Just as with any competitive title out there that allows players to play as specific characters, Dota 2 has more than its fair share of iconic, timeless player-hero combinations. Since time immemorial, professional Dota 2 players have been going back to their most comfortable picks when playing for big cash prizes in official tournaments, and to put on a show if for nothing else.
If you’ve ever wondered what the most exemplary combos are over Dota 2’s rich history, we’ve got you covered with our own list.
Before we jump in though, just two rules:
Oh, and these aren’t presented in any particular order. Also, all of the statistics referenced in this list are from datdota, so check the full table out if you’d like to see more player-hero combos.
This particular pairing is perhaps the biggest reason Tundra Esports won The International in 2022. Jingjun “Sneyking” Wu and his Mirana are both legendary to say the least. With a win rate of 67.6 percent over 142 career games, it’s clear that he and the servant of Selemene were meant to conquer the professional scene together.
Honestly, even though he’s statistically the best Mirana player of all time, I personally think Sneyking still doesn’t get enough credit for his sheer impact with the hero. I’ve never seen anyone land so many clutch Sacred Arrows (W) more than him, some of which even mean the difference between winning and losing for his team.
It’s fitting that Sneyking is the most accomplished Mirana player ever, considering that he got his start in Dota 2 in a team called PotM Bottom, with “PotM” being an abbreviation for “Priestess of the Moon”, Mirana’s hero title back in the DotA Allstars days. And unless the hero somehow goes back to her absolutely old school solo mid days, we’re likely to see Sneyking stick with his lunar lady.
Despite the fact that Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf is only 20 years old at the time of writing, he already happens to be one of the most successful Mars players to ever play the game. His win rate of 65.56 percent over 151 games is already way better than that of Lin “Xxs” Jing, who only has a 60.6 percent win rate over 11 more games. Right behind him is Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov, a two-time International champion — so it’s clear that ATF is above some esteemed company here.
Much of Team Falcons’ success since their formation in 2023 can be attributed to ATF’s prowess with Mars, and his ability to just dictate both ganks and full on teamfights with ease. His incredibly precise usage of Spear of Mars (Q) to pin multiple heroes at a time is uncanny, and strikes fear into the hearts of even the most experienced opponents.
Speaking of Collapse, here’s where I make my first exception to the 100 games rule. Because believe it or not, Collapse has only played 55 games in his career as Magnus, even though he’s probably already the greatest Magnus player ever. It wasn’t even that long ago that he brought Team Spirit to the top of the Dota 2 world at TI10, back when nobody even knew who they were.
And yet, even with only 55 chances to showcase his impeccable play with Magnus, Collapse is already in the hero’s hall of fame, if such a thing existed. Sure, Gustav “s4” Magnusson and Sébastien “Ceb” Debs have played Magnus much more in their careers, but that’s also because they’ve been playing at the highest level a lot longer than Collapse has.
Still, at least in the modern day, Collapse is synonymous with this hero. A respect ban against him is always in order, even when Magnus himself isn’t really a meta pick. His absurd 70.9 percent win rate on the hero (plus two TI titles to his name for good measure) says as much.
As one of the most famous and celebrated Chinese mid laners in Dota 2 history, Lu “Somnus” Yao (formerly known as Maybe) is bar none the greatest Storm Spirit player of all time. He’s got a staggering 68.79 percent win rate on the hero across 173 official games, which adds up to a whopping 119 wins.
No one other than Azel “Abed” Yusop even comes close to his dominance with the hero over such a large sample size. Nope, not even the king himself Syed “SumaiL” Hassan, who made a name for himself at the Dota 2 Asia Championships in 2015 playing Storm Spirit, can compare to Somnus in this regard.
His former teammate in PSG.LGD Yang “Chalice” Shenyi purportedly even once asked himself on stream how it was possible that Somnus’ Storm Spirit couldn’t carry him at TI8 and TI9. He’s so damn good at the hero that one of his old teammates was seemingly baffled at how they lost anyway despite that fact.
Okay, for this entry, I’m going to have to fully disclose my personal biases: I’ve been a huge fan of Artour “Arteezy” Babaev since he burst onto the scene standing in for Speed Gaming.int at MLG Columbus all the way back in 2013. He didn’t get to play Shadow Fiend at that tournament, but basically every time that he got to in a professional setting, he made sparks fly and dazzled everyone with his incredible mechanical skill.
I mean, seriously. A 75.2 percent win rate? Are you kidding me? Granted that’s only over 113 individual games, but that is a staggeringly high rate of success on one of the most difficult heroes in the entire game. It’s no coincidence that he holds the gold per minute (GPM) record on Shadow Fiend, either; Arteezy made himself extremely famous in the mid-2010s with his insane farming speed.
It’s too bad that his expertise on the hero never translated to an Aegis of Champions. Unless he tries his hand at serious pro play again, things just might stay that way. Still, with the mythical Bu “YaphetS” Yanjun choosing not to continue his career much past his initial success in DotA Allstars, Arteezy can rightfully call himself the Shadow Fiend GOAT.
I mentioned s4 earlier in the Magnus section, but in reality, Puck is his go-to pick in general. He has 193 games on the hero, which is beaten only by Adrian “Fata” Trinks’ 222 games. s4 has far and away the better win rate, though, at 67.36 percent versus Fata’s 59.91 percent.
If I could only point to a single moment in the TI3 grand finals and say “this is what won Alliance the title”, it’s the fabled Million Dollar Dream Coil. Faced with a win-or-lose situation in an extremely close game 5 for the Aegis of Champions, s4 hit the Dream Coil heard ’round the world in the closing stages of the game, preventing Na’Vi from successfully TPing back to their base in order to defend it.
He did this not once, but twice — the second one being the play that secured them the victory and the championship. Dota 2 was still very much in its infacy at this time, but s4 definitely showed that he had the both the skill and maturity to lead Alliance to the promised land.
Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka is the Earth Spirit spammer extraordinaire, having started his career playing pubs using almost nothing but the hero in question. He has a nearly 69 percent win rate with Earth Spirit over 132 professional games, which is the highest among players that would qualify for this list.
Ironically, he didn’t even get to play his signature hero once during OG’s back-to-back International title runs in 2018 and 2019. I guess that just speaks to his impact as a position 4 in general, even when his hero gets banned out of respect. Anyway, I know Andreas Franck “Cr1t-” Nielsen has more games on the hero, and so does Ye “BoBoKa” Zhibiao. But no one has ever made Earth Spirit, one of the most complex heroes in MOBA history, look so easy like JerAx did.
He’s been retired since 2020, and he deserves the rest as one of the greatest soft support players ever.
I couldn’t very well leave out one of the most popular and successful players ever out of this list. Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi was first discovered in pubs by (monkey) Business (which would eventually become OG) around 2015, when he was spamming Invoker and outplaying everyone on the hero on his way to becoming the first player in history with over 9,000 MMR.
There isn’t really any player in the history of this game that can say they were ever better at Invoker than Miracle- was at his prime. His quick thinking and equally quick fingers allowed him to win exactly two-thirds of his pro games as the hero, with 74 wins over 111 matches (66.67 percent win rate).
And while he didn’t necessarily win his one and only International title with Invoker, as he was playing carry for Team Liquid when they won TI7, the name association between the two is just too much and too important to ignore. If there’s anyone that could maybe surpass him over time, though, it’s Volodymyr “No[o]ne” Minenko, who has 119 games and counting at a near 60 percent win rate. Considering Miracle- might be calling it quits after Nigma were elimated from PGL Wallachia Season 4 despite an illustrious Dota career. We might just see it happen within the year.
If you only got into professional Dota 2 over the last five years, you’ve probably never even heard of Saahil “Universe” Arora. One of the most celebrated North American players in history, new players might not even know that he was once an International champion. His impact from the offlane was simply insane, especially when he got his hands on Dark Seer.
With 223 games with the hero under his belt, Universe is far and away the leader in this regard. He won 56.5 percent of his pro games with Dark Seer, showing just how much he could control games as an initiator during the mid-2010s era. He paved the way for modern offlaners like Neta “33” Shapira and even ATF himself, and his impact on the game is still felt to this day. Universe retired in 2020, although he does make very rare guest appearances every now and again.
Johan “n0tail” Sundstein: the flower, the rainbow, and the river himself. The two-time International champion is the highest-earning professional gamer of all time, with more than $7 million earned in prize money over the course of his career. The one hero that has helped him achieve this goal? Io, the Wisp — with whom he’s played 164 professional games in total.
Of those 164 games, n0tail’s won a ridiculous 119, for a 72.56 percent win rate. This makes him one of the best pure hard support players in the history of Dota 2, and officially the winningest Io player of all time.
And speaking of 33, the two-time International winner is the leading Doom player in professional games, clocking in at 204 games played. He’s won a very impressive 133 times with the hero, which accounts for 65.2 percent of his career Doom games.
What else can I say about 33 at this point? He’s a floor and ceiling raiser — so much so that you can basically plug him into any team with room for his playstyle and he’ll make them much better for it. He is equal parts flashy and solid, and will entertain the crowd for sure whenever he gets his hands on Doom.
And like I said, he’s solid, so his phenomenal plays in each game don’t just come back to bite him. 33 knows how to push his limits, but well within reason — and that’s why he’s won two Internationals with two different organizations.
Team Liquid’s Michael “miCKe” Vu may be the best Nature’s Prophet player around in the modern era, but no one, and I mean no one holds a candle to what Henrik “AdmiralBulldog” Ahnberg did with this hero back in 2013. And with a near 66 percent win rate across 235 games, it’s clear that he’s the greatest Nature’s Prophet player ever.
His title run with Alliance at TI3 was nothing short of magical, and his hero pond (I don’t even want to call it a hero pool) of Nature’s Prophet, Lone Druid, and Clockwerk all caused massive headaches for everyone they faced in that tournament. Back then, Captains Mode only offered five bans to each team, so you couldn’t just ban out Bulldog’s heroes and leave the other Alliance players to just run you over with their own signature picks.
He and the rest of Alliance knew this, and exploited it all the way to the TI3 grand final. There’s a reason why the infamous Alliance copypasta exists, and that reason is AdmiralBulldog.
With a case for being the greatest professional Dota 2 player of all time, everyone knows about Clement “Puppey” Ivanov’s exploits at this point. An old school player through and through, he is the all-time leader in games played as Chen, who is bar none his most famous and most successful comfort pick. He’s got 271 games played on the hero, with 180 of those being wins for a 66.4 percent win rate.
Puppey’s Chen is a huge reason why Na’Vi won the very first International, as he played the hero three times in the grand final and won two with it. He would go on to play in three more TI grand final matches from there, bringing his masterful Chen play along with him. And though he might never be able to bring Team Secret — the organization that he founded — an Aegis of Champions, his impact on the game of Dota 2 and its competitive history is simply undeniable.
Here we are at the most played player-hero combination of all time. Xu “fy” Linsen is the foremost hero loyalist in all of professional Dota 2, with an astronomical 301 individual games as Rubick. Nicknamed “fy-god” for this very reason, the kind of plays that this man was able to pull off at the prime of his career were just mind-boggling.
If your team ever allowed him to get his hands on Rubick, you needed to be extra prepared for fy’s wrath. He always seemed to just know exactly what spells to steal in any given teamfight, and he had the reactions and reflexes to get it done in even in the most hectic situations. His positioning as Rubick was immaculate to say the least, always in the right place at the right time.
Sadly, fy was never able to capture the Aegis of Champions, and with his last official match being all the way in November last year, I’m afraid that he might finally hang it up without ever winning The International.
Here we have some player-hero pairings that didn’t quite make the cut for various reasons, but are definitely worthy of mentioning:
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