How many heroes Deadlock has right now, who the 2026 vote rounds added, and how to pick a role instead of memorising a tier chart.
Deadlock Heroes List: The Full Roster, Counted and Dated
Deadlock has 39 playable heroes as of October 3, 2026, and 44 once the City Never Sleeps rollout finishes on October 20. The 38 trackers carried through the August 2026 patches is the count before the September 29 update, not today. Valve publishes no roster total, so every number here carries the date it was true.
How many heroes Deadlock has right now
| Figure | What it counts | Where it comes from | True as of |
|---|---|---|---|
| 38 | Roster before City Never Sleeps | Community wiki and trackers; matches Valve's announcement feed | August 2026 patches |
| 39 | Playable now: 38 plus Rat King | Rat King went live 2026-10-02 | October 3, 2026 |
| 44 | Playable after the sixth vote slot opens | 39 plus five vote-locked heroes | October 20, 2026 |
| 44 | Announced roster, including the locked five | Wiki roster page, which counts vote-locked heroes | October 4, 2026 |
That last row trips people up. A check of the community roster page on October 3, 2026 returned "There are currently 38 heroes available". The same page one day later returned "There are currently 44 heroes available". Nothing changed in between except the wiki adding five heroes nobody can play yet. A count without a date is not a fact about Deadlock; it is a snapshot of somebody's website.
Official source: City Never Sleeps, Valve's Steam announcement, September 29, 2026 lists "six new heroes" among the headline changes. Six, added to thirty-eight. Valve never writes the sum.
Two heroes arrive every Tuesday and Friday at 2:00 PM Pacific, so any page saying "Deadlock has X heroes" without a date was wrong within three weeks. The five open slots are dated on our release schedule, and who fills them is a player vote.
Why the number keeps moving
There is no official hero list to link to. Checked on October 4, 2026:
- The Steam store page says hero exactly once, inside the user tag "Hero Shooter".
playdeadlock.com/heroesandplaydeadlock.com/sitemap.xmlboth return HTTP 302 to the homepage.- The City Never Sleeps page ships no roster total. It names the six new heroes and the vote rules, and stops.
- Heroes arrive one at a time through patch notes, so the total is emergent.
Every roster guide, this one included, reconstructs a number Valve never published.
Old Gods, New Blood was not the last hero wave
Plenty of pages still call the January 22, 2026 Old Gods, New Blood update the final drop. Its six shipped one per vote slot, all out by February 12; dates per The Escapist's release vote tracker. That round is the precedent proving the vote-and-release pattern works.
| Hero | Unlocked | Slot |
|---|---|---|
| Rem | Monday, January 26, 2026 | 1 |
| Graves | Thursday, January 29, 2026 | 2 |
| Silver | Monday, February 2, 2026 | 3 |
| Venator | Thursday, February 5, 2026 | 4 |
| Celeste | Monday, February 9, 2026 | 5 |
| Apollo | Thursday, February 12, 2026 | 6 |
All six ran at 2:00 PM Pacific, the slot structure the current wave repeats.
The full roster, with the tagline each hero carries
Every row is playable on October 4, 2026 unless marked vote locked; Rat King is newest.
| Hero | Tagline |
|---|---|
| Abrams | Tank. Brawler. Bull-Headed. |
| Apollo | Finesse. Mobility. A Cut Above. |
| Bebop | Hook. Bomb. Punch. |
| Billy | Punk. Chaotic. G.O.A.T. |
| Calico | Tricksy. Slippery. Burst Damage. |
| Celeste | Performer. Disruptive. Dazzling. |
| Drifter | Stalker. Bloodthirsty. Cruel. |
| Dynamo | Teamplay. Initiator. Clutch. |
| Graves | Morbid. Area Denial. Necromancer. |
| Grey Talon | Precision. Hunter. Area Denial. |
| Haze | Assassin. Stealthy. Lethal. |
| Holliday | Crackshot. Explosive. Apprehender. |
| Infernus | Arsonist. Explosive. Burn Rubber. |
| Ivy | Team-up. Disruptor. Rock Solid. |
| Kelvin | Protector. Explorer. Ice Cold. |
| Lady Geist | Lifesteal. Self Damage. Fatale. |
| Lash | Initiator. High Flying. Arrogant. |
| McGinnis | Inventor. Support. Disruption. |
| Mina | Harasser. Nimble. Vexing. |
| Mirage | Bodyguard. Traveller. Focused. |
| Mo & Krill | Tag-Team. Initiator. Burrower. |
| Paige | Helpful. Protector. Booksmart. |
| Paradox | Calculated. Disruptor. Tactician. |
| Trickster. Burst Damage. Frogs. | |
| Rem | Helpful. Tiny. zZzzZ. |
| Seven | High Voltage. Merciless. Area Denial. |
| Shiv | Rage. Bleed. Repeat. |
| Silver | Feral. Hot Mess. Transformation. |
| Sinclair | Trickster. Copycat. Versatile. |
| The Doorman | Disorienting. Map Control. Mind Games. |
| Venator | Devout. Arms Expert. Tactical. |
| Victor | You. Can't. Kill Me. |
| Vindicta | Sniper. Soaring. One Shot Kill. |
| Viscous | Evasive. Disruptor. Gooey. |
| Vyper | Gunner. Slippery. Rat-a-Tat. |
| Warden | Initiator. Fearless. One Man Army. |
| Wraith | Duelist. Isolator. Telekinetic. |
| Yamato | Relentless. Acrobatics. Pursuer. |
| Rat King | Scrappy. Regal. Tenacious. |
| Baba | Cackling. Beady. Hexing. (vote locked) |
| Deadman Danny | Reckless. High-flying. Explosive. (vote locked) |
| Nurse Harrow | Strict. Terrifying. Savior. (vote locked) |
| Solomon | Strategist. Checkmate. (vote locked) |
| Violet | Ambitious. Nimble. Creative. (vote locked) |
Roster and taglines from the Deadlock community wiki, checked October 4, 2026. The six Old Gods taglines trace to Valve's own site and match word for word, so the format is Valve's. The role classes below are not.
Valve's City Never Sleeps page shows portraits only: no ability descriptions and no tagline for Baba, Deadman Danny, Nurse Harrow, Solomon or Violet. Those entries are community labelling and can be wrong, and so is Rat King's. Valve's October 2 announcement names Scrap Grenade, Swarm of Rats, Royal Pestments and Banner of Rattania, but printed no tagline.
Pick a job, not a letter grade
Valve has never published role classes for Deadlock: no tank list, no support list, not even a statement the categories exist. Every taxonomy you find, including the five below, is somebody's reading of how a hero plays: fine as a starting point, useless as a verdict, and still better than a tier chart that is wrong by the next patch.
| Group | The job | Heroes |
|---|---|---|
| Hold the lane early | Sets the pace early, wins or loses the lane alone | Abrams, Warden, Mo & Krill, Kelvin, Vyper, Infernus, Lady Geist, Graves |
| Fight in the middle | Wins when the waves meet, no clean lane either side | Lash, Dynamo, Sinclair, Celeste, Seven, Grey Talon, Paradox, Venator |
| Cover the backline | Exists so four others can keep aiming | McGinnis, Paige, Ivy, Bebop, Viscous, The Doorman, Pocket, Rem |
| Roam and rotate | Mobility is the ability; farms, then collapses | Wraith, Yamato, Haze, Drifter, Shiv, Mina, Vindicta, Holliday |
| Bring the damage | Ends fights, fragile in the wrong hands | Calico, Billy, Victor, Apollo, Silver, Mirage, Rat King |
Seven, Paradox, Shiv, Sinclair and Vyper each fit two of those groups, which is normal, not a flaw. Draft around the lobby, not a role chart.
How far can they go without engaging, does the kit work when they are focused first, and is the damage reliable or headshot-dependent. Those questions survive a patch. An S rank does not. The meta guide shows how to run it yourself.
Which hero to lock in first
One hero is a trap, and Standard mode is built against it. Valve's July 30 matchmaking update says the matchmaker "will adjust the game it puts you in to account for your experience with that hero", so playing something you have never touched is explicitly supported.
Ranked enforces the commitment: 60 Standard wins to queue, 15 wins with a hero to bring it, three heroes unlocked. The target is not master one hero, it is get three heroes to fifteen wins. The ranked and MMR guide covers the ladder, and your first three matches covers the laning phase on the way there.
FAQ
How many heroes does Deadlock have right now? 39 playable as of October 3, 2026, rising to 44 on October 20 when the last City Never Sleeps hero unlocks.
Are all 44 heroes playable in October 2026? Not yet. As of October 3, 2026 only Rat King has arrived of the six new ones. The rest release on October 6, 9, 13, 16 and 20, in the order players vote.
Does Valve publish a hero count? No. The Steam store page, the City Never Sleeps page and the official site all carry no roster total. The 38 and 44 figures come from community wikis and trackers, so the date matters more than the digit.
Was Old Gods, New Blood the last hero update? No. Its six heroes unlocked between January 26 and February 12, 2026, one per vote slot. City Never Sleeps, released September 29, 2026, is the current wave and is still running.
Related Guides
- Deadlock Hero Vote: How Voting and Unlock Order Work - why the last five heroes are a player decision.
- Deadlock New Hero Release Schedule (Oct 2026) - six dated slots, and what 2:00 PM Pacific means where you live.
- Deadlock Meta in Oct 2026: How to Read It Yourself - judging strength without memorising a chart.
- Deadlock Rat King Guide: Kit and How to Play Him - the newest hero, from Valve's ability descriptions.
- Deadlock City Never Sleeps Update: Full Breakdown - what the September 29 patch left unfinished.
More Deadlock Guides
Three lanes, four new Districts between them, and the Haunts that spawn in each. What City Never Sleeps changed about where you fight.
Every tier list is stale within a patch. How to judge strength from mobility, damage and role fit instead of copying a chart.
Stamina, dash into slide, slide hop, mantle and wall jump - the movement tech that decides fights, explained as mechanics.
Rat King landed Oct 2. The next five City Never Sleeps heroes drop Tuesdays and Fridays at 2pm PT through Oct 20, in the order players vote.
Destroy Guardians, then Walkers, expose the Patron, and burn it down. Why the Archmother pit punishes grouped pokes.
Deadlock is CPU-bound on Source 2. Shader cache, launch options, and the graphics settings that actually move teamfight frames.
Ranked landed in July 2026. How the badge tracks hidden MMR, what placements cost you, and why a 45% winrate still climbs.
Rat King is live since Oct 2, 2026. What Scrap Grenade, Swarm of Rats, Royal Pestments and Banner of Rattania actually do, and where he fits.