Strategy

Strategy in Deadlock involves leading your army into enemy territory down three lanes, destroying objectives, and eventually killing the enemy team’s Patron. The map is separated into three lanes: York, Broadway, and Park.

Laning

Laning is the process of managing troopers on a lane and destroying objectives. At the start of each round, players are assigned to lanes in a 2-2-2 setup. Support-centric characters typically perform best when paired with a high-DPS counterpart with sustain or poke abilities.

Key Difference from Dota: In Deadlock, you generally want to perma-push rather than freeze lanes. Lane pressure creates agency—you can gank, do boxes, or farm camps. Shoving secures the current wave’s souls and gives you a time window to rotate — but waves do not “farm themselves” while you’re away. Unattended troopers that die to walkers produce zero souls.

Trading in Lane

• Play around cover: Peek, trade, disengage. Don’t stand in the open.
• Matchup-dependent: Some players shoot enemies aggressively from wave 1, others focus purely on pushing. Depends on hero and matchup.
• Guardian trading: If your hero has no tower pressure (e.g., Abrams), shoot the tower. If you have poke (e.g., Wraith cards), pressure enemies under tower.
• Page/Paige shield: Stop trading immediately when it’s up—you can’t win through the barrier.

Laning Phases

• Laning Phase (0-10 mins): Focus on winning the lane by managing troops, clearing Denizen camps, looking for kills, and gaining a Soul advantage.
• Midgame (10-25 mins): Mid Boss spawns at 10 minutes and the first Soul Urn spawns at 12 minutes, marking the transition into objective rotations. Players roam, farm objectives, and fight for map control. See Mid-Game for details.
• Endgame (25+ mins): Teams solidify Soul advantages, engage in teamfights, and push to attack the enemy Patron.

Team Composition

A Team Composition consists of the six heroes a team employs. Strategically employing heroes whose abilities complement each other is significant. For example, Dynamo can use Singularity to trap enemies while Infernus charges Concussive Combustion to hit all trapped targets.

Objectives

Taking down Objectives unlocks Extra Slots, gains Souls for the team, and earns map control. It is advantageous to unlock Extra Slots as soon as possible; for instance, taking down a Walker awards an Extra Slot.

Secondary Objectives

The Soul Urn and the Mid-Boss provide strong boosts to the team that secures them. They can be used to hold an advantage, turn the tide, or bait the enemy team into a fight while leaving their main objectives unprotected.

Pushing Lanes

Lanes are pushed by killing enemy troopers and objectives. Lane progress is based on the last trooper wave. Attacking a Walker or Base Guardian without pushing the lane first triggers backdoor protection, granting them damage reduction and health regeneration.

Micro Strategies

Uptime

Uptime is the time spent actively contributing to the match (creating pressure, collecting Souls, farming Denizens, pushing objectives). Downtime includes respawning, idly waiting for objectives, or rotating aimlessly.

Positioning

Effective positioning allows for map control, effective teamfighting, and denying enemy pushes. Staying safe but active in fights applies pressure while minimizing the enemy’s opportunity to gain an advantage.

Cover Usage

Using corners and walls provides cover against skills and items that require Line of Sight. The third-person camera is locked to the Hero’s right shoulder, meaning peeking from the right side of cover exposes less of the hitbox than peeking from the left.

Aiming

While some heroes require more accuracy (e.g., Vindicta), aiming is a crucial part of gameplay for all heroes.

Map Knowledge

Understanding the layout, including Cosmic Veil locations, Powerup locations, and Teleporter locations, is essential for tactical movement.

Rotations

Rotations involve traversing the map to create space, gank, or roam. This is broader than just ganking and focuses on creating pressure across different lanes.

Movement

Movement involves utilizing Ziplines, Stamina, and sliding to position effectively and traverse the map.

• Dash jump → slide → bunny hop: Maintains momentum
• Ctrl off zipline: Maintains more momentum than jumping off
• Zip speed boost: Unlocked at ~6:10 game time—after this, resets to base cost almost nothing
• Jump pads and ziplines: Most important movement tools, use constantly
• Slide while shooting: Essential for heroes like Wraith during Full Auto

Troop Management

Troop management involves killing enemy Troopers and denying the enemy Souls.

• Soul Orbs: When a trooper dies to ranged damage, an orb spawns and floats upward. You must shoot the orb to “confirm” and collect the souls.
• Denial: Shoot the enemy’s soul orbs (from their trooper kills) before they confirm them. The orb floats up - shoot it to deny them souls.
• Melee Kills: Killing troopers with melee gives 100% souls instantly with no orb. Enemies cannot deny melee kills. Always melee last-hits when safe.
• Map Control: Pushing lanes spreads area control and extends friendly Ziplines, allowing reinforcements to help push objectives.

Freezing a Lane

By equalizing the number of troopers on each team, you can “freeze” a lane in place.

• Safety: Keeps troops close to your own defenses.
• Denial: Makes it difficult for opponents to retreat or access farm safely.
• Medic Packs: Healing from medic troopers can break a freeze. Stay away from the wave and collect the pack only after some minions have died to maintain the wave state.

Counters

Using counter items is vital for dealing with strong enemies.

• Debuff Reduction/Removal (Debuff Reducer, Dispel Magic, Divine Barrier): Effective against damage-over-time (Bebop, Infernus, Mirage) and crowd control (Haze, Mo & Krill, Seven).
• Burst Protection (Metal Skin, Return Fire, Battle Vest, Weapon Shielding, Bullet Resilience): Effective against high burst weapon damage (Haze, Vyper).
• Anti-Heal (Healbane, Decay, Toxic Bullets): Effective against strong healing (Abrams, Lady Geist, Shiv).
• Movement Control (Slowing Hex): Effective against mobile heroes (Vindicta, Grey Talon, Holliday).
• Silence (Silence Wave, Silencer): Effective against ability-reliant heroes (Yamato, Pocket, Lady Geist).

Specific Counter Items

• Dispel Magic vs Paige: Cleanses Captivating Read stun—essential for initiators who get locked down mid-combo.
• Unstoppable vs channeled CC: Required for Death Slam (Lash), Bullet Dance (Haze), or any channel-dependent ult.

Early Game Itemization

Power Spike Items

Items that fundamentally change how an engagement goes. Buy these early to dictate trades:

Lane Trading Philosophy

Lane phase is inherently bursty. Players don’t stand and shoot each other for 10 seconds—they trade around cover, use abilities, then disengage. This means:

• Burst items (Headshot Booster) outperform sustain items in short trades
• Wave pressure wins lanes—first waves dictate how the lane goes
• Items like Monster Rounds help push waves and create agency (gank, boxes, camps)

Green Items Rebalance (Post-Boon Changes)

Green investment got adjusted, not universally buffed:

• Better on squishy heroes (Mina, Haze, Infernus) throughout the game
• Worse on tanky heroes (Kelvin, Warden) after ~10-11k souls
• Battle Vest and Enchanter’s Emblem are percentage-based—they scale with base HP

Rushing 4.8k greens is no longer a noob trap but does not win lanes. You sacrifice wave pressure and burst damage. Buy green items situationally, not as a default rush.

Item Build Matching

Match your items to your game plan:

• Farming/Passive: Sprint Boots + Monster Rounds (wave clear + movement for boxes)
• Aggressive Trading: Quicksilver Reload, Headshot Booster
• Don’t buy extra regen on sustain heroes (Mina has Rake, Abrams has Siphon)

Multi-Category Early Buys

Don’t rush one category. Get power spikes from 2-3 categories early:

• Usually want ~1800 from each of two categories
• Then rush a category (usually Spirit, sometimes Vitality)
• Buy situationally based on matchup and lane state

Item Timing Traps

Spirit Resist Shred (Mystic Vulnerability): Useless early game. Enemies start with 0% spirit resist—shredding 0% does nothing. Only buy when enemies build Spirit Resilience, Dispel Magic, or Ethereal Shift (~9k+ souls).

Spirit Burn: Only for sustained damage heroes (Infernus, Seven). Burst heroes (Lash, Pocket) deal damage in single hits, not repeated ticks—Spirit Burn adds minimal value.

Torment Pulse: Weak on burst heroes. 19 DPS sustained damage doesn’t match burst playstyles. Better on frontliners who stay in fights (Abrams, Kelvin).

Ability-Spam Itemization

For heroes with impactful abilities on moderate cooldowns:

• Superior Cooldown (3200): 25% CDR core item for ability-focused heroes
• Extra Charge (1250): +1 ability charge, great for mobility skills (Grapple, Dash)
• Mystic Reach (1250): +15% ability range, affects AoE radius

Height-Based Damage Scaling

Heroes with height-scaling damage (Lash Ground Strike) benefit from stamina items:

• Extra Stamina (800): +1 air dash, early game core
• Stamina Mastery (6400): More air dashes = more height = more damage. Late game scaling item.

Defensive Itemization for Divers

Critical lesson: Divers (Lash, Shiv, Abrams, etc.) Grapple/dash into enemies and fight at close range. You WILL take damage. Scout enemy builds early and itemize defensively before it’s too late.

Scouting Enemy Builds

Press Tab and check enemy items at 8-10 minutes. Look for:

• Gun stackers: Multiple weapon items (Headshot Booster, Glass Cannon, etc.)
• Glocket Pocket: Gun-focused Pocket build - extremely high bullet DPS
• Spirit stackers: Heavy purple items (Mystic Burst, Improved Spirit, Infuser)

Gun-Heavy Comps (BUY BULLET RESIST EARLY)

Warning signs:

• Glocket Pocket (gun Pocket) - will melt you
• Haze (pure gun carry)
• Wraith (gun burst)
• Grey Talon (sniper damage)
• Any hero stacking weapon items early

When you see gun-heavy enemies, buy bullet resist by 10-15k souls:

Mistake to avoid: Building pure damage (Boundless Spirit, Mystic Reach, etc.) without defensive items against gun comps. You’ll die before your abilities matter.

Spirit-Heavy Comps (BUY SPIRIT RESIST EARLY)

Warning signs:

• Seven (Storm Cloud melts)
• Infernus (Afterburn DOT)
• Pocket (Affliction burst)
• Lady Geist (sustained spirit)

Spirit defensive items:

Mid-Game (10-25 Minutes)

The mid-game begins around the 10-12 minute objective window: Mid Boss spawns at 10 minutes and the first Soul Urn spawns at 12 minutes. The three pillars of mid-game macro are efficiency, pressure, and objectives. Deadlock is won through many small decisions compounding over time.

Pillar 1: Efficiency

Efficiency means maximizing soul income by farming the right things in the right order and avoiding redundant rotations with teammates.

Farming Priority (Highest to Lowest)

1. Waves — ~500 souls per wave if cleared solo. Two waves per minute = ~1,000 souls/min. Also creates lane pressure (double value).
2. Sinners (Center Sacrifices) — Strong souls + permanent buffs. Always do these when available.
3. Tier 3 Denizen Camps — High value if your hero can clear them. Skip if your hero lacks the damage.
4. Boxes and Tier 1-2 Jungle — Roughly equal value. Jungle is worth slightly more but boxes are easier and less risky. Mid boxes (underground) are often worth more than sinners on average and many players ignore them.

Avoiding Redundant Rotations

Watch the minimap. If a teammate is ziplining to a wave, don’t go to that wave — take the next priority item instead (sinners, camps, boxes). Your team generates more total souls when everyone farms different resources.

At lower ranks, teammates are unpredictable. Try to read their movements anyway — the skill improves with practice.

Movement Efficiency

Use jump pads and ziplines constantly. Dead time moving between resources is lost souls. Zip speed boost unlocks at ~6:10 game time, making resets nearly free.

Pillar 2: Pressure

Pressure means forcing the enemy team to react. Anyone can farm efficiently — pressure is what separates decent players from great ones.

Wave Pressure (“Always Go One More Wave”)

Push waves as far as you safely can. After clearing a wave, check the minimap: is the next wave dropping off the zipline? Is it close enough to grab before rotating? Making constant aggressive pushes teaches you how opponents react.

Dying while pushing a wave is one of the least costly deaths: you’re not carrying unsecured souls (unless you recently farmed jungle), you’ve created a problem the enemy has to address, and they likely sent 2+ players to kill you, giving your team numbers advantage elsewhere.

Skirmishing

When stuck in a side lane 1v1, test the waters with a small engagement. Did you take more damage than you dealt? Check their items — do they have a specific counter (e.g., Slowing Hex vs your escape ability)? Use this information to decide whether to commit or pressure the wave and rotate.

Power Spike Timing

A power spike is buying a 3,200+ soul item or maxing an ability (5 AP upgrade). After hitting a spike, you’re at your strongest relative to opponents for the next 2+ minutes (average income is under 1,600 souls/min, so the next comparable spike is at least 2 minutes away). This is the best time to look for fights.

Stealing Resources When Ahead

If ahead, invade enemy camps, sinners, and boxes. Occupy their side of the map. If behind, secure your own resources and look for the comeback urn.

Pillar 3: Objectives

Mid-game objectives are the Soul Urn, Walkers, and Mid Boss. When to take them depends on game state.

Soul Urn Decision-Making

The urn has three states:

• Friendly Comeback (green candles): Drop everything and run it immediately. It is the single most efficient way to come back into a game. No exceptions.
• Neutral (no candles): Starting a neutral urn forces a fight at the opposite side-lane bridge. Only start it if your team wants to fight — check wave states (are your waves pushed?), numbers advantage (are enemies dead?), ult economy, and overall team strength.
• Enemy Comeback (red candles): Start it only with an overwhelming advantage. Otherwise, delay the enemy’s comeback by controlling the destination bridge and its capture circle, or trade for an objective elsewhere if you cannot contest.

Walker Pushing

Walkers should not be forced. Teams that repeatedly throw themselves at walkers while ahead often feed away their lead through comeback mechanics and long respawn timers.

Best times to push walkers:

• After getting kills (obvious)
• When all three waves are pushed toward enemy walkers — the enemy must split up, guaranteeing at least one walker falls

Deaths-for-walkers math:

• Losing 1 player for a walker is almost always worth it regardless of game state
• Losing 2 players for a walker when ahead is usually bad (comeback mechanics + long respawn timers)
• Losing 2 players when even depends on timing — if the enemy can take mid boss during your respawn, it’s a terrible trade
• Losing 2 players when behind is usually fine (no comeback penalty, shorter respawns)
• Losing 3+ players for a walker is almost never worth it

You don’t need to kill the walker in one push. Getting it to half HP is valuable — the next time you get a small opening (even 10-15 seconds), that half-HP walker dies.

Mid Boss Timing

Before attempting mid boss, assess the enemy’s ability to contest:

• Do they have AoE pit abilities? Paige ult, Dynamo ult, Abrams charge, Graves abilities — these heroes are dangerous in the pit.
• Are those heroes available? If you spot the enemy’s pit threats on the opposite side of the map, rush mid boss immediately.
• Can you secure the Rejuvenator? Heroes like Yamato (invulnerable + unstoppable) provide reliable crystal claims. Without a secure option, coin-flipping the rejuvenator is risky.

Coin-flipping the rejuvenator is acceptable when behind and desperate. Otherwise, only take mid boss when you can either finish before enemies arrive or win the pit fight.

The first mid boss should almost always happen before all three walkers fall. Typically do it after taking 1-2 walkers.

Mid-Game Hero Archetypes

These archetypes modify how the three pillars apply to your hero. Most heroes fit multiple archetypes.

Carry (Seven, Wraith, Haze)

Scale with items and souls. Strongest late game. Farm jungle effectively.

• Be as efficient as possible — get the most farm on your team
• Pressure side lanes, not mid. A solo walker kill can snowball the game (~3k souls)
• Don’t show up to every fight early. Push a walker during team fights elsewhere
• If you’re having a good game, abuse the lead to take walkers solo

Support (Paige, Ram, Kelvin)

Utility-focused, don’t need as many souls to have impact.

• Catch waves your team can’t cover
• Identify which teammate is having the best game and enable them
• Items like Rescue Beam, Divine Barrier, Cursed Relic provide outsized impact relative to cost
• Don’t AFK jungle — your value is in enabling others

Frontline (Abrams, Billy, Yamato)

Excel at creating chaos and tanking damage in fights.

• Play aggressively and create engagement opportunities for your team
• Don’t fight alone too often — most frontliners don’t excel in 1v1s
• Pair with a support for maximum effectiveness
• Your job is to make space, not to top-frag

Pick (Paradox, Holliday)

High mobility with catch abilities (Swap, Lasso) that punish out-of-position players.

• Target the easiest kills, especially high-value carries in side lanes
• Minimize time on the minimap — the less enemies know where you are, the better your ganks
• Side lane targets (Wraith, Infernus, Mirage) tend to overextend and have high net worth + long respawn timers
• Follow up after frontliners create engagements

Nuker (Pocket, Lash, Mina)

High burst damage that eliminates targets quickly.

• Play around frontline or pick heroes who create favorable engagements
• Follow up on CC chains: Paradox swap → Abrams charge → your burst
• Efficient at clearing Tier 2 jungle camps (burst kits often one-shot camps)
• Position near teammates who initiate — be the plus-one, don’t follow them around

Game State Awareness

Every time you’re farming, check the top of the screen:

• Souls: Which team is winning? By how much?
• Clock: When is the next urn? Bridge buffs? Mid boss respawn?

This determines your macro decisions:

• Ahead: Steal enemy resources, play on their side of the map
• Behind: Secure your own resources, prioritize comeback urn
• Even: Contest neutral objectives, look for picks to tip the balance

When possible, item-check the strongest players on both teams to identify threats and targets.

Economy and Farming

Soul Lead

Earning more souls than the opponent provides a power advantage. A soul lead in the laning phase allows you to unlock your ultimate earlier, enabling snowballing.

Box Running

Box running involves moving through specific routes to collect souls and buffs from Breakables and Golden Statues. This is often done after pushing a wave into the enemy tower.

Key Box Routes:

• Mid Boxes (spawn at 10 mins): Highest concentration of souls in the game. Everyone should do these immediately at spawn.
• Tunnel Route: High-efficiency route through underground areas on both sides of the map.

Box Scaling: Boxes scale extremely well. After 25+ minutes, box routes can yield more than camps. At 40+ minutes, boxes significantly outpace camp farming.

Unsecured Souls

Jungle and box souls are “unsecured” until they gradually incorporate into your total.

• Unsecured souls are spent last when buying items
• They secure at 0.5%/s of current unsecured amount + 1.6 souls/s base rate
• When you die with 150+ unsecured souls, you drop a Soul Container for enemies to collect (persists 3 minutes)
• Always spend money at even intervals (1600, 2400, 3200) to clear your unsecured bag before fighting
• Big unsecured bags (800+) = huge risk when dying

Comeback Mechanics

Multiple systems help losing teams recover (first 3k net worth difference is ignored):

• Soul Multiplier: Up to 30% bonus souls from troopers, denizens, sacrifices, and objectives (peaks at 20% net worth difference)
• Soul Urn: Carry the Urn across the map to the bridge on the opposite side lane. When behind, your carrier gains +5m sprint speed, +35% Bullet Resist, and +35% Spirit Resist for themselves only; during capture, the behind team gains +35% Bullet Resist, +35% Spirit Resist, and +35% Debuff Resist inside the 20m circle.
• Hero Kill Scaling: More souls from kills when behind
• Kill Streak Bounties: Extra souls for ending streaks
• Catch-Up Passive: After 8 minutes, lowest NW player gains 2.5% of team souls/s, second-lowest gains 1.5%

Key Implication: If ahead, you must steal enemy camps. If you farm your jungle and they farm theirs, you’re losing ground due to their bonus souls.

Jungling

Jungling refers to clearing Denizen camps. There is no dedicated Jungler role; camps should be cleared between trooper waves.

• Efficiency: Clear the entire camp to start the respawn timer.
• Counter-Jungling: Leaving one Denizen alive in enemy territory stalls the respawn.
• Risk: Be wary of roaming assassins when carrying unsecured souls.

Sinners (Center Sacrifices)

Sinner Sacrifice machines are melee-only objectives that give equal value to all heroes (everyone punches at the same speed). 12 total machines on the map (6 per side).

• Spawn at 8 minutes, respawn every 5 minutes
• Priority 1 for mid-game farming hierarchy — 33% of mid-game time should be spent on sinners
• Double sinners (in buildings): Highest priority invade target when ahead
• When ahead, steal enemy double sinners to deny comeback souls
• 4 heavy melees or 8 light melees to complete; each hit deals 80 damage to attacker
• At 8 minutes: ~168 souls per machine (base 155, scales +1.08%/min)
• Shove your wave first, take centers, return for the next wave — don’t try to clear everything at once

Small Denizen Farming

Small Denizens spawn at 2 minutes and respawn every 2 minutes.

Killing Small Denizens on repeat can generate 732 souls before the 10-minute mark.

Funneling

Funneling is the practice of concentrating souls on a specific hero (usually a carry). This can be achieved by having one person collect all souls from a lane instead of splitting them between two players.

Objective Mechanics

Walker Damage Resistance

Walkers have two types of damage resistance:

1. Player-based: More enemy players nearby = more resistance
2. Time-based: Resistance decreases over time, reaching 0% at 18 minutes

Mid Walker is tankier than side walkers and centrally located, making it hardest to take.

Solo Walker Kills

Getting a solo walker kill grants most of the souls to you (can be ~3k souls). This is the primary way carries snowball—push waves, take walkers alone.

Guardian Mechanics

• No backdoor protection on guardians
• At 10 minutes, many heroes can kill a guardian without a wave
• Feeding for a guardian can be worth it if very behind

Soul Urn Timing

Comeback Urn: Favored state benefits the losing team when they are behind. If it’s your comeback urn, drop everything and do it.

Strategic Timing: Do the urn when you have an advantage but not so large it triggers comeback status. Don’t contest when disadvantaged unless desperate.

Mid Boss

The most powerful objective in the game—more impactful than Roshan in Dota.

• Grants health, fire rate, and spirit power to entire team
• Only throw condition: Bad fight right before mid boss spawns
• Team down 40k souls can flip the game with mid boss

Combat Mechanics

Melee Tips

• Never heavy melee: 100% reactable, instant death if parried
• Light melee is fine: Must predict, can’t react—use it in trades
• Melee hitbox follows your camera—look up to hit jumping players

Out-of-Combat Regen

Two different cooldowns:

This affects when sprint speed and regen items start working.

Parry Interactions

• Towers can be parried (reduces damage taken)
• Urn captures are contested by enemy heroes entering the 20m circle. Clear the zone so your team’s 6s/12s/18s favored/neutral/unfavored progress can complete; meleeing the urn no longer flips it.

Carry Playstyle

General Carry Flowchart

Carry Lane Phase

• Lane pressure > farming (but farm when wave is pushed)
• One deny in first two waves = hit 2nd ability first (small power spike)
• If you have pressure on enemies, keep it—kills make them miss waves
• Don’t AFK jungle—push waves, create threat

Side Lane Priority

After laning phase, get out of mid. Everyone at lower ranks just fights mid with no purpose.

• Side lanes = solo walker opportunities
• Mid is the last place you want to be as a carry
• Only go mid for coordinated team objectives

Hero-Specific Notes

Wraith (Weak Laner):

• Focus on hitting troopers, not trading
• Sprint Boots + Monster Rounds for farming build
• Quicksilver Reload for aggressive card trading
• Can solo guardian at 10 minutes without wave

Mina (Strong Laner):

• Rake is your sustain—never buy extra regen
• Glass cannon with high sustain, weird archetype
• Burst assassin playstyle in teamfights
• Abuse jump pads and teleporters for numbers advantage

Anti-Deathball Mechanics

The game heavily punishes deathballing:

• Soul splitting: 5 players farming together = griefing (minimal souls each)
• Walker resistance: More allied players near walker = more damage reduction
• Designed game length: ~30 minutes, not 60+ minute games