Deadlock Street Brawl guide: rules, drafts and how to win
How Street Brawl works after the latest patches: rounds, item drafts, overtime and Walkers, plus how to draft and fight to win best-of-five.
Updated · Patch Nov 4, 2026
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What Street Brawl is
Street Brawl is Deadlock's 4v4 fighting mode: one lane, no souls, and a best-of-five where the first team to win three rounds takes the match. You win a round by destroying the enemy Guardian, and instead of a shop you draft a set of items before every round.
It arrived with the Old Gods, New Blood update in January 2026 and has been tuned in almost every patch since. Matches are short and don't affect your rank, so it's a good place to try a new hero in real fights.
How a round works
A round runs 3 minutes before it goes into Overtime, and Urgent Overtime starts at 4.5 minutes. Troopers spawn every 18 seconds in early rounds and every 15 in later ones, with the first wave leaving 5 seconds before the round starts. There are no neutral camps, so the map is just the two teams, the waves and the objective.
Abilities start each round ready to use, except ultimates, which start on a heavily reduced cooldown. When a round ends the game slows for a moment, then you're back in base to draft.
Once a team has won two rounds it's on match point: the losing team's Guardian is removed, and the winners have to destroy a Walker instead.
How Street Brawl differs from standard matches
Forget farming. Troopers and kills drop no souls, so last hits, denies and jungle routes don't matter here. The wave still does, because Guardians have Backdoor Protection and you need your troopers with you to take one down fast.
Respawns are long for such a short round: 25 seconds in rounds 1 and 2, and 30 seconds from round 3 on. Overtime adds another 25 to 30 seconds, and Urgent Overtime adds 40 to 45. A single pick in Overtime can decide the round.
A few rules exist only in this mode. Every ability and item range and radius is 10% smaller, healing in base is twice as fast, ziplines have a 20-second cooldown at the start of a round, and you can't pause. Some heroes and items also get Brawl-only balance changes, marked in their tooltips so you can see what's different.
How the item draft works
Before each round you get 50 seconds to pick one of three sets of three items. You can reroll one set per round, into items of a similar tier and rarity, and queuing with a random hero gives you an extra reroll in rounds 1 to 3. Drafted items stay with you for the rest of the match and there's no item slot limit, so you never have to sell.
The tiers go up each round. Round 1 offers Tier 1 to 3, round 2 offers Tier 2 and 3, round 3 adds Tier 4, and the last rounds bring Tier 4 items with a chance at a legendary. Street Brawl has 17 legendary items you can't get anywhere else, such as Seraphim Wings, Celestial Blessing and Unstable Concoction. Items can also roll as enhanced versions with better numbers.
Drops are mirrored, so if the enemy team gets a legendary or an enhanced item, your team gets an equivalent one. Some items are weighted towards certain heroes, and counter items show up more often against the heroes they counter.
How to draft well
Pick the set, not the best single item. One great item with two you'll never use is worse than three that all fit your hero. Look at the enemy team before you look at your options.
- Take anti-heal when the enemy has a healer or a lifesteal hero. Healbane and Toxic Bullets show up early.
- Take Debuff Reducer or Dispel Magic when the enemy can chain stuns on you.
- Take survival in round 1. Respawns are long, so not dying matters more than one more damage stat.
- If an item upgrades from one you already own, you also get a lower-tier item as a bonus, so check before you skip a set.
- Save your reroll for the round that sets your build. Rerolling round 1 rarely matters as much as rerolling round 4.
Ability Points in Street Brawl
You don't farm Ability Points here. Each player gets 6 AP in rounds 1 and 2, 5 AP in rounds 3 and 4, and 10 AP in round 5, and everything is unlocked by round 5. Everyone's kit grows at the same pace, and round 5 is the first time every hero is fully upgraded.
Spend early AP on the ability that wins your fights, not the one that clears waves. There's no farm to speed up.
How to win Street Brawl
Most rounds are decided by the first fight that ends in a death. With four players a side and 25-second respawns, the team that gets the first kill can push the wave into the Guardian before the dead player is back, so play the first 30 seconds of every round for that pick.
After a won fight, push with your wave. Chasing the survivors back to their base gives them time to respawn and throws away the Backdoor Protection window you just earned.
Overtime favours the team that's ahead. Once the round passes 3 minutes, troopers get much stronger (1.75x health and 1.44x damage in rounds 1 to 3, up to 2.5x health and 1.56x damage in round 5) and respawns get longer. If you're winning, let Overtime work for you. If you're behind, force the fight before 3 minutes while dying still costs little.
- Move as four. One player out of position is a quarter of your team.
- Burn cooldowns freely early in a round. They start ready, and the round may be over before you'd need them again.
- Keep your ultimate for the push, not the first skirmish, unless it wins that skirmish outright.
Comebacks and Walker rounds
A 2-0 lead isn't safe. The defending objective's health grows every round, from 1,800 in round 1 to 7,400 in round 5, and the losing team's objective gets an extra 1,200 health, or 2,800 when they're facing match point. Walkers get another 4,000 on top, so match-point rounds take much longer to close than the first two did.
On match point, plan for a long round: draft some sustain, group before you push, and don't take an even fight at 4 minutes when Urgent Overtime respawns can lose you the round. When you're behind, the extra health buys you time to win one big fight. Take it with everyone alive.
Recent Street Brawl changes
Valve changes this mode often, so check the patch notes before you trust a number. The City Never Sleeps update (September 29, 2026) added a corrupted item after the round 5 draft, and a patch a few days later took corrupted items out of Street Brawl again. The October 14, 2026 patch shortened Baba's Threadsap by 35% in Street Brawl only.