If you’ve spent any time playing Deadlock, you know souls are the lifeblood of your progression. They unlock new characters, exclusive skins, powerful in-match upgrades, and quality of life perks that make every round more fun and rewarding. A lot of new players get stuck grinding for hours for tiny soul payouts, which is why so many people search for how to get a lot of souls in Deadlock without spending extra cash or burning out on the game. I’ve put over 200 hours into the game testing different farming methods, and I’ve narrowed down the strategies that actually work, no exploits or hacks required.
Prioritize Daily and Weekly Challenge Completion
The single highest return on your play time comes from completing daily and weekly challenges, far more than just playing random matches for hours on end. Most new players skip over the challenge tab entirely to jump straight into casual matches, and that’s the biggest mistake they make for their soul grind. Even if you only have 15 minutes to play each day, knocking out your 2 daily challenges will give you more souls than playing 2 full casual matches with no challenge progress.
Daily challenges reset every 24 hours, and weekly challenges reset every 7 days, so you don’t want to let them expire and lose out on free rewards. Many challenges can also be stacked, meaning you can complete multiple at the same time to cut your grind time in half. For example, if you have a daily challenge to get 10 kills with a tank character and a weekly challenge to win 3 casual matches, you can knock out progress for both in the same set of games instead of doing them separately. You can also reroll one challenge per day if you get one that’s too difficult or time-consuming, so don’t feel stuck trying to complete a challenge that doesn’t fit your play style.
How to Get a Lot of Souls in Deadlock With Optimized Match Play
Not all matches give the same soul payout, and small adjustments to how you play can drastically increase how many souls you earn per hour. First, ranked matches give 30% more souls than casual matches, even if you lose. A lot of players avoid ranked because they don’t want to deal with the pressure of climbing the ladder, but you don’t have to be a top-tier player to benefit from the boosted soul rewards. Even if you lose half your ranked matches, you’ll still earn more souls overall than you would winning all your casual matches. If ranked really isn’t for you, unrated competitive matches are a great middle ground, giving 15% more souls than casual with no impact on your rank.
Your in-match performance also impacts how many souls you get at the end of a round. You get bonus soul payouts for finishing in the top 3 on your team, earning match MVP, and completing in-match objectives like capturing control points, defending your base, or getting objective kills. You don’t have to be the best player on the server to get these bonuses, just focus on playing the objective instead of chasing random kills across the map. I used to just run around looking for fights every match, and I switched to focusing on objectives last year, and my soul per hour rate went up by almost 40% overnight. Just make sure you don’t afk or leave matches early, you also don't want to skip match completion rewards — leaving before the final score screen will revoke all soul rewards for that match, and repeated early exits can lead to temporary bans that block all soul gains for days.
Take Advantage of Limited-Time Event Bonuses
Deadlock runs seasonal events every 4 to 6 weeks, and they are by far the fastest way to stack up souls quickly. If you're looking for how to get a lot of souls in Deadlock as fast as possible, events are your best bet. Event-exclusive challenges often give 2x to 5x the soul reward of standard daily challenges, and many of them are far easier to complete than regular challenges. The game also runs random weekend soul boosts a few times a month, where all match soul payouts are increased by 20% to 50% for 48 hours. I always set a reminder to play extra during these windows, and I once earned enough souls to unlock 3 new characters in one weekend during a summer event, which would have taken me 6 weeks of regular play.
When an event goes live, follow these simple steps to maximize your soul gains:
Avoid Common Soul Farming Mistakes That Waste Your Time
A lot of players follow outdated or wrong advice that ends up making their grind longer, not shorter, so it’s important to know what to avoid. First, don't waste souls on temporary cosmetic items if you’re saving for permanent character unlocks or upgrade slots. It’s easy to blow a week of soul gains on a temporary skin that disappears after 30 days, and you’ll end up kicking yourself when the character you’ve been waiting for drops and you don’t have enough souls to unlock it. Only spend souls on temporary items if you already have all the permanent unlocks you want.
Second, don’t play with a group of players way higher rank than you if your main goal is farming souls. You’ll get crushed every match, get very low performance bonuses, and end up with less souls per hour than playing alone or with players at your skill level. It’s fine to play with higher-rank friends for fun sometimes, but if you’re focused on grinding souls, stick to lobbies that match your current skill level. Third, don’t buy soul packs with real money unless you’re in a huge hurry. You can earn 90% of all unlocks for free just by following the strategies we covered, and the paid packs are extremely overpriced for the amount of souls you get. I made the mistake of buying a $10 soul pack when I first started, and I realized later I could have earned the same amount of souls in 3 days of casual play doing dailies.
You also want to avoid any “exploits” or hacks that claim to give you unlimited souls. The Deadlock dev team is very active about banning players who use exploits, and you’ll lose all your progress and souls if you get caught. It’s never worth risking your account for a quick soul boost, especially when the legitimate methods are so fast already.
At the end of the day, farming souls doesn't have to be a tedious, time-consuming chore if you work smart instead of hard. You don't need to play 8 hours a day or spend real money to get all the unlocks you want. By focusing on challenges, optimizing your match play, taking advantage of events, and avoiding common mistakes, you'll find that how to get a lot of souls in Deadlock is way simpler than most players make it out to be. Try out these strategies for a week, and you'll be shocked at how fast your soul balance grows, even if you only have a few hours a week to play.