You’re looking for a server with between eight to twenty-four people – any less, you won’t be able to play Spy efficiently, any more and it’ll just be spam. Now you want to see what maps are on offer. Some maps like pl_badwater and cp_gravelpit are classic Spy maps, plenty of space and heights, whereas maps like cp_dustbowl are filled with tunnels and a lack of height making chokepoints for spam more prevalent. Ultimately it is your ability as Spy that determines how you play, but poor maps can increase frustration when you can’t flank or jump on the enemy. For me personally, Dustbowl epitomises rubbish level design.

I will explain why to put “nocrit” into the tags. As you may or may not be aware, depending on how new to TF2 you are, the game has critical hits that do three times the damage. These occur randomly, but suspiciously melee critical hits seem to be around 90-100% against Spies. Whilst I have no direct evidence to support my claim, I go by the empirical experience of my time as Spy, which I estimate to be around 500-600 hours. My stats have been reset on occasion so there’s no way for me to know for certain. Having no crits evens the playing field a bit and reduces the chances when you’ll instantly die from a stray rocket meant for someone else.

Friendly Disguises - Use Them

Now that you’re in a suitable server, it’s time to play Spy! Adopt a friendly disguise that doesn’t slow you down and find your team, once you get to the front line it’s time to remember the fishing analogy I mentioned in a previous tutorial. Cloak and make your way behind the enemy. If you’re using the default watch, pick up ammo as you go and find somewhere safe to decloak with an enemy disguise. If you’re using the Cloak and Dagger, find crates or places to stand on so you can observe the enemy unnoticed. Thirdly, if you’re using the Dead Ringer, you’ll have to feign death to use the cloak and quickly find a location to decloak.

Observe the enemy and see if you can find any targets. Look for players who aren’t checking behind them, an Engineer busy constructing, a Medic behind the patient, anything worth going for. Don’t charge in blindly. One of the skills I’ve picked up during my time as Spy is patience. Only go for a target if you are certain you have the upperhand or sense an opportunity.

When moving around, always have the revolver equipped and if you are found, use your revolver whilst retreating or turn invidible and head back to your own team. Don’t ever get into a melee fight as the Spy’s balisong does the same damage as the Axtinguisher when the target isn’t on fire. Most players who are in close quarters combat with a Spy will immediately equip the melee weapon and chase you, so keep running and use the revolver. At point blank range the default revolver will kill most classes in three or four shots.

If you want to increase your odds of survival, as soon as you stab one enemy, turn invisible and escape. It will take one or two seconds for the other players to react to the backstab scream in which time you should be fully cloaked.

The Spy is equipped with a sapper, but don’t think that the Spy is the counter to the Engineer. A competent Engineer will beat the Spy most of the time. I very rarely play Engineer, but have only been killed by a Spy once and that was because I was cocky and tried to put a teleport exit too far forward. When facing Engineers as Spy, if there’s more than one Engineer or sentry gun in proximity, don’t even bother. A lot of Spies I’ve seen will just run up, sap the buildings, die then the Engineer removes the sappers getting free points. Here’s a simple rule to keep in mind. Only engage the Engineer if you are confident you can kill him and destroy his buildings. I will go into dealing with Engineers in another tutorial, this one is a general overview of playing on a public server.

Finally, I’ll make a list of the order of people you should target in priority.

Sniper
Medic
Heavy
Spy
Engineer
Scout
Demoman
Soldier
Pyro

The Spy has an edge over the Sniper assuming skill levels are equal, Medics are usually too busy healing and removing the ability to heal greatly impacts the enemy. Heavies have the highest damage per second of all classes at close range (500), so when they are spun-up, make great targets. As you play Spy you will be able to spot enemy Spies very quickly and it is best to kill them quickly before they assassinate important classes on your team. If you can deal with an Engineer and his buildings, it will be a great help to your team. Scouts are rather easy to deal with, but can be a pain if they jump around all over the place. Three revolver shots or a headshot and one shot from the Ambassador will deal with them. Demomen and Soldiers are the hardest classes to kill as Spy because they have high health and their weapons have high splash damage meaning they are unavoidable at close range. Finally Pyros are the counter to Spy so avoid them. If you are being chased, backpedal and fire the revolver. Most Pyros will just run at you flaming, but four shots from the revolver or a headshot and two shots from the Ambassador will put them down.

I’ve been writing this on the go, trying to help players with Spy, so there will always be more I could write about. To summarise, here are some key points:

1) Be patient and look for opportunities.
2) Don’t get into melee fights.
3) Remember the fishing analogy – cloak behind, disguise and head back to your team getting backstabs.
4) Use friendly disguises when with your team – I can’t stress this enough!

I’ve finally got a collection of suitable footage I will condense into a video. It won’t be a frag video, but a video showing how I play and hopefully there will be something you can learn from it.

Thank you for reading!

This watch offers the potential for a new style of gameplay for the Spy. As you cannot go invisible at will, you will have to make better use of disguises. A brief note about the fake corpse, if you use a friendly disguise, it drops a corpse of that class. If your disguise is that of an enemy, it drops a Spy corpse.

It is best to think of the Dead Ringer as a second chance, excellent for making a getaway after stabbing someone. Using the Dead Ringer appropriately, you can fool the enemy into thinking you’re dead and relocate yourself. A common way to get into enemy territory is to adopt a friendly disguise, take some real damage, then use the Dead Ringer to make your way past their lines and equip an enemy disguise. One of the main benefits is a Spy can stab one enemy in a group, equip the Dead Ringer and escape unharmed. 90% damage reduction means a critical rocket to the face will do approximately 20 damage!

Hopefully now you should understand the basics of how this watch works and now I’ll describe where most Spies go wrong, so you don’t make the same mistakes. With 90% damage reduction, the Dead Ringer has become quite popular as a brute force method, so rather than try to get past the enemy undetected, a novice Spy will simply run at the enemy, watch in hand, so they apparently die from a single needle and appear somewhere nearby after the Dead Ringer zap alarm goes off. Unfortunately the corpse that gets spawned by the Dead Ringer doesn’t utilise the momentum or other physical properties of the player that used it, so the corpse itself is usually a massive giveaway.

In addition, the Spy cannot attack with the Dead Ringer out, so you might end up seeing an enemy not fighting back who suddenly dies from one shot. To experienced players, the Dead Ringer doesn’t fool and it becomes more of an annoyance. In my opinion, it’s simply better not to be seen in the first place rather than try to pretend you’re dead.

To make your death look more convincing, you’ll have to take real damage first, for example if against a Scout, let him hit you once with the Scattergun. You won’t die at full health, then
activate the Dead Ringer so the next shot triggers the watch. Ensure that you wait for one second of cloak to be used before you apply a new disguise otherwise the smoke trail will follow you.

Another unique ability the Dead Ringer has is it can extinguish fire. If you’re on fire and use the watch, a flaming corpse will be spawned, but you will be put out, allowing for a clean getaway. In my opinion, only use this watch for tunnel maps or Payload maps when you’re on the cart and movement is limited. The Dead Ringer won’t fool experienced players, especially enemy Spies who know how it works. I’m making the assumption you’ll be playing against skilled opponents, I strongly recommend this as it will force you to improve your skills. The average ‘pubber’ will easily be fooled by the Dead Ringer, but if you’re playing against an easy enemy, you’re not challenging yourself and won’t improve.

The majority of other Spies who play at a high level have moved to Dead Ringer because it allows you to pull off stupidly high kill to death ratios (I think my record is something like 20:0), but completely loses all stealth elements, turning the Spy into a Sniper (if the Ambassador is used) and they stick with public servers against easy opponents. If you really want to improve your skills, look for a clan server or groups that play in leagues. You will really have to think about how you play, but I guarantee you will improve.

Having a watch that allows you to stay invisible forever standing still, but less mobility means this watch is for locking down an area. In my previous tutorial, I described how the default watch has the best mobility. You kill an enemy, cloak and vacate the area. With the Cloak and Dagger, you kill the enemy, cloak and find somewhere nearby to hide until any persuers get bored.

The best use for this watch is to set up shop in a particular area free from chaos and kill any enemies that go through your zone. If I was using the Cloak and Dagger, I would choose a suitable location that’s between the enemy spawn and the objective as they’ll usually be running in a straight line waiting to get to the frontline.

Two of the most important features on maps for Spies are open space and height. For some magical reason, players never seem to look up. The game takes place in a 3D world, but most of the time people play as if the game is a 2D plane. The general consensus is a Spy with height has the advantage. Leapstabs and stairstabs are two backstab methods that have an extremely high success rate (in personal experience) and they completely rely upon having a height advantage.

As I have a penchant for analogies, imagine a Cloak and Dagger Spy as an eagle sitting in its nest. Find a rock, shelf, ledge, whatever – something you can perch on and observe the surroundings whilst invisible. When the time is right, you uncloak, jump down and kill the target. Immediately cloak and return to your spot.

As a new Spy, you might have more luck setting up camp on a path less travelled by the enemy. For example, if you’re defending C on Gravelpit, most of the blue team will come through A and a handful through B. Find a suitable spot where you can observe and kill the enemy. The Cloak and Dagger trades mobility for a bit more security. I mentioned previously how the default watch is risky due to the potential to run out of cloak if you mis-plan your route or someone else takes the ammo boxes. With this watch, you can simply stand still and let it charge while you stay invisible.

Now that I have pointed out the playstyle for the Cloak and Dagger I will describe some large issues I see with inexperienced Spies. The watch allows the Spy to stay invisible forever, unfortunately the vast majority of Spies I have witnessed with this watch don’t do anything, turning my eagle analogy into a sloth. I would strongly encourage new Spies to use the default watch as it will force you to keep moving and be useful to your team. There will be many times when you might think to yourself “hmmm, there’s a risk if I uncloak now I’ll die”. Playing Spy is a risk as it’s such an underpowered class if you play it like the others, so you have to know what you’re doing. Take risks, it’s how you learn. There have been many occasions when I’ve taken risks and been rewarded with multiple kills. There are other times when I’ve died instantly.

If you choose this playstyle, please be credit to team and not a gargoyle like so many I have seen.

On a lot of the levels in TF2 you can travel from one end to the other cloaked due to ammo boxes. Small gives you 25% charge, medium 50% and large 100%. Knowing where ammo boxes are located is one of the skills you will need to develop as a Spy. On all the default maps I know where the ammo boxes are, so I can plan my routes accordingly.

Be warned that this watch is also the most luck-based watch. If someone picks up the ammo box you’re heading for or you run out of charge, you’re placed at a sudden disadvantage therefore I would say the default watch is probably the hardest for new players, but that’s not a bad thing. By having that uncertainty it forces you to learn the locations of ammo boxes and when to use the cloak.

Moving on to cloak usage, when you’re running around, equip a friendly disguise and run with your team. If you stumble upon the enemy, retreat immediately and let your teammates deal with the issue. They will be playing stronger classes and assuming both teams are of equal skill, they will keep each other occupied. This is the opportunity for you to cloak, change to an enemy disguise and flank. If the enemy is busy firing at your teammates and you flank them, you will be provided with ample backstabbing.

As a general rule, only use the cloak when you’re going into unknown or enemy territory.

Knowing when to use invisiblity is the key, because it takes 2.5 seconds to uncloak and fire a weapon. Ideally you need to visual the map in your head and split it into three sections, for the sake of simplicity I’ll use green, yellow and red. Green zones are the areas your team controls completely, yellow zones are where it’s contested and red zones are where the enemy definitely is.

You want to use invisibility in yellow zones, because this is where the combat is and the two sides engage in combat. Red zones are more dangerous as you have no help on your team, but the enemy is more relaxed so disguises are more likely to fool at a glance. As a quick note here, disguises are just to make the enemy think you’re another player doing something, so a bit of acting helps. Unfortunately because there isn’t friendly fire by default, spychecking costs nothing. If you think someone’s on to you, cloak and relocate.

You can see what the zones would be like for a blue spy. The spawn is safe, the first area is contested while the rest of the map is enemy territory.

Once the first point has been captured, the rooftop, back area and thin section of track become the contested area, so you’d use invisibility here.

After the third section has been captured, the contested zone moves to the cart and the corner, while the red is pushed back to the silo area.

There aren’t any hard and fast rules, but if you’re unsure, use the invisiblity. The Cloak & Dagger and Dead Ringer have made this a lot easier as invisiblity is less of a commodity than the default watch. The default watch is certainly the most mobile, but you have to memorise all the ammo locations and hope they’ve not been taken.

The pictures work in reverse for a red Spy. Red areas are the easiest to get kills because people assume the areas are safe. For the record, I got my personal best as a red Spy when the map was like the third picture, I was using Ambassador and the default watch for maximum mobility.

Once you can visualise the zones in your head, you’ll know when to use invisibility.

Health: 125
Speed: 100%
Primary Weapon: Revolver
Secondary Weapon: Electro Sapper
Melee: Balisong
Additional: Watch, Disguise Kit

Right off the bat you can see that the Spy is the weakest class in a straight comparison to the other classes. This is one of the first things you need to realise, that the Spy is rubbish if you try to play it like a Soldier or a typical combat class. The best analogy I can give for the Spy is to call it a ‘glass cannon’. A backstab is the most powerful attack in TF2, killing any target regardless of overheal, but having such low health and only a revolver makes a Spy easy to kill.

To be successful with the Spy, you need to be able to get in, stab the target and get out – alive. I have another analogy and this is the best way I can describe how a Spy works in a game. Imagine the act of fishing, not in too much detail though. The basic concept is that you cast out the line, then reel it in hoping the fish will bite. Transferring this idea to TF2, you start with your team, use invisibility to get behind the enemy, remove invisibility, apply a disguise and work your way back towards your team taking out any targets of opportunity. When in doubt, think of fishing!

Time to discuss the tools of the trade. Some data gathered from TF2 Wiki

Revolver

Base damage: 40
Critical: 120

Ambassador

Base damage: 34
Critical: 102
Note: Only deals critical damage on a headshot and never gets random criticals.

Electro Sapper

Disables and damages an enemy engineer’s buildings. This item doesn’t have ammunition or a reload time, so it can be used on multiple buildings as quickly as you can click.

Time taken to destroy a structure with no additional damage
Level one: 6 seconds
Level two: 7 seconds
Level three: 9 seconds

Disguise Kit

Allows the Spy to disguise as any class from either team. Disguised attributes like health and player name are mostly random.

Invisibility Watch

Cloak: 10 seconds
Recharge: 30 seconds
Note: Ammunition and dropped weapons restores charge.

Cloak and Dagger

Cloak: Infinite (7 seconds when running)
Recharge: 15 seconds

Note: The drain is motion-based, so staying still gives you infinite charge whereas falling will drain it in around one second. Cannot replenish with ammunition.

Dead Ringer

Cloak: 6 seconds, 90% damage reduction
Recharge: 15 seconds

Note: This watch activates when you take damage and spawns a fake corpse unrealistically so it doesn’t fool experienced players. The Dead Ringer doesn’t shimmer when you take damage or collide with an enemy.

Using the Disguise Kit

As a general rule, you should never be seen as a Spy. Always be disguised, alternating between the appropriate side and classes according to the situation. When you’re in safe territory or with your team, disguise as a friendly class with full running speed (Pyro, Engineer, Medic or Sniper). Don’t ever disguise as Scout because you run really slowly in comparison and the animation is different meaning it won’t fool the opposition.

Once you’re in enemy territory, you want to adopt an enemy disguise that’s suitable. If you’re right at the back of a map, disguise as Sniper. If you’re running around the frontlines, try Pyro. Keep mixing up disguises and try to find a disguise of a player who isn’t nearby. An enemy player seeing a copy running towards him will immediately know you’re a Spy. It’s best not to disguise as slow classes because it reduces your mobility, the only time I’d use a Heavy disguise is to fool an enemy Medic into wasting an ubercharge on me.

Hopefully this is enough for a fundamental basic lesson, I will go into the items, playstyles and other tactics in future tutorials. Remember the fishing analogy and always use friendly disguises in the correct places!

This is a more casual event compared to the typical six-versus-six competitive games and the rules only allow division six players in order to appeal to a wider audience rather than those who would consider themselves ‘hardcore’ gamers. As further incentive, there will be in-game medals awarded to teams that progress through the tournament.

pH will most likely be entering one or two teams for this event. For more information, head over to our forum or speak to our members.

pH consists of several competitive gamers who enjoy playing TF2 at that level and are always looking for new challenges along with new members.