Deadlock Guide: Laning, Souls, and Objectives to Win

Deadlock is Valve's free-to-play 6v6 hero-shooter MOBA, currently in development and played on Steam. This deadlock guide walks you through the core systems a new player actually needs: earning and denying souls, laning, buying items, and taking the objectives that end the game.

The goal of a standard match is easy to state and hard to execute: become richer than the enemy team, destroy their structures, and bring down their Patron. Team fights matter, but this is not team deathmatch. Souls decide how strong you are, and objectives decide who wins.

What Is Deadlock?

Deadlock is a 6v6 third-person MOBA-shooter from Valve, built on the Source 2 engine and free to play on Steam. You can get in through a friend's invite on Steam or through community Discords. Each player controls one hero for the whole match, and each hero can only appear once per game, so you cannot switch after the match starts. Every hero has three normal abilities plus an ultimate that unlocks once you accumulate 3,800 souls.

A standard match plays out across three lanes defended by guardians, with a jungle in between and a Patron protecting each base. There is also a casual 4v4 side mode called Street Brawl that is good for learning combat without the full map. Heroes are not locked into a class before the game; instead they fall under two broad roles, carries and supports. Carries farm for items and scale into the late game, while supports fight and create space so the carries can farm safely.

Souls: The Currency That Decides Games

Souls are both the currency and the experience source in Deadlock. You spend them in the shop on items, and hitting soul milestones levels up your hero and grants boons you can put into abilities. The soul count at the top of the screen shows which team is ahead, so more souls means more items and stronger abilities, which usually means winning fights.

Most souls come from creep waves, which spawn roughly every 30 seconds with four creeps each. When a creep dies it drops souls on the ground, and a soul orb floats up that you should shoot to confirm the full value. The enemy can shoot that orb first to deny it and take the souls for themselves, so securing and denying orbs is the single most important mechanical skill in the laning phase. Souls from jungle camps are unsecured and drop in a bag if you die, so spend them at a shop or hold them until they become secured over time.

The Laning Phase

Every standard match starts with the laning phase, a 2v2 across each of the three lanes. The main goal is to leave the first eight minutes or so with as many souls as possible. Focus on killing creeps and confirming your own orbs before you try to deny the enemy's, and stay behind your own creeps early since they deal heavy damage to anyone who draws their aggro. The player who controls the wave and wins trades on cooldowns usually leaves lane ahead.

Each wave includes a healer creep marked by a cross above its head. Killing it drops a health pickup that heals you and nearby allies, so kill it last if you are already at full health. Push your wave before doing anything else on the map: it gives you the most money and creates space to farm camps, grab bridge buffs, or rotate without losing your guardian. At two minutes the first jungle camps and breakable boxes appear, and golden statues and locked crates give souls plus permanent stat buffs when you break them.

Items, Builds, and the Shop

The shop is opened with B near a guardian or base and is split into three color-coded categories: Weapon (orange) for gun damage, Vitality (green) for health and survivability, and Spirit (purple) for ability power. Spirit power is a flat stat that scales your abilities, so caster builds lean spirit while gun carries lean weapon. Tier 3 and higher items can also be taken to a broker to become corrupted, gaining boosted stats alongside drawbacks you should read.

As a new player, do not theorycraft. Open the build browser in the shop, pick a public build from a creator or pro player, and follow its item order and suggested ability level-ups. You can auto-queue a build and even auto-buy items when near a shop. Some early purchases that help almost any hero are High-Velocity Rounds for easier last hits, Extra Regen to stay in lane, and a mobility item like Sprint Boots or Extra Stamina. Taking objectives unlocks flex slots, giving you extra item slots as the game goes on.

Movement and Combat Basics

Movement runs on a stamina bar shown as yellow segments under your crosshair. Dashing costs one stamina, a double jump costs one, and a dash jump costs two, so keep an eye on it before fights. Slide by holding crouch while moving fast: it keeps your momentum, lets you shoot without the movement or ammo penalty, and lowers your hitbox. Wall jumps let you reach rooftops and juke pursuers, and ziplines are the fastest way to rotate between lanes.

Melee uses a light attack or a charged heavy melee, and a heavy melee kills creeps without releasing a soul orb. The counter is the parry: if you parry a melee in time, the attacker is stunned for a couple of seconds and takes bonus damage. Aim matters too, since headshots deal roughly 1.9 times body-shot damage. Learn the distinct sound cues of ultimates, like Haze's spin-up or Seven's thunder, so you can react when one is cast.

Mid and Late Game Objectives

Around ten minutes the map opens up. The soul urn spawns every five minutes; melee it, carry it to the drop-off on the other side of the map, and shoot the orbs it releases for a big team soul boost plus permanent buffs for the courier. You cannot use ziplines while carrying it, and enemies can force a drop with a quick melee. Bridge buffs also spawn on the two large bridges and respawn every five minutes, offering gun, survival, casting, and movement bonuses.

The unstable rift is a king-of-the-hill team objective that appears after ten to twelve minutes. Stand in the zone to capture it; both teams get stuck at 99 percent until one side leaves, and the winner earns a soul bounty and spawns stronger rift troopers down that lane. Walkers are the second line of defense and give nearby defenders resistances, so they are hard to push alone. The mid boss sits in the center pit and drops rejuvenators that must be heavy-meleed to claim extra lives, so only start it after winning a team fight, since it screams at half health and alerts the whole map.

How to Win: Base, Shrines, and the Patron

To win you must push through the enemy base. After walkers fall, you face two base guardians, then two shrines. Destroying a shrine makes your creep wave on that side permanently stronger, while enemies earn 15 percent fewer souls from those creeps. Taking a base guardian also grants your team a permanent zipline speed boost, and with shrines down the enemy is on a timer.

The Patron is the final target. Its first phase is relatively mild, but the second phase sends out curse waves and forces you to stand in the center pit to damage it. Enemy players inside the pit block or reduce your damage to the Patron, so clear them out first. Once the Patron falls, the match is over.