We went through the drafts of 77 games played from October 12 to 22, using Liquipedia data: APAC Pro League Season 9, Deadlocker Roster Royale, EGB Deadlock Cup 2 and Night Shift #60 and #61 in Europe and North America. The window starts after Solomon's release, so both he and Baba were available in every game in the sample.
Most banned
Baba is banned in almost every other game, and when she is not banned she tends to get picked: she is in the draft of 74 of the 77 games. Only Celeste is more contested, picked or banned in 76 of 77.
Most picked
All five pro favourites win less than half their public games. The public numbers come from our snapshot after the Deadlock patch October 14: normal mode, all ranks, data from deadlock-api.com.
Solomon: 69% in pro, 47% in pubs
Solomon shows the biggest gap. Pro teams picked him 32 times and won 22 of those games, 69%. Even the team that dominated North America picks him: in the run where Melee Creeps won five tournaments in a row, he was in six of their drafts. In public games over the same week he wins 46.7% and ranks 31st of 44. A chess kit built on setting up pieces seems to pay off in a coordinated team more than in a random lobby. The sample is small, so treat it as an observation, not a rule.
Baba, by contrast, performs the same everywhere: 52.8% in pro (36 picks) and 52.9% in public games.
Who the pros skip
Graves, the best hero in public games at 57.6%, showed up only six times in pro drafts: three picks and three bans. Nurse Harrow was neither picked nor banned in the seven games played after her release.
The full public table is in Deadlock hero win rates after the October 14 patch, daily numbers are on our Deadlock tier list, and every hero is on the Deadlock characters page.