed like it could be a great training tool. If you still have access to other boards, I'd say it'd be a great investment to have at home. I haven't climbed on the TB2, but have seen them in person and I recall that the Decoy had similar style plastic holds.  My overall thought was there was nothing glaringly wrong with it, but it didn't strike me as something that would surpass the MB, TB2 or Kilter.

I've climbed on: Moon, TB, TB2, Kilter and Decoy.  My take:

TB2 is my favorite for a combo of power and tech. It can be reasonable at 40 degrees or insanely difficult. The Decoy is insanely difficult for me at 40 degrees, 20-30 degrees is the sweet spot for me.The Decoy is my favorite for tech stuff.  I think the Decoy transfers better to tech vert climbing.

Downside of the Decoy is the number of problems... I'm lazy and like to mooch off everyone else's work in setting climbs (sorry - and thanks to all who take the time to set them).  TB2 problems seem to be ramping up quite quickly. If you like setting your own stuff, then it's not an issue.

Also: Kilter is super fun and a good transition into board climbing... I think TB2 beats it for transferring to outdoor climbing (at least where I climb).

The Decoy board has a really good variety of holds with dual-tex that forces you to be thoughtful in how you use them. I would say they're not tweaky, but they're hard enough that your fingers probably won't handle long sessions on them at 40 degrees. When you're looking at the number of problems in the library, keep in mind that the grades are stiff, like a few grades harder than Kilter problems at 40.

When I was board-shopping, I tried a Decoy and was highly impressed by the solid quality of the holds and the precise use of dual-tex.

I ended up going with Mini Moonboard but would have seriously considered Decoy if I had built full-size.

I highly recommend the Decoy Board. There's more variation in holds than any of the other boards on the market and the quality of the holds is second to none in my opinion. In my eyes it's loads better than Moon and TB1. It's on par with Kilter, but it'll make you a better climber and the holds are better quality and have more subtlety. Kilter will always be fun cause who can hate on swinging around on jugs all day, but Decoy has much more range throughout the grades. 

The Decoy Board has plenty of classic board-style offers, but the dual-tex affords the option of pretty technical movement that you wouldn't expect on a typical board. At 40 degrees you'll have a lot of fun challenges in your difficulty range with room to grow. And with all of the expansion sets you can keep adding to it over time if you don't want to drop the cash for the complete setup. Along those lines, the variation in sets/colors also makes it a better board if you don't get the LEDs.

The only downside of the board in my eyes is the lack of hard slopers. There's a lot of sloping edges, but not the full finger or palm type. But board climbing skews crimpy and I'm biased to slopers and pinches. TB2 did manage to put some tough slopers in their set, and the board seems to have been received well. I haven't climbed on the TB2, but I've found their wooden hold sets to be pretty underwhelming in terms of quality and comfort. You can't know till you pull on and the new wood shapes seem improved, however they still look a bit raw from the CNC and some of the shapes seem sharp regardless of finishing. 

IMO, TB2 > Decoy > Moon > TB1 > Kilter.

To me, Decoy has two main disadvantages:

- Lights are below (rather than inside) the holds, which is a minor annoyance.
- The sloperish holds are weird in-between; they feel more like conditions-dependent slimpers (that just encourage awkward crimping) than actual slopers.

But it does have a few advantages of the TB2 in that it's reasonably transferrable to outdoor climbing; it's not overly jumpy like a Moon and not overly juggy like a Kilter.

bridge wrote:

But it does have a few advantages of the TB2 in that it's reasonably transferrable to outdoor climbing; it's not overly jumpy like a Moon and not overly juggy like a Kilter.

I said this in another thread on the boards, but the 2024 Moon Board basically solves this problem. The holds are overall way higher quality — shapes, materials, comfort — but they're also pretty systematically bigger but slopier. It's still finger-y and powerful, but there are way fewer blocky incuts so you can't just jump wildly and latch. Even when you do jump you tend to have to take a better path and absorb the swing with your lower body. It still lacks dedicated footholds, although they have changed the app to support setting foot-only holds instead of just tracking.