Heroes

13:30 Deadlock has 44 playable heroes on Oct 26, 2026, the count in the game files as deadlock-api reads them and the sum of Valve's own release posts: 22 heroes in the 2024 playtest, four promoted from Hero Labs on Jan 17, 2025, then three sets of six chosen in order by player votes. The newest is Nurse Harrow, released on Oct 20, 2026 as the last of the six heroes of the City Never Sleeps Update. Deadlock is still an invite-only playtest in early development, as its Steam page says, so the roster keeps growing and every number below belongs to its date.

Quick facts

Sources: deadlock-api's copy of the game files and deadlock-api's hero stats, read Oct 26, 2026; vote counts from Valve's posts of Aug 29, 2025, Feb 12, 2026 and Oct 20, 2026.

All 44 heroes

Every hero has a class in the game files (Brawler, Marksman, Mystic or Assassin) and three tags that the hero card shows; both are below as deadlock-api reads the game files on Oct 26, 2026. The win rate is deadlock-api's measurement of about 1.57 million normal-mode matches in all ranks that started from Oct 15 to Oct 25, 2026, after Valve's Oct 14 patch. It is a measurement, not a verdict: new heroes and heroes most players are still learning win less, and the Hero Tier List collects what guide outlets think.

Sources: class and tags from deadlock-api's copy of the game files, Oct 26, 2026; win rates measured by deadlock-api, Oct 15 to Oct 25, 2026; release dates from Valve's posts linked in the next section.

Release order, update by update

7:40 The 21 original heroes were in the closed playtest before Valve announced Deadlock on Aug 23, 2024, and Valve never published dates for them. They are Abrams, Bebop, Dynamo, Grey Talon, Haze, Infernus, Ivy, Kelvin, Lady Geist, Lash, McGinnis, Mo & Krill, Paradox, Pocket, Seven, Shiv, Vindicta, Viscous, Warden, Wraith and Yamato. Mirage followed in Valve's Sep 26, 2024 update ("Added new hero, Mirage"), which made 22, the count PCGamesN gave before Jan 2025.

Hero Labs brought the next four. Valve opened it on Oct 24, 2024 as "a new experimental hero matchmaking mode that adds six new in-progress heroes", with placeholder models and temporary names, and moved Holliday, Vyper, Calico and The Magnificent Sinclair into regular matchmaking on Jan 17, 2025, warning that "some of these characters have a much higher degree of temporary art than usual". The Hero Labs heroes then went by temporary names such as Viper and Magician; Valve never said they became Vyper and Sinclair, though the kits match.

The first vote came with Six New Heroes on Aug 18, 2025: Mina first by Valve's choice, then one hero every other day in the order players voted for with votes earned by playing. Billy came on Aug 20, The Doorman on Aug 22, Paige on Aug 25, Drifter on Aug 27 and Victor on Aug 29, 2025. Valve counted "Nearly 6 million votes"; Billy won his round with just over 30%, and The Doorman beat Paige by 0.85%.

The Old Gods New Blood Update of Jan 22, 2026 released two heroes a week, Mondays and Thursdays at 2pm PST, as Valve's update page set out. Rem came on Jan 26, Graves on Jan 29, Silver on Feb 2, Venator on Feb 5, Celeste on Feb 9 and Apollo on Feb 12, 2026. Valve counted 60,776,963 votes, the widest margin Venator's 11% over Celeste, and the roster stood at 38.

0:40 The City Never Sleeps update of Sep 29, 2026 released two heroes a week, Tuesdays and Fridays at 2pm PT, with voting moved to the new Pregame lobby (Valve's update page). Rat King came on Oct 2, Baba on Oct 6, Solomon on Oct 9, Deadman Danny on Oct 13, Violet on Oct 16 and Nurse Harrow on Oct 20, 2026. Valve counted over 110 million votes; the closest round was Baba against Solomon, by nearly 0.5%. Violet's release day set Deadlock's all-time peak of 303,347 players on SteamDB's chart (read Oct 26, 2026), as the Steam Player Count page explains.

Hero Labs

Hero Labs is paused and none of its heroes can be played. Valve added Trapper on Nov 7, 2024 and Raven on Dec 6, 2024, and wrote on Aug 18, 2025: "while developing this new set of heroes, we paused work on hero labs. In the future, we may revisit some of the hero labs heroes". Wrecker, Fathom, Trapper and Raven never reached normal matchmaking. Their entries are still in the game files, marked disabled and not selectable, as deadlock-api's copy shows on Oct 26, 2026; Valve has announced no new hero since Nurse Harrow.

Classes and what the numbers say

8:52 The four classes are the game files' "hero type", and they split the 44 as 14 Mystics, 11 Marksmen, 10 Brawlers and 9 Assassins (deadlock-api, Oct 26, 2026). The game does not lock a team into a class mix: any six heroes can play together, each player picks one hero, and items decide much of a hero's role in a match, from bullet carry to spirit caster to frontline.

The top of the measured table is Graves (57.56%), Rat King (56.25%), Paige (55.53%), Victor (54.88%), Kelvin (54.37%) and Seven (54.30%), and the bottom is Pocket (44.71%), Sinclair (44.82%), Mirage (44.87%) and Mina (44.94%), all in deadlock-api's measurement of Oct 15 to Oct 25, 2026. New heroes dominate picks in their first weeks: Deadman Danny was in 60.7% of matches, Rat King 59.8% and Violet 53.8%, while Sinclair (9.6%), Warden (10.3%) and Mirage (10.4%) were the rarest.

High ranks see a different order. In matches whose average rank was Phantom 1 or higher (about 37,000 matches), deadlock-api measured Baba at 55.43%, Wraith 54.58% and Kelvin 54.30% on top, while Deadman Danny fell to 43.45% despite appearing in 69.2% of those games. For a first hero, see Best Heroes for Beginners.

Changes that touched every hero in 2026

Several 2026 patches changed all 44 heroes at once, which is why older guides list higher health and lower ultimate cooldowns. Valve's Apr 30, 2026 update cut base health per boon by 7 for every hero and moved the last boon from 49k to 40k souls. The May 22, 2026 update cut base HP by 10 and HP per boon by 3 more. The Jun 30, 2026 update cut health per boon another 5% and nerfed "All ultimate base and upgrade cooldowns" by 15%. The Sep 16, 2026 update reduced "All move slow values" by about 20%. Boons and ability points are explained on Ability Points and Leveling.

Frequently asked questions

How many heroes are in Deadlock? Deadlock has 44 playable heroes on Oct 26, 2026, the count in the game files and in Valve's release posts. The newest, Nurse Harrow, arrived on Oct 20, 2026.

Who is the newest Deadlock hero? Nurse Harrow is the newest Deadlock hero, released on Oct 20, 2026 as the last of the six City Never Sleeps heroes. The others in that set were Rat King, Baba, Solomon, Deadman Danny and Violet.

What is the best hero in Deadlock right now? No single hero is best in Deadlock, but Graves had the highest measured win rate, 57.56%, in deadlock-api's count of matches from Oct 15 to Oct 25, 2026. At Phantom rank and above, Baba led at 55.43%.

Are there new heroes coming to Deadlock? Valve has announced no new Deadlock hero after Nurse Harrow on Oct 26, 2026. Hero Labs, where Valve once tested new heroes, has been paused since Aug 2025.

How are new Deadlock heroes released? Since Aug 2025, Deadlock's new heroes come in sets of six, released over two weeks in an order players vote on with votes earned by playing matches. Over 110 million votes were cast for the Oct 2026 set.

Can you play the Hero Labs heroes in Deadlock? No: Wrecker, Fathom, Trapper and Raven, Deadlock's Hero Labs heroes that never joined the main roster, are disabled in the game files and cannot be played. Valve said it "may revisit" them.

What are the hero classes in Deadlock? Deadlock's game files give every hero one of four classes: Brawler, Marksman, Mystic or Assassin. On Oct 26, 2026 there are 14 Mystics, 11 Marksmen, 10 Brawlers and 9 Assassins.

Sources

• Deadlock store page, Steam (Valve), read Oct 26, 2026
• Assets API: heroes, deadlock-api (data read from the game files), Oct 26, 2026
• Hero stats, Oct 15 to Oct 25, 2026, deadlock-api (measured), Oct 26, 2026
• Hero stats, Phantom 1 and above, Oct 15 to Oct 25, 2026, deadlock-api (measured), Oct 26, 2026
• 09-26-2024 Update, Valve (Yoshi, Deadlock forums), Sep 26, 2024
• 10-24-2024 Update, Valve, Oct 24, 2024
• 11-07-2024 Update, Valve, Nov 8, 2024
• 12-06-2024 Update, Valve, Dec 6, 2024
• Holliday, Vyper, Calico, and The Magnificent Sinclair, Valve, Jan 17, 2025
• Deadlock adds four new heroes, PCGamesN (Jamie Hore), Jan 17, 2025
• Six New Heroes, Valve, Aug 18, 2025
• Billy Comes in Swinging, Valve, Aug 20, 2025
• The Doorman, at your Service, Valve, Aug 22, 2025
• Paige Writes Her Own Story, Valve, Aug 25, 2025
• Drifter Emerges from the Shadows, Valve, Aug 27, 2025
• You Can't Kill Victor, Valve, Aug 29, 2025
• Old Gods, New Blood (update page), Valve, Jan 22, 2026
• Rem Enters The City That Never Sleeps, Valve, Jan 26, 2026
• Graves Prefers The Dead, Valve, Jan 29, 2026
• The Curse Beckons for Silver, Valve, Feb 2, 2026
• Some Are Merciful, The Venator Is Not, Valve, Feb 5, 2026
• Introducing The Dazzling Celeste, Valve, Feb 9, 2026
• Apollo - A Cut Above, Valve, Feb 12, 2026
• Gameplay Update - 04-30-2026, Valve, Apr 30, 2026
• Gameplay Update - 05-22-2026, Valve, May 22, 2026
• Minor Update - 06-30-2026, Valve, Jun 30, 2026
• Minor Update - 09-16-2026, Valve, Sep 16, 2026
• City Never Sleeps (update page), Valve, Sep 29, 2026
• Listen up, Crumbums! Your King is here., Valve, Oct 2, 2026
• Mind the Birds!, Valve, Oct 6, 2026
• Make Your Move., Valve, Oct 9, 2026
• Fairfax Industries Employee Spotlight, Valve, Oct 13, 2026
• Paint the Town, Valve, Oct 16, 2026
• Shh... This Won't Hurt a Bit., Valve, Oct 20, 2026
• Deadlock charts, SteamDB (measured), read Oct 26, 2026
• DEADLOCK ... For Noobs (2 Years Later), Macro, Oct 19, 2026 (video)
• What Is Deadlock?, GameSpot, Sep 18, 2024 (video)
• Deadlock MAJOR Update: "City Never Sleeps", Dead Air, Oct 2, 2026 (video)