Deadlock Solomon: Release Date, Abilities, Stats

Solomon, Deadlock‘s chess-themed hero, went live on 9 October 2026 as the third hero released from the City Never Sleeps hero vote. Valve, which develops and publishes the game, says this set of new heroes is now halfway released. This guide covers what each of his four abilities does, the community-read numbers, his weapon and base stats, and what Valve has not published.

Solomon is a chess-themed hero who joined Deadlock on 9 October 2026, and Valve’s post says he was available “just in time for National Chess Day”. He is the third hero released from the City Never Sleeps hero vote, after Rat King (2 October) and Baba (6 October). His voice actor is Carl Lumbly, and his internal codename in the game files is “Chessmaster”, per deadlock.wiki. For the wider update (map, new heroes, the vote itself) see our City Never Sleeps update overview.

What each ability does, in short (full in-game text on deadlock.wiki):

The bishop stays in place until you move it; moving it slides it through enemies, slowing and damaging them, and after a delay its diagonal squares hurt anyone who steps on them. Re-activating recalls all bishops. A moved knight or king is invulnerable until it lands. Rooks that hit a wall bounce back, and re-activating splits them sideways. The queen can be moved to repeat its impact and squares.

All numbers below are from the Solomon page on deadlock.wiki, read on 10 October 2026. They are community-maintained, not Valve-published, and can change with patches.

Upgrades (tiers 1, 2 and 3)

• Setup Bishop: +5 m move distance and +15% fading slow; +1 max piece and recast within 8 s; +1 square range, and squares reduce spirit resist by 2.5%, stacking 10 times.
• Kingside Knight: −8 s cooldown; +80 barrier and +1 stamina; can target two allies, and on self a move removes all debuffs.
• Rook Battery: hits reduce fire rate by 25% for 5 s; hits deal 5% of current health as damage; +1 wall bounce, −12 s cooldown and +0.5 s immobilize.
• Develop Queen: −40 s cooldown; +15% slow and a checkmate that executes heroes below 200 health; +2 moves and +1 square range.

The queen moves up to 16 m per hop with a 5 s gap between moves and starts with 2 extra moves; the bishop moves 12 m per slide.

Per deadlock.wiki (read 10 October 2026), Solomon’s weapon is Alekhine’s Gun, described as rapid fire and long range at 60 damage per second. Treat everything here as Community (wiki) data that can shift with patches.

All weapon figures here are one data set: deadlock.wiki as read on 10 October 2026, the day after release.

To pick Solomon in Ranked you need 15 Standard Mode wins on him, on top of the account-wide 60 Standard wins and at least three eligible heroes, per Valve’s Ranked rules (our Deadlock Ranked guide has the full list). He came out on 9 October, so every player starts from zero wins on him. The current Ranked season runs until 5 November 2026.

Valve’s release post gives the kit in prose, with no win rate, recommended builds or counters. What follows is community direction only.

Win rate

Valve does not publish win rates. Community trackers post early figures, but they shift daily in a hero’s first week, and we could not confirm a dated snapshot with its sample and filters, so we do not quote one.

Builds: community direction, not a Valve recommendation

Valve has not published a build. Power Up Gaming points to Spirit-focused items such as Improved Spirit, Compress Cooldown and Reactive Barrier, while saying his optimal build is still developing. Our reading: because Setup Bishop, Rook Battery and Develop Queen all deal spirit damage, spirit-leaning items are the obvious direction to test, and none of this has been tested by us.

Solomon is the third of six heroes from the City Never Sleeps hero vote, after Rat King (2 October) and Baba (6 October). The vote and the release schedule are covered in our City Never Sleeps update overview and in our Baba breakdown.

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.