Deadlock Baba: Abilities, Hero Vote & Ranked S1 Update

Deadlock’s Baba, the second hero of the City Never Sleeps vote, went live on 6 October 2026, and the same Valve post moves the end of Ranked Season 1 to Thursday 5 November 2026 at 2pm PDT, with the next season starting immediately after. Season 1 was originally due to end on 7 October. This article covers what Valve says Baba does, what the community has pulled from the game files, how the hero vote works, and what the extension means for your rank.

Valve, which develops and publishes Deadlock, ran the announcement under the title “Mind the Birds” on Steam. It introduces Baba as New York’s pigeon lady leaving her perch in Central Park to join the fight, and states she and her pigeons are available now. The game itself is still in early development and invite-only.

The same post carries two other items: the next hero arrives on Friday at 2pm PDT, and the end date for the first Ranked season moved to 5 November. Baba is one of six heroes in the City Never Sleeps vote.

There are two layers of information on Baba, and they should not be mixed. Valve’s own post describes her in flavour text with no numbers, and there is no separate patch-note entry giving her stats. The numbers come from community sites reading the game files.

Layer one: what Valve says

• Threadsap — Valve calls it a chaotic spool of yarn that steals the very spirit of her enemies and grants her greater power.
• The bench — her trusty bench comes to life, letting her run, jump and kick.
• Baba’s Brews — thrown at tea time, with some “much sweeter than others”.
• The Birds — they come out to play when tea time is over.

Layer two: community values from the game files

The table lists ability names and values as shown by deadlock.wiki (community wiki, from the game files), read on 7 October 2026. These are not Valve-published numbers and Baba is newly released, so expect them to move.

We checked all four abilities and her base health on deadlock.wiki on 7 October 2026. We make no claim about Baba’s tier or win rate.

Baba won the second slot of a vote that runs through the six City Never Sleeps candidates: Deadman Danny, Nurse Harrow, Solomon, Baba, Violet and Rat King. Valve’s post says it was a close contest, with no totals given.

How voting works

Votes are cast from the new pregame lobby screen. The winning team’s votes count double, and the first win of the day doubles votes too. Valve releases two heroes a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays at 2pm PT, and has not described any other way to vote.

What has been decided

Rat King won the first slot and released on 2 October 2026; Baba won the second and released on 6 October. That leaves four candidates: Deadman Danny, Nurse Harrow, Solomon and Violet.

What comes next and what is not published

Valve’s post says the next hero is introduced on Friday at 2pm PDT, which is 9 October 2026. Vote counts for this round and the order of the remaining heroes are not published by Valve.

Season 1 now ends on Thursday 5 November 2026 at 2pm PDT instead of 7 October, and the next season starts immediately after. To queue at all you still need the entry conditions from the 30 July Matchmaking Update: at least 60 wins in Standard Mode and at least three heroes with 15 Standard Mode wins each, with active sanctions such as low priority or a comms ban blocking the queue. These requirements have not been re-checked for the October update. If a sanction is your problem, see our guide to the Deadlock low priority queue.

What you keep when the season ends

Per Valve’s 30 July post, your highest rank is saved to your rank history and you get a hideout item for it.

What the 30 July update said about new seasons

The same post describes a new season as starting with an 8-game calibration and a soft reset, and calibration can end no higher than Oracle VI.

What Valve has not restated

Those rules were written for Season 1, and Valve’s 6 October post only says the next season starts immediately after, without restating them. Carrying them over to the next season is our reading, not a Valve statement. Queue behaviour around the season change is covered in our look at Deadlock ranked queue times, and ban rules for new heroes in hero bans and swaps.

The 5 October minor update changed Rat King’s ultimate, Rule, Ratannia, with cooldown rising from 130 to 160 s and damage reduction falling from 20% to 15%, while Scrap Grenade damage went from 65 to 70 and Rat Swarm cooldown from 28 to 24 s. Sinclair’s base HP regen dropped from 2 to 1 and his gun’s base bullet damage from 17.76 to 16.5. The full list is in Valve’s Minor Update 10-05-2026 post.

Sources and Confidence

This table separates what the studio has confirmed and what is not confirmed yet. Each claim below is tied to the post and the game version it describes.