What the hell is Deadlock's Midame? If

you've played Deadlock for even a couple

of hours, that moment has come to you.

You're in lane phase, things are making

sense. You trade kills, you push creeps,

and you try and get that tower at the

end. Then suddenly, some towers start to

fall. Objectives appear all around the

map, and the team scatters out of your

lane. Deadlock is sneaky. It's a hero

shooter with some extra rules. If you

come from others like Overwatch 2,

Rivals, or hell, even Apex, you can

survive lane phase on pure skill and

game sense alone. But once towers fall,

Deadlock reveals its true identity. It's

a MOA wearing a hero shooters jacket.

And for the rest of the game, you'll be

playing on these brand new terms. So

today, we'll be diving into what

Deadlock's Midame actually is. We'll

cover what to focus on, where to beat,

and where to look, and how Deadlock's

5-minute combat cycle can be utilized to

snowball that advantage. By the end,

you'll have a framework for not only

surviving Midame, but thriving. It's

time to deadlock in.

Let's first start by anchoring

everything with Deadlock's golden rule,

that of lane pressure. Creeps march

forward and unless someone answers,

objectives can fall. It's easy to

respect this rule in lane. It's a 2v2

brawl. You see the creeps, you see the

tower, everything is right there. But

the moment towers fall and rotations

start to come through, people forget.

Lanes start to be left open. Objectives

and walkers start to take creep damage.

And here's the thing, ignoring wave is

the fastest way to lose the game. As

people chase kills in the jungle and

fights over EN, walkers fall while

nobody's looking. And regardless of

rank, bad macro is bad gameplay. It

isn't the most glamorous job, but

somebody's got to do it. If you're newer

to MOBAs, this term macro might be

confusing. However, let's break it down.

It's everything beyond the immediate

duel. It's how our objectives are

standing, how our waves are pushed, and

how our rotations are done on time to

ensure that those walkers don't take

some extra creek damage. It's also

communicating when you can't cover lane.

If you see creeps crashing your side

lane walker while you're on the other

side in the middle of the jungle, call

it out. The lower your rank, the more

likely it is that your teammates are

suffering from tunnel vision and

ignoring the vital objective. And this

is the first truth of Deadlock's Midame.

Even if you can't out aim your opponent,

if you can out macro, stay on top of

objectives, handle lane pressure, and

rotate on the right time, you can out

position them into a win.

We've been talking about objectives and

walkers, but what the hell are they? So,

here's some walker stats to help you

know exactly why they're so important.

Sidelane walkers have 5,800 HP, whereas

blue lane has over 9,000. They grant a

15% spirit and bullet resist to allies

nearby. But why do walkers matter?

Because they change the economy of the

entire game. One walker down is one

extra slot. Three walkers down is two

extra slots. This is both an economic

and power advantage over the opposing

team and can ensure that the next fight

you take is one where your team is

heavily bolstered in comparison. And

remember, wasting time poking walkers

preminute 16 is bait. The walker

resistances are too high at this point

and your team starts to bleed tempo. The

real move is to shove the wave, steal

their jungle, and wait for that more

opportune time to strike. And speaking

of timing, let's dive into Deadlock's

5-minute combat cycle.

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Every 5 minutes in Deadlock, earn and

bridge buffs respawn. Think of these

like timers in your head, the metronome

of Midame. Teams naturally gravitate to

these spawns, more so bridge buffs than

earn in lower lobbies. However, I can

assure you that they are the catalyst

for many a team fight. The key in these

objective and win mechanics is not

simply just taking them when they spawn,

but rather taking them at the most

opportune time. If you treat every 5

minute mark as a checkpoint in the game,

it more easily organizes your play.

Between minutes 10 and 14:30, you should

really be farming and trying to get your

next power spike. Then, as soon as that

bridge buff comes online or that earn

finally drops with your newly acquired

item, you can take that fight. The worst

thing you can do at this point is still

scrambling for camps and boxes and

sitting on over 2,000 in souls. And this

is where so many teams lose. They show

up late to the fight without their power

spike and are surprised when they get

rolled. The earn doesn't win you the

fight. The preparation does. The earn is

merely the catalyst to get it going. So,

let's dig into that preparation and

learn some new terms such as power

ramping and power spikes.

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A power spike is when your character

goes from eh to oh god, kill it now. It

can be an item like Tesla bullets for

Wraith or Ivy, or maybe even an upgraded

ability like tier three on Kelvin's Ice

Beam. The key is there are points in the

game where you yourself are marketkedly

stronger than you were before. And in

relation to the rest of the lobby, you

probably have a higher total power cap

than others at that exact moment.

However, these spikes don't last

forever. Buying Tesla bullets or hitting

that tier three is very nice and can get

you through that next fight. However,

relying on it for more than two or 3

minutes can seriously start to see some

diminishing returns. As soon as the

enemy hits their power spikes, then the

tables are yet again even if not flipped

back on you. Those couple minutes in

between are your window and are exactly

when you should be taking either those

earn fights or pushing an objective. If

you simply wait on it, your spike is

wasted. This is why the combat cycle and

syncing your power spikes with that

fiveminute combat cycle is so essential.

If you and two or three other of your

teammates all have just bought and are

ready for a fight along with the earn

dropping, then you and your team are

cooking up something sweet. With all

this talk of power spikes and power

ramping, it begs the question, how do I

hit my spikes on time? farming.

Deadlock's economy is deeper than it

might seem, and Midame is where it truly

opens up. Here I have listed your farm

pry. Sinner sacrifices should be focused

above all, primarily due to the buffs

they can give you at a jackpot hit. This

will give you four boons that you

typically get from a golden statue and

is a fantastic way to continually ramp

your passive stats. After sinn

sacrifices, we move on to our jungle

creeps. Primarily focus on tier 2 and

tier one camps in that early to mid mid

game and reach for those tier three

camps only once you have that damage or

can cultist sacrifice one of them.

Finally, in between all of those

objectives, you should be grabbing as

many boxes and golden statues as

possible. These are fantastic for

keeping your souls per minute up as well

as padding those passive stats. Think of

this as your farm hierarchy. When you're

pushing the wave and get it up to

Walker, again, instead of poking that

walker at those early minutes, rotate

into their jungle and start to steal

their resources. This is macro soul

denial. In lane phase, you can deny by

shooting the little soul orb that comes

out of the creep. In Midame, you can

deny by choking out entire soul camps.

This again creates a widened

differential between their total

possible soul allocation as well as your

total possible soul allocation. If your

team farms efficiently and invades

smartly, this leads to quicker buys and

better buys for that next earn, bridge

buff, or mid boss fight. And the beauty

of this denial is that it snowballs. The

more you and your team are able to

smartly steal, the larger the

differential gets, the harder it will be

for them to push you out of their own

jungle. yet again allowing you to soak

up even more of their farm. The more

they're starved, the fewer options they

have and the more likely it is for you

to not only steal those resources, but

then rotate back into lane and finally

hit that walker for some damage. So,

whenever you're not fighting or

rotating, ask yourself, what's the

highest value farm I could be taking

right now? If the answer is boxes in

your own jungle, well, you're probably

leaving a whole lot of soul on the

table.

[Music]

Finally, we have map awareness and

intuition. This is such an expensive

topic as to warrant a separate video, so

do stay tuned. However, a cursory

overview should work for now. Map

awareness is the layer of glue that

holds everything together. If you're not

actively in combat, your eyes should be

on that map. Farming, look at the map.

Clearing a wave, look at the map.

Walking to another lane, look at the

map. Because the map is free info, you

can see where enemies are, primarily

where they aren't, and if a wave is

pushing too far into one of your lanes.

And from all this info, you start to

predict and intuit it what the next move

might be. As an example, let's say

you're in the far left lane, and you see

three or even four enemies in the mid

and right side of the map, you can

safely say that this could max mean only

two are in your lane. You could do two

things. You can either rotate and try

and help your team. However, since

you're on the other side of the map,

this could take quite a while. The much

more advantageous option would be to try

and shove this lane. Due to the heavy

allocation of enemy team members on the

other side of the map, it should be much

easier for you to try and do damage on

that walker or at the very least invade

and steal some farm. Conversely, if you

see no one on the enemy team, this is a

much more dangerous state to be in.

Pushing the lane is more than likely

going to result in you getting ganked.

This would result in not only you, but

possibly a teammate trying to come and

save you dying, leading to less souls

per minute and more than likely either

walker damage on your side or at the

very least a jungle invasion. This is

where your intuition needs to start

coming into play. Intuition is simply

practiced pattern recognition. And the

only way to build up that, well, to play

more games. The more you watch the map

and the more you start playing, the more

you'll be able to predict what the enemy

team is likely concocting. What's their

win condition right now? Where do they

need to be in order to get the best

advantage? What are possibly their next

buys? Take all of this info and let it

affect your game play. Trying to counter

buy, counter rotate, and even counter

push. That's the thought process that

turns raw awareness into anticipation

and perfect execution. And the best

teams do this collectively, constantly

communicating and coordinating what they

feel might be happening. Deadlock

rewards the predictors, not the

reactors. So, let's bring it all

together. Deadlock's Midame is the pivot

point of the match. It's when the facade

of the hero shooter finally falls and

the MOA comes out. No longer is the game

only worried about your lane, but rather

all three at the same time. To play

well, you need to adhere to those

principles. Respect lane pressure,

protect and punish walkers, align with

that fiveminute combat cycle, hit your

power spikes on time, farm and deny

efficiently, and above all, train your

map sense until it becomes second

nature. It's tempted to think that

Midame is about non-stop fighting, but

it's not. It's about fighting at the

right time, for the right reasons, and

with the right preparation. If lame

phase is the tutorial, the midame is the

exam. And if you can pass the exam, well

then the chaos of late game will be a

cakewalk. Fail the exam and no amount of

raw skill or aim will save you. So the

next time you hear those towers fall and

you ask yourself, "What the hell is

Deadlock's Midame?" you'll have your

answer. Thank you for watching. It's

time for me to Deadlock out.

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