Deadlock Fight Night #23 gave us our first look at high-level Deadlock in the aftermath of the most recent April patch for the game, which proved to shake up the meta somewhat significantly. Heroes we haven’t seen in some time re-entered the fray, roster changes came into play, and teams like Melee Creeps and Virtus.pro proved they are here to stay. So, in the wake of this week’s matches, here are our winners and losers from DFN #23.
We saw a massive resurgence of Lady Geist in this week’s fight night, as she was picked in several of the matches across EU and NA. Warden was picked a bit less often, but is also a hero we have seen even less in recent weeks of DFN. Both saw success, even being able to provide carry potential for their teams at different stages (I’m looking at you, Ablay “ABL” Serikbay).
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The resurgence of these two heroes, alongside others we see less often like Viscous, came into play thanks to the most recent Deadlock patch notes and the initial response from high-level players to those notes. It will be interesting to see if these heroes’ presence will simply be a flash in the pan or if we could see them used again in Deadlock Fight Night #24.
Europe has turned into an ultra-competitive region over the past few weeks, with consistently close matches and relative roster stability. This week’s money match was no different, as we saw Virtus.pro turn around the series after 1Win Team took the first round. But, it could have just as easily been Parivision in that finals match, as they went head-to-head with Virtus.pro throughout the play-in match.
All in all, it’s been great to see how tightly contested EU has become each week and has me consistently excited to tune in and see how it all plays out. DFN #24 could be anyone’s game in EU.
Deadlock Fight Night #23 presented by Intel
In such a small pool of high-level terms that regularly compete in DFN, the newly named Crayon Eaters were hit hard by the roster changes this past week, seeing several players interchanged. This offered up a prime opportunity for NA rival Melee Creeps to step in and have success, and they didn’t miss their moment. It will be interesting to continue to monitor the Crayon Eaters roster – who knows, perhaps they will come back next week with a new name and accessory for their lovable Hydra mascot?
This last patch made Ethereal Shift, an item that had come to dominate the higher-level meta, completely obsolete in DFN #23. This made life miserable for heroes like Pocket, who gain a lot of value from an ability that fits so cleanly into his kit. The same could arguably be said for heroes like Yamato, Infernus, Shiv, Calico, and Abrams that love to get up close and personal to provide value, but also could use a get out of jail free card like E-Shift.
This made engagements a lot more delicate, and cleared the way for heroes like Lady Geist and Viscous to provide value in a big way, as each has their own version of a bailout ability with life swap and cube, respectively. These two heroes and Kelvin may prove to be increasingly valuable as we move into a world without Ethereal Shift.
Image via the DFN Discord
I’m not sure whether this kind of aura makes Jason a winner or a loser this week. I’ll leave that up to the reader to decide…
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All in all, this week of Deadlock Fight Night delivered like any other. Be sure and stay tuned here at The Game Haus as we continue to cover it and all other Deadlock news and updates!
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