First lets start off by saying thanks for reading this. I put 1 can of red bull into this guide and its well worth it if you can help you or some newbie you know not have your team drag you around and actually pull your own weight

lets get started with what is a spy?
this
this the spy
available in blu and red colors; hats not included

spy is one of the most overplayed and overmained classes next to soldier and sniper
you see these little bastards all over pubs and community servers alike

but what makes people drawn to spy?

The spy is one of the most interesting classes in TF2. He has alot of weapons and abilities that rarely appear in other video games, or if they do not all together.


1.) invisibility
spy is known for his ability to turn invisible using any of his watches, although they each work differently. With this a spy can easily walk right past enemies and get behind them without ever being seen, provided he doesn't bump into anyone.

2.) disguising as other classes
the spy has the uncanny ability to be able to disguise as any class and on any team. Meaning the spy can be any of the 9 classes (excluding disguising as a spy as the same team color) as either blu or red. Once disguised, he takes the person's appearance of that class's health bar when he disguised, loadout, hats and cosmetics, etc.. If there is not someone playing that class on the team he is disguised as, then the disguise will be a stock one, meaning stock weapons with no hats or cosmetics. This makes it even more easier for spies to waltz right past enemies and enemy turrents, provided no attention is drawn or his disguise is removed by shooting/meleeing.
the above pic shows the classes that spy can disguise as, again excluding the team colored spy he is on (blu spies cannot diguise as another blu spy and red spies cannot disguise as red spies).

2. 1/2) spy can benefit from enemies while disguised
this is a sub section to point #2. While diguised, the spy can use the enemy for benefits. This includes being able to take enemy teleporters, using enemy ubers while remaning disguised, being able to be replenished by enemy dispensers and medics, and if there's a payload cart present, be able to get health and ammo without moving the cart itself. However there are some benefits that don't work, such as being able to be extinguished by liquids or airblast as well as damage or resistance increasing buffs. These of course will be saved for another section later on.

3.) zapping enemy buidlings
although highly unadvised if there are more than 2 enemies near them as it gives away his location, a spy can disable enemy engineers buildings using the zapper. Depending on the zapper (stock and reskins) can disable buildings and drain their health, essentially destroying them once they reach 0 health, or (RTR/ red-tape-recorder) the zapper and de-lvl the buildings back to lvl 1 and then reverting them to a toolbox that can be picked up for ammo.

4.) insta-kill backstabs
Probably the best reason that people go as spy is his ability to instantly kill any class with a backstab, provided they aren't invulnerable. A spy has more-or-less, a 180 degree radius in which he can perform this action. This is a good enough reason that people play him, either because they don't need to do much as opposed to a shooting and aiming a gun, it saves time, and it can help take out high priority targets such as an engineer whose holding a chokepoint, a medic who is about to build uber or about to pop an uber, or any class thats pushing your team back.

5.) A spy can fake his own death
If a spy is using the Deadringer, he can essentially fake his own death. This is something no other class can do. When using the Deadringer, if the spy is hit or takes damage and doesn't immediately die, he turns invisible, gets a small speed boost, and takes less damage as well as is his outline is unable to be seen by bumping into him or shooting at him. This is a good mechanic that the spy can use to trick his enemies into thinking he has been killed, only to return about 5 seconds later and backstabbing them

6.) he is fun to play as
As opposed to other classes such as medics who mainly heal or heavies who mainly shoot a mingun while moving, the spy offers more versatility and playstyles that can accomidate most players with little to no risk of confrontation with the enemy. Good examples are troll zapper spies, that just zapp buildings nonstop. Another gamestyle is recon spy, who relays info to his teammates about enemy positions and buildings without having to go spectator. I'm sure there are many others but these are all i can think of atm.

A spy can be either very detrimental to your team's performance, or just another bug on your windshield. From experience, the spy's level of threat from greatest to least are:

• Heavy
  
• Medic
  
• Engineer
  
• Demo
  
• Sniper
  
• Soldier
  
• Pyro
  
• Demoknight (full set/melee only)
  
• Spy
  
• Scout

*please note i added an extra sub-class, demoknight, for explinational purposes

A spy's greatest strength is on taking out Heavies and Medics
these are the two most vulnerable spy-prone classes in game
A heavy is big enough, slow enough, and usually distracted enough to be an easy kill for spy
Medics as well are usually distracted enough to be easily killed by spies if they aren't paying attention
taking both out can drastically affect your team's strength

Engineer and Demo are next on the list
Demo is a highly vulnerable prone class, as a grenade and sticky bomb launcher demo isn't well suited to combat short/close range targets without severely damaging or killing himself in the process.
The engineer isn't as easy to take out; however, he is higher on the list due to attracting more spies as well as the damage that is caused to the team's performance when he is killed and his buidlings destroyed.

Sniper and soldier are wild cards
they are the middle ground for spies
Snipers can easily be backstabbed, however they can just as easily kill the spy. One of the main reasons is the razorback, which forces the spy to use his pistol or backstab but be temporarily disabled while doing so. If a sniper acts quick enough, he can react or even kill the spy before he gets near him
soldier would be the true middle ground. He is almost always in the air or rocket jumps to higher spots that the spy cannot follow him. The only true way is if the soldier is on the ground or fighting in a low leveled area, which is somewhat situational

pyro and demoknight are of low priority
pyro is the main spy counter. Even if using the spycicle, the pyro disables the spy from backstabbing anyone, and gives away his position when the spy is set on fire. The pyro was made for spychecking, which people forget to do on occassion when playing pyro.
Demoknight is seperate from the main Demo class as demoknights can deal with spies much easier. If anything, the spies provide demoknights with their melee buffs, such as more health speed and shield bashing power when using the eyelander, health from the half-zaitochi and cladhiemor, as well as just killing them easily in general since a sword/bottle bests a butterknife anyday.
However, this does not mean they are spy-proof. A spy can easily take them out if they are unaware of their surroundings, or if they get the literal drop on them from above

spy and scout are perhaps the lowest priority when it comes to threat level of a spy
As a spy, it is unwise and usually a bad idea for spies to battle other spies. They not only give away their position, but hold all the power of the other. This means they are on equal terms in place of health, damage, stealth, and battling a spy as a spy is not worth it. It is rare that spies battle, as if they do, even if they win, another enemy or ally will just kill the spy afterwards or finish them off
the scout is the lowest of all 9 classes and 1 subclass on the list
the scout is faster than the spy, can jump higher than the spy, and can outdamage the spy at close range, essentially killing most spies in 1-2 shots from his scattergun.
Again however, this does not mean they are spyproof. Still, these are the 2 best classes that the spy not only has a harder time killing, but also gets little to no benefit from doing so, and your team's overall performance is left with little to no change aside from one slot missing

Now that we have acquainted ourselves with the basics of spies, how does one counter him? More specifially, is there a way(s) to counter DR (deadringer) spies who can fake their own death?

Yes, Yes there is.

A spy can easily be countered based on the following techniques. In order from the class selection:

1.) scout





Mad milk

one of the most useful weapons against a spy is mad milk. The reason being is that the spy is soaked in milk, and white droplets cover him even when cloaked or disguised.

A more useful version is the mutated milk, as it applies a bread monster on enemies from time to time, or when they are directly hit with it











If critted, the bread monster becomes much bigger. Although the bread monster itself does no damage and is purely cosmetic, it is kinda hard to just disregard someone covered in milk with a large bread monster sticking out of their head.




















Candy cane
this melee is the best for dealing with spies, as their ability is passive, meaning you can kill with any weapon and the enemy will drop a small health kit. If the spy does not drop the health kit, they have the dead ringer and are not dead yet.

Sandman
The sandman can help reveal disguised spies, as when hit with the sandman baseball, the spy will be stunned, but his disguise will not show the animation, only move normally. If it is a DR spy, The ball will trigger his friegn death, but he will be stunned in place with a big old Sign above his head. It is during this time that he can be easily killed by you or a teammate.













Soldier
Any banner
this goes back to a previous section about spy's strengths. A spy can use the enemy for his benefits, with some exceptions. This is one of those exceptions. When a soldier activates a banner, all teammates within the radius get the buff. Whether resistance, mini-crits, or a speed boost, they get a small ring around them along with the soldier himself. A spy will not get the ring around him, nor the buff. This is especially noticable with the concheror as the spy will still remain at the same speed








Disciplinary action
The whip has a hidden stat, which when a spy is whipped, the spy takes damage but also gains the speed boost. This makes it easy on DR spies, as the speed boost gives away their position due to the speed lines and if fast enough, you or another teammate can take him out before he escapes.


Pyro
Firepower in general
Pyro's greatest strength is against spies. Pyro's fire can easily reveal disguised spies, cloaked spies, or if freign death triggered cloak from the DR, the spy can be set on fire momentarily until after a while when the afterburn stays on without flickering out.
airblast
The pyro can use his airblast to extinguish the flames off of teammates, reflect rockets and projectiles, but also airblasts spies. It is useful as it does not extinguish burning spies and pushed them away. This can be useful if you want to corner the spy from escaping, or can save a teammate/yourself from getting backstabbed.

Demo/Demoknight
Stickybomber launcher
Although not impossible, it is rare for a spy to survive a dedonated sticky trap.sticky bombs. 3 or more within a proximity gurantee that the spy will not come back

Shield bashing
when bashing a disguised spy, you can send him flying if you don't kill him. If a DR spy, the shield can trigger his freign death, then use the melee weapon to kill him while he is diguised

eyelander
This one is more for farming spies than dealing with them. When using the eyelander, if a spy is killed, you get his head added towards your head counter, which increases your speed, health, and shield bashing power. However, if a spy is using the DR, the freign death will still count towards the head counter/meter. This is useful as you can exploit the spy's ability to fake his own death to your advantage, essentially being able to, although unlikely, to reach the max cap of 6 heads using only one DR spy

heavy
natasha
really simple, big gun slows punny man down. It is a good way to see if your teammates aren't spies in disguise. It also helps or at least makes it harder for Deadringer spies to escape

Killing gloves of boxing (KGB) or eviction notices
now as a heavy it is highly advised you melee a spy, especially considering you are one of their main targets and they can side stab you easily. However if you know what you are doing this is the method for you. When hit with the eviction notices, you gain a small speed boost from the spy. When killing a spy with the KGB, you gain crits for 8 seconds. The KGB does not apply if the spy uses his get out of jail free watch and triggers a freign death. However, the eviction notices still give you the speed boost. Both are good to determine if the spy is really dead, and the eviction notices help you chase down the spy or stop him from escaping.

engineer
pomson
the pomson is the best anti spy / anti medic weapon in terms of utility. When hit, the spy losses cloak, and the medic losses ubercharge. Focusing on the spy, If they spy has a deadringer, he cannot use his watch until it recharges. If cloaked it shortens the time he has on his watch. It also makes a loud noise and spark that alerts you and others of the spy's prescence. It is a long range projectile so it helps to start dealing with the spy at a long range

Rescue ranger
now you may ask yourself, how does a 4 shot low damage primary shotgun meant to be used to heal buildings help? Well first off, its a long range projectile, meaning like the pomson, you can use it to fight the spy at long range. Also, when critted, it can tell you if the spy is really dead. If the spy is really dead and next to a wall or the projectile was aimed at the floor near his feet, the spy will be pinned, almost like a huntsman arrow. If not they are a DR spy and not dead yet.

wrangler
the wrangler helps you take manual control of the sentry gun. This can be useful to quickly spycheck teammates if you suspect a spy is one of them. It fires faster too which gives the spy little to no chance to escape or survive. It does however make your sentry gun manual instead of automatic and theres a brief period to cooldown afterwards before it returns to automatic.

southern hospitality
probably the best wrench for spychecking, the southern hospitality gives 5 seconds of bleed on any enemy it hits. This helps alot for spychecking and helps fighting the spy easier. Its downsides are negligable as you can survive without random crits, and the fire vulnerability is really situational

recently because of reworks:
the short circuit.
M2 will immediately auto lock onto any disguised or cloaked spy if they are within range. Even D.R. spies are not safe. Best part is you have a limited range that the spy won't probably be able to outrun even with their speed buffs. As an engy, you can easily use a short circuit to spycheck an area around your buildings. Being near an infinte metal source like a payload kart, a teammate with ammo regen on certain gamemodes, or a dispenser helps alot.

Medic
although your patients can defend you, a spy usually comes from behind, so it is best if you do your part while your teammates are pushing foward
blutsauger
one of the best medic primaries for confrontations, this can help you leech off health from spies who decide to attack you. This works especially well if the spy is far away and decides to use his pistol instead of his knife
any melee
The engineer and medic are 2 of the most crit prone classes in game. This is due to either the sentry gun for engy, killing or getting assists that helps raise the random crit chance cap, or the medigun for medic, that gives you assists for each enemy your patient kills/buildings they destroy. This works best for their melees as melees have a higher chance to give random crits than primaries or secondaries, provided they do not have a -no random crits downside.
In this case the amputator helps discover spies. When taunt healing, all teammates gain a health ring except for the diguised spy. If your teammates are vigalent and you trust them well enough, they can kill the spy in a heartbeat.

sniper

huntsman
the huntsman is the ultimate double whammy for spy. The arrows can be lit on fire by allies and set enemies on fire. If the impact of the arrow/base damage does not kill the spy, and if you miss the headshot, the fire can still kill them or at least reveal them if disguised or cloaked.

sydney sleeper
it applies jarate to spies from long distances. It also applies them to their freign death for a short period. It is very useful for spychecking,

jarate

probably the most useful weapon against anti-espionage to date is jarate
the jarate reveals spies by covering them in yellow piss. If they are cloaked, it shortens out their watch. It also grants mini crits, which makes it much easier to deal with spies.

A better version/reskin, like mad milk, is the self-aware beauty mark.
as it applies a bread monster, and when critted the bread monster becomes much bigger and easier to notice.

razorback
a good insurahce policy if you want to keep spy knives off your back, both literally and metaphocially. Although spies can use their revolvers, it would give away their position and you can counter them if fast enough. Between jarate and the razorback its a tie on how useful they are against spies

tribal man's shiv and bushwaka
the tribal man's shiv is excellent for spychecking, as the bleed damage reveals spies. The buswaka works if you have a mini-critting agent, such as jarate or a full crickey meter cleaner's carabine. It can kill spies in one hit.

spy
although the spy is usually unadvised to deal with another spy, in some cases you may need to, or have the perfect oppurtunity to do so safely without much threat of enemy teammates helping out the enemy spy. Be sure you have at least 1 ally nearby incase things get heated

backstabbing
as a spy your knife does the ready to backstab animation on disguised spies. This is useful if you wanna spycheck your teammates, and works best if you are disguised as one of them as to not arouse suspicion (if theres a red pyro in a crowd of blu classes, the diguised spy will surely know this.)

bumping into the spy/bodyblocking
you can help reveal the spy by bumping into him. Even if you yourself are diguised, the spy will still be revealed. If you have a pyro or another teammate present, you can swiftly deal with him. Just keep bumping into him until the spy is revealed by fire, jarate, mad milk, or is killed, then be on your merry way

with more than 1 class
any health gaining weapon. A good example is the katana for soldier and demo. If you do not get the health on kill, then the spy is still alive









overall with every class
crits
crits are not only the spy's worst enemy, but everyone's excluding vaccinators, battalion's backup, and Fists of Steel heavies. With the recent rework, the DR cannot save spies from crits. With this they will die from crit mechanics such as random crits, headshots, and backstabs especially. This is the absolute most certain way to kill a spy and make sure they stay dead.

Watch for missplaced allies
it is common for spies to take routes that would seem unconventional. A good example is a spy diguised as a friendly medic on a high ledge. Now it doesn't add up. A medic wouldn't purposely be opened/exposed and without an ally/healing an ally.

suspicious movement
if at any time a teammate is acting abonormally or walking abonromally, such as in a diagonal line towards a heavy/medic or an engineer, it's better to be safe than sorry and spycheck the teammate. Other things include having a melee out for a class that doesn't make sense for , such as a pyro or a soldier brandishing his melee.

small details for disguises
scout-the spy will run slow, and not as fast as a scout. Even with the BFB, a scout will still run faster than a spy. They also cannot double jump
soldier-cannot rocket jump obviously a given, but most soldiers usually rocket jump alot or from time to time. Note this when evaluating if a teammate is a spy.
medic-ubercharge meter is zero.
sniper-they cannot zoom into their scope. If you have ever seen a sniper scope in you can tell the animation apart
the headshot hitboxes vary for each diguise as well, especially for scout and heavy

common diguises vs uncommon diguises
the diguise kit is based on the class order
1 scout 2 soldier 3 pyro 4 demo 5 heavy 6 engineer 7 medic 8 sniper 9 spy
the top choices for diguise are
3 and 4
pyro and demo
this is due to the hotkeys being close enough to choose
another common diguise is 1 for scout
this is because
even though the scout diguise is slower, the hitbox is fixed as well as a scout is harder to see when they are coming in from behind you
2 and 5 are the least used diguises, due to soldier and heavy being much slower than most classes, and are somewhat easier to see. Plus not alot of people go heavies and its hard to determine when there will be one present
this goes without saying though that you should spycheck everyone, but keep an eye on 1 3 and 4 as those are the most used spy diguises

bodyblocking/bumping into spies
If you think you cannot deal with the spy yourself, then help your teammate who are capable by bumping into them. Body blocking is also an option, as it helps stalll the diguised spy from moving towards your teammates. You may take a few shots or even die in some cases if you are careless, but you benefit the team's performance overall. You may take a couple of seconds to respawn, but it will be well worth it when you respawn in a base closer to the next objective or defend your intel from being stolen

glitched spies
as of recently, valve has been updating the game, which means one of those updates caused disguised spies to have a weapon that isnt for the class
ex: a spy diguised as a demo with a flamethrower, or a heavy with the frontier justice
also, someone in the comments pointed out that some diguises still have the cigarettes in their mouths
valve will probably patch this, but in the meantime use this to your advantage


diguised teammate spies wearning masks
Don't fall for it. Almost all instances if a teammate spy has a mask on, then that spy is an enemy. Teammate spies will disguise as normal diguises, while enemy spies can sometimes have the masks on.

or the enemy of my enemy is my friend

by this i mean that the spy can best be dealt with if you frequently play as him, or the classes that he counters/counter him. With it you start seeing patterns into how spies work and where they are usually situated in. Not to mention that you start to learn their strength and weaknesses.
2 of the best classes to play as to get the spy mentality are engineer and pyro
engineer gets targeted alot from enemies, especially spies as well as his buildings.
pyro in general is the main counter for spy as he can easily reveal them and chase them down.

congrats
you read all the guide all by yourself
proud of ya

(also i know i used this for about 2 other guides, its sorta gonna be my thing from now on. I'm not belittling you i really am proud and honored you took the time to read my guide and better yourself or just read my guide in general. Put alot of hard work into it)

overall the best advice i can give you is to just do you and practice. Sure you may let one or two spies past you, hell you may even get dominated by one from time to time. Still, that should be considered more of an oppurinutiy to learn from a failure, than to not learn from a sucess, which really does help more in the long run. In the end there is no perfect way to become spyproof, you just get better at dealing with them every time.


I'd like to thank this oppurtunity to thank Peridot, my friend who gave me some info on how the spy diguise system works

also incase you couldn't see it heres the larger version of the guide thumbnail pic

Good luck and have fun dealing with them pesky soon to be french toast spies. :)