TL;DR<\/p>
- \n
- Ranked matches now enforce three total hero bans per game, up from two, via the existing \"prefer to avoid\" preference toggle \u2014 not a team draft.<\/li>\n
- Every player gets one hero swap in the pre-game waiting area, but you only see the enemy's initial<\/em> hero composition, not their live changes.<\/li>\n
- Banning the single strongest hero on the tier list isn't automatically correct \u2014 banning what you personally lose to is usually the better play.<\/li>\n
- Holding your swap for a genuinely bad matchup beats<\/a> spending it early just because you can.<\/li>\n
- The system is roughly two days old at the time of writing, so treat any \"optimal ban list\" as a first impression, not gospel.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"What Changed in Deadlock's Pre-Game: Three Bans and One Swap","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\n
Two separate mechanics got touched by the same update. First, the hero-ban system that Valve added to Standard Mode and Street Brawl<\/a> back in January \u2014 where each player flags one hero on their roster screen they'd prefer to avoid \u2014 now enforces more of those preferences per game in Ranked. The total number of heroes banned in a given game is increased from 2 to 3 and the algorithm used has been improved. It's still not a League-style draft where teams alternate picks and bans; it's a background matchmaking preference that now removes one more hero from the pool per match.<\/p>\n
Second, and bigger: Ranked now has a genuine pre-game waiting area. The update introduces a pre-game waiting area where players see both teams' initial hero compositions and can swap to any other Ranked-eligible, unselected hero \u2014 once, and only once, per match. Each player can only swap into a new hero once, and you can also use the new pre-game waiting area to adjust your starting lanes, though you won't be able to zipline swap after this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"table","headers":[{"header_text":"Pre-game component"},{"header_text":"What it does"},{"header_text":"Confirmed limit"}],"rows":[{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Hero ban (preference toggle)"},{"cell_text":"Flags a hero you'd rather not face; matchmaker tries to honor it"},{"cell_text":"3 total bans enforced per Ranked match"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Hero swap"},{"cell_text":"Change your assigned hero to any unpicked, Ranked-eligible hero"},{"cell_text":"1 swap per player, per match"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Lane adjustment"},{"cell_text":"Reassign your starting zipline lane"},{"cell_text":"Locked once the waiting area closes"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Pause lock"},{"cell_text":"Prevents pausing to \"fix\" a bad comp mid-game"},{"cell_text":"Disabled until 2 minutes after the game fully starts"}]}],"size":"small"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"How the Blind Pre-Game Swap Actually Works","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\n
This is the part that trips people up. You do see rosters when the waiting area opens \u2014 both teams' starting heroes are visible up front. What you don't get is a live feed of changes. This is not intended to be primarily a counter-picking feature, as much as just a quick way to improve your team's general hero composition: you only ever see their opening picks. So if you swap in response to what you initially saw, the enemy could already be swapping into something else at the exact same moment, and neither side finds out until the loading screen.<\/p>\n
There's also a collision rule worth knowing before you commit: if you end up swapping into a hero that the enemy team happened to also swap into before you, you'll get an error and then be able to select a different hero \u2014 otherwise you will be given that hero. That means your swap isn't fully \"locked\" until the system confirms nobody beat you to that pick.<\/p>\n\n
Warning<\/p>
Don't treat the swap window as a counter-pick lobby. You're reacting to a snapshot, not a live draft \u2014 the enemy's actual final composition can still change after you've already committed.<\/p><\/div>\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"
![\"Deadlock](\"https:\/\/media.rawg.io\/media\/screenshots\/7e7\/7e761f8bb5f8c482bc5a731960a7c4be.jpg\")
<\/figure>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Who to Ban in the Current Deadlock Meta (and Why the Strongest Isn't Always Right)","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\nTier lists this patch generally agree on a handful of names sitting at the top of the win-rate charts, but they disagree on the exact order, and some \u2014 Haze in particular<\/a> \u2014 show up anywhere from S-tier to mid-pack depending on the source. That disagreement is itself useful information: it means banning purely off a tier-list headline is less reliable than banning off what actually beats you in lane.<\/p>\n\n