TL;DR<\/p>
- A community-sourced Steam discussion put Haze's pick rate at 97%, but that figure comes from players, not from Valve's own data.<\/li>
- 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.<\/li>
- The July 30 patch was a matchmaking and ranked-mode overhaul only \u2014 no hero balance change<\/a>s shipped alongside it.<\/li>
- Ranked bans went from two to three per match, which changes whether banning Haze is even worth it.<\/li>
- Beating her comes down to lane discipline early and denying her the item power spike mid-game, not one magic counter-pick.<\/li><\/ul><\/div>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Before You Counter Her: What You Are Up Against","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\n
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<\/a> players. None of these are Valve-published figures \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n
Warning<\/p>
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 \u2013 50 percentage points for the same hero in the same rough window.<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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<\/a> and the ranked launch have both flagged her as the character people are actively trying to avoid.<\/p>\n\n
3<\/span>bans per ranked match<\/span><\/div>60<\/span>Standard wins to unlock Ranked<\/span><\/div>15<\/span>wins per hero required<\/span><\/div><\/div>\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"The Three Strengths You Have to Answer","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\nHaze'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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"
![\"Deadlock](\"https:\/\/media.rawg.io\/media\/screenshots\/b15\/b15b9bd2011c25609fb535fc2ff72e57.jpg\")
<\/figure>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Haze Counters by Skill Level","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\nThere'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.<\/p>\n\n\n
Tip<\/p>
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.<\/p><\/div>\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"table","headers":[{"header_text":"Counter approach"},{"header_text":"Why it works"},{"header_text":"Who it suits"}],"rows":[{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Debuff and silence tools"},{"cell_text":"Interrupts her setup before she can commit to a pick, before she has the item power to shrug it off"},{"cell_text":"Solo queue, low to mid ranks"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Damage reflection \/ return-fire items"},{"cell_text":"Punishes her for engaging into you directly instead of picking off stragglers"},{"cell_text":"Any rank, especially laners who expect her"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Vision and positioning discipline"},{"cell_text":"Denies the isolated pick she needs to function at all \u2014 she struggles when nobody is alone"},{"cell_text":"All ranks, hardest to execute solo"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Burst-before-she-scales trading"},{"cell_text":"Forces fights while she's still item-poor, before her late-game spike comes online"},{"cell_text":"Higher ranks with coordinated rotations"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Tanky frontline absorbing damage"},{"cell_text":"Soaks her burst so squishier teammates aren't the ones getting picked"},{"cell_text":"Mid ranks, teams with a dedicated frontline player"}]}],"size":"small"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Using the Third Ban: When Haze Is Worth It","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\n
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.<\/p>\n\n
Ban her if you're solo queuing<\/h3>\n