March 11, 2026
Our team wanted to see a Deadlock tournament that celebrated gender-marginalized players, so we decided to make it happen. What started as a small side project spun into something bigger than we expected!
When we announced “The Masquerade“, our interest form generated nearly 200 responses within just a few days, with nearly 70% of respondents identifying as a marginalized gender. Mind you – this game hasn’t even released yet!
And yet, the Deadlock community is already thriving and hungry for opportunities to show off their skills. The numbers from this past weekend tell the story:
- ~500 concurrent viewers across broadcast channels
- 120k+ social impressions
- Despite our 8 invited Team Captains only being required to have 50% of their team identify as gender-marginalized, the final result across all players was 82%.
- Talk about some intense matches — over 80% of our participants ranked within the top 4 competitive tiers of the game!
Our community had some wonderful things to say about this past weekend too:
From a player: “After competing in this event, I joined another community for more Deadlock tournaments.”
From a player: “What you’ve done with Calling All Heroes has had such an insanely positive impact on my life and I’m excited to bring that to another game with The Masquerade.”
From a viewer: “This is such a cool event, I feel like I’m learning so much!”
From a community member: “Love The Masquerade, please please do more of them!”
And all of this was with no financial support, just a $300 prize pool, a lot of passion, and generous volunteer efforts from our team and talent.
We would love to make “The Masquerade” a recurring event that serves the growing community of women and marginalized gender players in Deadlock… a game many believe will be the future of esports upon release.