Rat King Dominates Deadlock With a 61% Win Rate

61% win rate across more than 100,000 matches: that is the score of a hero released on Friday. Rat King, in Deadlock, has been crushing every other character in the game since the October 2 patch. He is the first of the six City Never Sleeps heroes, picked by the in-game vote, as our October 3 article reported.

This same patch carries two other stories. Three heroes change their displayed role, and the Broker, the event’s traveling merchant, disappears. The next hero arrives Tuesday at 2 p.m. PT (11 p.m. in Paris).

Rat King, 61% win rate and a 5-point lead

The Tracklock table, pulled on the morning of October 5 across all matches since the September 29 update, puts the rat king at a 61.40% win rate. He shows up in 47.52% of matches, with 110.6k wins against 69.5k losses, and earns S+ rank. DeadlockLABS gives 61.1% across 119,748 tracked matches, all ranks combined. The two sites agree.

Here is how far ahead it sits in the Tracklock ranking:

• Rat King: 61.40%
• Paige: 56.76%
• Graves: 56.50%, S+ rank
• Seven: 55.50%
• Haze: 54.56%
• Victor: 54.45%

No other hero exceeds 57%. Here is his kit, from the Deadlock wiki page:

• Scrap Grenade: bouncing grenade, 3 detonations over 4 s, 65 bullet damage each, a 20% slow and then 40% on the last one. Cooldown 26 s.
• Rat Swarm: rats latch onto enemies, 8 spirit damage per bite, 1% less bullet resistance per bite, up to 5 rats. A dash shakes them off. Cooldown 28 s.
• Royal Pestments: barrier worth 15% of max HP for 6 s, with a 15% chance to reflect bullets. Cooldown 22 s.
• Rule, Ratannia! (ultimate): a banner gives nearby allies +3 m/s speed, immunity to slows and 20% damage reduction for 12 s. The impact deals 200 bullet damage, launches enemies into the air and slows them by 40% in a 24 m radius. Cooldown 130 s.
• Innate: enter and exit vents out of combat.

He starts with 800 HP and a weapon, Sovereign’s Decree, dealing 60 damage per second with 24 rounds.

Player’s read: the kit’s strength lies in the ultimate. A 12 s banner that grants speed, slow immunity and 20% damage reduction to the whole team changes the outcome of a fight, not just a duel. Around it, the rats gnaw at the target’s bullet resistance and the barrier reflects some of the shots. Every ability feeds the others.

Novelty plays a part too: opponents don’t know the kit yet and react badly. But a lead of nearly 5 points over second place is too much for a simple discovery effect. In my view, an adjustment looks likely. Valve has announced nothing: the numbers are what suggest it.

The character has a distinctive backstory. He came from an idea by Reddit user DragonRollZ, posted on September 2, 2025. Louis, sovereign of the New York Warrens, wants to turn Long Island into Ratannia, a nation of rats. He has more than 100 voice lines that name his rats one by one, a knotted tail referencing the real-world rat king phenomenon, and a selection pose that salutes New York’s viral Pizza Rat video.

Graves, Celeste and Silver quietly change roles

The October 2 patch contains 15 changes, and the quietest one involves three heroes. Deadlock Tracker lists it under the title « Listen up, Crumbums! Your King is here. »

Each hero carries a role label displayed in game. Graves and Celeste go from « Marksman » to « Mystic ». Silver goes from « Marksman » to « Brawler ». Rem gets the « Mystic » role as well.

On Tracklock, the three carry very different weights. Graves posts a 56.50% win rate, S+ rank. Celeste drops to 48.84% and Silver to 45.80%.

Player’s read: a label doesn’t touch any ability. It changes what the game recommends to beginners and how you read a team composition. Graves and Celeste mostly play through their abilities, Silver fights up close. The new labels fit better with how they are played. Celeste was coming off a hard blow, too: the September 16 patch had weakened her.

The rest of the patch fits in a few lines:

• Mo & Krill: the tunnel channel no longer extends with duration bonuses.
• Yamato: Flying Strike now lists its valid targets (heroes, troops, bosses, objectives, summons, neutrals).
• A new ping tells low-health teammates that healing is within range.
• Small creeps respawn every 15 s, and one in ten is a faster rat.

The Broker leaves, and the competitive scene had already banned it

Since October 2, the Broker has been disabled. This traveling merchant from City Never Sleeps traded high-tier items for corrupted versions that came with random penalties. It was only meant to stay for a few days.

Competitive players had not waited for this removal. According to Power Up Gaming, the teams in the Deadlock Night Shift community tournament had jointly decided to boycott it. Their reason: too much randomness in a high-stakes match. Their trick: set its spawn time to the maximum, 60 minutes, so it never shows up. Our October 3 article already compared the Broker to a deal with the devil.

In ranked mode, a merchant that hands out random penalties skews the decisive late-game fights. Its removal makes the meta easier to read, right as Rat King shakes it up.

What comes next is already dated. The next hero arrives Tuesday, October 6 at 2 p.m. PT (11 p.m. in Paris). Five candidates remain in the running: Nurse Harrow, Solomon, Deadman Danny, Baba and Violet. The vote takes place in game, with no public official tally.