Most Trickster guides describe a killer who has not existed since March. Behaviour rebuilt his power in Patch 9.5.0, buffed most of his add-ons two weeks later, and the largest fan wiki still prints his old Laceration numbers and a version of Hex: Crowd Control that was replaced in the same patch.
This guide is pinned to the live build, Patch 10.1.2a (17 September 2026), and every figure comes from Behaviour's own patch archive rather than a mirror.
Quick answer
- The Trickster is a 4.4 m/s killer with a 24-metre terror radius and 36 blades. All three changed in the 9.5.0 rework of 17 March 2026.
- His power is now a combo system. Varied back-to-back actions earn Style Points, pushing you up six Style Ranks (E, D, C, B, A, S); each raises blade throw rate and locker restock speed.
- Main Event is locked behind S-Rank. You cannot press it at will any more.
- His last balance change was Patch 9.5.2, 31 March 2026. Nothing since has touched his kit.
- He is not a niche pick. Behaviour measured his usage rate at 12.1% after the rework, up from 1.6%, with a 54.6% kill rate.
- Counterplay means breaking the combo, not dodging blades. Every action you deny him costs rank progress, and his ranks decay on a timer.
What did the Trickster rework actually change?
Patch 9.5.0, the All-Kill: Comeback chapter, shipped on 17 March 2026 and replaced his base kit outright. The summary line in Behaviour's official 9.5.0 patch notes is blunt: "The Trickster now gains Style Points by throwing Blades, injuring Survivors and performing distinct gameplay actions back-to-back."
Several base stat changes are nerfs:
- Movement speed decreased to 4.4 m/s (was 4.6 m/s) — a 110% killer now, in the Huntress and Spirit bracket.
- Blade count decreased to 36 (was 44); terror radius decreased to 24 m (was 32 m).
- Time to enter Throw State decreased to 0.3 s (was 0.35 s); time to exit decreased to 1.15 s (was 1.25 s); time between throws increased to 0.33 s (was 0.3 s).
- Laceration Meter decreased to 6 (was 8), counted in whole numbers instead of decaying into decimals, and displayed on the survivor model rather than the HUD.
One line is worth flagging because aggregators copied it without checking. The live notes read "Decreased base Throw State movement speed to 3.86m/s (was 3.68 m/s)" — an increase described as a decrease. The PTB printed the same line reversed, and Patch 4.6.1 in 2021 had already moved that stat from 3.68 to 3.86. Behaviour never corrected it. The practical reading: base Throw State speed did not move, and the real slowdown sits below it.
- After 5 consecutive throws, Throw State speed drops to 3.53 m/s; after 10, to 3.16 m/s.
- In exchange, throw rate rises 50% after 5 consecutive throws and 100% after 10.
You pay for spray.
How do Style Points and Style Ranks work?
A combo action triggers when two back-to-back gameplay actions are distinct. Repeating the same action does not build the combo — variety does. The point table from the 9.5.0 notes:
1 Style Point: a first blade hit on a survivor, injuring, hooking, basic-breaking a downed pallet or breakable wall, damaging a generator, snuffing a boon totem.
2 Style Points: hitting with 4 blades from at least 4 m without missing or exiting the Throw State, hitting from over 16 m, interrupting a survivor.
3 Style Points: hitting a survivor with a blade through small gaps.
There are six Style Ranks — E, D, C, B, A and S. Higher ranks need more points, grant bigger throw-rate and locker-restock bonuses, and run progressively shorter combo timers. Earning a Style Point refreshes the current rank's timer, which pauses while you interact with survivors or objects. Let it lapse and you regress one rank at a time, not straight to the bottom. That shrinking timer is the design tension: the better you are doing, the less slack you have.
What does S-Rank do, and why does everyone in the trial know about it?
Hitting S-Rank is a map-wide event. The moment you reach it, survivors within 44 m are revealed by Killer Instinct for 4.4 s and all survivors are notified across the trial. There is no stealth S-Rank.
While you hold it:
- Your terror radius expands to 44 m and your Lullaby is disabled.
- Laceration Meters decay 50% slower — superseded a week later, see below.
- Blade throw and locker restock speeds sit at maximum.
- Main Event becomes available.
S-Rank runs on a 66-second timer that cannot be paused or refreshed, unlike every lower rank, and it always reverts to E-Rank — either when the timer expires or when Main Event ends. Patch 9.5.1, a week later, went further: Laceration decay is paused entirely in S-Rank, including stacks applied before he reached it.
Practically, it is a 66-second window where a 24-metre stealth killer turns into a 44-metre loud one at maximum fire rate. Survivors get a siren; he gets a minute to cash in.
How does Main Event work now?
Main Event is no longer an on-demand burst charged by throwing knives. It is the S-Rank payoff:
- Duration 10 s (was 8 s), movement speed locked at 3.92 m/s.
- Blades thrown at 1.67x default speed — explicitly not affected by the consecutive-throw or Style Rank modifiers.
- Nearby survivors are notified when it starts; you can cancel it with the secondary ability button.
- The S-Rank timer pauses during Main Event, and each blade that connects awards bonus Style Points.
- When it ends, the power goes on a 4-second cooldown and S-Rank resets to E-Rank — though the banked points push you back up the ladder.
What are the best Trickster add-ons in 2026?
Patch 9.5.2, on 31 March 2026, was almost entirely a Trickster patch: it raised the Laceration Meter decay delay to 16 s (was 12) and buffed or reworked nine add-ons. Current values, straight from the 9.5.2 patch notes:
- Trick Pouch (Common): +8 maximum carried blades and start with 8 extra (was 4 and 4). The most boring and most correct add-on in his kit.
- Killing Part Chords (Common): increases the time before Style Ranks D to A decay by 50% (was 20%).
- Tequila Moonrock (Uncommon): +8% throw speed for 10 s after gaining a Style Rank (was 15%) — cut, not buffed.
- Lucky Blade (Uncommon): every eighth blade hit rolls a random bonus: +5% throw speed for 5 s, 3% Haste for 6 s, or an extra Style Point.
- Bloody Boa (Uncommon): Laceration decays 75% slower (was 25%).
- Waiting For You Watch (Rare): survivors whose Laceration fully decays are revealed for 10 s (was 4).
- Ripper Brace (Rare): per Style Rank, basic-vault windows, basic-break pallets and walls and damage generators 6% faster (was 3%).
- Death Throes Compilation (Visceral): refills 75% of maximum blades when Main Event ends (was 50%).
- Three reworks: Inferno Wires now extends the S-Rank timer by 20%, Fizz-Spin Soda cuts the throws needed for a throw-speed step by 2, and On Target Single adds 0.5 s to Main Event per blade hit in S-Rank, up to 20 s.
One trap if you tested Killing Part Chords in April and wrote it off: it did not work at launch. Patch 9.6.0 on 28 April 2026 lists "Fixed an issue where The Trickster's Add-on 'Killing Part Chords' was still only reducing the Style Rank decay by 20%." The 50% value only became real on that date. The same patch closed an exploit where he could retrigger S-Rank by using Main Event just before expiry.
Starting loadout: Trick Pouch plus Killing Part Chords is the safe default. Swap to Bloody Boa plus Waiting For You Watch if survivors are resetting Laceration between chases rather than running you out of ammo. Our best killer builds breakdown covers the perk side.
What are the Trickster's perks, and which value is stale?
The Trickster owns three teachable perks: Starstruck, Hex: Crowd Control and No Way Out.
Starstruck. While carrying a survivor, survivors inside your terror radius are Exposed. The effect lingers 26/28/30 seconds after leaving the terror radius, and persists for the same duration for anyone inside it when you hook or drop the carried survivor. Cooldown is 60 seconds from the moment you stop carrying. Note the rework interaction: a 24-metre terror radius makes it harder to trigger by accident, but S-Rank's 44-metre radius makes it enormous.
No Way Out. One token per survivor hooked for the first time. Once the gates are powered and a survivor touches an exit gate switch, you get a loud noise notification and the Entity blocks both switches for 12 seconds plus 6/9/12 seconds per token, to a combined maximum of 36/48/60 seconds.
Hex: Crowd Control is the one every ranking page has wrong. The version most guides describe — "permanently blocks the last 3/4/5 windows after a rushed vault" — is the Patch 8.3.0 build from October 2024. It was reworked again in 9.5.0 and now reads: the first time a survivor medium or fast-vaults a window, a Dull Totem ignites; the last 4/5/6 windows survivors medium or fast-vault are blocked; you basic-vault blocked windows 15% faster; and you see the auras of blocked windows within 24 m.
That is three functional additions and a wider trigger — medium vaults now count, where before only rushed vaults did. The largest fan wiki still renders the old description under a banner reading "based on the changes announced for or featured in the upcoming Patch 8.3.0", with a change log that stops there. Our killer perk tier list uses the current values.
How do you counter the Trickster?
Counterplay changed more than his kit did, because you are no longer fighting a knife-throwing killer — you are fighting a combo meter.
Starve the combo, not the blades. Repeating the same action gives him nothing; distinct back-to-back actions give him everything. A survivor forcing a long, single-action chase is holding his rank down, and spreading out so he cannot chain hook into generator damage into pallet break beats any individual dodge.
Treat the S-Rank notification as a timer, not a threat. You now know two things: he has 66 seconds he cannot extend, and his Lullaby is off while his terror radius is 44 m. Hold W, reset, and make him burn the clock on nothing. If he cannot land Main Event inside it, he drops to E-Rank and starts again.
Reset Laceration deliberately. Laceration caps at 6, the decay delay is 16 seconds, and stacks fall off every 4.4 seconds after that. Breaking line of sight for a few seconds genuinely deletes progress — unless he is in S-Rank, where decay is paused outright, or running Bloody Boa.
Respect walls, not distance. With throw rate scaling at 5 and 10 consecutive throws, an open sightline of any length is worse than a short one with cover, which interrupts his consecutive-throw counter as surely as it blocks the blade. Below S-Rank his 24-metre terror radius also makes him quieter than survivors expect, so audio cues matter more than distance.
For where he lands against the roster, see the current DBD killer tier list and the full killer roster.
Is the Trickster actually good now?
Behaviour published a stats post on 23 April 2026 covering the first three weeks after the rework — data pulled 17 March to 7 April 2026. The headline figures: 12.1% usage rate, 54.6% kill rate, 3,695,042 survivors killed, 3,469,746 S-Ranks reached, 2,508,203 Main Events and 414,219,304 blades thrown.
Behaviour's framing, verbatim: "Trickster has been vibing with his brand new self, and it appears as though you have as well, as his usage rate has gone up since his update (Up from 1.6% between January 1st to March 16th 2026!)"
A jump from 1.6% to 12.1% is roughly a sevenfold increase in pick rate, and 54.6% sat close to the middle of the roster while most of those players were learning the power from scratch. The same post noted MiNA — the Legendary outfit added alongside the rework, confirmed as Legendary in the 10.1.1 patch notes — appeared in 36.5% of Trickster matches.
Behaviour said it would keep watching: "We will be monitoring his kill rate as players get more used to this new design." Five months on it still has not acted. The last kit change was 9.5.2, the last bug fixes were 9.6.0 and 9.6.1, and the 10.2.0 PTB from 15 September 2026 touches only his map, Trickster's Delusion — and Behaviour has published no live release date for 10.2.0, listing it as TBA.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Trickster licensed in Dead by Daylight? No. Ji-Woon Hak is an original Behaviour character from the All-Kill chapter, which is why he can be bought with Iridescent Shards — 4,500 Iridescent Shards or 250 Auric Cells at his permanent half-price rate. Third-party "licensed killers" lists get this wrong regularly.
How fast is the Trickster now? 4.4 m/s at base, down from 4.6 m/s. In Throw State the live 9.5.0 notes list 3.86 m/s, dropping to 3.53 m/s after 5 consecutive throws and 3.16 m/s after 10. Main Event locks him at 3.92 m/s.
How many blades does the Trickster carry? 36 at base, down from 44. Trick Pouch raises that by 8 and starts you with 8 extra; Death Throes Compilation refills 75% of maximum when Main Event ends.
Can you still use Main Event whenever you want? No. Since Patch 9.5.0 it can only be activated at S-Rank, and using it always drops you to E-Rank when it ends.
What is MiNA in Dead by Daylight? A Legendary outfit for The Trickster with her own voice lines, added with All-Kill: Comeback on 17 March 2026 — a cosmetic, not a separate killer. Behaviour's 10.1.1 notes refer to "the MiNa Legendary outfit as Trickster" directly.
Has the Trickster been changed since the rework? Patch 9.5.1 paused Laceration decay during S-Rank, 9.5.2 raised the decay delay to 16 seconds and adjusted his add-ons, and 9.6.0 and 9.6.1 fixed bugs. No balance changes to his kit since.
What patch is this guide for? Patch 10.1.2a, released 17 September 2026. If Behaviour ships a mid-chapter after that, re-check the add-on table first; that is where his numbers move.
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