Deadlock adds six new heroes, but they are only available to veterans. But that doesn't matter anymore because Valve renamed Slork

Deadlock's latest patch is a major one. If you've played 50 games, you can check out six new heroes, a map redesign, and some major hero changes. You won't suffer any disadvantages, even though these changes won't appear in ranked or casual games for some time.

Calico, Holliday Magician Viper Wrecker and Fathom are the six new heroes. Slork was originally called Fathom. It was a bold, innovative name and I don't know why Valve changed it. But there's no point in crying over spilled water, so let's all make the most of the situation by referring to him only as Slork.

You'll be allowed to play these heroes through Hero Labs. This is a new experimental mode which allows players with more than 50 games to play matches with a larger cast of heroes, and provide feedback on the new hero designs. The new heroes in this mode can have placeholder names and models, effects and even abilities. This gives me hope that Slork’s new name won't be permanent.

Calico is my favorite new hero. Her hero background was impressive: "She was granted the dubious honor of being named Time Magazine’s most dangerous woman in the world." All of her abilities are centered around cats. Sekhmet’s Spirit lets her send a spectre cat that attaches to enemies. Pounce gives her the ability jump at a target. Nekomata Ward lets her deploy a statue of a cat that will track enemies and attack anyone Calico has recently damaged. Calico's ultimate power, Queen of Shadows, is also very cool. It surrounds her with shadows and makes her invisible, allowing her to attack enemies out of nowhere.

Calico was a lot of fun to play. However, I need to improve my ability to fake out enemies and disengage from battles faster if I'm going to have any impact as them.

Slork, also known as Fathom, can spray scalding waters on enemies, lurch to do damage, temporarily defer incoming damages, and throw a harpoon which can latch onto a wall and pull in foes. Slork's deferring of damage is a powerful ability. I can't count the number of times I was so close to escaping a fight only to die before I could reach safety. Delaying incoming damage for a few seconds could give me the time I need to survive close encounters, regain my health, and fight.

Holliday can launch an explosive powder-keg, place jump pads, gain extra damage for headshots, and lasso opponents to drag them in front of you. Magician is able to fire a magic bolt, summon a carbon-copy that can attack enemies, curse an opponent so they turn into a rabbit, and switch their position with another player. Wrecker has some amazing abilities as well, including creating a giant scrap, stunning enemies, and firing out the remains of dead players.

Viper, the lizard-hero, has an interesting trick: sliding. In Deadlock, if you slide you will get unlimited ammo. To make the most out of this, you should build stamina, speed, or learn movement combos such as dash-slide and dash-jump to extend your slide. For many heroes, it is convenient to slide, but for Viper, it is a necessity.

Viper's magazine is small. With only 18 bullets it would be difficult to win a fight one-on-one without sliding. Viper's slide is longer than most heroes and their gun deals a lot of damage. All of Viper's builds so far have boosted stamina and speed. I've found the build Don't Stop Moving to be a great way to give Viper an edge against more aggressive opponents. The description states that this build is based on sliding and moving constantly while fighting to get the 50% bullet evasion+infinite ammunition. "Your venom 2 is your finisher, and is extremely powerful against low hp opponents."

The Hero Lab only opens for a few short hours each day. There have been some matchmaking issues, but it's not because of poor connections or unstable server. The real problem is human-made. "The Hero Lab idea is cool, but people have quit half the time when they don't receive a new character," says an admin at Deadlock Intel. I've played some new characters with success, but many of the Hero Labs I play are exactly like my usual heroes. It's not as much fun to play regular characters as it is to experiment with new ones, but I don't mind.