Valve’s Deadlock is a complex engine with a lot of moving parts. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed even after learning the fundamentals of the game. If you want to climb and play with the best, it’s up to you to learn its intricacies.

The laning phase, especially, sets the pace for the rest of the game, and you’ll want to maximize your team’s advantages every opportunity you can. Becoming a great laner is a massive step on the road to achieving a high MMR. It is a crucial part of the game that sets the momentum going forward but losing a lane isn’t the be all and end all of a match.

In this article we’re going to outline five tips that are essential for the early laning phase in Deadlock.

1. Communication

If you’re not used to playing games that heavily value communication, such as CS:GO or Valorant, it might be a bit foreign to hear the voices of other players or use your own but make no mistake, Deadlock isn’t a one-man game, and there’s only so much information you can gleam without your team voice chat.

In a solo lane, there won’t be much to call, just your MIAs, your ganks, and if there’s an opportunity to gank your laning opponent.

In a duo lane, that’s when voice chat in lane really starts to matter. Obviously, we don’t want to flood voice, but here’s a list of things to keep in mind when you put that gaming headset to use:

• Target call-outs. Oftentimes, one enemy laner will be more susceptible to poke or being killed due to lack of mobility, positioning, or inherent base stats. You’ll want to make sure both you and your ally focus on the same person to really make your poke and all-ins matter. Staggering a duo lane’s back cripples your enemy laner’s ability to lane properly.
• Important cooldowns to determine if an all-in is possible.
• Which one of you has the better poke to harass your opponents or a better gun to focus on confirming trooper kills and denies.
• Shoving the lane & buying items together. Harmonizing with your laner to hard push gives you the opportunity to buy items together or poke under tower together. Many players will choose to poke first and deal with the lane state after, so making a coordinated push will give your lane an advantage when it comes to timing.
• Holding a wave. Since the value of souls is shared until the 10 -inute mark, it’s exceptionally valuable to call for a slow push if you need to full back so you both maximize the value of each trooper.
• Waiting to teamfight to collect bridge runes or a necessary item that could turn the tide of your next teamfight.

2. Lane Swaps

Before laning even begins, consider if communicating for a lane swap would benefit the team. Judging by the few tournaments played so far and high MMR pugs, it’s likely the lane distribution will be 1-2-2-1 (once ranked releases).

Determine duo lanes by checking if a lane needs more: crowd control, poke, or wave push. Some heroes also benefit more from solo laning or duo laning and having appropriately strong duo lanes means guardians can naturally be pushed quicker and other lanes can be ganked sooner.
In a solo lane, a hero’s starting stats may innately counter one another’s while another hero’s default gun may have a rough time farming and denying against your opponent’s. Before the match even begins, take note of some match up quirks such as:

• Pocket’s beginning -15% spirit resistance will make laning versus Gray Talon a nightmare.
• Since all of Haze’s damage comes from her gun and third ability, Fixation, it makes laning against Bebop’s starting 15% bullet resistance more difficult.
• Yamato’s shotgun has a hard time farming versus Pocket’s and Shiv’s shotgun.
• Mo & Krill’s larger hitbox makes Infernus’s passive DoT easier to stack.

The more you play, the more you’ll learn smaller intricacies like these, as well as find different ways to counteract natural weaknesses and matchups. This matters in a duo lane but generally more so in solo lanes, since your ally laner might help offset whatever weaknesses your match up has.

3. Power Spikes

It’s a perfect point in time to learn each hero’s popular ability point allocation route and what each upgrade actually does if you want to master matchups. Press tab often so you’re always up to date on your lane’s lethality. Below is a handy visual for when players get their abilities as well as their ability points.

Besides the power spikes heroes get from their levels and ability points, you’ll want to think about when your specific opponent comes online. It’s true every hero is stronger with their ultimate, but a lot of heroes have trouble confirming kills prior. Consider some of these facts and any you might notice along the way:

• Ivy starts with 4 stamina and passive Fleetfoot, so it’ll be harder to escape her if you let yourself be poked enough and naturally tough to chase her.
• Lash needs three ability points to grant his Q a knock-up.
• Wrath’s killing potential comes online when she gets her ultimate but if she hasn’t thrown a card recently, watch out because she may have rushed extra charge to build card stacks for an all-in prior to her ulti.
• Shiv’s power spikes come when his rage meter is full, when he’s invested 3 points into his e for a hefty 85 damage increase, and then when he has ultimate.
• Mo & Krill will often first put 3 points into their first ability, Scorn, which then allows them to proc Mystic Burst, increasing their poke exponentially.

Some heroes power spike at different points in the game while others spike harder with certain items. And speaking of items...

4. Itemization

Let’s start delving into the more advanced portion of buying items for your lane. Remember, if you’re building specifically for the lane, you’re generally a little bit weaker in teamfights so keep that in mind after the laning phase is over.

If you feel like you’re in a winning position, orange items are far more valuable than purple. More often than not, a hero’s gun is what does the most dps to obtain that early kill or grants you a soul lead.

Green items tend to give the most bang for your soul bucks early game. Regen like enduring spirit and extra regen will help you sustain in lane. Other items such as extra stamina will make laning versus heroes like Warden and Kelvin easier. Don’t be afraid to buy Healing Rite if you genuinely can’t miss out on a wave or don’t have a zipline boost but keep track of line of sight where you can farm without it being dispelled.

When you’re ahead enough, you’ll want items that snowball and extend your lead. Even when you’re too behind, consider buying items out of your hero’s build order based on game state. If you’re going to build them eventually, buying items out of order may present opportunities to press your advantage or catch back up, such as but not limited to:

• Fleetfoot, increasing your ganking potential (Don’t forget you can continuously slide during Fleetfoot’s duration for infinite ammo)
• Silence Glyph can make ganking an adjacent Yamato or Lash much easier.
• Pockets may look to buy Majestic Leap earlier for a quick gank every 24 seconds.
• Healing Nova to outsustain the opposing duo's poke.
• Tesla Bullets early for heroes that want to increase the rate of their power farming.
• Slowing Hex to neuter high mobility heroes and shut them down before they can escape or gank your laners.
• Reactive Barrier will save you if you’re hooked by a Bebop or staked by a Vindicta but high MMR players tend to favor Divine Barrier currently.

It’s important to know when you’ve fallen behind in souls and won’t be able to find the resources to catch up because you can still help the team by transitioning to your team’s Curse, Knockdown, Rescue Beam, etc. holder so your carries can continue blasting. Also remember you can make unsecured souls permanent if you buy an item and refund it immediately.

If you want to learn more about specific itemization versus every hero, I suggest Deathy’s video linked here. There’s a lot of good guides out right now but I found his to be the most concise and accurate.

5. Spawn Timers

Knowing the spawns for jungle camps, crates, statues, and other timers means you can plan efficient routes and do some massive macro plays, gaining edge after edge over your enemies. It’s also important to memorize these timers to confirm when you should be hard shoving a lane to pick up a nearby camp or crate.

Heroes with good clear times may want to focus on small and medium camp respawns while Ivy and heroes that buy early boots or stamina want to keep track of Soul Urn timers. Carries should try to make time for bridge runes, they’re a 3000 soul value that doesn’t take up an item slot. Some ultimates are used to farm hard camps efficiently. Bebop, McGinnis, and Seven are prime examples of this, so timing your ultimate usage for tier 3 camps then teamfights is beneficial.

Lastly, a mistake people often make is prioritizing jungle camps rather than a wave pushing against you. Shoving a trooper wave is not only usually more farm but it’s momentum for your team. Try to make use of the space given to you by shoving and catching waves before jungling.

Conclusion

Deadlock isn’t a game for lone wolves. You get to a point in MMR when good players need a good team and insane aim helps far less than the smarts to back it up. MOBAs require a lot of tactful thinking and game knowledge but the end results are extremely satisfying. Great players will try to min-max every advantage in and out of the game, working smarter instead of harder.

Be fast, be efficient, be resourceful, and I’ll see you in Ranked.