How Dark Willow and Ember Spirit perform as teammates in Dota 2 7.41e, from ranked matches.
In Dota 2 7.41e, Dark Willow and Ember Spirit win 47.99% of ranked matches when playing on the same team, over 4,736 matches.
Stacking lockdown with these two can feel less effective than it should. The main issue is timing: Dark Willow's Cursed Crown has a noticeable delay before its stun. This is an awkward window for Ember Spirit, who wants to unload damage instantly with Sleight of Fist and Flame Guard. He's forced to either wait, giving the target time to react, or commit before the stun lands. Their respective roots, Searing Chains and Bramble Maze, can also overlap inefficiently, rather than creating a stronger lockdown chain.
Throughout a match, this duo's early damage is heavily magical. This makes it straightforward for opponents to itemize against them with magic resistance, limiting their kill threat. For the pairing to work, Dark Willow needs to set up perfectly with Terrorize or land a key Bramble Maze to give Ember Spirit a clean opening. This requires a level of coordination that's harder to achieve than with some of his other common partners, so they often fail to find a good rhythm.
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 | 40.96% | 166 |
| Crusader & Archon | 46.71% | 563 |
| Legend & Ancient | 49.44% | 708 |
| Divine & Immortal | 50.11% | 439 |
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 | 47.99% | ▲ +0.2pp | 4,736 |
| 7.41d | 47.77% | ▲ +0.6pp | 44,341 |
| 7.41c | 47.22% | ▼ -1.1pp | 18,910 |
| 7.41b | 48.36% | — | 21,888 |
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Data updated Aug 17, 2026.