Review: 2027 Armada Antimatter 114 Skis

Back in early January, Armada invited me and a few other gear editors to Silverton for a few days of sampling what was soon to be their all-new line of freeride skis. I flew down to Durango, peering out the plane window at a bleak start to winter in Colorado. It was dry. Like really dry. I didn’t really know what to expect when I hopped off the plane and met Max Palm and the Armada crew at the baggage claim, but I did know we were there to be among the first people to ski the new Antimatter line, and I was stoked. 

Being able to take your first run on a new ski of this caliber in exactly the terrain it was designed for was a very tasty treat, but I was even more impressed later in the season when I was reunited with it at our annual POWDER Week ski test at Grand Targhee. 

So what’s the Antimatter 114 all about? It’s the ski from Max Palm wildest dreams. The young freerider possesses an uncanny ability to mix wildly aggressive skiing with a surfy, silky smooth style, and this ski allows you to do exactly that. Armada’s new Antimatter metal construction, paired with a very unique directional twin-tip shape, produces a monster truck of a ski perfect for powerful big mountain skiing whether it’s in the resort or backcountry.

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2027 Armada Antimatter 114 Specs

• Size skied: 187 cm
• Lengths available: 181cm, 187cm, 193cm
• Sidecut: 138mm – 114mm – 132mm
• Radius: 21m (187cm)
• Profile: directional twin rocker, camber underfoot
• Weight: 2100g (187cm)

Shape, Flex and Construction 

Of all the skis on test this year, the Armada Antimatter 114 perhaps has the most distinct footprint. A pointy, spear-shaped tip pairs with an aggressively turned up tail. Rocker lines in the front are long and low, with minimal rocker and taper (minus the twin-tip) in the back. Palm actually says he tried flat-tailed prototypes of the ski, but still wanted a twin tip (because, well, he’s Max Palm), so that’s what Armada went with—and it works.

Inside, the construction of the ski seems to strike a bit of a middle ground, taking aspects of both aggressive race-oriented layups and more fun and playful compositions. There’s a layer of shaped Speed Metal titanal, full-length sidewalls, heavy duty edges and thick base material paired with a lighter and springier poplar wood core. Overall, that leads to a decently stiff flex (I’d give it a 7.5-8/10 overall), with soft tips and really poppy tails. Much like the Salomon QST Blank, the sweet spot of the ski is huge, allowing you to ski fast and with reckless abandon without suffering a ton of consequences, bouncing off everything in sight.

The mount point is also an interesting one for these guys. Unsurprisingly, Max likes to mount his pretty damn close to true center, and the ski can certainly be skied that way, but I found it to be perfect on the rec line, a bit further back from true center. Otherwise, I found the tails to be a bit too aggressive. 

On-Snow Performance

The first run I took on these was through a shark-infested hellhole of a run at Silverton. Honestly, I love that place and the guides that work there, but I don’t know what they were thinking by having us ski that line. The funny thing was that despite the wildly inappropriate conditions, I had a ton of fun on these. They’re really confidence inspiring when things get weird out there—kinda like what often happens during freeride comps. 

A few runs later, we finally got to rip some wide-open powder runs high up off the Billboard. These things want to run, and run fast. Palm grew up ski racing, and that pedigree shows through in the Antimatter 114. It’s powerful and predictable, but it’s kind of like the ski racer that quit early and discovered that jumping off cliffs and spraying your friends with pow slashes is way more fun. There’s a playful side hidden inside of these.

While the Silverton trip was a great way to experience these in very serious terrain, getting back on them at the resort in Grand Targhee later that season really gave us a sense of what these are all about. There’s a sense of refined aggression, paired with a hang-loose surfy vibe when you kind of just want to chill. It’s an Armada ski, after all. 

“It’s the perfect blend of freestyle and freeride. Just stiff enough while still being able to butter,” says tester Peter Brigham. “It doesn’t have the highest top end but makes up for it in its ability to be nimble. This ski can blast through terrain but prefers to ski bump to bump using the terrain for micro-transfers. It allows you to move through the terrain and work with it instead of blasting through whatever is in your way.”

“I enjoyed that I didn’t really have to think about what the snow was, it made a great fall line turn wherever I needed it to,” adds tester Ian Halderman. “Super stable when it got rough and floated nicely despite not a lot of tips splay, the rocker profile worked for both fresh snow and running it out in the chop.

Comparisons

Armada’s new Antimatter 114 harkens back to some burly freeride pro-model skis of yesteryear like the Salomon Czar, the original Blackcrows Corvus and perhaps the Atomic Automatic 117. It’s a twintip that doesn’t need to be skied from a centered stance, and can (and should) in fact be driven through the front of the boot.

Compared to a few skis of this current generation, I’d put it next to the Salomon QST Blank, Atomic Maverick 115 CTi, and perhaps the Dynastar M-Free 112. The Antimatter is aimed at a similar end use, but offers a much surfier and driftier ride than any of those options. Overall, the Blank and M-Free 112 are more damp, and the Maverick 115 is a far better true powder ski (lighter+floatier), but for all-out charging in shitty snow, the Antimatter takes the cake. 

What type of skier is the Armada Antimatter 114 best for?

Simply put, Armada’s Antimatter 114 is a big mountain competition ski built for anyone who wants to ski like Max Palm. In fact, our testers agreed that it’s pretty much the perfect skis for “young free ride skiers with that dog in them that are less concerned about switch landings and more concerned in stomping big airs when they go too big.”