Use your favourite features in-game with our Desktop AppAlthough our Stats-based Tier List is helpful, the numbers don't always tell the full story. This tier list, curated by our expert, RinaVX explains which items are defining the meta with commentary for every Deadlock hero.
See our Street Brawl tier list here.
The Matchmaking Update has arrived and with a couple of small reworks had led to the dominance of the "fairy" meta. Fairies and Frontliners seem to be strongest in this patch and has led to some severe polarization towards the game.
Scourge got nerfed, Spirit is so dominant that it still stands as the best mix of damage and defenses during the late game.
Mystic Shot and 
Tankbuster run rampant as their synergies allow for anyone to deal an strong burst from any range. It is so strong currently that even short range or high fire rate heroes are leaning towards it. 
Spirit Burn can be added on for even more damage during the late game and solving any healing reduction needed for the late game.
Spiritual Overflow now builds from 
Spirit Lifesteal and is much easier to buy and build around for high rate of fire heroes like 
Wraith and 
Haze.
Sprint Boots got a large buff and now is included in 
Trophy Collector and 
Veil Walker, which means that having both of these items allows for a huge map presence and easily solving the Vitality Investment while also having a bunch of stats and a way of regenerating throughout the map.It is no secret that 
Celeste is the best hero in the game right now, with pick and ban rates over 60% in eternus and that a good Celeste can dominate the entire game due to her fragility being solved with 
Witchmail. Seems like there is not much anyone can do to stop a Celeste at all, even with a weak start, fights can be overturned with a easily placed 
Shining Wonder or getting ran down with 
Light Eater.
Pocket has maintained his spot as 
Affliction feels very binary in today's meta. With Spirit Burn being nerfed, it feels like his Affliction is the only true answer from the mass healing that can be output with 
Rem or 
Ivy. But his place in the meta has also affected everyone in that weaker fragile heroes without shields like Shining Wonder or 
Willpower, or even weaker forms of healing like Dynamo's 
Rejuvenating Aurora have a very hard time fighting at all.
Ivy still feels very overloaded in terms of her base stats and that 
Air Drop is a very consistent save and initiation tool. Feels like Ivy can do whatever she wants as both her Gun and Spirit builds are excellent as 
Kudzu Connection is an universal and overloaded spell that can out statcheck anyone when used well. Ivy is a swiss army knife that has every tool that a team could want including a giant nuke that can be used every 60 seconds.
Lash is a fairy, despite what he might tell you, and the gun build is still surprisingly effective. Lash using a 
Sharpshooter can seemingly hover over people and never truly have to commit with 
Ground Strike and chip everyone out with seemingly very little counter-play as he can space anyone out with good usage of 
Grapple.
Warden has been a surprise entry in the meta, as people realize how well he currently fits as an anti-fairy destroyer. Warden seems to have the best tools to dealing with the annoying fairies as Willpower can tank Pocket's Affliction, 
Alchemical Flask and 
Binding Word can help keep them in place and that Warden is extremely tanky with his very high HP boons allowing for things to be simply face-tanked.
It is no surprise that with Spirit Burn nerfed, Rem is back to being the supreme support that he is. The meta has shifted to be extremely tanky due to 
Tag Along's %HP heal to allow for the most gains, but Rem himself, can setup and shutdown good fights with 
Naptime.
Abrams will forever be useful due to his ability to displace with 
Shoulder Charge and mostly that hes very forgiving with his innate tankiness with 
Infernal Resilience. With his consistency and lockdown, he has very good synergy with Rem and is very similar to Warden, where the best way to deal with the fairies is to try to tank and CC them.
Drifter has been seeing much more viability as the item meta truly favors him and his spirit build with 
Rend does an absurd amount of damage. As a natural buyer of Trophy Collector and Veil Walker, it supports his roaming style and allows him to maintain equal networth compared to slower carries. Even with low mastery, Drifter still offers large utility with 
Eternal Night by blinding their frontliners and carries.
Viscous is still mostly the same, as 
Splatter and 
The Cube have maintained their usefulness as a strong nuke and save tool. A good Cube combined with a 
Rescue Beam will always have good value, while 
Puddle Punch isn't that great against opponents, it is really annoying to catch a Viscous that keeps punching himself away to safety.
The utility and annoyance of The 
Doorman should never be underestimated. While 
Doorway has maintained its utility as a get out of jail free card for any situation, 
Call Bell allows for a strong laning presence and team fighting spell. The skill floor of The Doorman has been steadily rising as well, as the bell spamming build is extremely easy to use making him much more viable to more people.
With the rest of his friends in this tier, 
Mo And Krill is very fat and very hard to deal with. He has the lockdown and Health needed to exist in this current meta, and has the same great synergies with Rem. 
Combo and 
Burrow are his tools to CC and Damage and they are great tools to deal with these pesky fairies. Not to mention that with everyone picking more frontline heroes, Mo & Krill gets to heal a great amount in skirmishes with 
Scorn.
McGinnis serves as a weird but a good hybrid pick as a frontlining gun carry similar to Warden. While she serves as a excellent target to shutdown with Affliction, she outputs the highest gun damage in the game, while also giving a teamwide %HP Heal and Spirit Res, two stats that are seemingly mandatory in todays game. With her presence at the Mid-Boss, she can both secure and shutdown anything that can happen in the pit. I think she deserves to be a standout character in the S-Tier.
Not much has changed with 
Sinclair, but 
Vexing Bolt has gained some much larger splash damage, leading to much more consistent damage overall. 
Rabbit Hex is also an excellent tool in Urn fights as well. Still an overall, solid hero but requires some mastery in order to stealing powerful ults such as 
Kelvin and 
Seven or Lash.
Apollo is both strong and has some of the best CC in the game with his buffed 
Riposte. With Riposte's excellent range and the extreme lifesteal it gives, Apollo serves as a useful counter pick to the fairies that currently dominate the meta. Apollo is just fairly difficult to play as his mobility is mostly limited to his stamina and his low damage ceiling in the late-game leading him to be on a timer.
Pairing these 3 heroes together, as they all functionally do the same thing with their respective abilities.
Rend, 
Kinetic Carbine and 
Rake all serve as a giga nuke to kill the weaker heroes that aren't the fairies or frontliners. While they all function differently mechanically, they mostly serve as evasive assassins that have decent tools to maneuver around the map and to evade attacks to take over the map.
Mirage, has been seeing a bit of a fall-off as his damage is too slow. Mirage is still an excellent character due to his easy to apply damage and his strength as a lane anchor. His scaling takes a bit too long in my opinion, but if games manage to go to the late game, he can serve as a solid gun carry. Albeit, still getting outscaled by the fairies and frontliners.
Now that some time has passed, it is pretty fair to say that the 
Rising Ram change has mostly served as a nerf in general. With 
Billy's nuke being outright removed, he serves as a solid frontliner with a great tool to shut down fairies with 
Chain Gang. But his lack of damage feels like he lacks some agency in games as he can only serve as a CC bot and requires the help of his teammates to help finish off the people he chains.
Vindicta is a surprise breakout in the tierlist and in my games, as she has strong counters against the majority of the meta heroes and surprisingly does well in most games with Tankbuster on 
Stake.
Stake itself, is a super good answer to most of the cast as it stops high mobility heroes like Pocket and stops strong frontliners like 
Shiv and Abrams alike.
Most of the assassin characters seem to have issues in general due to the Health upgrades that everyone has gotten. 
Calico is no exception as she now requires more rotations of her spells in order to find any kills and relies on teammates much more to make up for the damage.
Wraith is a fairly solid carry as an early 
Ricochet allows her to scale and have a high impact in Urn fights. With the very recent changes to the Urn location, split pushing is once again allowed giving Wraith enough time to scale. She also got a recent buff to her items such as Spiritual Overflow and 
Mercurial Magnum which helps immensely.
Lady Geist has been seeing more play as 
Soul Exchange and her natural tankiness is one of the only ways to heal through Pocket's Affliction. While slow in both speed and farming power, Lady Geist offers some consistent power through 
Life Drain and 
Essence Bomb. Although she will struggle throughout the laning phase and the midgame as she requires mandatory items such as 
Radiant Regeneration in order to truly come online.
Infernus feels a bit out of place in the meta as he doesn't have the health or mobility to do well in the current gamestate. Infernus does not truly excel in any metric, and his best trait is that he can farm fairly well with 
Flame Dash.
Bebop is a solid character, while 
Hook is obviously a great CC and pick tool, it does feel like he needs the help of his teammates most of the time as he gets absolutely eaten by the majority of the roster. It is never a good sign that when Bebop hooks someone, it turns out to be a shark called Abrams that in turn kills the Bebop instead.
Kelvin has been doing much better then expected in my opinion, as 
Frozen Shelter is functionally useless with the prevalence of Affliction. But Kelvin's other abilities with 
Frost Grenade and 
Arctic Beam has served to be decent ways to deal with frontliners and fairies as similar to Warden. While not excellent by any means, Kelvin can serve as decent enough off-meta pick to slow down these annoying mosquitos.
Vyper and 
Venator simply feels unplayable in the current game, as everything in this meta is excellent against them. The only real reason they are being placed here is that if the game goes long enough, in that if they can afford 
Unstoppable and mass gun damage, they can provide a strong solution in that just doing a billion damage can solve any problem in Deadlock (and other mobas).
Victor is a bit underwhelming in today's meta as he doesn't offer as much tankiness or damage while having too little range to deal with farther or more mobile threats. Victor also requires too much item investment like 
Infuser or 
Ethereal Shift to truly come online, which can make him feel very slow and weak while he is on your team. Pocket and 
Decay can also just ruin anything that the Victor wants to do.
Seven, feels very similar to Victor as they are both too slow for the current meta and offers too little for the time and investment they both require to shine. Seven also lacks the mobility and utility that other characters have to offer, while requiring too many core items before the rift or mid-boss fights.
The unnerfable Shiv has finally been nerfed as he doesn't offer enough damage or tankiness to exist in the current meta. Not to mention, he is incredibility slow and has to make use of right-clicking tech to match other characters or even get out-ran by a Warden with Veil Walker. Most of his damage gets negated once people have 
Dispel Magic and is simply too difficult to make work.
Yamato feels very similar to Shiv as well, as she lacks the damage and tankiness to exist. 
Shadow Transformation got power-crept too much and once most characters get their core items, it is simply too easy to kite or tank her damage. Too much effort needs to be put into the character in order to match the damage that other characters can simply do for much less.
Silver is the biggest loser in the current meta, as she has 0 tools to offer to deal with the fairies that currently dominate the meta. Tack on the harsh nerf to her 
Lycan Curse, where she can no longer heal through kills and assists, and Silver simply has zero opportunities to do anything meaningful.
Paige is both fragile, slow and very easy to pick off, which means she serves as food for the better heroes up top. The fairies all have tools to deal and evade with her CC from 
Captivating Read and can easily catch up to explode her instantly.
Graves has returned to being the queen of the D-tiers as her gameplay and character is too unique and slow for the current meta. Everything about Graves feels once again lacking as 
Grasping Hands got nerfed yet again and Graves cannot stand in the small cast range. Graves also cannot farm very quickly and requires too many AP and items to do less then most character at the same networth. Overall, this character requires the most effort to do the least in the game.
Very similar to Kelvin, 
Dynamo suffers from the same issues of lacking large scale teamfights and suffering from the large healing reduction meta skills. Its even worse for Dynamo as he is also a slow farmer and fighter and low range and requires mass AP and items.
I have a hard time placing 
Grey Talon as he really is just weak on all fronts. Not only is he slow, fragile and has the worst aerial movement, he is also too slow to scale on his damage and even when Grey Talon has some damage, simply shooting every 
Charged Shot means he runs out of gas too quickly in fights. At best, he has a mediocre laning stage and that's his best trait currently.
When the 
Holliday changes first came out, it seemed like an awkward side grade to her previous damage. Now that we had some time to experiment with the changes, it has mostly come across as nerfs as changing her large burst damage to another awkward DoT, serves to hurt her tempo and her scaling is nowhere good enough to challenge the other characters in the game. 
Spirit Lasso is fairly nice but difficult to hit and hard to really manage.
With the nerfs to Haze, she serves as the ultimate loser in every front. She is weak, has no real mobility, lacks every form of scaling, has a subpar laning experience, a very slow and weak farmer, and no real burst damage to find picks with. There is literally nothing positive to say about the current iteration of Haze and it is not hyperbolic to say to not pick Haze currently.
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