How Ember Spirit and Shadow Fiend perform as teammates in Dota 2 7.41e, from ranked matches.
In Dota 2 7.41e, Ember Spirit and Shadow Fiend win 49.32% of ranked matches when playing on the same team, over 9,343 matches.
Pairing two flashy, high-damage cores together seems like it should overwhelm the enemy, but it can create an awkward game. Both Ember Spirit and Shadow Fiend need a lot of gold and experience to hit their peaks, and they often want to farm the same parts of the map to get it. This competition for resources can slow both of them down. Their kits also don't complement each other very well; neither hero offers the hard lockdown that would help the other secure kills. Ember isn't holding anyone in place for Shadow Fiend's big ultimate, and Shadow Fiend provides little to set up Ember's Searing Chains.
As the game progresses, this redundancy becomes more apparent. The team is left with two heroes who want to be the primary damage source, but often lacks the frontline or control needed to enable them. Your draft is forced to find all its lockdown and initiation from the other three positions, which is a heavy burden. Instead of a cohesive unit, you can end up with two solo threats who are relatively easy for a coordinated enemy team to pick off one by one, exploiting the draft's lack of stuns and saves.
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 | 46.56% | 305 |
| Crusader & Archon | 50.64% | 1,098 |
| Legend & Ancient | 52.92% | 1,508 |
| Divine & Immortal | 54.78% | 1,004 |
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 | 49.32% | ▲ +0.8pp | 9,343 |
| 7.41d | 48.51% | ▲ +0.3pp | 87,274 |
| 7.41c | 48.19% | ▲ +1.3pp | 31,830 |
| 7.41b | 46.85% | — | 31,077 |
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Data updated Aug 17, 2026.