Deadlock’s May 22 Item Patch Made Magic Carpet, Sharpshooter, And Debuff Reducer Easier To Notice

Valve’s May 22, 2026 Deadlock gameplay update is easy to remember as the Soul Urn patch, but the item and mechanics changes are the part players keep searching after the drama cools down. Magic Carpet gained permanent aerial stats. Sharpshooter got a second upgrade path. Debuff Reducer gained real health. Total damage-reduction debuffs stopped stacking additively. Apollo’s Riposte stopped auto-dashing.

That is a lot of build pressure for one patch. The headline change for movement players is Magic Carpet: Valve made it innately grant -15 percent gravity and +25 percent air control. That does not mean every hero suddenly becomes an aerial character, but it does mean the item is no longer just a flashy escape or relocation button. It now carries baseline air-control identity.

For heroes that already care about height, launch angles, and midair corrections, that matters. It makes Magic Carpet easier to justify as a mobility item rather than a novelty purchase. It also makes future aerial balance harder to read, because the item itself now changes how comfortably a hero handles in the air.

Sharpshooter Got A Cleaner Build Path

Sharpshooter now upgrades from High-Velocity Rounds in addition to Long Range, grants +60 percent bullet velocity, has innate 10 percent weapon damage from components, and had its long-range weapon damage reduced from 70 percent to 60 percent. In normal-player language: the item became easier to path into, but Valve shaved some top-end long-range payoff.

That is a classic patch-note trade. Cleaner access helps more builds consider the item. Lower long-range damage keeps the result from becoming a free sniper tax on every lane. The upgrade-path change is probably the stickiest SEO point because players will search for why their Sharpshooter route looks different.

Debuff Reducer Finally Shows Up In Lane Math

Debuff Reducer now grants +90 health. That number is not glamorous, but it matters because the item is bought to survive being controlled, slowed, stunned, or chained through early fights. A defensive utility item that also gives health is easier to buy before the game has already become miserable.

This is the sort of small line that changes practical shop behavior. Into heavy crowd control or melee pressure, +90 health can be the difference between “I bought a future-proofing item” and “I bought an item that helps right now.”

Damage-Reduction Debuffs Stopped Adding Up So Cleanly

The most technical line in the patch is also one of the most important: total damage-reduction debuffs now stack diminishingly rather than additively, with Inhibitor and Fire Scarabs named as examples. That means players should stop reading two separate reductions as a simple sum. A 35 percent reduction and a 30 percent reduction are not 65 percent together if the formula is multiplicative. They land closer to 54.5 percent.

That makes extreme mitigation combos less oppressive without deleting the tools. They still stack. They just stop turning every extra layer into the same amount of punishment.

Apollo Riposte Became Manual

Apollo’s Riposte change is the cleanest hero-mechanics note in the same patch. Riposte no longer automatically dashes. It now grants a short sub-ability that lets Apollo target the hero he wants to jump to within 25 meters, including buffered targeting before the parry. The update also says Riposte no longer triggers from damage auras or objective damage.

That is a cheese removal and a skill test at the same time. The old version could turn certain interactions into automatic movement. The new version asks Apollo players to choose the target, timing, and angle more deliberately.

Put together, the May 22 item changes show Valve doing two jobs at once: making some under-read items easier to understand, and sanding down stacking cases that made Deadlock feel like the spreadsheet was winning the fight.

Source note: Primary source is Valve’s May 22, 2026 Deadlock gameplay update on Steam News. This article covers confirmed patch-note lines and does not treat later unnoted builds as official changes.