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Haze is the hero you keep losing to in Deadlock ranked, and this guide is only about beating her: which counters work at which skill level, how the ban going from two to three changes the draft, and what to do in lane when she is already picked.
Why she dominates the meta in the first place, and whether that is a balance problem, is covered separately in our meta breakdown.
TL;DR
- A community-sourced Steam discussion put Haze’s pick rate at 97%, but that figure comes from players, not from Valve’s own data.
- Third-party trackers show a much lower pick rate for the same hero, which tells you these numbers move a lot depending on rank bracket and sample size.
- The July 30 patch was a matchmaking and ranked-mode overhaul only — no hero balance changes shipped alongside it.
- Ranked bans went from two to three per match, which changes whether banning Haze is even worth it.
- Beating her comes down to lane discipline early and denying her the item power spike mid-game, not one magic counter-pick.
Before You Counter Her: What You Are Up Against
The number driving most of this week’s discussion traces back to a Steam community post claiming Haze has 97% pick rate, and not a single nerf or patch to balance that. That’s a forum post, not a Valve statistic, and it’s worth treating it that way. Other community trackers tell a different story: Mobalytics has Haze at a 51.5% win rate with a 45.4% pick rate in its own data set, while a separate stats site lists her pick rate closer to 79.77%, which it says indicates that Haze is a popular choice among Deadlock players. None of these are Valve-published figures — Deadlock doesn’t publish official hero statistics, so every number floating around ranked right now is a third-party estimate pulled from tracked matches, and those estimates disagree with each other by a wide margin depending on rank, patch window, and sample size.
Warning
Treat any specific pick-rate percentage you see for Haze as a community estimate, not a confirmed Valve figure. Different trackers are reporting numbers that differ by 30 – 50 percentage points for the same hero in the same rough window.
What’s not in dispute is the direction of the conversation: enough players are running into her often enough that outlets covering the hero-ban feature and the ranked launch have both flagged her as the character people are actively trying to avoid.
The Three Strengths You Have to Answer
Haze’s core problem for opponents isn’t a single overpowered number, it’s the shape of her kit combined with zero recent tuning. She’s built around picking off isolated targets up close after avoiding damage, and when Haze fixates on a target she can hold her own in a firefight, preferring to create one sided exchanges, avoiding damage then picking off unsuspecting targets up close. That playstyle rewards exactly the kind of aggressive, mechanically confident play that ranked queues are full of right now, since Beta Season 1 just opened and the pool is still full of players pushing to hit the 60-win and per-hero unlock requirements. The Steam thread cited above also points at a specific item interaction: her power spike gets much harder to deal with once she has picked up debuff-immunity during her ultimate, which is exactly why counters that rely on locking her down stop working once she’s past that threshold. The lesson isn’t that she’s unbeatable, it’s that the window to fight her is earlier than most players think.
Haze Counters by Skill Level
There’s no single silver-bullet pick against her, and what works changes depending on how coordinated your team is. Lower ranks tend to reward simple, forgiving tools; higher ranks need players who can actually execute a lockdown combo before she gets her damage item timing online.
Tip
Group up before her mid-game item spike, not after. Once she has her key damage and survivability pieces online, the fight you wanted to have twenty minutes ago gets a lot harder to force.
| Counter approach | Why it works | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Debuff and silence tools | Interrupts her setup before she can commit to a pick, before she has the item power to shrug it off | Solo queue, low to mid ranks |
| Damage reflection / return-fire items | Punishes her for engaging into you directly instead of picking off stragglers | Any rank, especially laners who expect her |
| Vision and positioning discipline | Denies the isolated pick she needs to function at all — she struggles when nobody is alone | All ranks, hardest to execute solo |
| Burst-before-she-scales trading | Forces fights while she's still item-poor, before her late-game spike comes online | Higher ranks with coordinated rotations |
| Tanky frontline absorbing damage | Soaks her burst so squishier teammates aren't the ones getting picked | Mid ranks, teams with a dedicated frontline player |
Using the Third Ban: When Haze Is Worth It
This is the part of the calculation that actually changed on July 30. The total number of heroes banned per Ranked match has increased from two to three, and the banning algorithm has been improved, which directly affects whether spending one of your bans on Haze is worth it. With two bans, using one on a single dominant pick meant giving up coverage elsewhere. With three, you have more room to ban her and still cover a second problem hero or a comp-breaking pick.
Ban her if you’re solo queuing
If you can’t coordinate a lockdown or vision plan with four strangers, removing her from the pool entirely is the lower-effort, lower-risk choice. This is especially true at ranks where hero MMR means you might be facing a Haze player far more comfortable on her than you are on your counter-pick.
Play the counter if you queue with a duo or trio
With a partner who can commit to lockdown tools or vision control, save your bans for whatever else is causing you trouble and take the fight on your terms instead. Coordinated groups get more value from denying a second threat than from removing a hero they can already handle.
| Ranked ban system | Before July 30 | After July 30 |
|---|---|---|
| Bans per match | 2 | 3 |
| Ban targeting | Basic avoid-list algorithm | Improved algorithm, per patch notes |
| Applies to | Standard Mode, Street Brawl | Ranked Mode specifically gets the third ban |
Step-by-Step: Playing a Match Against Haze
Follow this sequence to get it done fast.
-
1
Scout the draft early
note her lane assignment before the game starts so you know which lane needs the extra vision and positioning discipline.
-
2
Deny isolated fights in lane
rotate together and avoid getting caught alone, since her entire kit depends on picking off stragglers.
-
3
Buy anti-burst or reflection items on schedule
get a damage-reflection or debuff item online before her mid-game power spike, not after you've already been punished by it.
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4
Force fights before her item timing lands
if your team has the coordination, commit to skirmishes while she's still item-poor rather than waiting for a "safe" moment that never comes.
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5
Track her ultimate window specifically
once she has debuff immunity active, lockdown tools stop working, so disengage instead of committing further.
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6
Close the game before her late-game spike
the longer a match with an uncontested Haze goes, the worse the math gets for the enemy team.
Counter-Play Mistakes That Lose the Lane
“97% pick rate” is a confirmed Valve statistic
It isn’t. That number originates from a player discussion on the Steam forums, not from Valve’s own telemetry, and Deadlock doesn’t publish official hero-level pick rate data. Third-party trackers pulling from tracked matches show meaningfully different numbers for the same hero in the same rough window, which is the clearest sign that any single percentage you see quoted should be read as a community estimate rather than a hard fact.
Locking her down always works
Silence and stun tools are strong early, but they stop being reliable once she’s built enough survivability into her kit for the fight window that matters. A counter pick that isn’t backed up by actual timing and coordination just delays the problem instead of solving it.
Banning her fixes the meta problem for your whole rank
A ban only removes her from your own match. It does nothing about the underlying reason she’s this prevalent across the ladder, which is that no hero-specific balance pass has shipped since the meta around her started forming.
Our Take: Which Counter Actually Holds Up
Our Take
She’s a symptom of a balance gap, not an unbeatable pick.
The July 30 patch was entirely a matchmaking and ranked-structure overhaul, with no hero changes attached, so whatever is driving Haze’s numbers right now is going to keep driving them until Valve actually looks at her kit directly. That said, the exaggerated pick-rate figures making the rounds are community talk, not ground truth, and the practical fix for an individual player is boring but real: play vision-conscious, time your engagements before her spike, and use your third ban if you’re solo queuing without the coordination to lock her down. This is a snapshot of the current beta season, not a prediction of where she lands once balance changes eventually arrive.