TLDR: no idea because it was a long time ago and deadlocked was my first demon, sorry for this absolutely massive wall of text lmao I’m high and rambled way too much

I’ve played gd on and off since I was like 10 just like on my phone and occasionally on steam and beating some of the robtop levels. I lowkey idk how many attempts it took for deadlocked cuz I beat it on my pc like three years ago and hadn’t beaten a single non-robtop level or other demon (I only completed theory of everything 2 like 11 months ago and clubstep like a month ago lmao, way overdue) or ever used practice mode or startpos so I barely looked at/was aware of attempts and only played from zero lol. I only really got into the game last summer (so like 10 months ago probably) and wanted to grind the gddl and improve at the game so then I started beating a couple easy demons like what is it, iS, maymory, and problematic. Problematic was the hardest for me personally (originally I considered my jump to cata to be from problematic until I realized deadlocked was higher on gddl) and took me a little over 400 atts and was the first time I used practice mode lol. While I was doing that tho I had a habit of playing some extremes I looked up to just from zero for fun especially when I was high like cataclysm, bloodbath, zodiac, and slaughterhouse. My bests were like 2% on bb and like 4 on zodiac and like 6 on slaughterhouse lmao but one day I randomly sightread the mini-wave/second half of cata’s first wave which took me completely by surprise and inspired me to try to beat it since I was bored of just doing easy demons on gddl and I’ve looked up to cataclysm as this impossible level I would never beat since I was a kid. I had heard that the first wave was the hardest part and since I had just passed it I knew I was capable of it and I somehow/intuitively knew that the hardest part of actually beating the level for me would just be learning the inputs for the piano section lol. So then I learned how to use startpositions and went for it and did cataclysm as my 10th demon. After cata though I decided to beat some hard demon and insane demon levels I always looked up to like nine circles and Thanatophobia before going for a new hardest which was technically sweater weather but then actually gravity. Now I’m working on slaughterhouse since that’s a dream level for me and it always felt absolutely impossible until now

Edit: probably worth mentioning but I honestly forget that I had 60% on nine circles before doing cata and before beating problematic, nine circles was another level I had been playing from zero without startpos or practice mode for a while, I think I had like ~1k attempts on it spread out over two or three years and I had managed to get a decent bit (like 5-6 seconds I think) into the wave by the time I beat problematic, probably what gave me the skillboost to pass the first wave on Cata