Deadlock Beginner Heroes: Pick by Your Biggest Mistake

Lock in one of the 11 heroes the game rates at complexity 1: Abrams, Haze, Infernus, McGinnis, Paige, Seven, Silver, The Doorman, Vindicta, Vyper or Wraith. Any of them is a fair start, and the best one for you depends on what keeps going wrong in your games. This article sorts them by that mistake.

The 11 complexity-1 heroes, and how to choose between them

The ratings are the game's own, as of the 09-16-2026 Update. Complexity is the game's own rating of how demanding a kit is. It says nothing about how strong a hero is, so don't read this list as a tier list.

This guide is for after you've played a few games and the same thing keeps happening to you.

I learned this the slow way. I once locked in a hero because a list called it easy, then died in the same spot every game and blamed the hero. The hero wasn't the problem. The list was answering a different question than the one I had. So pick the mistake that costs you the most and match the hero to that.

If you keep dying in lane or getting dived

New players lose lane in a predictable way. You trade a bit too long, an enemy or two step in, and you have nothing to answer with. Early on you don't yet read when a dive is coming, so the safest fix is a kit that either keeps you healthy or gets you out.

• Abrams has Siphon Life, Shoulder Charge and Infernal Resilience. Siphon Life is the sustain piece, so a mistimed trade is easier to recover from.
• Haze has Smoke Bomb. Read what it does in the tooltip before you count on it in a live fight.
• Vyper has Slither, a movement tool you can use to break contact.
• Vindicta has Flight, which lets you leave a spot on a different path than the one your attackers expect.

Haze, Vyper and Vindicta also come back in the escape frame below, where the problem is leaving the fight rather than surviving the lane. Read all of these tooltips in a Bot Match before you queue, so the first time you press the escape isn't in a live fight.

Dying less only helps if you can also land your shots, which is a separate problem.

If you can't hit anything reliably

Some kits punish loose aim harder than others. If your damage depends on landing precise shots, a bad aiming day means no damage at all. New players are also splitting attention between the gun, the map and their abilities, so aim is often the first thing to slip.

The fix is a hero whose kit does work when your aim is average:

• Seven has Lightning Ball, Static Charge, Power Surge and Storm Cloud. His damage comes from abilities, so you aren't relying on pure gunplay.
• McGinnis has Mini Turret, Spectral Wall and Heavy Barrage. A turret keeps shooting while you do other things.
• Paige has Bookwyrm, Plot Armor, Captivating Read and Rallying Charge. You build fights around this kit rather than around your crosshair.
• The Doorman has Call Bell, Doorway, Luggage Cart and Hotel Guest. It's another ability-led kit, and it looks nothing like a standard gun hero.

You still shoot as all of these. The point is that a bad aiming game doesn't leave you with nothing.

Missing shots isn't the only way to fall behind, though. You can aim fine and still fall behind on souls.

If you lose souls or lane control

Losing souls usually comes from lane habits rather than your hero. You're late to a wave, you push into a bad position, or you're always the one retreating. Each of those costs you souls, and when you fall behind in souls, you fall behind in items.

Three heroes fit here for different reasons:

• McGinnis has Mini Turret, which puts a second source of pressure in the lane so you aren't the only one trading.
• Infernus is a marksman, so the gun does the everyday work, with Napalm and Afterburn alongside it.
• Silver (Slam Fire, Boot Kick, Entangling Bola, Lycan Curse) and Wraith (Card Trick, Project Mind, Full Auto, Telekinesis) are the gun options if you'd rather win lane by shooting. Pick one of them if you want a traditional gun kit at complexity 1.

Lane control only gets you so far, because most of the game happens once the fight leaves the lane.

If you get lost in teamfights

Teamfights overwhelm new players because everything happens at once. You don't know who to hit, you're not sure which ability matters, and by the time you decide, the fight is over. No hero fixes that on its own. What helps is a kit with few things to track, so you can spend your attention on the fight instead of on your buttons.

• Seven is the one I'd send you to first. He has four abilities (Lightning Ball, Static Charge, Power Surge, Storm Cloud) and a complexity-1 rating, so there's little to juggle when the fight gets messy.
• Paige is the other pick, with Bookwyrm, Plot Armor, Captivating Read and Rallying Charge. Same idea: four abilities, complexity 1.

Whichever you take, decide before the fight starts which enemy you're hitting and which ability you open with. Then adjust from there.

The opposite problem shows up when you know your job but can't get out of the fight.

If you get caught out and can't leave

This frame is about moving around the map and pushing alone. You walk into a side lane or a jungle camp, an enemy shows up, and you have no exit. Before you commit to a position on your own, know which button is your way out and whether it's ready.

• Infernus has Flame Dash, and it's the one I'd lead with here.
• Vindicta has Flight, a movement ability you can use to cross the map, not just to leave a fight.
• Haze (Smoke Bomb) and Vyper (Slither) from the lane list above fit here too, for the same reason: each has a movement or escape tool named in its kit.

If you're still choosing a hero and none of these frames fit, the next section covers the ones the game rates as more demanding.

Heroes to leave alone for now

Sinclair is the only complexity 4. The complexity-3 group is Billy, Drifter, Holliday, Ivy, Lash, Mina, Mo & Krill, Paradox, Rem, Shiv and Yamato. I'd stay away from all of them until the basics stop costing you games.

This article stops at the rating and doesn't break down why each of these is demanding. To see what a specific kit asks of you, read its ability tooltips in-game and try it in a Bot Match before you queue with it.

The same rating is also a way to test the older easy-hero lists, which is where we go next.

Are the 2024 easy-hero lists still right?

Most easy-hero guides date from September and October 2024, and they don't cite patch numbers. The names that keep coming up split under the current data.

Five of them are complexity 1: Seven, Abrams, McGinnis, Infernus and Wraith. Four are rated 2 today: Dynamo, Kelvin, Grey Talon and Graves.

None of them is a bad pick, and complexity says nothing about whether a hero is strong right now. If you want to see what the older lists said, ProSettings and Beebom both have one. Compare them against the ratings above.

The lists also skip six complexity-1 heroes: Paige, Silver, The Doorman, Vindicta, Vyper and Haze. Once you know which mistake you're fixing, those six are real options.

What to buy without overthinking it

Follow the in-game build for your hero and don't try to solve the shop yet. Lanes, shop categories and the match loop belong to a general how-to-play guide.

To show how cheap the first purchases are, tier 1 items cost 800 souls, and that tier includes Extra Health, Extra Regen and Sprint Boots. If you're dying a lot, those are easy to understand without a build guide.

How long to stay on one hero

My opinion: stay on a hero until you can name why you lost. If you can say "I died because I had no escape" or "I missed because I was fighting at the wrong range," you're still learning. If every death feels random and you've stopped improving, that's when I'd switch. One bad game isn't a reason to change.

For a number, UpForge advises committing to one hero for 10–15 games. That's their advice, and I'd treat it as a rough guide, not a rule.

Patch note

The official notes for the 09-16-2026 Update are on the Deadlock forum. Hero picks are the part of any guide most likely to go stale, so check the latest notes before you lock in.