Stabby Stabby’s 100 days as Spy and the future of TF2 espionage

If you’ve ever followed any of Team Fortress 2’s renowned Spy tutorial video editors (I’ll assume you’re here, since I count myself among them), you know of Stabby Stabby. And while we may share some of the spotlight on YouTube and in-game, the reality is that my skills as un espion pale in comparison to those of Stabby.

What proof could I offer to back such a statement?

I’ll let Stabby’s 2,400 hours playing as Spy speak for themselves. Watch and be amazed.

Assuming you’ve pulled your jaw off the floor, I suppose we can resume our chat. Stabby’s skills are certainly nothing to scoff at, and although I generally look down on montage videos, he’s proven his full spectrum of skills in many of his other videos. In this particular oeuvre, he shows off some of the game’s most impressive trickstabs, something I’ve never really mastered myself.

Why is that? In large part, I simply don’t have nearly the same amount of practice in the game that Stabby does, and while I may have played close to the same number of total hours, only a certain percentage of them were played as Spy. It’s shameful, I know. Secondly, every time I’ve ever tried to load tr_walkway, it either crashed TF2 or the map loaded with all kinds of weird errors. In essence, Artemis had decided my will to practice was insufficient to grow in her arts.

Excuses aside, I’ve always been a bit stubborn in learning because I personally rarely fall for such tactics. I never try to melee Spies for bravado, nor do I follow them closely around corners or up inclines. These mistakes in general are the direct faults of players ignorant of a Spy’s trickiest maneuvers, and at some level I have always expected my enemies to wise up to such tactics, though it seems they haven’t.

Regardless of the graduated learning of players everywhere, playing Spy remains a glorious pursuit to those who would wield Artemis’ righteous fury. For every terrible death at the hands of a critical wrench or a flamethrower pixel, the chance at a perfect stab is dangled in front of the Spy time and time again. I’ve done my best to illuminate methods for attaining this blood-stained fruit through my own videos, but alas, my time and skill (or lack thereof on both parts) make further exploration of these matters difficult. I know Stabby has faced similar issues.

To that end, I am currently working with him to develop a bit of a Spy guide. No, not a video… a written guide for those players not entirely lazy enough to still move their eyeballs from left to right repeatedly. While we’re only in the earliest stages of planning, it’s a bit of a grand thought to be composing a bit of a killer’s code for Team Fortress 2 players who wish to wear their enemies’ faces before removing their enemies’ spines.

What do you think of this, and where do you see the future of TF2 espionage, if there is one?