Head-to-head Dota 2 7.41e win rate from ranked matches.
In Dota 2 7.41e, Axe wins the Axe vs Dark Willow matchup: Axe beats Dark Willow in 52.69% of 1,266 ranked matches.
Getting jumped on as Dark Willow is a nightmare against an Axe with a Blink Dagger. Her main survival tool, Shadow Realm, does nothing once she's caught in Berserker's Call. She’s forced to stand there and take every hit from Axe and his team, and her low health pool means she melts almost instantly. Even if she somehow survives the initial taunt, a single Culling Blade is usually enough to finish the job. She has no reliable way to escape once he's on top of her.
This dynamic forces the entire game to revolve around Axe's initiation. Dark Willow has to play incredibly far back, often too far to use her own spells effectively, because stepping into his Blink range is a death sentence. Axe's whole game plan becomes finding and deleting her before a teamfight even begins. While her team can try to save her with items like a Force Staff, the speed of his combo makes it very difficult to react in time, putting all the pressure on her to have perfect positioning.
How the matchup shifts across skill brackets — Axe's win rate against Dark Willow 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 | Axe win rate | Matches |
|---|---|---|
| Herald & Guardian | 59.51% | 573 |
| Crusader & Archon | 54.25% | 1,458 |
| Legend & Ancient | 52.95% | 1,188 |
| Divine & Immortal | 54.17% | 515 |
Axe's win rate against Dark Willow in each recent balance patch — whether this matchup is trending up or down. Patches without enough matches are omitted.
| Patch | Axe win rate | Change | Matches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7.41e | 52.69% | ▼ -3.3pp | 1,266 |
| 7.41d | 55.99% | ▼ -1.5pp | 123,851 |
| 7.41c | 57.50% | ▲ +0.9pp | 56,132 |
| 7.41b | 56.63% | — | 52,635 |
Move this data into a draft
Axe starts on Radiant and Dark Willow on Dire. Add the other eight picks to see whether this head-to-head edge survives the full draft.
Data updated Aug 11, 2026.