How Ancient Apparition and Tusk perform as teammates in Dota 2 7.41e, from ranked matches.
In Dota 2 7.41e, Ancient Apparition and Tusk win 49.60% of ranked matches when playing on the same team, over 3,357 matches.
Setting up for Cold Feet with Tusk's Ice Shards looks good on paper, and a Walrus PUNCH! can hold someone in place for an Ice Blast. The problem is that the heroes want to do different things. Tusk is a single-target initiator who wants to get in close, but Ancient Apparition's best spells, Cold Feet and Ice Blast, are often more effective against multiple heroes or from extreme range. Tusk's main damage scaling also comes from physical sources via Tag Team, which doesn't benefit from AA's magic resistance reduction from Ice Vortex. Their kits have some overlap in slows, but they don't amplify each other's core strengths in a meaningful way.
This leads to a disconnected game plan. Tusk often dives deep with Snowball, leaving Ancient Apparition far behind and unable to contribute anything besides his ultimate. If Tusk gets a great pickoff, AA can secure it with Ice Blast, but this is something he can do with almost any initiator. The lane itself can be decent, but once teams start grouping up, the duo struggles to find a rhythm. They often end up feeling like two separate heroes playing their own game rather than a cohesive pair, which explains why they don't consistently win together.
How this pairing performs across skill brackets — the duo's team win rate 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 | Team win rate | Matches |
|---|---|---|
| Herald & Guardian | 53.17% | 126 |
| Crusader & Archon | 51.67% | 449 |
| Legend & Ancient | 52.13% | 516 |
| Divine & Immortal | 44.83% | 174 |
This duo's team win rate in each recent balance patch — whether the pairing is trending up or down. Patches without enough matches are omitted.
| Patch | Team win rate | Change | Matches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7.41e | 49.60% | ▲ +1.0pp | 3,357 |
| 7.41d | 48.56% | ▼ -0.2pp | 34,471 |
| 7.41c | 48.75% | ▲ +0.8pp | 15,342 |
| 7.41b | 47.92% | — | 17,369 |
Move this data into a draft
Both heroes start on Radiant. Fill the remaining slots to test this pairing inside a complete draft and get next-pick recommendations.
Data updated Aug 17, 2026.