If you’ve spent any time playing the fast-paced team shooter Deadlock, you know souls are the game’s most versatile and sought-after currency. You need them for everything from unlocking new playable characters to grabbing rare cosmetic skins, temporary match boosts, and exclusive limited-time items that disappear from the shop after a few weeks. A lot of new players grind for hours on end without making much progress, stuck earning only a handful of souls per match while other players seem to unlock every new item the second it drops. That’s exactly why we put together this breakdown of how to get souls deadlock without wasting your time on low-yield activities that don’t move the needle. We’ve tested every method laid out in this guide across more than 120 ranked and casual matches, so we know exactly what works, what’s a waste of time, and what small changes can double your soul earnings in just a week of regular play.
Core Methods for How to Get Souls Deadlock Consistently
You don’t have to be a top 1% ranked player to earn a steady, reliable stream of souls every time you log on. The game’s core reward system is designed to give all players a fair shot at earning currency, as long as you know what actions give you the best return on your time. These are the base methods that make up 70% of most players’ weekly soul earnings, and they require no extra investment or special tricks to take advantage of.
- Match completion bonus: You get 20 base souls just for finishing a full match, even if your team loses. You won’t get this if you leave early, so don’t rage quit even if you’re getting crushed by a stacked enemy team.
- Performance multipliers: Kills, assists, objective captures, and healing or shielding teammates all add multiplier points that stack on top of your base soul reward. A match where you hit 15 kills and 10 assists can net you 3x the base soul amount, even if you end up on the losing team.
- Daily challenge rewards: The game rolls out 3 new daily challenges every 24 hours, each rewarding between 50 and 150 souls for completing simple tasks like winning 2 matches as a support class or getting 8 kills with a specific weapon.
- Weekly milestone bonuses: Every week, you can earn up to 1000 bonus souls for hitting playtime and win milestones, no extra effort required beyond playing normally. You’ll get these automatically added to your account as soon as you hit the required threshold, no need to claim them manually.
A lot of new players skip daily challenges because they think they’re too hard, but most of them you’ll complete without even trying if you play a couple matches a day. For example, if you main a tank class, the challenge to get 20,000 total shielding in a day will usually be done in 2 or 3 matches. We’ve found that players who log in just 10 minutes a day to complete quick daily challenges earn 40% more souls per week than players who only play on weekends, even if the weekend players log more total hours.
Mistakes That Are Slowing Down Your Soul Farming Progress
You might be following all the core methods and still not earning as many souls as you expect, and that’s usually because you’re making small, easy-to-fix mistakes that are eating into your gains. Most players make these errors without even realizing it, and fixing them can give you an immediate bump in how many souls you earn per match.
Leaving matches before they end is the biggest mistake new players make. Even if your team is down 10 points with 2 minutes left, sticking around to finish gives you that base 20 souls, plus any performance points you’ve already earned. If you leave early, you get zero, no matter how well you played for the first 10 minutes. We’ve seen players lose out on hundreds of souls a week just because they quit matches when they’re frustrated, and that’s an entirely avoidable loss.
Ignoring objective play for kills only is another common error. A lot of players think getting the most kills will give them the most souls, but objective captures give 2x the multiplier points per action as a regular kill. If you spend the whole match farming kills away from the objective, you’ll end up with way fewer souls than the player who spent that time capturing points and supporting their team, even if you have twice as many kills as they do. I used to make this mistake all the time when I first started, grinding 20+ kills a match and wondering why I was earning fewer souls than our support player who only had 3 kills but captured 7 objectives.
Letting daily challenges expire is such a waste of free souls. The game lets you stack up to 3 uncompleted daily challenges, so if you miss a day, you don’t lose them, but if you let them pile up past 3, any new challenges will replace the oldest one, and you’ll miss out on those rewards. We’ve seen players lose out on 500+ souls a month just because they don’t check their challenge tab once a week. It only takes 30 seconds to scan your pending challenges before you queue up, and it’s well worth the time.
Advanced Strategies to Boost Your Soul Gains Even Faster
Once you’ve got the core methods down and cut out the common mistakes, you can use these advanced tricks to bump your soul earnings by up to 60% per match, no extra playtime required. These tricks are especially useful if you don’t have a lot of time to play each week and want to make the most of the hours you do have.
Play with a full pre-made team whenever possible. The game gives a 15% soul bonus for every match you play with at least one friend, and that goes up to 30% if you’re playing with a full 4-person squad. You also win more matches when you’re playing with people you communicate with, and win bonuses add another 20% to your soul reward per match. That adds up fast: a full squad win can net you almost double the souls of a solo queue loss, for the same amount of playtime. If you don’t have friends who play Deadlock, you can join the official Discord server to find other players looking for squad mates, and you’ll get the same bonus.
Take advantage of double soul events that run every weekend and during special holiday periods. During these events, all base soul rewards, challenge rewards, and performance multipliers are doubled. We always recommend saving any hard weekly challenges for these weekends, so you get double the souls for completing the same task. Last year during the summer event, we completed 4 weekly challenges in one weekend and earned 3,200 souls in just 4 hours of play, which would have taken 2 weeks of regular play to get. The game usually announces these events a few days in advance on their social media pages, so keep an eye out for announcements if you want to plan your playtime around them.
Prioritize battle pass tiers if you have the paid or free battle pass. Almost every 3rd tier of the battle pass gives a soul reward of between 100 and 500 souls, and you earn battle pass XP at the same time you earn souls, so you’re getting double rewards for every match you play. You don’t have to pay for the premium battle pass to get these soul rewards, either: 70% of the soul rewards are available on the free track, so even players who don’t spend real money on the game can take advantage of this boost.
What to Spend Your Souls On First to Get More Value
It’s easy to blow all your hard-earned souls on random cosmetic skins as soon as you get them, but being strategic about your spending can actually help you earn even more souls long term. These are our top recommendations for how to spend your souls to get the most value, especially if you’re a newer player.
Unlock 2-3 main characters first before you buy any cosmetics. The default characters are fine for new players, but having a few different characters to pick from means you can always fill a role your team needs, which leads to more wins, which leads to more soul rewards. You don’t need to unlock every character right away, just pick 2 or 3 that fit your playstyle, one for each main role if possible. I used to spend all my souls on character skins when I first started, and I struggled to unlock new characters for months, which meant I was stuck playing the same 1 character every match, even if my team already had 3 damage players and needed a tank. Once I switched to unlocking characters first, my win rate went up by 20%, and my soul earnings followed.
Buy the weekly soul booster bundle if you play 3+ matches a week. The bundle costs 200 souls, but it gives you a 10% soul bonus for all matches for 7 days, plus 3 extra daily challenges that each reward 100 souls. If you play even 4 matches that week, you’ll make back the 200 souls you spent plus an extra 300 to 500 souls on top. It’s the only in-game purchase that gives you a positive return on your soul investment, so it’s worth prioritizing if you play regularly.
Once you’ve unlocked your main characters and have extra souls left over, you can feel free to spend them on whatever skins or cosmetic items you want. There’s no right or wrong way to spend souls once you’ve covered the basics, and the point of earning them is to get the items that make the game more fun for you.
At the end of the day, earning souls doesn’t have to be a boring grind that takes all your free time. By sticking to the core methods, avoiding common mistakes, and using the advanced tricks we’ve laid out, you’ll be able to figure out how to get souls deadlock at a pace that works for you, no matter how much time you have to play each week. Don’t feel like you have to grind for 8 hours a day to get all the rewards you want: even 30 minutes a day of focused play, completing daily challenges, will get you more than enough souls to unlock everything you want in a few weeks. The most important thing is to have fun while you’re playing: if you’re only playing to farm souls and not enjoying the matches, you’re going to burn out fast, and that’s not worth it for any in-game reward.