When playing as the spy it is very important to not rush in headfirst and get yourself killed. While seamlessly blending into the crowd and getting of a couple chain kills SEEMS like a good idea, its really not. What your granduer filled minds fail to comprehend is:
How am I going to get out?
Is this really benefitting my team?
What if I miss a stab?
Will the enemy hear?
All this and more you have to consider when going for a stab, often in a split second. The road to being a good spy is not easy, its paved with difficulties and problems and choices.

What you want to do instead is to quietly and carefully pick off enemies that stray to far from enemy lines. Whether you use your gun or you knife does not matter. If you find that you like picking enemies off from a distance then thats your choice, people think that spy is a melee only class.
Prove them wrong, blast their heads off with your Ambassador. It doesnt matter HOW you killl them, just as long as their dead. Howver there is a very defined reason why the spy is a support class your job as a spy is not to be a lone wolf, but to distract and annoy the enemy, by attacking sentry nests, taking out key targets and essentially pissing off quite a few people.

Remember though, despite this guide teaching you to become a better spy, DO NOT become a spy when there are more than 1 spy on a team, two spies are enough and to be honest, spy is not the most essential class nor the most supportive.

Run away from pyro's that you suspect have an inkling that you are there. Run FAR away. If you are aspiring then try for some backstabs and trickshots. The worst that could happen is you getting burned to death by a pyro.If you have a pyro on your tail then run, take some side paths or use your dead ringer if you got one. LOSE THE PYRO! If you are on fire, dont give yourself illusions of granduer. You are visable and even if the enemies team doesnt see you they will almost certainly hear your pained shrieks while your being lit on fire. If being chased by a solitary pyro retreat behind friendly lines, do not put too much stock in this as many times I foud myself retreating only to discover that my teammates have vanished. Watch out for those acursed crit flare guns, take special care to observe the gun that the pyro is carrying , the perfect loadout for spy-checking is the attendant. 10% faster move speed and 60% faster weapon switch. Spies BEWARE!


If you are equipped with the Dead Ringer then activate it after you have put suffiecient distance between you and the pyro. If you activate it when he is still chasing you you will simply get lit again and be much worst off than before. The ultimate wepon for dealing with pryo's is the spycicle. The spycicle is amazing when attacking pyros, because if you get lit on fire with it equipped you can quickly pull it out and extinguish the fire as well as making yourself impervious to fire for two seconds, two seconds may not seem like much but in TF2, two seconds can mean life or death. Unfortunatly the knife will melt, leaving you without a melee weapon for a while ( dont fear it will regenerate!). The only viable downside to the spycicle is that it turns enemies into solid ice when they get backstabbed, but it doesn't really matter as it makes up for it as looking damn cool as well as killing silently so that backstabbing someone doesn't elict a scream.

To truly become one with the ninja you must learn how to disguise yourself properly, mainly the disguise kit. Do not turn into the heavy, EVER. You are too slow and too large, while its true that nobody suspects the giant bloodthirsty Russian, you are too much of a target and often medics will flock to youa nd heal you, if they realise your not shooting at anything that moves they will become suspicious. Same goes for the soldier, your too slow to be effecient.

Do not hesitate to turn into the scout, despite being too slow and not having a double jump if you repeatedly jump around you can often confuse the enemy team and make them hesistate. ALWAYS turn into the medic, 100% your normal speed so you will not be hampered in any way, medics are not always on the frontlines so the chances of you looking odd when your not charging to the front lines is reduced and besides, nobody suspects a medic.

The pyro is also a viable change into when you want to go to the fornt lines however watch out whe retreating, nothing is more supicious then a pyro that is retreating. Demoman is not my number 1 choice but nonethless acceptable, use it when in a middle ground because Demoman are most commonly seen there setting up sticky traps and the like.

When wanting to move back FAR behind the frontlines sniper is my number 1 choice, youc an slink back and pretend to aim while casually backstabing multiple snipers and engineers. Speaking of engineers, play as them when you want to Tazor a sentry nest. It looks compltly normal to have a engi heading for their sentry nest. TAKE CARE that you dont turn into the engi you want to Tazor the nest of. That would make some awkward (and Fatal) confrontation.

Patience is very important as a spy, take your time! Wait for the opening and then attack, DO NOT rush in blindly and get yourself murdered. If you anxious to actually KILL something then pick off a couple people with your ambassador or revolver or whatever. However do not stay in one location for a long time, unless using a cloak and dagger or you WILL get murdered.

Move around and pick off people, remember a still spy is a dead spy. Wait for the opening and then strike as quickly as you can. Just like the AWP in counterstrike, your job is not to engage the enemy in a fair fight but to gun him down as ruthlessly and murderously with as much flair as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Ah, Tazoring. One of the spies many skills. And possibly the most improtant, engeneers can be the bane of a pushing team and their nests can obliterate attackers with little to no effort. As a spy your job is simple, attack the sentries and kill the engis. if you spot an sentry and an egi working on it backstab the sentry then IMMIDEIATLY afterwords sap the sentry.

Then take your time sapping his dispenser and teleporter. Preferrably his teleporter first. If the engi has built his dispenser and sentry so he is boxed in a corner, disguise, run up to hima nd quickly sap his entry before he gets the chance to shoot at you, he will hurrry to take the sapper off and you can just sap his other buildings so that he is distracted. As his sentry gets destroyed you can run away or simply shoot him if your feeling daring.

When dealing with sentry nests its important that you have one of two things, namely either multiple spies of a red tape recorder. The red tape recorder is an insturment essential to wiping out sentry nests and annoying the hell out of engineers. It does 80% less sapper damage, however it quickly downgrades buildings leveling them down incredibly fast back to a lvl 2 then lvl 1. Imagine a sentry nest with at least three engies around if a spy (you) disguises as an engi then saps the lot, it would ensure chaos.


The Engis' would be runnin around like crazy and nobody will suspect another engineer in that mess. Downgrading sentries is an effective way to get a ubered demoman or soldier in there and case the joint.

When Tazing sentries it is essential that you dont't drop disguise unless your backstabing the engineer then quicksapping straight after. Sentries (even a lvl 1) have extreme knockback and you cant do anything to alleviate or stop this. So effectivly if your caught by a sentry, your dead. Make sure you do not undisguise near a sentry (unless your quicksapping).

Now, I do not personally play as the saharan spy except when im ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around. Nevertheless I will attempt to do a guide for you. People use the set because its silent decloack and silent stab, which can lead to some pretty awesome chains of killing.

Often what people like to do is use the cloak and dagger mod then cloak near the enemies spawn and backstab whoever comes out. This is futile after a while because they will realise that your there and murder you quite brutally. It is important as a saharan spy and any spy really to avoid combat and pick off enemies from the outside rather than charging into the fray, this is especially the case with the saharan spy. You'll want to use the set to build up cloak using the L'estranger than dart in, get a couple backstabs than dart out again.

Dealing with engineers is especially hard with the saharan spy, so what your gonna want to do is to Tazor his teleporter then as he goes running to it backstab him and camly walk over and Tazor his sentry and dispenser. When dealing with multiple sentry nests your gonna need multiple spies. Or a Red Tape Recorder.

Watch this. Then telll me what you think cause I did not watch it.

It is recommended for every spy to have the following at all times:

A knife of some sort,.
A Disguise Kit,
A Invis Watch,
A Dead Ringer,
An Ambassador,

These are a bit more situational but good to have:

The Spycicle,
The Your Enternal Reward.
The Red Tape Recorder,
The L'estranger,
The Cloak and Dagger,

and for you vain ones:

A Hat that looks cool,
Two Miscs that look cool,
A Fez.
And (this is essential) a Sharp Dresser.

Not very difficult to get overall.

Overall, be cautious patient and careful as a Spy, dont rush headlong into things and avoid pyros. I have spent 1115 hours in tf2 as of this game and it remains my most played game beating other games by almost 700 hours. Despite this I have a lot to learn and can only improve by playing more. Watch this amazing video made by stabby stabby, one of the best spies out there. I recommend subscriping to his channel on youtube (stabbyvideo) if you want to become a true ninja.