The Spy: Mann vs. Machine Tutorial

[@curlypeltedcreature]

wait holy shit you only have 200+- subs? dude this is really high quality i was expecting more smth around the 100-200k range

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Thank you! I appreciate that.

[@MrSleepyhead32]

I've basically learned to play Spy mostly by myself with just more niche tricks being read up on such as Medic or Sentry aggro to allow Spy to backstab "infinitely" without attracting aggro. I prefer Kunai as I get very aggressive with health and I'd prefer to just not spend any on health upgrades. I find Spy relaxing as I'm always moving and positioning well. He also has distinct weaknesses with his strengths which engages me more. Demoman bores me with a good team as crit sticky camping giants to blow them up instantly is just not engaging. Engineer and Heavy give me similar feelings but Demoman is on a whole level on his own. A good point to note with Spy is that since he can basically choose when robots spot him, he is excellent collecting money in hard spots even a Scout can get to if the team fails to hold the front. Some expert missions and certain maps are notable when I'd much prefer collecting money with Spy over Scout.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

I took a short break from TF2 a few years ago, and from Mann Up MvM for even longer, and I was aghast at how boring Sticky-Camping Demos are making the the game these days. They have really perfected their craft over the years. Fortunately, a lot of custom missions I've been playing recently are too fast-paced for a sticky abuse, and a lot of custom maps feature two attack routes that are too far apart for one player to block single-handedly (Best Map Design Strat: It punishes the Two Cities meta so hard), so Demos don't ruin the game. Plus, since missions are new, they haven't been rehearsed 1,000 times like Two Cities. If I ever get to the Demo guide, I'd like to make it mission-agnostic: noting that sticky-camping is possible, but focusing on tactics that work generally, even if you haven't completely memorized the robot spawns. I don't like to advertise The Spy as specifically a "money collector", even though he can absolutely be the main money collector, because when most the people hear that, they assume the job is run back and forth across the map in an endless Easter Egg Hunt, while more or less ignoring the objective. I don't even think The Scout should have that job. But the video was already 20 minutes long, and I did not have time to go into all of that. You can never fit everything.

[@bpepsitropper8512]

Support Spy > scout

[@angeleyes8093]

Damn, it's actually pretty sad that this youtuber is underrated. I mean he has good audio, good content , and great animating skills. You deserve more dude.

[@mariustan9275]

I mean he's called underscore gaming

[@quenquent95]

Holy crap an actual good MvM guide on KZbin ! Cheers to you and thank you for that video ! You will be the first KZbin guide I will ever recommend regarding MvM

[@woop6727]

agreed, its a shame most youtube guides just suck :(

[@blondeepartygirl]

Very underrated

[@murph3292]

I had a extremely bad first experience with mvm, I got bought in to a match by a friend and was told the "meta", since I was new they made me heavy for the tour. It was braindead. after the tour was over i didn't play again. this video popped up one day, remembering being told spy is useless by my friends I watched it, seeing all the cool stuff so i tried out a boot camp mission and almost top scored above a phlog pyro and had tons of fun while playing. I've also picked up tank buster scout from your scout video, also being told by friends the same thing you say in the video, switching off on last wave to crit pyro. I've been playing tons of boot camp mvm lately playing spy scout and sniper, depending on what the team has. with the stuff I've learned here, my friend group beat calignous with me as scout nearly top scoring below the engineer. thank you for showing me how to have fun with the mode. :D

[@Iciclefairy]

I love playing spy in MVM, he’s really good in the custom potato MVM missions due to the pacing and gimmicks.

[@your_fathers]

facts bro theres way more giants in custom mvm so spy really shines there

[@Keepler22b]

The potato tour i played in 2021 was much harder thatn expert in regular Mvm (and more fun)

[@dashyz3293]

Best, and probably the only good, guide on MvM on KZbin I've seen. Cheers.

[@Adrienthe12]

Undersore Gamer is a really but really really underrated youtuber

[@System3200]

U forgot to add "good"

[@user-ow2cs7fb5l]

U forgot to add "good"

[@anotheruser7534]

U forgot to add "good"

[@puckqure1192]

U forgot to add "good"

[@CricetoFunni]

U forgot to add "good" please just fucking add "good" already.

[@wolfisnotafurry6662]

I don't understand how this guy doesn't even have 1000 subs, this guy is awesome! His tutorials help me so much in MVM, especially the scout, you are awesome!

[@CliffCardi]

Once I had a spy join my team playing Bavarian Botbash after our scout left after wave 2. Not only did we beat the mission, but the spy didn’t miss a single money pickup.

[@dapperfield595]

This is why I use the Sandman while playing Scout. Not only can I mark without risking myself, but I also don't want to get our Spy/Pyro (or the occasional demoknight) killed as they dance around the giants. The best revolver as well in my opinion would be the L'etranger. In situations where you have to rely on your DR, the 15%+ cloak on hit can be very helpful as a utility to get you back in the fight again.

[@khrislove5277]

Fantastic guide! Very, very rare to see guides without misinformation, opinions and personal bias overflowing (Read: Better than 'famous' TF2 player guides that say the Tomislav is the best weapon for Heavy because it's accurate) If you're looking to genuinely play Spy I'm sure you know more than the average MvM caveman so I'll give a few tips that aren't super focused around gameplay. Mostly talking about Mann Up here because I play a lot of Two Cities. Below is a long read but a lot of important tips I've picked up over the years. -Play with a full group of friends. Don't forget, a single random can deny you from beating a mission by sitting in spawn and dodging vote kicks. Randoms hate nothing more than someone playing off-meta, look at the mental disorder narcissists at Tacobot. If you don't play exactly to their standards they'll do everything in their power to deny you from ever beating the mission. Picking spy with randoms makes your games rough considering everyone's morale drops to zero so expect throwers. -If your friends bash on you for picking Spy, remind them that Mann Up only really requires 4 decent teammates at minimum to win a mission, and if they can't arguably do it with 5 they shouldn't be here (Drive it home that there's room for errors in MvM, and that they're made constantly by nearly everyone. Too many people treat Mann Up like it's some extremely difficult monster, even the people at over 1,000 tours that are so jaded they have to tell themselves the thing they do all day is a real challenge) -Teleport to Spawn canteens are my absolute favorite, I've been getting decent usage out of them on a lot of classes. In most situations where I would buy Uber canteens, teleport to home can work great. Only costs 10 credits, keeps my form dying, lets me stop the giant Scout my team refuses to remember has ended this wave 5 times in a row, cheaper than a buyback and lets me upgrade instantly without demanding my Engineer buy 250 credit 2-way teleporters on wave one exclusively for my benefit. -TF2 is a buggy nightmare of a game. There are so many bugs that happen that affect your average MvM mission it's not even funny. With good ping, roughly half my Mad Milks don't register, for four years everyone in my team except me saw all spies as giant robots, sometimes your weapon will just shoot a different projectile (running around official Valve server shooting fire out of the Syringe Gun, I didn't even blink when this happened, it's to be expected at this point.) this game is a nightmare. When playing Spy, I've had waves where, for no real reason, **every robot can see through my disguise. Even if they don't shoot, they face me and hold aggro for an entire mission.** Even if you disguise in spawn and walk out to the robots, you'll see a hail of grenades flying at you. Be wary that sometimes, the game just doesn't want you to play spy. -If you're playing with your friends or a team where more than half of you can hold your head up to look at the monitor without your nurse's help, you really don't need a Scout. Now, the MvM purists (read: elitists) might say that Milk is *sooo* useful, and Fan of War is *soooo important*, and that the Soda Popper is one of the highest DPS weapons once you dump an obscene amount of credits into it, but if at least half of your team understands that money is to be picked up by everyone, not just the Scout, then there's room for all sorts of fun team compositions that are far more effective (Now you can run 1Eng1Med4Demo teamcomps, and no one will suffer because everyone will pick up the money. Though, running without a scout can be hard on the basis that, when playing with Randoms, they'll often suicide deep in the enemy lines for a few kills and effectively lose your team hundreds (if not 1k+) dollars due to extreme negligence. If you don't have a team of complete idiots, play around with not having a Scout! Having a Spy or a Sniper fill that place leads to a really smooth MvM experience! -If I recall, the Ammo canteens replenish your Sapper, but only if you kill all sapped robots -Engineer has the most MvM voicelines, so disguising as him can give you the most information about what's going on! -A note on *Strafe Stabbing*: It's really hard to calculate, but there *is* a bit of science to it to drastically tip the scales in your favor: First two stabs in the back, third stab is a sidestab, fourth is where the robot was originally facing you, and the fifth should be about where you originally stabbed him. If you're having trouble nailing this, doing 1-2 stabs in the back, then stabbing where he was facing works well too. You can juggle a robot doing 1 stab every 180 degrees this way. Not nearly as much damage but still a **ton**. In tight quarters such as the Coaltown training map U_ put in the description, when robots go to the far left/right buildings, I find it's impossible to circlestrafe around a robot hugging the wall, so I'll go for a backstab, then rotate to his frontside, then bail and lose LOS/Aggro Good luck playing Spy, and good luck beating missions with pissed randoms that you're breaking the precious "Meta" and "ruining" the game! Also props for telling us to not share your guide so our friends think we're just smarter lol. I'll pass this around to other well-intentioned MvM Spies.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

I'll add to this that, if you have the money and patience to play Mann Up (too) many times, eventually your tour count will get high enough that most people will start to assume (for better or for worse) that you know what you're doing. This means that you can usually get away with playing The Spy with random teammates from Matchmaking if you have a decent tour count.

[@khrislove5277]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel Most of the randoms we meet are just plain selfish bastards that start throwing fits when you tell them an upgrade they're using is bugged or try and tell them what a Scout block is, or to ask them to move the Sentry from spawn to the front line. Sometimes yeah a higher tour might be able to get their way with tour number, but it's hard enough to penetrate the thick skulls of randoms. We're not *high* tours, around 50-150 in our group, but we've never had someone listen to us because of our tour numbers, either they're willing to learn and improve in general or they're not going to listen to anyone because it's "Just a game" Still, to anyone who wants to get into Mann Up, it's extremely fun. We play it primarily for the social aspect of getting a bunch of crazy people in a call, and it's something cooperative we can all play that's very relaxed. Ask your friends to join! To my surprise we even get some people who join in who have never played shooters before, they're willing to cough up the cheap $4 for a tour to have some fun. And to that I add, if you have a vague familiarity with the biggest threats in your tour of choice (i.e. when to just pick Pyro in Mannhattan and airblast everything to the pit), you can invite anyone of practically any skill level you wish, so long as they understand what a Medic does. Official MvM missions are really easy, so invite your friends, play some meme builds once you know what you're doing and enjoy yourselves. It's not worth getting worked up over some narcissistic randoms in such a chill game mode. Enjoy it!

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Sorry if I wasn't clear: I was trying to emphasize that they will usually leave you alone to do as you see fit if you have enough tours, but perhaps the counterexample I gave about the bossy high-tour was a bit confusing. I agree that it's extremely hard to get people to do what you want (I rarely try). I will edit the previous comment to avoid confusion.

[@r3io4mf]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel unless you are with Mexican food

[@howdareyouexist]

@@khrislove5277 why?

[@TF2Legacy]

Late to the party to say this is the best Spy MvM guide to date. I've been wanting to make an MvM Spy guide but this video summarizes almost everything I'm going to cover. Incredible!

[@GasBLOX-The-Spy-Crab]

I think the diamond back would be the perfect revolver because you get crits

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

That is certainly a useful feature! If I made this video today, I probably would have included a brief blurb about each gun even though knives are much more important.

[@Quickstein]

I'm personally of the opinion that the L'etranger is the perfect option. Its damage might not be on par with the Diamondback, but the utility you can give yourself by distracting robots after you need to flee and being rewarded for it with extra cloak lets Spy lick his wounds AND directly benefit the team at the same time.

[@theshermantanker7043]

I always use the Ambassador regardless. Nothing better than making the insides of a robot's head explode in an electrical cloud

[@Splarkszter]

i love the extended information. I really needed this kind of educative content.

[@tev5040]

Note on the red tape recorder, for missions with engineer bots, they completely ignore red tape sappers on their teleporters, allowing you to disable them easily without risk. so its a direct upgrade.

[@aetu35]

This guide reinvigorated my enjoyment of MvM. After I had experimented with many of the conventional classes, I grew bored and didn't know what to do until I watched this guide and hopped on MvM with Spy. I kept dying back then, and I still keep dying now. However, it has been stupid fun and through practice, nowadays I periodically topdamage on robots. Spy has been extremely fun and rewarding for me, even if some of my teammates are not enjoying it. Thank you.

[@agentdelta569]

hi underscore i just wanted to thank you for opening my eyes to mvm and how it works in a more realistic way without you i wouldnt be enjoying mvm like i do so i thank you for showing me the right way to do things

[@felixbm4014]

incredibly good production quality and just general content, how tf do you only have 900 subs

[@aname.whatdidyouexpect1877]

this guide is so useful, this guide singlehandedly made me become a competent spy in MvM. 11k damage in the end of Bavarian Botbash is absolutely insane and is so fun. Thanks for making this video and the practice map!

[@ARandomNope]

thank you for the video! I both learned something new in this video AND used the mission in the description to try it out. Fantastic video all around and I plan to use the mission much more in the future to train myself more on the ways of the spy. Once again, thank you for making this video!

[@holycow6941]

Yes,Now i cant get kicked from Mvm ghost town

[@khrislove5277]

The Four Scoutsman of Ghost Town disagree, as they'll kick you on the spot lol

[@ruan9215]

Thanks man, was trying to figure out what to do as a Spy in MVM. Got a sweet score!

[@IamDrDapper]

holy shit dude, amazing guide. why the hell don't you have atleast 100k subs? Hope you get there soon!

[@Ava-uq5dh]

Hey it's been two years, but this is an incredible video, starting to get into lesser played classes in MVM now, and it's practically invaluable. Going to recommend this to all I know who play.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Three years. ;D

[@YakibombROMhacking]

I didn't see this mentioned in the guide or in the comments: Ammo canteen can refill the Sapper charge instantly. I learned something from this video. I didn't know you could backstab giants more than twice!! The gameplay was really cool, and the info is also really good. Thanks for teaching the community!

[@Migixkem]

You need more recognition man, i think its because of your outro and everyone wanting to be a wizard

[@helm36]

What I can add - attack speed also decreases your time between hit and ability to use your watch, so it can save you sometimes. Also dps with 3 penetration and 2 attack speed is slightly higher than 4 penetration but thats like 20 dps, dealing faster less damaging hits is better than dealing slower more damaging hits through because you can spend an entire stab for 100hp robot. In 1 rare situation upgrading last armor penetration is better than 2 attack speed - it's when giant medics come, you deal roughly 4500 with 5 750 dmg stabs, but medic can regenerate some health so after 5 stabs he will have less than 50 hp, in other words - popped uber. Also first tick of sapper power is nice to have on uber medics/steel gauntlets waves. Also disguising as medic is the best option, you have the same movement speed and can hear things such as snipers or giant robots come or teammates death which is nice. Also sapper can be ressuplied by using refill canteen, but you can use it only if none of the robots are sapped by you(useful for broken parts only ig). Recall canteens are the best for spy, if you left without dead ringer charge and robots start shooting at you, you can use it as faster, cheaper buyback with speedboost

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Omigosh, I forgot that Canteens refilled Sapper. I haven't done that in years lol. I used to care more about picking disguise (Engie also had nice voice lines... but now Engie is a speed debuff), but now I mainly care about speed. One benefit of disguising as The Scout instead of The Medic is that you're more likely to be able to get robots to follow you around instead of pushing, taking pressure off your teammates. Still... might deserve a footnote in the errata.

[@danielsurvivor1372]

Finally unironically used Spy a couple of times during one mission from 2nd unofficial MvM event of summer 2024 and damn was he needed for giants 😅

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Yes, Potato MvM missions can be quite friendly to The Spy. People love to make broad statements about what's good in "MvM" when really they mean "the small minority of official but developmentally abandoned Valve missions popular among loot farmers".

[@brunoc.g.6654]

Great video man! Can't believe you only have 400 subs

[@Mephedrone66]

Ikr

[@aturtle6063]

Crits on kill for knife transfers to all weapons so it can be helpful for dealing damage with tanks

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

This is true. I didn't mention it because I didn't want to go that far into the weeds with niche tactics.

[@danielsurvivor1372]

15:58 Demo is more useful for Gear Grinder aka exp mann up missions, but still is meta in 2cities tour. Soldier and Medic are only really meta in two cities while being outclassed by two more heavies in Gear grinder. Also Spy is surprisingly just better for gear gribder then two cities due to how spammy two cities missions are while gear grinder difficulty revolves around careful medic and giants location, aka the two things Spy excells at removing

[@alphaundpinsel2431]

bruh after looking at how good this episode is I thought iwas some big tuber I haven't heard about but then I realized it only had 6k views

[@LighterST]

Thank you for your guide. The practice map is absolutely sadistic though. Advice how to circle stab from a guy who figured it out through all the rage quits: there is a certain consistent timing to the giants turning around after you stab them - learn the timing. Also the angle of rotation is the shortest to where your position is when the timing happens. So what I do is stab them not directly from behind but slightly to the left/right so I know from which angle they will rotate. After the stab I wait briefly before the timing, then run around them in the direction they will be rotating. So: stab lightly to the left -> wait a while -> run to the left -> stab.

[@Aquidu]

Hey. I found this through Quenquent's MvM guide. I gotta say, this made me feel pretty guilty, I've been one of those "meta scouts" for a long time and never really knew what to do differently when we had a spy on our team. Thanks for making this.

[@vr4563]

a very underrated channel thanks for the guide

[@DJBlackNGold]

Jesus man this is legit making me wanna learning spy

[@birds1omega6]

I’d say the current Mann Up meta is One Engie, One Heavy, One Scout using the mad milk and fan of war, one pyro using the phlog and (sometimes, providing there’s no tacobot player on the team) the gas passer, and sometimes a demo using the Scottish resistance with Crit canteens or a kritz medic, generally the last few classes are up to the teammates, which are usually sniper or medic.

[@snaek2594]

I like how in boot camp the meta is just Engi+Medic and Scout. You can see a lot of silly things like Engi+Med, 3 Soldiers, and Scout. Or Engi+Medic, Spy, Scout, Soldier, Heavy.

[@GoldRichness]

The medic is just as if not more important cause of his shield. Without it, you can get steamrolled very quickly and with it, it’s a godsend. Medic is the backbone of the team, especially moreso in MVM.

[@purplemonky221]

Damn nice vid, make me want to try spy in MvM for once

[@snaek2594]

First result I found after looking up "MvM Spy Guide", really thankful for it. I did indeed put my money into the sapper instantly and besmirched the name of MvM spies. Ever since I've started putting money into armor pen and movement speed buffs, Spy seems a lot more powerful. I understand why he's not "meta" though. I'm guessing "meta" is centered around locking the bots into dying at the foot of the cliff so the money is easy to sweep up for the scout and the mission takes less time to complete as a result. As much as I love spy, he's just not capable of the same kind of burst damage and crowd control that a soldier or demo is. It's badass to spank giants 10 percent of the time, but when the other 90 percent is piecemeal backstabs on random trash bots, the 90% stands out more. Thank goodness for community MvM servers.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Thanks. Did you get the practice mission thing figured out? I saw you had some questions but then deleted them.

[@snaek2594]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel Yeah it turns out for some reason I had two installations of team fortress 2 so I don't even know lol. Worked just fine once I figured out the right one to put it into lol.

[@civilsecuritylite12054]

Spy is probably the most misunderstood and poorly used class because most people just keeps thinking that it is "hide and stab."

[@TheTdw2000]

I WISH. Most people see the sapper and think that's spy's one and only purpose in MvM. Hiding and stabbing giants would at least do a significant amount of damage.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

I agree with McCarthy's Ghost. We'd be better off if all people did was hide and stab. Sapper spam is the bigger problem. In fact, hide and stab is really just playing at a low skill level. It's arguably a necessary first step toward becoming good.

[@civilsecuritylite12054]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel Honestly. While "Hide and stab" is of course, a big step in spy, this really cant apply to mvm since you are fighting hordea and giants that may outnumber and have crits 100% of the time who will turn to kill you just about instantly. And calling Spy "anti-tank" is just an understatment to what spy can actually do. Like he can do stuff not even Scout could: -Eliminate *specific non-giant* robots that can be a huge annoyance to the entire team instantly (Crit Rapidfire Huntsman, Uber medics, Steel Fists, Engineers with their sentries, Samurais, Snipers.) Like where these bots can be dangerous to any specific classes, a spy can shut them down instantly. Mostly those Steel Fist Heavies in large numbers. -Be sneaky and make it easier to elimate Ubers should Demo isnt available or not good enough. -Be a 2nd money collector to Scout, maybe collecting cash dropped by enemies in the front once the team got pushed back. And bypassing Sentries entirely to do so. -Bots *CANT* attack you if you bump, cloak or decloak in front of or near them. They will if you so happen to litterally decloak when they havent forgotten about you after a few seconds, or forgetting to take your disguise aftee a while. -Sappers isnt only good for both giants and normal bots. It's basically a total slowdown and shutdown for each, respectively. Use sappers on Scout Giants to effectively stop them where they go when Mad Milk, Jarate slowdown and Airblast isnt enough. Use (Lvl 2 or 3) sapper on hordes of clustered normal robots, where you'll be able to disable them and finish them off easily. And disguise dont get lost when you do. -And not many people knows this but..you can basically cheese the bots into focusing on you and you only, since Spy has the most aggro out of the rest. Everything will just drop their attention to shoor you unless a teammate is too close to them. This makes fighting the burst fire Black Box giants much easier to handle since you can dodge their rockets and make them focus on you solely. -Can fight against bots solo if upgraded enough and team is busy holding tanks. And they say that "Spy is bad. We dont need him" are people who probably havent even known his true powers when utilized correctly. He doesnt need to be an anti-giant to be good. He only knows when to move and appear, sappers can be very good if it is used well at the right moment, you cant just spam sappers like they are in pub because it's not like your knife does the entire lifting.

[@bernardonegri5416]

​@@UnderscoreGamingChannel A great way to start learning the class is "hide and stab". It may be the only way if you have high ping too. Hide and stab can easily get you enough damage to hold your own weight in the easier advanced missions

[@agentdelta569]

Because of your videos the communities perception has changed Very impressive, keep it up

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

I've definitely noticed zero spy hate on customs servers, though I don't play Mann Up very much.

[@friedoysterskins]

this is a really good guide! I plan to do a tour and I'm sure this will make the difference

[@initialgd9113]

i dont collect money as a spy so a scout can have overheal when he picked it up, but he trashed talked for not collecting , i saw he was low hp so i let him but he trashed talk and went for a health pack instead of getting the money and actually getting over heal, not soon after a giant pyro appeared when i died because im forced to collect money, with no overheal source a scout went for a hp pack, and seconds later a pyro lit the heavy who was the main output damage on the tank got lit and going to an hp pack and it was gone because scout took the pack, the tank planted the bomb before i could even walk out of spawn, after the round he tried to kick heavy for not doing well untill i saw taco bot on his "player played as" list on his steam profile i reported him immediately please do not let scout do this

[@jamesm783]

Best gun I can think of would be the diamondback, specifically for the tanks. store up a bunch of crits from the robots, and spend them blasting the tank

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

The reason I hesitated from recommending the Diamondback specifically is that it's rare to get more than 10-20 crits stored up, since The Spy gets relatively few actual kills relative to the damage he does. It's definitely helpful, but not game-changing, in my opinion. I wanted to focus on the knives so I didn't spend 10 minutes just talking about the weapons, which happened anyway on the Soldier video, lol.

[@anafu-sankanashi8933]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel i just use spy as a ubercharge canteen guzzling giant buster. and money.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

You're missing out, bro.

[@anthonyirwin6627]

If you run the spy-cicle, you can negate the loss of the knife by popping your sapper first, then switching to the knife. If you get hit with fire, the benefits remain, but because the sapper is also on cool down, it forced the knife back on, so you can keep back stabbing

[@spectruum]

What an amazing channel, hope you grow, ill be here!

[@qbert8695]

Note that you CAN actually spam the sapper by wasting it and then using prematurely bought recall canteen. There is no limit for canteen usage so you basically can apply sapper every 5 seconds of you will.

[@aturtle6063]

I have a problem I can circle strafe but every God damm mvm server has a m2 spamming pyro getting me killed while still being productive with liquid skill.

[@thunderspark1536]

One quick thing, the spycicle still works if you use the sapper first and it's on cooldown, instantly refreshing the knife. Not a bad strat if lots of pyros are around.

[@woop6727]

coming back to this vid to say it has helped me a lot with playing as spy, thanks a ton

[@toastyboi8737]

I'd actually say that the spycicle is a sidegrade if you're careful, because if you use your sapper first before stabbing, your knife can't melt as the spycicle is coded where you always switch to your sapper everytime it melts, but since you used up your sapper, you have fire immunity for how ever long that sapper is on cooldown.

[@LightningGunne]

Ho... ly... shit. Words cannot describe how amazed I am at this video.

[@TwistedSquid_YT]

The scout trash talk is WAY too relatable

[@TheDilla]

"MATH WARNING" best kind of warning in my opinon

[@gyrozeppeli1504]

I just beat an mvm mission (Manhattan) with 3 spies including me for 5/6 waves. (They switched the solder). The best part is the robots never capped the first gate.

[@bernardonegri5416]

Another thing about medics reviving you is medics sacrificing themselves to revive you: if you died and are in the middle of the robots, and a medic tries to revive you, refuse so the medic has no option but to run away.

[@danielsurvivor1372]

11:00 In our defence, mann up people can sometimes be that toxic and DO kick scouts for not perfect score, so ya can't blame him xd

[@sakurikunikai7564]

everyone is carrying a giant gun and this guy destroys robots with a knife and a pocket watch

[@blacklight683]

13:22here he is the fan-o-war scout coming to save the money i i.I mean the day

[@defaultv.7959]

I didn't expect Strafe-Stabbing to be a possible technique. I used to just stab until getting detected, then cloak away before re-engaging because of how the bots aim. (Near instant snapping toward the player's exact position with a very short pause before snapping towards their new position.)

[@kevin28115]

A good mvm guide? on spy never the less??? I never thought I'll see the day.

[@NotBavarian]

You restore my faith in mvm

[@zachdowsley3447]

fun fact the spy cical is pretty good as if you use your sapper then get hit with fire you will gain the fire res but cus you can't swap back to your sapper it stays and you can be a backstabbing french men all you want

[@ravensquote7206]

(4:04) Spy tip not found 🤓 Jokes aside though, this is important in PvP as well. If you disguise as medic, scout, or the enemy spy, you'll have your full 107% movement speed and can chase down anyone who's unaware of you assuming either A.) you follow a straighter path than they do or B.) they're a slower class. Disguise as anyone else, and you'll have to break- or change- disguise to catch up to faster classes (assuming they don't find a reason to slow down/ back up in the meantime). Fastest to slowest, the clasess are as follows: Scout Medic & Spy Engi & Pyro & Sniper Demo Soldier Heavy If there's an ampersand (&) between two classes, they're the same speed. Just be aware that disguising as a faster class is a TRADE-OFF, not an upgrade compared to slower disguises (in PvP only. PvE faster is just better). Nobody's gonna buy that you're actually their scout for more than a moment, since in that moment a real scout would have run through them and run to a different zip code before they could even be shot to be spy checked. On the other end of the spectrum, few folks are gonna blink at a heavy with his fists raised headed for the frontlines from spawn unless there's a teleporter up (which, as the spy, you should have handled PRIOR to disguising as the slowest class in the game). Always consider believability when disguising, even when it's "not important" (IE: Dedicated gunspy). If you don't care about enemies believing you're on their team but still need a disguise up to fool their sentry/ get an enforcer boost, always pick scout, get the enemy used to seeing you as scout, then on the off-chance you later decide "I REALLY need to backstab that heavy/ sniper asap", go literally anything else and get your free* one (1) backstab for the round. "*freeness varies depending on acting skill, positioning, and weather or not you get body-blocked by three different pyros, a medic, and a soldier all standing shoulder to shoulder in your chosen flank route. >Q: "You do recall this is an MvM video, right?" A: Your mother is a 'bucket. Also for getting to the end, I have my "1", "2", and "3" keys all bound to both select their usual weapon and immediately use my last disguise. The command is bind "1" "slot1; lastdisguise" You can type this command into notepad and save it as spy.cfg (mind the file extension, Windows will want to save it as a .txt file and you'll have to change "save as type" in the lower left of the save window to "All files" to make it not do so). Save this file to c:\program files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 3\tf\cfg

[@ajmickey6747]

Good video, I always took a liking to spy in MvM but hardly anyone talked about him so it was a lil rough learning him, but this goes over a lot of things very well, it would've been amazing to have found this earlier lol Some thoughts, I agree that regen is underrated for spy (dunno about engi since he can usually access his dispenser), and I find 1 tick to be incredibly useful, though I honestly have never tried using Health On Kill with my knife, so whether or not its better than that on average, I don't quite know I pretty much exclusively use the Big Earner, and, while resistances are always useful, imo the first tick of Blast Res is one of the best upgrades you can get as spy (with big earner). Lets you survive a single demo pill or soldier rocket directly, and paired with health regen, is really good for shrugging off some residual splash damage you'll inevitably take One thing I've never seen anyone else mention though, do Giant Demos just have increased reaction speed to spies? I know robots not distracted tend to turn around after 1 backstab, but with giant demos, I find this happening A LOT even when they're distracted. I've almost never encountered this issue with other giant robot types, and rarely do giant demos not seem to immediately swivel around

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

I'd assume it's that Giant Demos have faster move speed than Heavies and Soldiers, though I don't know for sure.

[@tryhardgames1907]

As a spy main i tried every Single knife in mvm here is what i found out Stock: this is the best in terms of reliability and has no downsides Kunai: Low health to start with but if you have full resistance Upgrades and backstab a heavy or soldier you basicly become a tank yourself YER: disguise takes a few seconds but can be usefull if you have a small Group of lonly robots Big earner: low health and no way to make up for it the speed boost is good but i wouldnt reccomend it Spy-cicle: as long as there are no pyros or hu long heater heavys you are free to go on a rampage and if you are surrounded by pyros you can get out of there.

[@maryannjanecek438]

Thanks! MvM for spy has been alot easier!

[@maxwellmegagamer8535]

One time I was on a community mvm game with modded cash to make so you have a full upgraded class at wave 1, I was medic, and there was this spy who I pocketed the entirety of wave 4-6, and by the end they did 181,646 damage.

[@super-zw3ep]

It doesn’t matter what type of zapper you equip…until engineer bots start showing up

[@skipythedog]

About the Scout..... Playing Binary Blackout as Scout, there was a Spy with the Kunai in our team, so it was hard to not take away his kills so he can keep healthy.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Go ahead and take his kills. He should be able to deal with it. The Spy can only have so much overheal, and avoiding damage is probably more important to staying alive than healing. And he's probably taking "your" health, too... in the form of money. It's not that big of a deal. Also, killing robots before they shoot your teammates is perhaps the best way of all to keep your teammates alive.

[@dovahkat9635]

That comment about medics going for the revive is too true. Got fragged by a crit giant soldier, here comes our quick fix med with Uber to insta res me. Ended up dying several times in a row. Couldn't even refuse the revive cause the Uber revive speed was too fast XD

[@agentdelta569]

i fully believe spy could solo wave 5 of benign infiltration if 2 things were different 1. bots didn't weirdly follow spy around like he is there leader as it makes getting stabs on the robots even with disguises really slow and awkward 2. the bots weren't player capped as it stops the spawn of bots after the cap fills up which means all the valid spawns are filled with support bots not the actually important bots

[@santiagocodina9751]

The video was very put together; you clearly know what you're talking about and the information was delivered neatly and efficiently! However, it appears to be I am having some issues with the practice map. Not with getting it to load or anything, but for the fact that the bots do not seem to spawn at all. The wave starts, and they just don't come down. If anyone knows any sort of "fix" to this issue, I'd appreciate it. Nonetheless, great content and keep at it!

[@konskycool8651]

The spycicle is a upgrade, you just need to have your snapper on recharge and because you can't switch back you'll now lose your weapon but gain fire red

[@gefgef7796]

I had to put the pop file in my custom folder for it to work, thanks!

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll add a note to the description in case other people's games are behaving like yours.

[@lykan337]

Which part of custom folder tho? I don't get the map

[@illesmihaly1934]

Extremely underrated youtuber

[@Lorenzo108Rulez]

These vids are great

[@bernardonegri5416]

11:04 The medic kritzing the heavy for the tank would be funny if it wasn't so close

[@abox7935]

As someone who mains scout in mvm because no one else ever wants to play him, and they expect me to always get all the money, I'm not sure how to feel about your hatred of scouts (although it is pretty funny). Nonetheless thanks for this guide! I usually try to be mindful of any spy on our team but now I have a better understanding of their playstyle and how to allow them to do their thing.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Oh, I don't hate Scouts. It's possibly my favorite class. But a lot of Scouts aren't actually helpful enough to their team to justify how annoying they are to The Spy and other classes. I think the "meta" Scout is probably the single worst thing about the Two Cities "meta." I have a whole other video for The Scout. Check it out. Drawing fire toward The Spy (or other teammates) because you're actually busy killing robots is one thing. In fact, you're probably still making The Spy's life easier overall by making there be fewer robots to shoot at him. Scouts getting The Spy killed instead of waiting 5 seconds for him to get out of the way because there were 5 credits on the ground or because they don't know how the Fan O' War works is the actual problem.

[@abox7935]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel Ah that's understandable. I'll check out your scout guide, thanks!

[@evanpastor7305]

i've been bombarded with "spy is useless in mvm" then hearing this, maybe its just kind of hard to play as the spy in mvm, not useless bc this guy proves lots of strengths that i never knew the spy could do besides sapping the robots

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

The Pyro used to have a similar problem. The Pyro *can* airblast, so players assumed that you *should* airblast a lot, but overuse of airblast is actually a weak strategy, so a lot of people concluded that The Pyro wasn't good for anything except Phlogging tanks. Now that they've given The Pyro an OP gas can that nukes everything, strategy doesn't matter much anymore. I sincerely hope they never try to buff The Spy by giving him an OP weapon or game mechanic like that.

[@ashleysony7943]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel I've heard suggestions of giving the Spy 'cash overheal' like the one Scout has. What would be your opinion on that? Big fan btw

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

@@ashleysony7943 The money overheal is extremely power and lets The Scout tank tons of damage in head-to-head combat. I think it would be OP for The Spy to have both disguises AND overheal. On most missions, anyway. On missions where there isn't a lot of dropped money, this ability isn't as powerful.

[@ashleysony7943]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel alright yeah that makes sense! Thank you! Could you explain how the medic's shield affects Spy, because you mentioned that in the video?

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

@@ashleysony7943 It's just that The Spy's whole thing is getting behind very dangerous robots that are hard for other classes to fight head-on. When The Medic has a magic shield that blocks all damage, then it means a W+M1 Heavy can accomplish the same thing as The Spy without all of the extra effort.

[@davey5867]

My favorite mvm spy loadout is letranger,dr and kunai. You said "spy's guns don't really matter" but they do. You can just use letranger to recharge your watch and also you can become more durable with kunai

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

You're absolutely right. At the time, I think I just meant that there weren't really "wrong" choices for guns that would badly handicap you like there are for watch and knife. When I recorded the video, the nearly 20-minute run time seemed incredibly long, and I was just trying to cover the basics without doing an in-depth review of every single loadout, so I felt comfortable hand-waving away secondary topics like guns and tank-killing. Cue the release of the Soldier video 1 year later, and it actually does cover almost every weapon, and is almost 30 minutes long. The Spy video would have covered guns if released today. I don't typically equip L'Etranger since The Big Earner already charges the Dead Ringer faster, but I did rely on it for the White Glove Service achievement for the ongoing Creators.tf Operation Digital Directive event. It is the only way to make Your Eternal Reward even remotely fun to play with, in my opinion.

[@davey5867]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel oh alr then, sorry for taking it wrongly

[@panchofenix9912]

There's a bug or exploit with the spy that you can take advantage of it. If you have a lot of backstabs accumulated alive. Go to spawn buy a upgrade to change weapon or change to a lodaut with the diamond back (not recommended but experiment for yourself) and you get crits taking advantage with other weapons like the letranger. I dunno if there's more exploits, I know that the executioner has a few ones.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Yes, Delfy or whoever has been posting some similar exploits lately for other classes. Technically a bug in the game, but most of the "go back to spawn and switch your weapon" exploits aren't very powerful relative to the level of effort required and don't have a major effect on game balance.

[@panchofenix9912]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel it's still useful to know it, if there's a tank and you got some backstabs with your knife, why not take advantage of the crits?

[@Mephedrone66]

Most of the times the sapper upgrade is pretty good to me, most of the times theres medics with the giant, I use the sapper and backstab them, its literally a free kill for the team.

[@tf2brony731]

I thought the meta was one heavy, one pyro, one medic, 1-2 engineers, one demo, and one scout, sniper, or spy. All three of these are fairly good supports. The scout obviously collects money and mad milks the robots, the sniper provides some AOE damage with explosive headshots and can pick of giant robots just as good as spy but from long range, and spy well you kinda showed what he does in this video.

[@sirscribbs5993]

The "Meta" changes from mission to mission and map to map, 2Cities standard is what he listed of 1 Scout, Soldier, Demo, Heavy, Engi and Medic. With minor exceptions for Bottbash which is 4-5 soldiers where they use either no engi and all cow manglers, or 1 engi for ammo

[@sirscribbs5993]

But honestly you can rock most team comps. As long as 50% of your players actually know how to play their current class.

[@antsjp6230]

I know that the spycicle feels a downgrade, but if you watched weezy’s video, it melts up and can’t be used IF your sapper is not used. If the sappers on cooldown it will just give you afterburn and fire resistance for free! Edit: I’d also say that you shouldn’t even pick spy as a whole if you can’t get armor penetration, speed, resistances atleast 2 ticks and health on kill.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

The Spycicle glitch is alluded to in the description. I find The Spy to be perfectly playable without resistances and Health on Kill.

[@deadstareffect]

I always find that max all res with health regeneration leads to me getting launched across a room by explosions rather than blown to pieces......you do become rather tanky

[@agentdelta569]

i feel like, even though on paper swing speed is the higher DPS option (when you have 3/4 upgrades for Armour pen), getting the 4th point in Armour pen, more often feels useful you're not always chaining backstabs, and sometimes you need less backstabs to kill the target because of the extra point in armour penetration just my feelings after many hours playing spy in mvm

[@vaultboya6253]

Ironically, pyros tend to be my main issue as spy in mvm. Not even the robot pyros, but the ones on my team. They are constantly close to the robots and myself and bots kill me while attacking the pyro lol

[@pliplopchopchop7744]

tysm this was really helpful

[@adrianmagana153]

can someone give me more comprehensive instructions on how to import the spy custom mission? I don't have a "population" folder, and importing it into my "custom" folder doesn't work either.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Your "population" folder should be under \...\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\scripts. If you don't have one, you can create it.

[@adrianmagana153]

Yeah I figured that out. This course is really well done btw

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

Thanks!

[@doremi4531]

Can we just give this guy subs?

[@erikarsov4365]

The spy-cicle is essentially a direct upgrade to stock if you wasted your sapper,which you probably did

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

I try to make my videos "exploit-agnostic", where I teach the basics of the class without relying on bugs to boost performance. However, this was my first and shortest tutorial. If it were 30+ minutes like my more recent ones, I probably would've had time to at least describe how the Spycicle interacts with the Sapper.

[@erikarsov4365]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel I understand.Have an amazing day sir.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

@@erikarsov4365And you as well!

[@TheAngrySaxophone]

F in the chat for this mans sub count and this vids view count

[@LiamEffect]

As spy main Have backstab from behind line Enemy machine just backstab one of there important ( Uber medic/buff banner soldier)

[@limerick9146]

Great vid brah

[@jindo5]

I swear to god that solo Spy map is actually impossible. By the time the giant Heavy is dead, there are two giant Soldiers within spitting distance of the bomb - which is right next to the point. I realize that I'm just bad, but holy shit, I have no idea how to deal with those two Soldiers.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

I think the best way to beat the Soldiers is to just land 5 stabs in a row without stopping or missing (keep the turn tight), but a viewer actually uploaded their own playthrough where things go a bit differently than on any of my playthroughs, and they even recover after I thought they'd already lost: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zqivg3d3r9OlfLM Not gonna lie though, it's insanely hard. I haven't done it in awhile, but think I only win like 1 out of every 10 times.

[@blacklight683]

Mvm meta to me is Scout and medic and engineer everyone know why and solder for help pyro for airblast and demo for damage so Scout,medic,engineer,pyro,demo,solder But you can switch solder with spy if you're team is good enough

[@scantyer]

the 5 safest classes in MVM are engie - heavy - medic - soldier - scout, with the 6h slot being a free slot for wathever you need. Pyro is good against tanks and crowd control if he's using the gass passer. Demo is good at crow control and tanks too (not as good as the pyro tho), sniper and spy are good against giants especially giants that are pocked by various medics

[@blacklight683]

@@scantyer i- I can't deny you're right But airblast is really useful some matches we all fighting a demo boss for 15 minutes we will never win if I didn't get max crit/explosive and got him in to airblast circle I just saw one do it but he saw me do it first is this a new Strategy that no one did it before me?

[@ihazsucks]

@@scantyer sniper with eh can do onpar with demo tho

[@AidGum]

Playing Spy in Mvm is fun, although I do think he should have some buffs to make him more effective in the early game, especially with his sapper.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

I actually agree that Spy could use a modest buff, but I'm afraid Valve would make him OP. That I can think of, Sniper, Soldier, Medic, and Pyro have all been purposefully buffed in the past. The Sniper and The Medic are both kind of OP in their own different ways, and The Pyro... well, we all know how controversial the Gas Passer is. The buff would have to be something more subtle, like for The Soldier.

[@AidGum]

​@@UnderscoreGamingChannel I was just thinking something as simple as making his upgrades slightly cheaper and changing his sapper so you can sap buildings without a recharge time and waiting for it to finish like with regular TF2. The robots can still have the recharge and wait time.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

@@AidGum Cheaper upgrades might be good. Spammable Sapper would be OP, though.

[@AidGum]

@@UnderscoreGamingChannel I meant only spammable sappers on engie bot buildings. The actual robots would still have that cooldown after putting the sapper on them.

[@UnderscoreGamingChannel]

@@AidGum Ah, understood. I was probably reading too fast.

[@lordtumaux971]

Dude you need more subs