Deadlock Low Priority Queue: Why & How to Get Out

If you just got tagged with the low priority queue in Deadlock, here’s the short version: you got there almost certainly because you abandoned a match or disconnected too long, and the only way out is winning games, not waiting out a timer. This guide covers what actually triggers the sanction, how the three-minute and five-minute abandon rules work, why “I’ll just play it out” doesn’t clear the penalty, and which complaints floating around the forums are confirmed mechanics versus player reports Valve hasn’t addressed.

The low priority queue is Deadlock‘s matchmaking sanction for players who abandon matches or otherwise disrupt games. Once you’re flagged, you get routed into a separate matchmaking pool alongside other sanctioned players until you clear the requirement attached to your account. It sits underneath the game’s regular matchmaking and ranked mode systems as a behavior-correction layer — Valve, the game’s developer and publisher, built it to discourage the kind of quitting that ruins a match for the other nine players.

The system has been part of the game for a while now. Deadlock has had a low-priority queue since September 12, 2024. It isn’t a permanent ban, but it does lock you out of certain modes until the requirement is met, and while you’re in it you also can’t touch ranked play at all.

Valve’s official update said abandoning games was the primary route into LPQ, while other behavior could also trigger it. The system escalates rather than jumping straight to the worst outcome. These penalties begin with matchmaking timeouts and escalate into increasing numbers of Low Priority matches. First offense usually means a short queue delay; repeat offenses push you into LPQ with a growing win requirement attached.

Disconnects matter here too, and the game doesn’t treat every disconnect the same way. If you disconnect from the server for more than 3 minutes you incur a penalty which progressively increases over time, and while this ensures people don’t leave matches on a whim, it also affects players with unstable connections. Reconnect inside that window and you’re generally fine; go past it and the game treats it the same as walking away.

The timing of when you leave also changes who eats the penalty. If a player abandons a match within the first five minutes, the match is marked as safe to leave, and is voided for everyone except the leaver and anyone in their party — the leaver receives the appropriate penalties, and the match counts as a loss for both the leaver and their party. Leave after that window and the split changes: the leaver and their party receive leaver penalties and the match counts as a loss for them, while the remaining players on the leaver’s team have their match voided and may leave without penalty — though if they choose to stay and win, the match counts as a victory.

This is the part that trips people up, and it’s the single most important fact in this whole system: you cannot clear low priority by simply playing your assigned matches and losing them. Leaving low priority requires completed wins, not just time served — Valve’s November 21, 2024 update changed low-priority games so wins were required to count. The official patch notes for that update are blunt about it: Low priority games now require wins to count. Before that change, some players could grind out the penalty by simply finishing enough matches regardless of the result. That’s no longer true.

There’s no published formula for how many wins you personally need. The number shown to an individual player may vary with their penalty history, so a social post saying “two wins” describes that account’s screen, not a universal fixed rule. Forum reports back this up — some players say a single win cleared their flag, others describe needing several, and one long-running forum thread describes a case where an abandoned match penalty of 10 wins was stacking further wins on top of remaining ones every time a player quit another match while still serving the sanction. Whether that stacking behavior is a confirmed universal rule or one player’s specific experience isn’t something Valve has detailed publicly, so treat it as a reported pattern, not a guaranteed formula.

On the time side, this can genuinely eat an evening or more. Players in the low priority pool consistently report queue times stretching well past normal matchmaking — one Steam thread describes a leave penalty requiring you to play matches in a queue that can run 5 to 30 minutes, on top of needing to win a certain number of matches — and if you need several wins with a sub-50% win rate against a lobby that can include trolls, that’s realistically several hours of queueing and playing before the flag clears, not one quick match. Since Valve hasn’t published exact wait-time or win-count figures, treat any specific hour estimate as a rough range rather than a promise.

“I can just play out my matches and it’ll clear”

This was true before late 2024 in some form, but it isn’t anymore. The requirement is wins specifically, not games completed — a five-loss streak in LPQ does nothing to reduce your count.

“One disconnect means I’m stuck in LPQ forever”

The system is a ladder, not a cliff. First offenses tend to trigger short matchmaking timeouts before any LPQ stint kicks in, and the queue itself escalates with repeat behavior rather than applying a fixed penalty every time.

“Getting reported enough times will send me to low priority even without abandoning”

This one needs a real caveat. Some players on the official forums describe landing in LPQ or getting hit with matchmaking bans without recalling any abandon on their end — one thread quotes an in-game message stating a party member is in low priority “as a result of abandoning matches” despite the player insisting they hadn’t left any. These are player reports, not something Valve has confirmed as an intended mechanic, and crash-and-reconnect scenarios muddy the picture further. Treat claims of “reported into LPQ with zero abandons” as anecdotal until there’s an official statement on it.