How DEADLOCK works

The arena is a live stream, not a game you play. A server owns the clock, the roster snapshot and the random seed of each round. Every browser replays that exact script, so a spectator in Tokyo and one in Lagos see the same punches land at the same second. Refreshing does not restart anything — it seeks you back to the live moment.

• Roster is read directly from the $DEAD contract onchain.
• No demo wallets, no bots: every fighter is a real holder address.
• Rounds, champions, kills and payouts are stored permanently.

Rank inside the top 100 $DEAD holders and your wallet is automatically drafted for the next duel. Drop out of the top 100 and you are benched until your balance climbs back in. Contract wallets, routers and liquidity pools are filtered out so only real holders fight.

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Every fighter walks in with 300 hit plates, shown as the small bar above their head next to the LIVE tag. A landed punch or kick always strips exactly one plate — never more, never less. Lose all three hundred and you are eliminated on the spot.

• Initiative: who throws first is rolled against both fighters' power, so a bigger bag usually opens the bout.
• Momentum: after each landed hit the attacker rolls to keep the combo. More power means longer chains; a battered defender is also likelier to eat the follow-up.
• Counters: when the roll fails the turn flips and the defender starts swinging back.
• Criticals: highlighted finisher moves are theatre and kill-feed flavour — they still cost a single plate. Nobody dies to a lucky roll; they die after three hundred.

Your bag is your combat rating, on a logarithmic curve:power = 1 + log10(1 + balance / 20,000)

Power never increases how much a hit takes off — it increases how often you are the one throwing it. Over three hundred plates that edge compounds hard, which is why whales win most bouts. But the curve flattens fast: a 10× bigger bag is nowhere near 10× the power, so a small holder on hot rolls can absolutely take the belt.

Every time a fighter swings, a hazard-coloured shock ring flashes around them. That ring is their strike radius, and it is drawn straight from their bag:strike radius = min(132px, 52px + (power − 1) × 30px)

A wider ring is not decoration — it is reach. Fighters with a bigger radius connect with the opponents around them more easily, worth up to about +30% effective accuracy over the smallest eligible bag. Reach is folded into the combat rating that decides who opens the bout and who keeps the pressure:effective rating = power × reach factor

• Reach still never changes damage — a landed hit is always exactly one plate.
• The ring is capped, so whales get a visible edge, never an untouchable one.
• Watch the floor: the biggest rings tell you who the round favours.

A round is a bracket. Each wave, every surviving fighter is shuffled and paired; if the count is odd, one fighter draws a bye and repositions. All bouts of a wave run in a fast stagger so the floor is constantly in motion, then survivors regroup and the next wave pairs them again. The field halves each wave until one fighter is left — 128 entrants resolve in seven waves.

• A new duel launches every 5 minutes after the previous one settles.
• A duel runs until the last man stands — no time limit, no draws.
• Between rounds the winner card stays on screen with the round number, waves, survivor count and the countdown to the next duel.
• Reward claims run on a 10-minute cycle to top the pool back up; the countdown is in the header.

When a round starts the server snapshots the roster (address, balance, power) and generates a seed. The whole fight is then computed from (roster, seed) by a deterministic PRNG, both server-side and in your browser. Because the inputs are fixed before the first punch, the outcome cannot be influenced mid-round — not by a viewer, not by a late buy, not by the server.

• Balances are frozen at match start, so mid-fight transfers change nothing.
• Your clock is aligned to the server clock, so everyone sees the same second.
• Refresh, reconnect or open a second tab — you land back in the live moment.

The champion of every round receives 1% of the total ETH reward pool at its balance the moment the round settles. The USD equivalent is shown live from a price feed. Settlement is server-authoritative: the round, champion address, kill count and payout amount are written permanently and streamed to every spectator.

All-time wins, kills and payouts per wallet are aggregated on the Fighters leaderboard on the arena page.

Do I need to connect a wallet?

No. Holding the token is the entry. There is nothing to sign, approve or pay.

Can I control my fighter?

No — DEADLOCK is fully autonomous. Your only input is your bag size.

Why did a whale lose?

Power shifts the odds, it does not buy immunity. Three hundred plates leave plenty of room for an upset.

What if I buy in mid-round?

You are drafted into the next round; the current roster was snapshotted at its start.

Is the fight the same for everyone?

Yes. Same roster, same seed, same script, replayed against a shared clock.