EDIT #2: Hey guys, I'm back, since I've had such good reception on this kind of guide, I'll probably be posting more guides. I'm glad to see Deadlock is played by some hardcore fans who are always looking to improve their game and don't suffer from being a softie. I salute you all.

EDIT #1 AND DISCLAIMER: I had not posted this guide yet as I wrote the message below this one about 2 days ago, I've been writing tiny bits here and there for over a week, probably started writing around the 20th of August, 2025.

I decided to keep the next bit to make it feel real, make it feel how it's supposed to.

Match Making in Deadlock is an ABSOLUTE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DISASTER.

After the patch was released with the new Heroes road map... A LOT of new people have started playing Deadlock and some old ♥♥♥♥ came back for one more rodeo... and the main issue here are smurfs.

Since new people are coming to the game, they want to play with their friends who have stacked quite a few hours, and Match Making goes haywire most of the time due to the fact that completly new players often have to fight people who are WAY better than them... it's not great... but at least it's a match making ISSUE... Why am I ok with it? becasue the worst offenders in this game are SMURFS.

I REPEATEDLY see my teammates get absolutely BLASTED in lane by some guy who has less than 5 games on his ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ account.

Reporting someone for smurfing IS A FEATURE. USE IT!

Now... to the original disclaimer for this section about smurfing that I had previously wrote a few days ago, as I REALLY wanted to spend some time reiterating the issue here because it's been getting REAL ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BAD FAST.

"SO... this guide is basically a general rule of thumb on what to do and what to avoid when playing this game. On the subject of being new to this game... if you've played a couple matches and have fought smurfs... welcome to the club of literally everyone playing this game...

It's a sad, on-going issue with many popular, free, skill-based games... this brings us to the next point straight away."

♥♥♥♥ has been nuts since the patch to add the new characters came out, the quality of games has dropped REALLY HARD.

I know it's still on beta stages, VALVE is one of the best companies at this... let them cook, It'll get better, but for now... keep that in mind for the next step in this guide.

Your ♥♥♥♥ attitude is going to yield a very low win rate.

Get used to sucking, you will suck for a while, that's ok, take the time to learn your character, learn how to build your items, and learn your opponents characters.

Have you ever seen this thing called NLP? stands for Neuro Lingustic Programming.

In short, according to John Seymour's and Joseph O'Connors "Introducing NLP" (it's a book), it's the study of models of success. If you work on your mental and focus on the game instead of who's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up and who isn't you'll start winning more games immediately.

People in Deadlock have EXTREMELY low tolerance to suggestions, it's like everyone who plays this game has had insane childhood trauma with their parents.

If you manage to tilt someone in lane, you've basically won the mental warfare.

Deadlock is a game where people play extremely far back if they get harrassed enough, violence is the key... be very aggressive in lane, if you have a character with a grenade skill, abuse it, use it on cooldown, don't wait around to poke... your enemy constantly regenerates HP.


This might seem really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ obvious... but guess what?... people ♥♥♥♥ it up.
The best way to spike up your lane pressure, combat effectiveness and game impact is to PROPERLY BUILD DURING EARLY PHASES.

This doesn't mean that you have to buy efficiently 100% of the time, nor what guides usually tell you, on the contrary... I invite you to lab stuff out, the game isn't even out yet and it's continously getting changed, most of the guides I've seen actually have VERY garbage builds that can be VASTLY improved with MINOR changes depending on your play-style... (No offense Item Guide people, *KISS* )

The most important thing to learn in this game are items, they are way more complicated than you might think when you start out, 100% more complicated than learning characters in this game.

Proper itemization is they key to victory, situational items are extremely strong, and counter pick items are INSANE when used properly, such as Debuff Remover... Counter-Spell and others, learn your match ups after you feel like you have a good grasp on the game, and test out new defensive items.

On the subject of building properly, don't save up during lane phase to get a big item, some 1600 souls and 3200 items are HUGE spikes depending on your character.

If you are playing Wraith, due to the fact that she already has a HUGE magazine, Titanic Magazine gives her 99 bullets in the mag, pair that up with Quick Silver Reload and Tesla Bullets (and maybe Power Surge) and you are an infinite DPS machine that can farm half the map in SECONDS, guess what? haven't seen most people using these items yet... Only a friend of mine who recommended this path for farming and early team fighting who reached ETERNUS during the first Deadlock beta period.

Such item power spikes exist for all characters, learn to prioritize items, and you'll win a hell of a lot more games, due to your damage or utility staying relevant throughout every phase.


Read this twice now:

If I had a a nickel every time I heard some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ say that me or someone else was fighting "WITHOUT" having objectives, I'd be swimming in it giving seminars on crypto currency and writing books like Robert Kiyosaki.

This game is A LOT MORE FAST-PACED THAN MOST MOBAS OUT THERE. Which means you are forced to fight A LOT MORE OFTEN.

There are ONE TOO MANY good reasons to fight in this game... some are shared with other run of the mill MOBAS out there... but some aren't!

When you repeatedly CRUSH someone's soul by murdering them multiple times, they lose the MENTAL WARFARE, very important, explained above.

You send them back to base with an INSANE respawn timer on the later stages of the game, which leaves them behind in souls, allows you to gain more from the kill and even STEAL their souls from them!... also as explained above, and this last bit about fighting and getting a pick on the enemy team brings us to our last... but not least!

I can't even begin to describe how important GAME-FLOW / DECISION MAKING is for a game like this, cooperating and communicating is a HUGE part of these types of team games, if someone is yapping a lot on the mic about the game rather than complaining... you may want to hear about it. If someone is making calls and people follow... more often than not it's literally A FREE WIN.

I will continue by talking a bit about PRIORITY which is something most people are not familiar with in this game unless you are a huge nerd. (Like me).


SO... We know that farming is important, but you must learn to PICK YOUR FIGHTS.

Stop farming 24/7, or even if you are farming 24/7, you should be looking at the map, inform your team about important ITEM PICK UPS, if you have too much money and need to spend it, let them know before you fight, so you have a BIG item power spike to use on the next fight, every time you buy and IMMEDIATELY after get into a fight, you raise your chances of winning by destroying your enemies with SIMPLE stat checks.


If you manage to get one or two kills on the enemy... don't simply go steal farm from their jungle... here are some quick rule of thumb PRIORITY plays you should have in consideration:


If you kill someone... back it up with destroying some ♥♥♥♥! pretty simple right?... allows you to control the map, walk around freely, denies movement because their zip-line will be pushed further back... AND YOU GET SOME SOULS!.

After killing some ♥♥♥♥... well... KILL SOME MORE ♥♥♥♥!, and then SOME MORE!. If you get a kill on an important character which has an annoying team fighting ultimate, and you are confident on your damage dealing capabilities, MID-BOSS rejuv boost gives you a ♥♥♥♥ load of good fighting stats, basically turns you into ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Chuck Norris. If you get rejuv, stop farming, GO FIGHT! (You should probably buy first if you have a lot of souls! let your team KNOW you are picking up an important item before initiating, and tell them to stack up.)

Steal their camps, plain and simple. Prioritize stealing their jungle over getting your own if you get some picks.

You should be looking for some runes BEFORE fighting... you know... the big crystals on both sides of mid, ♥♥♥♥'s powerful son... go grab them.

You should always have in consideration that grabbing the rune can mean fighting, be ready, runes spawn every 5 minutes, so farm up, buy, then get ready for a potential fight for a rune, or simply hit and run, take it and dip ASAP.

Everyone loves to grab the SPIRIT URN and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ completly TRASH their own ability to win the game by trolling a fight. THIS is why this is literally the LAST priority, is it strong? Yes. Should you go for it all the time after a pick? Hell ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ no.

It's a huge target on your entire teams back if you are not well coordianted with your team mates, because random lobbies are so unpredictable... even after making a pick the enemy team might still have some powerful ults on reserve and THEY KNOW EXACTLY WHERE EVERYONE WILL BE... so they can hunker down and hunt down people individually... ONLY do this when you are well coordianted and STILL have some remaining powerful ults for a team fight, either that or a really big lead on souls.

Communicate with your team, call missing lanes, tell them to back out if they are pushing too far up, let them know what you are planning to do... I usually am the one calling games and organazing the team in random lobbies and I cannot being to describe how much success I've had when doing so.

I understand sometimes you might just want to chill and play a game while listening to music, I think that's awesome, but if you are not willing to call stuff out on the mic, at least call important stuff using in-game-comms, they are very helpful.

And for the love of god, if someone is making good calls, or at least is trying to organize the team for a push, a pick, or doing Mid-Boss... please... ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ listen to them... THANK YOU.

That's it... get out of my guide.

PD: Friendly reminder that trying out new characters is ok, but have the decency to read your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ abilities before you get into a game moron. Thank you.