![O-12 Infinity Fast Response! Firebat Attack Wing Unboxing & Review [7 Days Early Access]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2026/01/unboxing-corvus-belli-infinity-firebat-attack-wing-coverimage-225-127.jpg)
Geek and Sundry Bring Magic to Life in New Show Spellslingers!
September 24, 2013 by dracs
Geek and Sundry have launched a new show this week all about my favourite card game, Magic the Gathering. Whether you are new to the game or an old hand be sure to check out Spellslingers.
Spellslingers is a TableTop-style show entirely focused on Magic the Gathering. Each episode sees host Sean Plott (aka Day[9]) taking on one of his friends in the classic card game.
As they progress through the duel the various rules and tactics are discussed and explained, while visuals and cut-aways make it easy to understand what's going on, whether or not you are previously familiar with the game.
At the beginning of each episode the players have their decks randomly selected for them by spinning a wheel, making the games fair and stopping the show from getting repetitive as we see new combos and tactics constantly being brought to bare.
In this first episode Sean is given an Orzhov black / white Extort deck to go up against the might of the Simic's blue / green, controlled by E-Sports commentator Rob Simpson.
Who will emerge triumphant? Watch Spellslingers and find out.
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
I may be in the minority here (in fact I fully expect to be, having already been flamed for this type of comment on Youtube even though I was quite polite) but I find this kind of show pointless if no one is going to inform us (even succintly) of the background of the game : we are confronted to names and creatures alien to the layman, some cards that seem to reflect events rather than spells, and these guys are manipulating concepts largely ignored by non-MTG-players…
I mean, I know all this, I played it… but most people (even MTG players) don’t know the Ravnica background and haven’t read the books, and don’t know (care ?) what Simic and Orzhov are. In the show, they made great effort to explain the basic game rules in a simple way for the layman, they could have also told us the fluff, ans WHY anyone would play this in the first place instead of poker.
It’s not just about maths… or is it ?
I quit the game because that’s what it became, Watching this show, and anticipating it, I expected to be reminded of good times and exciting adventures of mages and battles… In spite of the ooh ans aahs and special effects and sleek editing, and the very american spunky “pal” tone, I was only reminded of how MTG is accountancy and statistics instead of spell-slinging.
This was just another tournament/learn-to-play game filmed, with banter added. There’s already loads of that on the WOtC channels and elsewhere on the web.
What DID I get from watching that show ? Nothing, save a finer appreciation for shows gaming shows done right : Wil Wheaton can tell whole stories about simple meeples on Tabletop… his talent is apparently greater for its rarity !
I don’t know Romain i enjoyed the show, i think the bigger drive was two friends sitting down for a game, now i kind of get what you mean by wanting more fluff behind the game. If i could see the game as a clash between two mighty mages meeting on the battle fields of the MTG world yea it would add to it, but we each play our game’s and get different things out of them.
so for some it will be that hardcore meta of number crunching, for me its sitting down and having a laugh with the starter decks with friends. And it is one of those games I keep coming back to when I’ve doped off the radar for a good while just to see how things have changed and get that ole nostalgia kick 🙂
To each his own, I guess…
I’m a roleplayer at heart, and want to find narrative in everything I play, and I’m rarely interested in what amounts to simply optimal resolution of card effects taking deck statistics and “luck” into account.
I could have mentioned old chestnuts…
The overall price of maintaining a competitive MTG collection (bloody license to print money, that game is…) or the ruthlessness of a lot of games you play outside of your circle of close friends (RPGs and boardgames never are that way)… but even though these things are terrible issues with the fundamentals of the game, to me, it’s not about that.
The WOtC people make tremendous efforts to design and write up (mostly) excellent background fluff for every single expansion. Every block can be a D&D universe in and of itself, with its own specifics, characters and places, and carried by hugely talented artists… I think you’re simply missing half the game if you don’t even mention that !
@elromanozo So do you fancy working with me on BoW’s coverage of MTG? Might be refreshing to get a more narrative view rather than the typical ‘win at all costs’ view.
Not for all the tea in China… unless you want someone despising the core fundamentals of the game he covers.
lol fair enough! 😉
Well Romain I did bring back some tea from China if that would help.
Oh and if anyone is interested in the background than I should point out that Wizards of the Coast have a lot of comic issues detailing the various planeswalkers which you can view for free on their website. They’re actually worth a read and the artwork is generally of a pretty high standard.
Yes, one of the greates things about that game is they have enlisted the greatest fantasy artists in the world… starting with Wayne Reynolds and Aleksi Briclot ! Almost all the fluff WOtC produces for MTG is great, and some of it is amazing (like Ravnica, and what has become of Dominaria over the years).
Actually that’s a very valid point. I was enjoying but was wondering what was missing, and by jove I think its the background/narrative too.
In saying that as an EP1 it was very very well done, and It’s not easy (read impossible) to fit everything in a single episode.
Perhaps there will be more of the narrative in the future.
I recently just got into playing MTG after my son had been getting on me to start playing. I recently bought a deck and by god I didn’t realise how many different decks you can get. I must admit I found the video very good at teaching an old dog like me new tricks.
I thought that their appraoch to showing you the game was first class, I’ve seen some of the others made on youtube and they are total pants. What I take from it is 2 mates enjoying a game at the same time showing a noob like me how to play.
I only ever play games for pure fun and never in a competative way at the same time as a social event with my family or mates. This goes for all my many many years of wargaming and now into card games.
@warzan I thought it was just me who made up little back stories for my troops on the tabletop or MTG cards in my hand…lol. A narrative is a good thing in a game.
I can understand where your coming from with this idea of a narrative for all your cards but the part i dont get romain is your point of view that magic is accountancy and statistics. Frok my point of view, all card games, wargames and RPGs are all the same principles of accoutancy and statistics. Take role playing for example. Many ways of playing one and sitting around a table to develop a narrative is one large part, however in its basic form, RPGs are simply statisitcs and dice rollin to achieve a determined “target number”. And this is what magic does as well. If you actively want to find a cool way to make the game feel more personal through little stories and backgrounds, then thats great but the game isnt tailored for it. At its core magic is a card game to enjoy for its mechanics, variery types of play and the social aspects of enjoyment that come with it. Spellslingers wasnt what i was expecting. I was hoping for something that wasnt and online “celebrity” facing off against a host. But that seems to be the winning method of the inet at present.
About RPGs, I strongly disagree… you’re confusing role-playing games and the combat system of SOME role-playing games. Namely D&D and D&D-like. I suggest you play narrative games, or Nobilis, or Dresden Files, or WoD, or Call of Cthulhu… any game where action/conflict resolution is not the main purpose.
I’ve had sessions of almost every RPG under the sun, and the most satisfying were those where fate did not depend on a dice roll, but on a personal choice of a player. The question you’ve got to ask yourself in an RPG is “how my character would react” and “how can I make this scene awesome”. We’re far from choosing optimal moves !
I agree with you on some boardgames, but again it’s a very broad generalization… The same is also true about most wargames you play in tournaments, but you don’t get “mana death” or dearth of a certain card in wargames : all your units are on the table already, so the choices you can make are largely increased from the get-go.
Talking about just one game (MTG) your only choice is “what card in my hand do I play to get my opponent down”, in other words “what is the optimal move”. For most players and in most games of MTG, you simply don’t have the choice of doing a move you fancy instead of a move that’s optimal… unless rare circumstances dictate otherwise, that is to say unless your opponent is almost dead and can’t come back into the game (then it is possible to end it in an more/less cruel way, like shown in this episode of Spellslingers).
I have no problem with you enjoying the mechanics of MTG, but I simply don’t. To me, for example, the LIFO system is simply and artificial mathematical contraption, an abstract fiction to make all actions in game resolve smoothly on a purely mathematical level. It’s well done, but it’s silly at best, like THAC0 used to be in AD&D (yes, I’m that old).
Why is LIFO silly ? LIFO means “last in first out”. It means when you have a “cure” spell that’s cast after a wound is dealt, the cure spell “prevents” the wound instead of curing it.. This is counter-intuitive at best.
The same thing goes for the (IMHO pointless) distinctions between turn phases, the “upkeep”, the whole “loss of life is not the same as wound, is not the same as blah, blah, blah…”
These rules only need to be that clear because it’s a tournament game, and a game which enables and encourages what we still call, us RPGers, Rules Lawyers and optimisers of the worst kind. I spit on the ground when saying their name.
I was there playing MTG before even the third edition, before this was all sooooo about rules and mechanics, before the rules booklet defined all those weird mathematical concepts. Let me tell you, I had more fun then.
But I’m not stopping you… by all means, enjoy what I don’t. It takes all kinds…
Personally I prefer those narrative RPG’s. I love WoD and Dresden Files as I actually find myself more immersed in those style of games, rather than when you are moving miniatures around and rolling dice for various attacks. Don’t get me wrong, I love those too, I just happen to prefer the more narrative focus.
I totally agree about the mechanics of Magic. It is not even remotely close to being the best example of the genre (CCGs). Magic was the first of its kind, and it deserves an enormous amount of credit for the innovation that went into its creation, but the mechanical underpinnings of the game (and worse yet, the business model) are far too visible in the gameplay. Garfield himself went on to design much better collectible card games whose statistical underpinnings were better obfuscated, games that could be played enjoyably (and successfully) with a greater emphasis on theme rather than metagame (NetRunner, the Vampire game, Jihad I think it was called).
There’s no question that Magic is the big dog in the industry still, and that the whole genre of these games might not exist without it. But there have been many strides made since then in improving the overall experience of playing these kinds of games. It is entirely possible to create a mechanically sound game that still feels like a narrative experience. Magic has never cracked that code, and I think these videos are more likely to highlight that flaw than they are to convert new players because watching Magic is nowhere near as fun as playing it, unlike the D&D podcasts or the better episodes of Tabletop.
I found it surprisingly enjoyable, but I did not really miss the story part of it anyways. Still that is a valid criticism.
As enjoyable such videos might be to watch, the rip off…ö, ah collectible nature of such games will still prevent me from playing. Now such a Video for some of the LCGs from FFG would be something, Warhammer Invasion for example.
I played the original D&D as a teenager (and yes I to am that old) why before AD&D and to be honest that is what got me into gaming with miniatures or not. Here I am now middle aged and all I will say is opinions are like backsides everyone has one…lol.
For me I choose if I like or dislike something but I wouldn’t force my opinion on anyone else unless that said person had asked me to do so. What people have to remember that this is only a game and its not real..lol..
Like I said before I liked the idea of the video as I do like all that Beasts of War do and the reason for this is that I find them,
1) Entertaining
2) Engaging
3) I find that I might learn something
So to conclude always have an open mind and never flame someone just because you don’t like something.
I am looking forward to giving this a watch, having just started MTG i am enjoying the discovery of it all. I have enjoyed watching some of the tournaments but a lot of it goes right over my head. I have played other competitive TCG stuff before and enjoyed it. I am chuffed to have something that will help me on my learning journey as things like this can help these sort of things become more approachable (just as BoW probably was for a lot of newer 40k players) I look forward to seeing what BoW do on that and would love a chance to do what I can to help 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9J1x35QPZg&feature=em-uploademail
Actually, I enjoyed this video much more than the actual game… lol
Personaly, i dont like mages, dragons, knights, hobbits or busty chicks wielding giant swords. I dont like fantasy stuff 90% of the time and i dont give a bladder about fluff and narative campaign. When i play a game, im not looking for a war simulator, that tell a cute story of the good guyz fighting the bad guyz. I want some sort of strategie/tactics challenge that make my brain heat up and catch fire.
I havent played paper MTG in ages, but the Duel of the plane walkers on steam has been a real blast for me the last 3 years. Even with all the bugs and the silly dragons fighting dumb treeman style of stuff. It provide a mostly fair competitive environment with enough room to be creative, sneaky and bluffy .
Id rather get beaten ruthlessly in a great match than having a friend let me win a fairie tale narative thingy.
“a friend let me win” ? “a cute story of the good guyz fighting the bad guyz” ?
Oh dear… I think you’re confusing “narrative” and “winnie the pooh”. 😉
As I said, to each his own… but the narrative/fluff is obviously a very important part of MTG as a game (otherwise it wouldn’t be there, there would be no images on the cards and it’d just be numbers). I think it’s something many people enjoy ; it’s a mistake to leave it out entirely from a show which is supposed to introduce people to said game.
I wasn’t expecting a novel from Day[9], here, but a few features would have been nice.
I really enjoyed it as well. Geek and Sundry are starting to curate some great content. I don’t play MTG at all, but I really appreciated and understood what was going on while being entertained. Thanks for the post. I hope to see more.
I really enjoyed this but I’m also really new to Magic (started a month or so ago) so I’m pretty green.
Happily watch more, though 🙂
I am a little confused with the direction they are taking. Tabletop seemed aimed at showcasing mechanics and gameplay in a way someone who had never seen it could become interested and want to play along. I know Magic is pretty popular and a lot of people wouldn’t land on this if they had no similar interests but this is halfway between a batrep and intro video. A little to fast to refer a new friend to, still entertaining for a casual vet. Well done though and looking forward to seeing where they go with it. And yes, I have played before, from Mirage all the way trough the Alara block.
Quite the opposite. I understood more or less what was going on in the game, and I never played MTG in my life. It certainly doesn’t make the “mistake” of dumbing down the game to the point that you’re sorta insulting people who haven’t played it by going into “baby-talk-mode”. Props for that.
On the other hand, I felt the humour and banter felt very staged, scripted and artificial. It didn’t feel like “real” banter, at least not to me.
In their defense, I don’t think it was scripted… just very… er… American, if that makes sense. Judging by the “bloopers” video, it’s not scripted, even if they look like they’re trying a bit hard (or they’re slightly drunk, I don’t know) and everything is, to them, “awesome” and “incredible”, and they all go “oooh this is great” or “aaaah, that is crap”…
I know people from the United States (and elsewhere) that tend to be a bit exuberant like that. It can be uncomfortable when someone is trying to be THAT chummy.
Possibly. I doubt that actually had a fully typed out script (who’d do that for a YouTube video?)
But I don’t think it was only them being Americans. It felt “forced”, perhaps that is the better word. It was American banter as they’d think the audience would expect American banter to be. It didn’t feel (to me, though I may simply getting it wrong) like their natural self.
Either way, that is certainly something that will very likely improve as episodes go on and they got more comfortable with the format.
Ugh… yes, you’re quite possibly right.
Still, I was very nervous for the first episodes of my tutorials, and some of them required a little “force” to get excited about them (of course, what do you expect ? Nothing major, but sometimes, you’re just not in that mood… in which case I tell myself I could be working down a mineshaft instead and soldier on anyway). I won’t throw the first stone here for that sort of “mistake”, especially since Day9 is a professional… but yeah.