Deadlock Broker: Best Corrupted Items and Trades

The City Never Sleeps update adds one of the most interesting late-game mechanics to Deadlock with the arrival of The Broker and his Corrupted Items. Once the match reaches the later stages, this mysterious merchant appears around the map and gives you a chance to turn one of your high-tier items into a much stronger Corrupted version.

There is an obvious catch. Every Corrupted Item comes with a randomized negative effect, so the upgrade is never completely free. You might gain a huge boost to the item's original stats while losing health, movement speed, stamina, ability range, or another important stat.

The good news is that these drawbacks are shared across the entire match. If you know what penalty a particular Corrupted Item has, you also know what every other player gets from that same item. That makes The Broker less about blindly gambling and more about understanding your hero's build and choosing a trade where the downside hurts as little as possible.

Here is everything you need to know about The Broker, Corrupted Items, their drawbacks, and how to make better trades.

The Broker is a temporary merchant introduced with the City Never Sleeps update. He does not stay in one permanent location, so you need to keep an eye out for him when his shop becomes available.

His first shipment appears at around the 30-minute mark, with the exact timing varying slightly between matches. Additional opportunities become available roughly every 15 minutes afterward.

When you find The Broker, you can exchange an eligible high-tier item from your inventory for its Corrupted version. The trade itself does not cost Souls. Instead, you give up the normal version of the item and receive the upgraded Corrupted version.

The trade can be extremely valuable in a late-game fight because Corrupted Items provide significantly stronger versions of their normal effects. However, you also receive a negative stat as part of the corruption.

That means you should never look at the positive upgrade alone. The real question is whether your hero can comfortably handle the drawback.

The first Broker shipment arrives at approximately 30 minutes into a normal match. After that, additional Corrupted Items become available at roughly 15-minute intervals.

Because this is a late-game mechanic, you will normally have most of your core build completed before the Broker becomes relevant. That is important because you can make the decision based on the role your hero is already playing rather than changing your entire build around the corruption.

The Broker is a limited-time feature tied to the City Never Sleeps event. Valve says he will leave once the first new hero arrives on October 2, so this mechanic will only be available for a short time.

One of the biggest advantages of the system is that you do not have to spend additional Souls to perform the corruption.

You simply need to own an eligible Tier 3 or Tier 4 item. The Broker exchanges that item for its Corrupted version.

This makes the decision much more about the tradeoff than the price. If the drawback fits your build, there is very little reason to ignore a strong Corrupted upgrade.

The random element becomes much more interesting because the drawbacks are shared within the match.

If you corrupt an item and discover that it has a particular penalty, an enemy player who corrupts that same item will receive the same drawback. The values can have some variation between matches, but within a specific match, the roll is shared.

This gives you useful information even when you do not personally plan to use the item.

For example, if you discover that a particular Corrupted Item has a heavy Weapon Damage penalty, you immediately know that the same corruption is less attractive for an enemy weapon-focused hero as well.

Every Corrupted Item receives one negative effect from a predefined pool. However, some items cannot roll certain drawbacks. The penalty is the price you pay for the much stronger version of the item.

The possible drawbacks are:

The size of the penalty also depends on the tier of the item being corrupted. Tier 4 corruption can involve considerably heavier drawbacks than Tier 3 corruption.

This is why you should not automatically corrupt the most expensive item in your build. A stronger item does not necessarily mean a better trade.

Before accepting a Corrupted Item, check its drawback and compare it with your hero's actual build. The best trades usually sacrifice a stat your hero barely uses while strengthening an important part of the build. Be much more careful with penalties to movement speed, stamina, health, or other stats your playstyle depends on.

The Broker's pool contains a large selection of high-tier items across the Weapon, Vitality, and Spirit categories.

A total of 90 Tier 3 and Tier 4 shop items can receive Corrupted versions, giving players plenty of possible upgrades to consider.

Some notable examples include:

The available pool gives The Broker relevance to almost every type of build. Whether your hero is focused on gun damage, Spirit abilities, survivability, or utility, there can be a corruption worth considering.

However, the best trade still depends on the drawback that rolled in your particular match.

The Broker works differently in Street Brawl. After the item draft in Round 5, every player gets an opportunity to corrupt one of their items, so you do not need to wait for the normal 30-minute Broker timing used in standard matches.

There is no single Corrupted Item that is automatically the best choice for every hero. Your decision should start with the negative stat and then move to the value of the upgraded item.

A simple way to evaluate a trade is to ask yourself three questions:

If the answer to the third question is no, the trade becomes much more attractive.

The strongest trades often come from giving up something your hero does not need.

A gun-focused hero, for example, can potentially accept a negative Spirit-related stat if most of the hero's damage comes from weapons. The opposite can also apply to a Spirit-heavy caster that does not rely heavily on weapon damage.

This creates what you can think of as a stat dump trade. You are effectively converting a stat you care less about into a much stronger version of an item that directly supports your main source of damage or survivability.

These are usually the trades worth looking for first.

Think about how your hero actually wins fights.

If your damage comes primarily from abilities, a corruption that sacrifices weapon-related value may be easier to handle.

If you are playing a weapon-focused hero, losing Spirit Power might have a much smaller effect on your overall build.

For a durable front-line hero, a defensive drawback may also be more manageable than it would be for a fragile back-line character.

The same Corrupted Item can therefore be excellent on one hero and awkward on another.

Some penalties can interfere with the fundamental way your hero moves or survives.

Move Speed is a good example. A large movement penalty can make it harder to chase enemies, escape dangerous situations, dodge abilities, or reposition during team fights.

Stamina can create a similar problem. If your hero relies heavily on movement and repeated stamina usage, sacrificing stamina may be far more costly than the item upgrade initially appears.

Maximum Health can also be dangerous for fragile heroes. Giving up a large amount of health for an offensive improvement may leave you vulnerable to burst damage, especially in late-game fights.

Late-game fights can be decided quickly, so keeping enough health to survive enemy bursts remains important.

The shared drawback system gives you information that you would not normally have in a random upgrade system.

Once someone on your team or the enemy team reveals a Corrupted Item's drawback, you know what that same corruption looks like for everyone else in the match.

Pay attention to these reveals.

If an enemy player takes a Corrupted Item with a major movement penalty, you can factor that into how you approach them later. Likewise, if your team discovers a particularly favorable corruption, you can decide whether another hero can make better use of the same trade.

This makes information itself part of the Broker mechanic.

You do not need to take the first corruption you see. When The Broker becomes available, start with the items that are already important to your build and compare their Corrupted versions.

Use this order:

A Corrupted Item is not automatically worth taking just because its positive effects are stronger. The best trades improve an important part of your build while sacrificing a stat you rarely use.

Prioritize Corrupted Items that strengthen your weapon damage, firepower, or other important offensive effects.

Be more cautious with penalties to Weapon Damage, Move Speed, Stamina, and defensive stats that help you stay in fights.

Look for upgrades that directly strengthen your abilities and Spirit scaling.

A drawback affecting weapon-related stats can potentially be easier to accept, but avoid sacrificing too much survivability or ability functionality in exchange for extra damage.

Tankier heroes have more freedom when choosing certain offensive trades, but defensive penalties can still matter.

Do not assume that having high health automatically makes every health-related drawback harmless. Consider how much of your build's value comes from resistances, movement, stamina, and other defensive tools.

The Broker adds a completely different layer to Deadlock's late game. Instead of simply buying another item and moving on, you have to decide whether a huge power increase is worth accepting a specific weakness. Once you start looking at Corrupted Items through your hero's actual strengths and weaknesses, the system becomes much easier to understand. The best trades are usually not the ones with the biggest numbers, but the ones where the drawback barely affects the way you play.