The as the fourth possible Clock-Slot Item for the spy this item is specialized to create illusions just like the Dead Ringer. But instead of creating the illusion of death, this item gives you the chance to use the weapons of a disguised player. The weapons and items can't harm anybody but you can extend the effect to prove your loyalty, by creating the illusion, that you can burn or jarate your own allies. Of course your teammates don't even know that they're on fire, but your enemy believes in it. Or you can disguise as a medic and lure enemies to death by giving them a non working healing beam. You can also pretend to be a pyro and act like you are spy-checking in the enemy team. Or it may even just help to blindly fire just to pretend to be on their side. But you have to be careful, you're still a spy which can be blocked, burned or pissed on by the enemy. And you can't use the any cloaking technique at all, if you get into any trouble. The Pretender is a good item to lure a few enemies to their death, but it can be difficult to face a whole team of enemies. And it would be a little bit more difficult to face engineers with their sentries sometimes.

The controls for that item is like the Dead-Ringer. You equip this item by right clicking and you can shoot while you're disguised by left clicking. To attack, sap or backstab someone you have to press right click again to put the pretender away, otherwise you will just shoot illusions without any damage. And you have to be careful because when your disguised, you can't reload, which means for e.g. that a soldier fired five rockets in a row would be a spy with a Pretender. I think the only situation which won't work is to create illusions on other spies of your own team, because this kind of illusion would be a big disadvantage for other spies in your team. The Pretender also needs ammo, because it doesn't regenerate by itself. The current design for this weapon is a zippo with a snake circle on it. When it's activated the spy takes the zippo out and opens it. If you shoot when disguised as the enemy, the spy presses a button under the firestone.