Day[9] vs. Luis Scott-Vargas in Magic: The Gathering: Spellslingers Season 2 Ep 4

you hello my name is Sean and welcome to spell slingers it is 8:00 in the morning the perfect time to play Magic the Gathering with none other than Louise Scott Vargas of you know I guess I would describe you as a general magic Fame I'm Luca Vargas and I'm known for playing a lot of magic I played magic for almost 20 years now he's not only a player whose videos I watch I try to learn from who I am inspired by but also someone who kicked my on the Pro Tour Sean and I met at Pro Tour San Diego about a year ago and we are actually one in three at the time so our records weren't great but it was still an awesome place to me how would you sum your experience of magic up well I'm in the magic Hall of Fame so that's an easy easy thing to key into oh that's wow that was that's clean you can just begin at every conversation like that if I lose it's all in good fun but if I win that was all me now we're playing on a slightly different stage but the stakes are still pretty high do you dream about magic I have yet definitely have you written fanfic about magic well I write articles about magic but it doesn't stray quite into that realm and of course for any of you who enjoy reading off t-shirts you can go to channel fireball comm in 2009 me and a couple of my friends it started channel fireball comm and the reason was we wanted to put out strategy high quality strategy videos and articles that would help people learn how to play magic better and kind of provide entertainment I think that the biggest trap new players fall into is they try to conserve their lifestyle at all costs you know as long as you have any life left it doesn't matter how much life you have left so it's like being a college student as long as you have any money in your bank account it's okay to go out right as long as you pass it doesn't matter what grade you oh that's beautiful Wow okay don't take that as applicable life yeah you know don't listen to us about anything well we have pre-chosen decks that we will be playing with the wizards cells what are called clash pacts they're designed to make cool games and interesting games against each other and they also play well against other decks but the matchup against each other is gonna be really good at the very least it should be fun we'll have a blue green deck and a green red deck fate and fury I think I'm gonna put my fate in fates hands I picked the fake deck because I like playing blue showed up wearing an azure t-shirt and because I know Shawn hates blue draw a card encounters belt council draw cards let me scribe look and put the back in the draw them again I figured it would be a good way to get under his skin he can have those I was going to choose the fury deck anyways all right well I am all-in on fury so a ramp deck has two pieces the first are the ramp cars they are creatures or cards that get you more mana into play and the second half are the huge creatures that you use that mana how important do you feel it is to know all the important lingo of magic knowing kind of like all the little catchphrases in the jargon kind of helps you understand what happens when you're talking with other magic players and also you know kind of a sense of community what do you think are the three most just like funky awesome phrases time markings are good one I use on a lot top decking you know drawing the cards that's Dennis I think gotten pretty popular because it's like so clear what it means I guess Chung blocking is another good one when you're blocking just to save damage when you're blocking only to stop yourself from getting hurt if I like got into a big fight you know with let's say you know someone who's very important to be a girlfriend but I'm you know sitting on my couch eating ice cream like my job blocking my feelings you're not really actually accomplishing anything but you are delaying the inevitable for getting hurt I'm conserving my life oh you're not preventing yourself and getting hurt you're just delaying the earth and I know being the professional wizard that you are a professional magician what movement would you like to do to summon our decks I can use Jace the Mind sculptor does he goes the sort of thing like oh oh my god look at the decks that we did both of us decided to go in blind neither of us looked at our decks we didn't have any idea what was in there besides the basic colors so I'm going to leverage the fact that you are an educator and expert player of magic talk to me a little bit about what a mana curve is when people talk about a mana curve it's really just the distribution of spells in your deck and the reason it's called a curve is because you want different numbers of each spells at every different casting cost the reason being you want to be able to play a spell and turn to so you need a lot of two drops you don't want to draw a handful of five drops because you won't be able to play anything and it's much better to draw more low drops on high drops so it curves down going from casting costs okay that's amazing that's like David Blaine did it okay well here's what I did a one two three just from my opening hand I could tell this is a deck I would like it's got bounce spells counter spells bestow creatures when I see what I have I'm immediately noting that there's some really high casting cost cards so either there's some ramp cards that I missed I should probably be trying to Mulligan for or it's just a bad draw all right I'm going to mulligan all he's gonna do all games draws cards since cries cards and bounce my cards so I want to start with a lot of cards and I'm beginning with one less cards looking at my opening hand these decks are really good my opening hand is really good it's got a couple cheap spells a couple lands in a really good mana curve all right best of luck that's the turn to you all right lead with a forest as well it's a mere match a strong play all right pleasure playing for us with you all right I will draw my card I will play the mountain I'll play a voyage entombed I Cyclops return three paths they're gonna take a voyage to form an O right away yes I think I'm gonna plain island I think I'm just gonna play a leaf grand ride mmm to battle your Seder yeah the really cool thing about bestowed cards you can play them like I just did is a two-minute 2/2 which is a good deal yeah or five more man I can just bestow it on something which is pretty cool because then if the creature dies I still get this and my creature gets larger and a tutu for two anyways as a can't be bad I'm going to go to forest we're gonna tap we're gonna tap this to untap this and then tap tap tap okay so now I have four mana and I will play an ill-tempered Cyclops so I got Phase one of the beatdown going I have my Cyclops Jean just put an ill-tempered Cyclops which is a lot bigger than anything I have but luckily I have a void design so I can at least just bounce it for now I'm really excited for is the huge monstrosity creatures that I got the chance to see when I looked in my first draw of seven past the turn to you that's a good start I do even have a three drop but I'm actually going to go ahead and put my temple of mystery first and it's even foil love it so I'm going to scry one this decks got a ton of scry effects which is awesome scrying lets you kind of control your draws make sure you're drawing all the good cards and put all the bad cards on the bottom it's a pretty fun mechanic its cards really good so I'm gonna put it on top I like it I just saw prognostic Sphinx on top of my library and I know that this is the way I'm gonna try to win this game it's a 3/5 flyer it attacks every turn he can't kill it and it lets me scribe bunch I could attack here but that doesn't seem like a good idea so it's your turn I'm marginally suspicious of that those two available Nana's playing forest I will now declare the ill-tempered Cyclops as performing an attack so you know my guy can walk fliers yes okay I'm not going to work okay all right Oh checking all right no I didn't know because one of the best parts about magic is that if you are literate you can read what's on the card BAM so I guess I take three damage I'm gonna go right down to 17 done quit Finn well now I think I'm actually gonna play something here Oh at the end of your term the end of your turn I'm gonna tap to and I'm gonna cast a voyages end so his voyage is coming to an end it's going to return your L tempered Cyclops and I'm gonna get to scry again another important magic concept that this deck uses to its advantage is tempo which is getting ahead in time not really resources and when I bounce one of Sean's creatures that cost four mana by playing a spell it only cost two I'm ahead in tempo the good cards still there so it's still gonna stay beautiful and you are still done mm-hmm all righty so I'm playing my fourth land and I actually don't have much to play but I'm gonna attack for two of my leaf grand red you know I will accept and warmly embrace your to damage with my face I'm just gonna pass the turn look at this I really don't have anything I swear this time it's true I'm gonna play an Ichthus shrine to Nix I'm going to tap tap on tap tap tap tap and you know we can actually even shortcut it we can just tap all your things and I'm assuming you're on tap in the land I like that I like that's our important shortcuts are a big part of a dig that I'm going to play the Genesis Hydra Genesis had you really messed up my plan for this turn I had a grip tied up and I was going to bounce whatever he played for six mana but the card he played her to come into play ability so all of a sudden I couldn't bounce it and he would still get the value from it is an xx creature so I'm spending four additional mana to cast it so we'll be coming out as a 4/4 it also says that when I cast it I can look at the top X cards of my library and put something that costs X or less into play so I'm going to reveal the top four cards I reveal a mountain I reveal voyaging sader I have this enchantment with it lets me sacrifice to search for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield I think I will instead play the voyaging satyr into play having two satyrs out is great in general for my land but now that I have the i Nix out I'm going to have an absurd amount of mana so what I really want is a card that can use infinity mana and I have just the thing and to denote that this is a 4/4 I will put a 4 on its face and I will end the turn Genesis Hydra the strong card guess I'll just take my turn so I'm gonna play my fifth land I'm gonna play the card I scry to the top not once but twice oh wait what is this it's a prognostic Sphinx prognostic Sphinx flying three five discard a card board not six Fink's against hex proof until end of turn Taffet what what whenever to tax Cry 3 yeah card is awesome this is the blue I hate he's gonna just he's gonna be poking at me it's gonna be looking at all his cards it's cry 3 it only costs 5 mana oh my god it's not so great that I get to attack this turn so I'm just gonna past the turn back so I dip my toe in the water with the Cyclops doesn't counter it dip my toe again in the water with the Hydra and then I just slink all the way in the hot tub I will play this right out the gate the Hydra breed master it is a seven seven that costs six I was fortunate to get one Hydra out but he's tapped out all his land so now I can get a second Hydra out and that's the one I really want out because he can't counter monstrosity everything I do I want it to be uncountable so I'll tap on my land and keep one satyr up it says whenever it becomes mantras put X xx green Hydra creature tokens onto the battlefield that is a giant card it's gonna be tough to beat I'm done and past the turn to you I'm gonna go ahead and attack with my prognostics Fink's here Oh God when I attack I get to scribe three so I get to look at my top three and I just I just get to sit here this is this is this is classic play against blue blues looking at all their cars and one happy to be doing this look I have all these cars in hand all these cards my other hand cards cards cards no so I think I'm actually gonna keep two of my cards so I just put two cards on top I put profit of crew fix and either spout on top I'm setting up my next few turns perfectly I think this might work out and you were to take the rate Oh going down to 15 that Hydra brood master is gonna be a real problem for you on top but I have this grip tied so I can at least delay it for a couple turns it's a hard card to beat though so I'm going to go ahead and hmm turn the tide go so Riptide it puts target creature on top of the donors library I'm actually kind of okay with having my Hydra grip tided grip toad what's the past tense of grip type so it goes on top of my library so you are going to draw it again but at least I don't have to deal with it this time and that is all I have it now Jochen did you talk deck a top deck to Hydra brewmaster it's a really good card let's see here so my devotion to green now is 4 so devotion rewards if you have a lot of the same color card out you count up the number of mana symbols that you have so if I have slam the cost to green and whatever I have to devotion or if I have 3 cards each the cost one green and some bonus I have 3 devotions so given that I have a lot of hydras and the satyrs my green devotion is starting to get very very high so we're going to we're going to do this in slow motion so what I'm going to do is I'm going to tap to and tap this because it says I can pay too and choose a color and I gain mana equal to my devotion in green I have 1 2 3 4 green mana symbols so that gives me 4 mana so I'm going to tap my waging satyr to untap I have 4 mana available so I will expend two of it to gain 4 more so I will go to 6 6 is a lot I will tap this oh my god untap again and I will spend 2 to go down to 4 and gain another 4 we need more dice yeah I will play the ill-tempered Cyclops any Hydra Broodmother so recurring cast of characters here I like it he counters nothing I have two dudes so Shaun just played all the guys that I spent all this time bouncing and now they're back and play again I have to deal with them again and I don't have more bounce spells so I'm not exactly sure what my plan is from here on out and now I'm going to be attacking with the genesis Hydra and I'm still not sacrificing leaf ground ride so that's not gonna happen I like it I'm gonna take for damage I'm gonna go down to 13 cuz you know what blocking is not flings you ever really need to do in magic I'm pretty far behind now but uh blues got some tricks up his sleeve if you return everything to my hand I'm gonna be so bummed well we'll say first we're gonna attack I think yeah I like it you know what I I can do no such blocking I get to scry again - I'm gonna keep this one this one's real you got another - not so good so let's cast profit of crew fix mmm what does this do it's foil and a strong foil untap all creatures and lands you control during each other players untap stab you made cast creature cards as though they had flash he gets to untap now all the time they may as well just scoop the land off and just be like dude do whatever you want at any point you're blue so profit of crew fixes me really good for me this game it untapped all my lands every turn even on my opponent and it lets pay ply creatures as instance so I get to have doubled amana and play double the spells and since I'm kind of tight on minute compared to Shawn it's gonna be very important so he has flash on everything he has three very good creatures out so my only hope is that he can't bounce anything else ah skirts pretty profitable so I'm just gonna pass the time and then on tap everything everything so these all on tap and there's nothing blue Dex like more than being you know completely untapped and ready to cast all their tricky cards I can make a considerable number of hydros but see the problem here is that Louise is playing blue can blue man and I keep saying I have nothing but that's not close entirely fairly accurate cuz if you return for instance all cards to hand then that is just bad sad bad for me first I just want to know where I'm at okay so what I'm going to do is I'm going to tap to to tap this add one two three four five six six mana tap a thing to untap a thing I'm going to tap again spending I will go down to four and then go back up to ten I'm going to tap untap tap again to go to I believe another four so that is a total of 14 there's a moment in magic where you have to say if he's got it he's got it I'm just gonna get as much man as I can and get a bunch of hydras and if he bounces it then then okay we can always blame the fact that he's blue yeah I'm you know what just just because it's awesome I'm gonna go all out here's one green two mountains so I now have 16 total 17 to 11 with my 17 mana I'm going to put eight plus one plus one counters on here and some an eight eight eight hydrous I'm against a blue player all right and that's like getting a genies lamp you got three wishes but you know something's gonna go wrong because it happens in the movies so Shawn just use Nick photos voyaging Seder to make 17 mana he made eight eight eight hydras his Hydra brood master becomes a 1515 that's an incredibly large army so we need eight things to match and the only thing that we have eight of our empty card sleeves I know some I know something's prog and girl I want to be really excited luckily for me I left an aether spat on top of my deck and I'm gonna be able to just wipe out every single token the attacks with which I assume is all of them doesn't look fair at all well you know you are playing blues so I know is there some sort of bounce effect or just return all things to hand cuz tokens you can't have them in your hand so if it says return to hand they're just dead completely so I will now attack with my Hydra brood master that is a 1515 I should probably block some at 13 and I can't block with anything big enough to kill it so I'm gonna Trump block jump it all right and I'm unable to do any damage but I've cleared a little bit off so even if for some reason everything gets returned back to my hand I still kill the thing and that is the end of my turn I passed the tourney because I've profit out I can play things as creatures as instance yeah so I'm going to cast cures follower at the end of turn what you should say untap another target permanent so it's not like your voice later but it can use it you can use on creatures all right all right so I'm going to do is I'm going to bestow onto profit of crew fix a Nimbus not so I'm going to pay five let's do it on there so now it gets plus two plus two and has flying I'm feeling pretty good right now I've got two Flyers in play they're both really hard to kill because one's bestowed the other has hex proofs so Sean's gonna need a lot to get out of this I'm gonna attack you with these two so that is one two three four five six seven it's going to be seven but I still get to scry to premier and I have abs oh my god well I guess I'm just putting all of them on the bottom alright so I'm going to take seven I'm going to go to five damage give me five health we're casting the turn alright we're we are untapping everything now here's the real question is whether or not you have the combat trick so I'm going to begin combat I'm going to attack with eight eight eight hydrous tepe dad tab that gonna be enough for now you know I'm gonna well I'm gonna begin by doing it with all of them and I'm going to attack with the Hydra broodmother as well alright that's a lot of hydras yes I guess I'm gonna block okay I'll put Curos follower on the Broodmother prophet on one hydra sphinx on the other I Drive do have anything else no that's it alright well I do actually so I'm gonna cast either spouts Oh what does it do it's a new card instant for each attacking creature its owner puts it on the bots op or bottom of his or her library normally bounce spells return the creatures to the hand to library or wherever but since these are all tokens they're just vanishing forever into the aether no i I've heard that from back there this one when you expect the worst you can still be disappointed so I'd be I'd be very dead if I didn't have that card in case it wasn't clear no it was clear don't worry what I will do is these get to go away so for any of you who have poor imaginations don't worry I got you covered you don't have to picture anything you get to witness concretely how upset I am these dice were turned back to Louise this guy I think I like him I'll put him on the top of the library first I'm going to do my usual thing where I tap too and then I tap this to gain four let's tap the dice again let's just tap a thing to untap a thing to spend a thing go to six I'm going to yep tapping on tappy tappy so we'll be at eight I will play a reclamation stage which says when enters the battlefield destroy target artifact a permit I'm gonna kill your bestowed enchantment yes that's no good alright again a little bit of health here so we have eight mana so you have five left here five left I will then play the NIE Leah's disciple which says when it enters the battlefield you gain life equal to your devotion to green so this is going to go to one so now my devotion to green is 7/7 so I will go back to 12 and I'm going to with my gross success spent use the last remaining bits lightning strike to kill your friendly bead he had a reclamation stage to kill my Nimbus night he had lightning strike to kill my prophet and he had nightly as disciple to go back up to a bunch of life I'm not actually sure how I'm gonna kill him now he's been chipping away at me but with the lightning strike and now Leah's disciple I mean normally they say life gain isn't good but that was the perfect combo because I removed one of his biggest threats and now I'm back in the game well that was not a good time for me all right I I have ended my turn no I'm gonna tack alright alright no suit the Sphinx sees I'm gonna attack I declare no blockers cry again you're some good cards I don't really have time for them I'm under a lot of pressure here I just put Jason's ingenuity on the bottom and that really hurts cuz it draws three cards but I'm not gonna have time for in this game I just can't take a turn off to cast it alright so you get hit for three I will go to nine you've got a lot of things out there let's play another m15 card here frost Lynx what does frost langston get taps one of your creatures and it does not on tap for a turn all right so I'm gonna tap the ill-tempered Cyclops alright this is the way that I like to denote that it is tapped and does not untapped during the untap phase and then I'm going to pin the Genesis I go to the earth so actually made a mistake here I should have pinned his ill-tempered Cyclops to the ground the problem was I thought it would you know as a 3/3 and I was like oh I'm gonna tap that one and then pin the 4/4 but actually should have reversed those two things and that might end up costing me the game so it gets -6 - oh this is a 0 0 or 0 for excuse me and I got nothing else and I don't even get to untap because my profit is gone cool so I will untap you get flipped you all come back alright and I'm drawing the Hydra souls feeling a little bit more anxious to start of the turn because I don't have an easy win with the hydras declaring the attack alright I attack with these gentlemen so I thought up I'll make an attack and cast spells after the attack it's what a good magic player does so before blockers I'm gonna use Kira's father to untappd prognostics oh my god I'm so dumb and then just forgot that he can untap and block with his Fink's oh I forgot that that was the ability it was on that thing know if you want you can take it back okay well that no I'm just kidding all right these are my blocks okay the trade and some tears so that drops my devotion by three and since my NYX land relies on devotion I can use it three times a turn I've cut myself by like nine manna nine ten eleven I will play this giving me five man left I will use one of that green mana for the monstrosity cost with the remaining four I will put out two to two hydras and what should have been five five five hydras or whatever huge number it's supposed to be is now two to two hydras so at least at very least I have a seven seven that has been pumped to a nine nine and I pass the turn to you well luckily for me that's the only thing I think that gives me a shot cuz if you had 5 5 5 s I would be I would be done what's up hanging on here well send in the sphinx again and screw again alright well I'm going from nine to six so I just hit him again with Sphinx and it's only a couple more turns before he dies he's and he's probably not gonna be able to stop it I really hope this Fink's goes the distance uh again we're gonna put all the cards on the bottom okay so far so good so I don't know what I'm digging to I keeps growing cards to the bottom surely or something in the deck that can save me but it's got to be this turn and then I'm gonna follow it up with another key Rose follower and you know this couldn't tap anything not just Lions also creatures but I would be the guy to mess that up like two turns in a row I'm like oh my pod you still have it on the field and that's all I got okay so we're gonna we're gonna do some untapping some untapping now before I draw right now I can pump this this turn and it will become a six six I can swing for some additional 's here some additional 's here some additional 's here so you're gonna certainly block a nine nine with something six will likely go because that one is trampled yeah it'll likely get at least four in and then I'd probably get one two three four five and so now once again if we imagine there being five five five hydras well I I'm going to keep back my dudes for now not going to do any tapping of these and untapping so this is now a six six six six triples monstrous I will attack with definitely the hydras definitely these two I think that's it okay that's that's what I am attacking with right so once again I'm going to use Cure's follower on prognostic swings shoot and as predicted I'm going to jump in the way of the Broodmother great master and prognostic Sphinx is going to eat one of the other hydros and I don't have any tricks unfortunately okay so I take eight damage alright I go down to five life you're to two days my to two days that's a good attack and then at the second main I will tap to untap to tap to just play very simple 1/1 elvish mystic you got it and my turn you draw something really good here all right so let's see what the draw is and then I drew a forest which of course will not save me right not bad actually okay I still think I'm gonna attack the prognostics okay tangos Fink's scrying all right I will go down to three at least and these three cards are really good so I'm actually gonna leave them all on top okay I'm gonna pass the turn and maybe Shawn won't attack it's the feeling of playing against all the trickery of blue is that you never really know when you're allowed to celebrate he's drawn a card he hasn't played a land to in his hand can I celebrate maybe so you have five life so I attack with these four troops and now I pray all right I'm gonna use the Cure's follower again on tap agnostic Sphinx okay block the Hydra brood master okay and I don't have anything oh you didn't have another bounce I will punch through for nine more than enough to kill me oftentimes more than five yes good game good game poor the top cards you are having I kept three line on top because I know I'm actually surprised at the strength of the decks yeah these are powerful decks I mean you got to play a Hydra rude master and make 16 min or whatever yeah I got to cast either spout return nine hydras or eight Hydra of bacteria I was a critical component to the potential success of your deck by only getting two to two hydras at the end now that ended up being enough but remember when you are capable of making tremendous mistakes the top decks can still be on your side thank you so much for watching this episode of spell slingers of course that means that I have gotten revenge on Louise and magic when it doesn't matter at all may you go forth and make tremendous mistakes and magic and repair it by drawing

Channel: Geek & Sundry

Views: 1,028,447

Rating: 4.9419532 out of 5

Keywords: geek and sundry, geek & sundry, felicia day, the guild, charlie supernatural, Sean Plott (Organization Leader), Luis Scott-Vargas (Person), Magic: The Gathering (Game), Real-time Strategy (Media Genre), mtg, 2015 core set, wotc, wizards of the coast, magic, professional planeswalker, day[9], day[9]tv, channelfireball.com, channel fireball, day 9 tv, m15, luis scott-vargas vs sean plott, clash packs, competition, card game, fate vs fury, Deck, spellslingers

Id: artBJGT7MrQ

Length: 26min 47sec (1607 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 28 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/LSV__]

It's worth noting that we didn't know the contents of either deck, so swinging into Aetherspouts wasn't unreasonable at all, I bounced the Cyclops end of turn with Voyage's End so he couldn't recast it right away, and Griptiding Genesis Hydra isn't possible until it's in play (well after the ability resolves).

Also, this was a ton of fun, and I had a really good time.

[u/fromanuneasysea]

i loled hard when he was like "you can take it back if you want. no, not really."

[u/tinyj316]

Prophet is very prophet-able... oh Luis... never change...

[u/dinosaurpuncher]

I hope they get more pro magic players. LSV was really good at explaining some of the more advanced concepts of the game.

[u/Slutsnya]

Even LSV can't beat the Fury deck with the Fate one...

[u/KTFlaSh96]

if you want you can take it back.

really? aw, thank y-

nope, jk lol.

[u/trickjarrett]

This episode only increases my man-crushes on /u/lsv__ and /u/zngelday9

[u/bigbobo33]

I loved that LSV explained concepts like Tempo. He was excellent!

[u/hascow]

That was an excellent episode. A very good game where I didn't see any real mistakes, apart from the one that Sean was complaining about near the end. Good explanations and some decks that were a little bit more complex than the intro decks led to a much better game than some.