How Shadow Fiend and Troll Warlord perform as teammates in Dota 2 7.41e, from ranked matches.
In Dota 2 7.41e, Shadow Fiend and Troll Warlord win 50.34% of ranked matches when playing on the same team, over 4,758 matches.
Running at a single target with Battle Trance, Troll Warlord provides very little setup for his team. Shadow Fiend relies on allies to hold enemies in place for a high-impact Requiem of Souls, but Troll offers no stuns or hard lockdown to help with this. The slow from his Whirling Axes is rarely enough to guarantee that Shadow Fiend can land his own abilities on key targets. Both heroes are focused entirely on dealing damage, but their methods don't overlap in a useful way, leaving them to execute their plans independently within the same fight.
This dynamic often forces both heroes to compete for farm across the map, as they have similar item timings and resource needs. A lineup with both Troll Warlord and Shadow Fiend can feel greedy and may lack the tools to control the pace of the game. Without strong initiation or reliable lockdown coming from these two core positions, the team is vulnerable to being split up or kited. You end up with two heroes who can deal a lot of damage, but can't consistently create the situations where that damage becomes decisive.
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 | 50.83% | 482 |
| Crusader & Archon | 49.24% | 721 |
| Legend & Ancient | 49.87% | 399 |
| Divine & Immortal | 40.38% | 104 |
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 | 50.34% | ▲ +1.3pp | 4,758 |
| 7.41d | 49.01% | ▼ -0.4pp | 50,275 |
| 7.41c | 49.40% | ▲ +1.4pp | 21,658 |
| 7.41b | 48.01% | — | 19,572 |
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.