Deadlock Counter-Buy Helper

A tiny web app for the game Deadlock: click the enemy heroes and it ranks the defensive items to buy, weighted by how many of those enemies each item shuts down — so you spend souls on the items that cover the most threats at once.

▶ Live: https://andreas-ja.github.io/deadlock-counter-buy/

No install, no login, works on phones. Share the link with your team and check counters mid-match.

---

What it does

• Pick the enemy line-up from a grid of all 38 heroes (with portraits). Up to 6 = a full team.
• Ranked counter items appear on the right, sorted by overlap — the badge shows 3 of 5, meaning that item counters 3 of your 5 selected enemies.
• Hard-counter tier. Items that are near-mandatory against a specific hero get a gold ★ Hard counter tag and a scoring bump, so they never get buried under a lower-value pick — even when they only counter one enemy.
• "Don't buy" warnings. Traps like Indomitable vs Abrams/Dynamo or Slowing Hex vs The Doorman are flagged so you don't waste souls.
• Every counter is explained — each item lists which enemy it answers and why.
• Item icons + hero photos, light/dark themes, and a responsive layout for desktop or phone.
• Installable (PWA). On phones it can be added to the home screen, launches full-screen without browser chrome, and works offline — no app store, no install file.

How the ranking works

Each selected enemy contributes the items that counter it. For every item:

score = (number of enemies it counters) + (number of those it HARD-counters)

So a hard-counter is worth roughly one extra threat covered. Items are then split into Priority buys (hard-counters, or anything covering 2+ enemies) and Situational (single-target answers). Ties break toward the hard-counters.

Project structure

index.html             The entire app — data + UI + logic in one file, no build step.
img/*.webp             38 hero portrait icons.
img/items/*.webp       33 item shop icons.
manifest.webmanifest   PWA metadata (name, icons, theme) that makes it installable.
sw.js                  Service worker: network-first HTML, cache-first assets, offline support.
icon-*.png             App icons, including a maskable variant for Android.

All the game knowledge lives in a few JavaScript objects near the top of the <script> in index.html:

Object	What it holds
DATA	Per-hero counter items + an avoid list, each with a one-line reason.
MUST	The hard-counter item(s) per hero (drives the gold ★ tag and the bump).
IMG	Hero → portrait filename.
ITEMIMG	Item → shop-icon filename.
BLURBS	Short general description shown under each item.

To tweak advice, edit DATA / MUST. To add a hero or item, add its entry and drop its icon in img/ or img/items/.

Running locally

It's a static file — just open index.html in a browser, or serve the folder:

python3 -m http.server 8000

Then visit http://localhost:8000.

Deploying updates

The live site is GitHub Pages served from main. Push and it rebuilds in ~30–60s:

git add -A && git commit -m "update counter data" && git push

Credits & data

• Counter-item advice is compiled from a community Deadlock counter-buying guide (video), condensed into one-line reasons. It's one creator's opinion and is situational — adapt it to your own hero and build.
• Hero and item artwork comes from the community asset mirror at deadlock-api.com. Art belongs to Valve.

Disclaimer

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Valve. Deadlock and all related artwork are trademarks and property of Valve Corporation. This is a non-commercial fan tool.