Head-to-head Dota 2 7.41f win rate from ranked matches.
In Dota 2 7.41f, Phantom Lancer wins the Phantom Lancer vs Sniper matchup: Phantom Lancer beats Sniper in 54.98% of 113,962 ranked matches.
Drafting Sniper means you are betting the enemy team won't pick Phantom Lancer. Sniper needs to keep his distance to be effective, but Phantom Lancer's Phantom Rush lets him close that gap instantly. Once PL is on him, the fight is almost over. Sniper lacks a reliable escape and can't handle the swarm of illusions that quickly build up around him. Any attempt to burst PL down, like with Assassinate, can be avoided with a well-timed Doppelganger, leaving Sniper completely helpless as he gets surrounded.
This dynamic defines the whole game. After the laning stage, Sniper is a marked target. Teamfights become a simple game of Phantom Lancer hunting for the back lines, often ignoring the frontline to get to his primary kill. The Sniper is forced to build specifically to handle illusions, which often delays his core damage items and still might not be enough. He has to rely entirely on his teammates for protection and perfect positioning, because he has no tools to deal with a PL who decides to jump him.
How the matchup shifts across skill brackets — Phantom Lancer's win rate against Sniper 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 | Phantom Lancer win rate | Matches |
|---|---|---|
| Herald & Guardian | 50.04% | 1,333 |
| Crusader & Archon | 51.16% | 3,929 |
| Legend & Ancient | 55.97% | 3,059 |
| Divine & Immortal | 57.55% | 563 |
Phantom Lancer's win rate against Sniper in each recent balance patch — whether this matchup is trending up or down. Patches without enough matches are omitted.
| Patch | Phantom Lancer win rate | Change | Matches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7.41f | 54.98% | ▲ +0.1pp | 113,962 |
| 7.41e | 54.86% | ▲ +0.3pp | 328,796 |
| 7.41d | 54.59% | ▲ +1.0pp | 311,454 |
| 7.41c | 53.62% | — | 143,112 |
Move this data into a draft
Phantom Lancer starts on Radiant and Sniper on Dire. Add the other eight picks to see whether this head-to-head edge survives the full draft.
Data updated Oct 5, 2026.