Spy: The Secret Rules/Techniques

Train reflex, disguise better, and survive

Beginning

Welcome, to SpitSpat's guide on the secrets to mastering spy!

In this tutorial, I'm going to be demonstrating basic techniques and strategies that will guarentee to make you an expert spy. I'm going to go over these tips in three different sections: Reflex, Disguising, and Survivability. With these three elements mastered, you'll end up being able to sabotage anything that lies in your way.

Some basic rules should be gone over first however: Be aware that even though people may say spy requires a ton of skill (which is somewhat true), it only takes a few days to get the hang of it. After that, you MUST keep practicing every day. One or two days away from spy class CAN and WILL diminish all of your "skill". When you come back to spy, you will NOT be good at it.
Also, there is no "best" loadout for spy. It's completely based on preference. Some people like the YER (your eternal reward), while I like the spy-cicle. It doesn't matter. Just don't make mistakes on the battlefield, and you will begin to notice, you can win the round with ANY weapon.
With that out of the way, back to the three secrets:

Reflex

Reflex

Thats just it. Reflex. You must train yourself to click the mouse as SOON as the knife is raised upward for the backstab. It's a necessity, and will definitely help when trying to backstab tricky classes like the scout (I will post a class analysis guide very soon...). At first, this will obviously be very hard to do, so just practice it by backstabbing the "easy" classes, like heavy, soldier, sniper, etc. Try strafing before the backstab, or jumping behind the enemy's back, and then get better at your reflex. Of course, you WILL fail occasionally and be detected, but we'll get over to that in survivability. Don't worry, once you master this skill, you will be able to backstab people even BEFORE the knife is raised on your screen.

Disguising

Disguising

This skill is quite tricky, but can be learned overnight. It's very hard to learn this skill by practice, but following these simple rules will help.
1.) Never, EVER, make eye contact. It will automatically be the death of you. Just mind your own business. In fact, its better to not look anywhere NEAR the enemy team. Looking at the ground, or the opposite direction is much better. People will always fall for that.
2.) Pick a disguise that makes sense. For example, why would you disguise as a heavy on a sniper battlement? Or an engineer running on the front lines? No one will fall for stupid disguises. If you're trailing a medic/heavy duo, try being a demoman or pyro. Someone that you would normally see on the battlefield.
3.) Keep your back to the enemy. This may be nerve-wrecking at times, and somewhat scary, but it nearly always works. The enemy will believe you are one of them. Start at the enemy spawn point, and go in the direction the enemy goes; no looking back.
4.) BACKPEDAL. Always, ALWAYS backpedal while disguised as enemy. This has a 90% percent chance of working, allowing the enemy to believe you are running from the battle. This is probably the best tactic to use when getting behind enemy lines.

Survivability

Survivability

No doubt the very most IMPORTANT skill any spy must master, in order to win the game. Say you failstabbed a sniper. Oh no! You've been jarated! What do you do? Since you can't cloak, take out your revolver, and fight to the death. You will win this duel, as long as you keep your fair distance from the sniper. Say you've been detected by a heavy. Cloak and hide. Preferably on top of a barrel, by crouch-jumping. You MUST learn to fade away and hide when you've been detected, and, after a few moments, return to battle. I really wish I could directly teach you how to hide and fade from the enemy, but in reality, this skill is completely instinctive. When you're detected, you need to learn to do what you think is right. This will take a few tries, but hiding is relatively easy to do. There is no doubt, you NEED to know how to survive if you want to get your 30:5 kd or whatever you're striving for.

You're done!

Thats it. No really, that's the secrets to playing the spy. Seriously, we're done. Go out and practice; make me proud, and watch yourself improve! Good luck!
-Spit Spat

[JoeJack]

For some reason the scout class keeps finding me, but it works great

[Skylord_Wolfface]

I spent so long trying to get the vanish thing 'cause everyone just spin shoots now.

[Audere Ⓥ (I UBER PHLOG PYROS)]

It took me sooo long to get the hang of spy, but i think its safe to say that i'm a very good spy now.

[weeee]

Good job. Soldier iz bettah class dough

[Engi]

holy crap this scounds easy, then again I major engi