In Deadlock, souls are the core currency that determines how strong your hero becomes. Beyond lane creeps, a huge share of your farm comes from neutral camps scattered through the jungle between the four lanes. Being able to clear these camps quickly and safely is what separates a player who is forever behind on items from one who has already assembled key actives by the mid-game.

Where neutral camps are located

Deadlock's map is symmetrical, and neutral camps sit in the zones between lanes — in alleys, on rooftops, and inside interior courtyards. Each camp is a group of neutral creatures that stay put until you disturb them. Once cleared, a camp respawns after a set amount of time, so you can return to it again and again over the course of the match.

Keep in mind that neutrals can hit back hard, especially in the early minutes when your hero still has little armor and damage. Before diving into a camp, check your health pool and whether you have crowd-control abilities ready: rushing the farm at low HP often ends in death to an enemy gank, and you lose more than you managed to gather.

Stacking camps

Stacking is a technique where you pull the creatures out past the camp's boundary right before its respawn moment. The old camp is not counted as cleared, while a new one spawns in its place, leaving two sets of neutrals in a single spot. Later you or an ally can clear this doubled camp in one pass and earn noticeably more souls for the same amount of time.

Stacking is especially valuable for heroes with strong area damage and fast wave clear — those who can wipe several targets with one or two abilities. If you are playing a support or a melee hero without burst AoE, it is sometimes better to leave the prepared stack for a more farm-hungry ally and apply lane pressure yourself instead.

Rotating between lanes

The jungle does not exist in a vacuum: efficient neutral farming is built around the state of your lanes. When your creep wave is pushing into the enemy tower, you get a window of a few seconds — use it to dip into the nearest camp rather than standing idle. That way you don't lose lane experience and top up jungle souls at the same time.

Watch the minimap and the timings. If an enemy has vanished from their lane, they may have gone to farm neutrals themselves — that's a chance to either steal their camp or set up a gank. Controlling the enemy jungle matters just as much as farming your own: every camp denied to an opponent works for you twice over.

Priorities and common mistakes

The main beginner mistake is farming neutrals at the expense of the map. Souls from camps are worthless if you missed a team fight or gave up an important objective to get them. Set your priorities: look first at the state of the lanes and objective timers, and only then at the jungle.

Once you master camp clearing, stacking, and smart rotations, you'll turn the idle minutes of a match into a steady stream of souls. It's one of the most reliable ways to pull ahead on items and dictate the pace of the whole game without taking needless risks.