How Axe and Shadow Demon perform as teammates in Dota 2 7.41e, from ranked matches.
In Dota 2 7.41e, Axe and Shadow Demon win 47.39% of ranked matches when playing on the same team, over 517 matches.
Seeing an Axe blink in usually spells doom, but the follow-up from a Shadow Demon often feels off. Axe needs a ton of area damage piled onto his Berserker's Call targets to get Culling Blade resets. Shadow Demon offers powerful single-target tools with Soul Catcher and Demonic Purge, but he struggles to amplify the damage across everyone Axe has trapped. Disruption can also be a problem; saving a low-health Axe is good, but it breaks the Call and lets enemies reposition. The two heroes end up wanting to execute different plans in the same fight, leading to missed opportunities.
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 | 45.70% | 186 |
| Crusader & Archon | 44.33% | 582 |
| Legend & Ancient | 49.54% | 539 |
| Divine & Immortal | 43.72% | 199 |
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 | 47.39% | ▼ -0.1pp | 517 |
| 7.41d | 47.50% | ▼ -1.5pp | 55,442 |
| 7.41c | 48.95% | ▲ +0.6pp | 27,351 |
| 7.41b | 48.38% | — | 29,823 |
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Data updated Aug 11, 2026.