Keyman Lockdown is one of the first tactics that really matters in Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road. It shows up in Chapter 3, right before the duel with the Baseball Club, and the game simply tells you to “set it in Team Dock” without explaining much else. On a controller, the move is straightforward. On keyboard and mouse, it has already gone through an awkward period and a patch.
Where Keyman Lockdown fits in Chapter 3
After the beach match early in Chapter 3, the story shifts into a Special Training phase at South Cirrus Junior High. Before you can take on the Baseball Club in the key Story Mode duel, one of the required prep tasks is to add Keyman Lockdown to your tactics and then use it during the match.
That duel is also where the game first forces you to understand the Team Dock system: your manager, your tactical slots, and how field-wide moves like Keyman Lockdown can shut down a specific threat player when normal marking isn’t enough.
How to unlock the Keyman Lockdown tactic
You don’t start Chapter 3 with Keyman Lockdown in your tactics list. You have to buy it during Special Training from a specific marker at school.
| Step | What you do | Where it happens |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Return to South Cirrus Junior High after the beach match; you spawn in front of the school. | School grounds |
| 2 | Turn to the west side of the campus and look for the “Friendly Match – By the Football Club Room” marker. | West side, near the Football Club room |
| 3 | Interact with the match silhouette to open its menu. | Friendly Match marker |
| 4 | Select Special Training Booth. |
Friendly Match menu |
| 5 | Switch to the Tactics tab. |
Special Training Booth UI |
| 6 | Buy Keyman Lockdown for 3 Zeal Tokens. | Special Training Booth > Tactics |
Once purchased, the tactic is permanently added to your tactics pool and can be slotted into any formation that supports team tactics.
How to set Keyman Lockdown in Team Dock
Buying the tactic is only half of the requirement. The other half is assigning it to an actual tactic slot in Team Dock, so it shows up in matches.
| Step | Action | On-screen hint |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Open the pause menu. | Standard in-match or overworld pause |
| 2 | Select the Team Dock tab at the top (first tab on the left). | “Team Dock” label in header tabs |
| 3 | Look at the lower-left of the screen for the Team Dock RPG label. | “Team Dock RPG” text with a button prompt beside it |
| 4 | Press the input shown next to Team Dock RPG to enter the Team Dock SO tactics screen. | Context-sensitive button icon (varies by platform) |
| 5 | Under your manager’s portrait, select any empty tactic slot. | Empty square boxes below the manager |
| 6 | Choose Keyman Lockdown from the list to assign it to that slot. | List of unlocked tactics, including Keyman Lockdown |
After this, the special tactic will appear in the tactics palette during duels, bound to the input you just assigned. If Team Dock still shows the Chapter 3 objective as incomplete, it usually means the tactic was bought but not yet placed into a slot.
How Keyman Lockdown behaves in the Baseball Club duel
When you finally start the duel with the Baseball Club, you’re funneled into a specific flow:
- Your first shot attempt is stuffed by the opposing ace, who then punishes you with a goal of his own.
- The rest of the match is effectively a test of whether you can execute the tactic cleanly.
Keyman Lockdown works by projecting a colored ring across the pitch. If the target striker is inside that ring when you trigger the tactic, your team pivots around shutting him down. If you miss the timing, the tactic goes on a long cooldown that can cover most of the remaining match time.
That long cooldown is why many players reset the match if they fire the tactic at the wrong moment or misplace the ring. The design pushes you to recognize the key threat on the pitch and commit your whole tactical budget to neutralizing him.
How to use Keyman Lockdown with a controller
On controller, the move is built around a modifier button for tactics, then a face button, then basic analog movement. The exact symbols change per platform, but the pattern stays the same.
| Step | PlayStation / Xbox input | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Open tactics palette | Hold L1 (PlayStation) or LB (Xbox) | Assigned tactics appear as icons in the bottom-right corner of the screen. |
| 2. Select Keyman Lockdown | Press the face button mapped to the tactic (commonly Triangle / Y) | Keyman Lockdown starts, and an orange or red ring appears on the field. |
| 3. Aim the ring | Move the left stick toward the target forward | The ring slides across the pitch in the direction you tilt the stick. |
| 4. Confirm | Press the confirm button when the target is inside the ring | The tactic fires; the key player is locked down and the cooldown begins. |
In the Chapter 3 duel, the “key man” is the Baseball Club’s star, and you’re expected to move the ring until it fully covers him before confirming. If he steps out of the ring at the last second and you trigger anyway, the effect won’t land but the cooldown still runs, which is why the encounter can feel unforgiving.
Keyboard and mouse controls – before and after the patch
On PC, the control scheme for team tactics started out much less friendly than on gamepad. Players could open the tactics palette and start Keyman Lockdown, but the aiming ring would not respond to mouse movement or to the usual keyboard controls, making the tactic almost unusable without workarounds.
| Stage | Key combo | Behavior | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial keyboard/mouse behavior |
|
The target ring appears, but cannot be moved reliably with keyboard or mouse. | Players had to trigger the tactic only when their user-controlled player was already overlapping the target, or emulate a controller. |
| Post-patch behavior | Updated bindings (still centered on Tab plus the tactic key) |
Keyboard controls for moving and confirming the ring are added, fixing the “frozen ring” problem. | Keyman Lockdown becomes viable without any controller or emulation. |
During the broken phase, the only consistent way to land the tactic was to start Keyman Lockdown when your character was physically on top of the target striker so that the ring was already centered on him. Players who missed or mis-timed it had to sit through the near-full-match cooldown or restart the duel entirely. Others resorted to virtual controller tools just to get through the Chapter 3 requirement.
The patch that updated keyboard controls explicitly targeted this issue, allowing the ring to be steered and confirmed from the keyboard so PC players no longer need a gamepad nearby just to progress the story.
Why Keyman Lockdown feels punishing
Even with the controls working, the tactic’s design leans on pressure and risk:
- It uses a very long cooldown window, especially noticeable in the Baseball Club duel.
- The game forces you to use it in a high-stakes situation instead of a safe tutorial match.
- The target has to be clearly inside the colored circle at the moment you execute, or the cooldown is essentially wasted.
That combination makes Keyman Lockdown one of the first moments where Victory Road stops being a laid-back football RPG and starts asking you to think like a manager. You have to read the opposing team’s patterns, get close enough to the danger player without over-committing, and pull the trigger exactly once.
For keyboard players who hit the bugged controls before the patch, it also became a small stress test of their patience with the PC port. Those players either timed the tactic perfectly on top of the target, or they had to wait for updated controls to make the duel play out as intended.
Once you’ve pushed past Chapter 3 and that first duel, Keyman Lockdown settles into the background as one tool in your tactical kit. But it remains a useful reminder: if an opponent has a single player tearing you apart, the solution isn’t always another flashy shot—it might be a targeted lockdown that turns the entire match.
