Head-to-head Dota 2 7.41f win rate from ranked matches.
In Dota 2 7.41f, Phantom Lancer wins the Ancient Apparition vs Phantom Lancer matchup: Phantom Lancer beats Ancient Apparition in 55.07% of 37,119 ranked matches.
Hitting the real Phantom Lancer with Ice Blast is a nightmare. He can use Doppelganger to dodge the projectile entirely, and even if the spell lands nearby, he creates so many illusions that finding the right hero to focus is guesswork. Ancient Apparition’s other major control spell, Cold Feet, is also unreliable here since a simple Doppelganger dispels it or allows Phantom Lancer to reposition out of its trigger radius, leaving AA with few good options.
This problem gets worse for Ancient Apparition as the game goes on. Once Phantom Lancer gets his core items, his illusions can hunt the back lines and burn away AA's entire mana pool before a fight even starts. This forces the support to play from extreme distances, often unable to contribute much beyond an ultimate aimed at other heroes. Meanwhile, Phantom Lancer sees a fragile, immobile hero with no escape, making him a primary and very easy target to find and eliminate.
How the matchup shifts across skill brackets — Ancient Apparition's win rate against Phantom Lancer in recent ranked matches, split by average match rank. Ranks with too few recent matches are omitted. These rows use the last 30 days of quality-filtered ranked matches, all patches in that span combined — a wider window than the patch-scoped count above, so the per-rank match totals can exceed it.
| Rank | Ancient Apparition win rate | Matches |
|---|---|---|
| Herald & Guardian | 50.57% | 352 |
| Crusader & Archon | 49.29% | 1,193 |
| Legend & Ancient | 44.29% | 1,086 |
| Divine & Immortal | 41.67% | 264 |
Ancient Apparition's win rate against Phantom Lancer in each recent balance patch — whether this matchup is trending up or down. Patches without enough matches are omitted.
| Patch | Ancient Apparition win rate | Change | Matches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7.41f | 44.93% | ▼ -0.6pp | 37,119 |
| 7.41e | 45.56% | ▼ -0.1pp | 111,894 |
| 7.41d | 45.65% | ▲ +1.2pp | 98,936 |
| 7.41c | 44.49% | — | 41,167 |
Move this data into a draft
Ancient Apparition starts on Radiant and Phantom Lancer on Dire. Add the other eight picks to see whether this head-to-head edge survives the full draft.
Data updated Oct 5, 2026.