Deadlock's Urn chaos continues as Valve steps in again following tournament drama

It happened again. A new Deadlock update continues Valve’s Soul Urn experiment, and this time it was a competitive tournament match that brought the MOBA’s current balance concerns back into the spotlight. A showdown between Floormen and Melee Creeps in the NA finals of this week’s Deadlock Night Shift was thrown off course when the latter team deployed an unconventional strategy combining the Urn’s powerful bonus resist aura with the recently introduced Golden Egg item. In the wake of this, fresh patch notes from the developer have altered how the Urn works for the third time in the past week.

The first dramatic redesign of the Deadlock Soul Urn gave us a tremendously silly weekend of high-octane teamfights in the middle of the map, which led to Valve moving the dropoff point and adjusting some of the key values around deposit time and comeback mechanics. I warned that there was likely to still be potential for teams to abuse the ‘favored Urn’ buff granting 35% Bullet Resist and Spirit Resist in a wide aura (something I certainly won’t claim to have been the only person to suggest). I didn’t expect it to happen quite like this.

As seen in the match below, team Melee Creeps figured out a way to put themselves intentionally ‘behind’ early. By all buying Golden Eggs, an investment item introduced in the March update that gradually accrues value over time, they were considered to be losing by enough of a margin that they could take advantage of the 35% Urn buff (and its new, more accessible pickup location for the team that is behind). Instead of actually depositing the Urn, however, they simply held onto it for the huge resistance bonuses, resetting its duration periodically to avoid the penalty applied after carrying it for too long.

With players and organizers alike thrown off guard by this tactic, the game was put on pause in an attempt to figure out the solution. Ultimately, Floormen player Sobhan ‘AVG’ Pirasteh chose to forfeit the round, later explaining that the team was “told we’d be down 0-1” in doing so, but that he decided to leave “because the game was not a real Deadlock game” and he did not want to “legitimize” the strategy. The tournament organizers then enforced a temporary regulation requesting that no team use this method of play again.

In response, new Deadlock patch notes have arrived. The 35% resistance bonuses still exist, but they apply solely to the Urn carrier while it’s on the move, and become an aura only while the Urn is in the process of being deposited. Urn spawns have been made later and less frequent, starting at the 12-minute mark and then happening every six minutes (instead of five) after that. To avoid cheeky Kelvin cheese, the deposit timer will now pause when inside his Frozen Shelter ultimate.

The damaging penalty for carrying the Urn too long kicks in after 30 seconds, but the timer will freeze if there are enemies within 40 meters of the runner. Picking it up at all will now always add a minimum of two seconds to that count, even if it’s instantly dropped. When on the ground, the Urn will not reset to spawn if enemies of the last team to carry it are within 40 meters; otherwise, it will wait for up to 13 seconds before heading home. If the total time held has passed 45 seconds, the Urn will immediately reset when dropped if no enemies are nearby.

This new Deadlock patch is live now. The update also includes one other small change, related to parrying. Using your parry on a trooper will now stun them, but this no longer resets your parry cooldown. It won’t end your parry early the way that deflecting a hit from a rival hero will, however.

AVG has since followed up on his decision to leave the match in question with a further statement, explaining that he “doesn’t care about any drama” but wanted to make his stance clear for the record. “The reality is I was emotional and felt somehow insulted,” he writes. “This is the best game ever created, and I’ve spent so much time falling in love with it that it just hurt to participate in that slopfest. I walked out the metaphorical door, and if that makes me a crybaby then it is what it is.”

He adds, “I accept that it’s childish as people have mentioned, and I am flawed, so the blame for that lies with me. The game is experimental and it deserves to test whatever it likes to, but with that being said, I don’t believe I am forced to sit there and watch or play when it’s being reduced to literal cinders of what it should be.” In conclusion, AVG notes, “This patch is a bygone, and the game will be a clear sky once more once they figure out the next step. I trust the devs to move forward, they always have. It just sucks sometimes, and that’s okay.”