Well, the Hansel has a few more advantages over an Attack Build in PvP, first you're anonymous until you fail a steal, you can kill both troops with Assassin, even with full attack troops you're DTW to attack when 0 gold out. No ally bonus needed for steals so you can carry allies for MP for eb then drop them and go pure if you get into trouble. You can Steal untill Hell freezes over once the attack troops are over 20% and spies at 0. You can strip an attack build of his allies with steals, take forever with attacks since he'll keep going DTW. Hansel need not bother with Def pots, really only needing Spy attack, attack builds need all pots. With the new attack pots from EB a small Hansel will even get some hits through on an attack build. Few more things I'm probably forgetting at the minute. Attack builds pro is you make more gold on attacks...lol
Attack build can stay pinned and still hit a hansel all day long. Attack build still makes good money hitting from pin. Hansel makes lousey money unless stealing with full bar. Hansel makes lousey money per steal unless opponent has tons of money out. Hansel is first to be stripped in osw.
since panic has already mentioned most of the advantages of spy build. let me introduce u some of the advantages of attack build over spy build 1. On the intrinsic mechanism: (1) u can attack 24 times while u can only steal 18 times per full regen. (2) attack can make enemy lose around 3 times more than a steal. (3) in the view of t5 buildings: lv3 volary 160k but lv3 wc is 240k. image if the attack build has 5wc. which is 1200k spy def. he puts up some t4 towers for emergency uses, he can easily push his spy def to 2m. suppose u r a average hansel with 4m spy attack. u can only steal him 9 times. after that ur spy will burn very fast. (4)steals pay u very little. that means if u use pots to steal, u lose money. while attacks pay u enough to attack enemy with full pots. (5) assassination can only pin attack build to 20%. they can still fight from pin. (6)spy build can be stripped also. once they have 0 spy, they have zero spy def other than pots. if spies don't have tower, they r as vulnerable. the funny thing is ur enemy can summon a lot of noob accounts to scout ur spy to zero. because scout burns spy regardless success or failure. 2. on gaming experience( personal experience why i converted to attack) (1) people always say spies are good farmer, which is true. but they didn't mention the consequences. once u annoy ppl u shouldn't, u jolly well stay pure forever. since u will become a perma clan farm. unless u r backed up by strong farming clan. (2) sense of insecure: u know anyone can hit u with easy. and as i have mentioned, they attack cost the victim much more money....converting to pure is not as easy actually. because u have to keep allies for 15 days to get 60% refund. (3) unless u have heavy equipment and allies, u have hard time hitting eb. im sayin this in a perspective of a average player. if u r a pro, it's a different case.
Hansel is an eb built build. It can also be used to war but you must be on 24/7 to stay DTW. I recommend you eb until 12 lands or so and go pure sos spy. Then war all u want and go back to growth(warring can be VERY profitable)