The Dota 2 Competitive Hero Tier List for December 2019 includes data from patches 7.23 to 7.23e, for a total of 479 games. The heroes are split in five groups.

All heroes are arranged in five tiers based on their draft rate. The tiers are viewed as clusters of data, and each hero is placed in the one they are closer the most.
The requisites for each tier never change. The goal is offering a neutral comparison that shows how the meta evolves over time.
The win rate has no effect on the tiers, but is included for further info. The tiers depend only on drafts (picks + bans), and aren't affected either by the win rate of a hero, or by their performance in pub matches.

This tier list contains all pro matches played from December 1st to 25th during version 7.23 and subpatches, including Dota 2 World Pro Invitational Singapore.

Past Tier List: November 2019

More: Updated Dota 2 Hero Tier List

Quick links

Tier 1 - Tier 2 - Tier 3 - Tier 4 - Tier 5

All tables are responsive and sortable. If you are using a phone, turn it sideways for a full view. Otherwise, zoom in or click the grey area of each table to swipe and sort them.

Tier 1

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Tiny	375	78.3%	149	31.1%	226	47.2%	45.6%
Puck	360	75.2%	163	34.0%	197	41.1%	54.6%
Venomancer	296	61.8%	82	17.1%	214	44.7%	48.8%
Templar Assassin	284	59.3%	90	18.8%	194	40.5%	50.0%
Viper	263	54.9%	72	15.0%	191	39.9%	48.6%
Razor	260	54.3%	76	15.9%	184	38.4%	60.5%
Doom	254	53.0%	115	24.0%	139	29.0%	56.5%

The division in tiers is never perfect, and sometimes the heroes at the limit between the highest tiers have similar draft rates.

Learn more: recently, I talked about several popular meta picks in my article on the top 10 heroes of 7.23 at 5k MMR: Vengeful Spirit, Drow, Void Spirit, Ursa, Doom, Venomancer, Treant Protector, Bloodseeker. I recommend reading it if you are interested in those heroes as today I will explain different ones.

Tiny

The Dota 2 meta is a combination of various elements, but I would like to use Tiny as an example to show how a single hero can influence several picks.

Beside a direct ban, the easier way to deal with Tiny is playing a ranged hero who is able to keep Tiny at a distance, kite him, and possibly survive his own burst attack, thus we have picks such as Razor, Viper, and Venomancer.
Vengeful Spirit has been buffed recently, and her Vengeance Aura is now shocking good with ranged DPS heroes.
When a ranged pick is not possible, there are also a few melee heroes who can face Tiny directly, and among them there is Ursa.
Whenever Tiny is a top pick, also Io makes its comeback.

All the heroes listed above belong to the top tiers of the meta, and while Tiny is not the only factor affecting their pick rate, he is certainly one of them.

Tiny in 7.23

Before the patch, Tiny was already a solid pick thanks to his potential as a carry and the one-shot combo in the mid game: Toss, Avalanche, a few auto-attacks, and Tree Throw.

7.23 brought back the old permanent tree (and without Aghanim’s Scepter): the tree provided by Tree Grab is no longer limited to 5 attacks, but it now lasts until thrown or until dying.

Now, Tiny has more versatility:

Levelling up Tree Grab increases the damage inflicted to units and build, and the AoE damage, so it is great to amplify his farming potential.
Prioritizing his nukes provides early game dominance thanks to the burst power.

IceFrog also changed his level 20 right talent from 7s Tree Grab Cooldown Reduction to 20 Strength Bonus, which is equal to 400 HP and 20 attack damage. Raid Boss Tiny is stronger than ever!

In the video below: Amer “Miracle-“ Al-Barkawi as Tiny destroying the mid lane tower in 7 minutes, supported by Io.

Viper

Valve reworked Viper in 7.07, and at the time I wrote a guide on the new DPS, magic, and hybrid builds.

Honestly, he was very entertaining to play, but his skillset had a fatal flaw: it required an exorbitant amount of mana, so you had to commit a few inventory slots on mana-related items.

The new Poison Attack introduced in 7.23 requires 5 attacks and 100 mana to maximize the damage over time (it stacks 5 times).

20 mana cost per cast is lower than the old 40/35/30/25, and the duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.
Damage-wise, it surpasses the old Poison Attack in most scenarios, both in the early and late game.

Nowadays, mana items completely disappeared from his item build: in competitive games, players mostly get Black King Bar, Hurricane Pike, and Maelstrom. When they run out of mana, they just drink Clarities.

Viper’s late game remained pretty much the same (but Nethertoxin is a lot less effective) while his early and mid game got empowered, and his classic role as a lane phase dominator is even more pronounced than in the past.

Finally, Viper counters several popular picks of the patch, such as Templar Assassin, Razor, and Ursa.

In the following video, you can find OG’s Topias Miikka “Topson” Taavitsainen on Viper dominating Void Spirit in the mid lane.

Tier 2

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Vengeful Spirit	241	50.3%	121	25.3%	120	25.1%	57.9%
Io	240	50.1%	50	10.4%	190	39.7%	48.0%
Abaddon	235	49.1%	104	21.7%	131	27.4%	47.1%
Kunkka	233	48.6%	75	15.7%	158	33.0%	57.3%
Crystal Maiden	221	46.1%	157	32.8%	64	13.4%	52.9%
Rubick	218	45.5%	153	31.9%	65	13.6%	53.6%
Timbersaw	204	42.6%	50	10.4%	154	32.2%	38.0%
Nature's Prophet	201	42.0%	80	16.7%	121	25.3%	43.8%

Razor

Most Razor’s skills got buffed in 7.23. In particular, Static Link now causes him to perform instant attacks on the linked target over the duration, using his current attack speed as interval. The instant attacks trigger on-hit effects and attack modifiers normally.

In pub games, Mask of Madness is rising in popularity because the instant attacks greatly benefit from attack speed, and MoM gives a total of 120 attack speed, more than the level 10 talent +10 Agility. The added movement speed bonus also helps to chase the linked target.

MoM is a great tool to snowball in the early/mid game, and can also be disassembled afterwards: Morbid Mask is used for Satanic, and Quarterstaff for Butterfly - both of them are strong items on Razor.

Nevertheless, Mask of Madness is not a popular choice in competitive games: during December, professional players bought it in only a few matches. We can’t predict if the trend will change in the future as pros tend to use safe builds, and activating MoM increases the damage you receive from physical attackers.

The most common item builds on Razor include items such as Power Treads, Black King Bar, Eul’s Scepter of Divinity, Sange and Yasha, Drum of Endurance, Assault Cuirass, Satanic, Butterfly, and Shiva’s Guard (sorted by number of picks). Note that no one bought Eye of Skadi.

Power Treads are the preferred boot choice because they provide more value than Phase Boots. You can switch their main attribute whenever you need to cast spells in the early stages of the game: for example, Plasma Field is used to stack and farm jungle camps between creep waves.

The video below shows Evil Geniuses player Syed Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan playing Razor in a ranked game during patch 7.23. He got 97 CS in 10 minutes.

Abaddon

Abaddon is mostly a flex pick, in fact he was the 7th most picked 1st phase hero in December.

Some players use him as a support, others as a core (pos 3). Picking Abaddon doesn’t reveal much about your game plan, potential team composition, and role split, so you leave the opponents with almost no info, which is a great perk in a competitive environment.

Abaddon counters AoE stuns and long disables. If your team is caught by an initiation skill such as Tidehunter’s Ravage, Abaddon can activate Borrowed Time to free himself, and then cast Aphotic Shield on an allied hero to dispel them.

Abaddon has been a rather popular pick for a few months already, and he received almost no changes in 7.23. I think his draft rate with decline in pro games in the successive months, and eventually he will fall into tier 3 or even below.

This is mostly caused by the rise of ranged heroes as he has issues dealing with two ranged opponents during the laning phase: Abaddon is a melee hero with a poor starting armor.
Mobility-based lineups are problematic as well, and this patch granted increased mobility to many heroes - for example, it buffed Ursa’s Earthshock and Puck’s Waning Rift.
Abaddon can no longer self deny with Mist Coil.

The video below shows EG’s Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev in the off lane as Abaddon.

Tier 3

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Lina	188	39.3%	94	19.6%	94	19.6%	50.0%
Legion Commander	187	39.0%	104	21.7%	83	17.3%	48.1%
Lone Druid	185	38.6%	37	7.7%	148	30.9%	56.8%
Chen	185	38.6%	50	10.4%	135	28.2%	60.0%
Gyrocopter	182	38.0%	95	19.8%	87	18.2%	51.6%
Omniknight	181	37.8%	66	13.8%	115	24.0%	57.6%
Tusk	178	37.2%	102	21.3%	76	15.9%	47.1%
Batrider	173	36.1%	42	8.8%	131	27.4%	61.9%
Morphling	160	33.4%	76	15.9%	84	17.5%	54.0%
Leshrac	156	32.6%	69	14.4%	87	18.2%	47.8%
Ursa	152	31.7%	76	15.9%	76	15.9%	55.3%
Beastmaster	150	31.3%	74	15.5%	76	15.9%	50.0%
Bloodseeker	140	29.2%	52	10.9%	88	18.4%	61.5%
Magnus	137	28.6%	60	12.5%	77	16.1%	56.7%
Night Stalker	137	28.6%	45	9.4%	92	19.2%	51.1%
Ember Spirit	127	26.5%	75	15.7%	52	10.9%	50.7%
Elder Titan	123	25.7%	58	12.1%	65	13.6%	51.7%
Shadow Fiend	121	25.3%	65	13.6%	56	11.7%	44.6%
Slark	117	24.4%	52	10.9%	65	13.6%	50.0%
Treant Protector	117	24.4%	38	7.9%	79	16.5%	42.1%
Winter Wyvern	114	23.8%	59	12.3%	55	11.5%	59.3%
Disruptor	108	22.6%	86	18.0%	22	4.6%	50.0%
Naga Siren	105	21.9%	33	6.9%	72	15.0%	51.5%
Invoker	104	21.7%	61	12.7%	43	9.0%	44.3%
Keeper of the Light	103	21.5%	45	9.4%	58	12.1%	53.3%
Sand King	102	21.3%	61	12.7%	41	8.6%	39.3%
Drow Ranger	102	21.3%	39	8.1%	63	13.2%	56.4%
Centaur Warrunner	99	20.7%	65	13.6%	34	7.1%	46.2%
Phantom Lancer	98	20.5%	36	7.5%	62	12.9%	52.8%

Tier 4

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Alchemist	95	19.8%	22	4.6%	73	15.2%	40.9%
Lifestealer	94	19.6%	43	9.0%	51	10.7%	48.8%
Brewmaster	93	19.4%	56	11.7%	37	7.7%	50.0%
Faceless Void	92	19.2%	37	7.7%	55	11.5%	59.5%
Weaver	88	18.4%	47	9.8%	41	8.6%	46.8%
Ogre Magi	86	18.0%	59	12.3%	27	5.6%	45.8%
Storm Spirit	82	17.1%	48	10.0%	34	7.1%	54.2%
Outworld Devourer	79	16.5%	26	5.4%	53	11.1%	57.7%
Skywrath Mage	69	14.4%	44	9.2%	25	5.2%	36.4%
Mirana	69	14.4%	39	8.1%	30	6.3%	46.2%
Broodmother	68	14.2%	8	1.7%	60	12.5%	25.0%
Dragon Knight	67	14.0%	40	8.4%	27	5.6%	50.0%
Terrorblade	65	13.6%	33	6.9%	32	6.7%	51.5%
Lich	62	12.9%	58	12.1%	4	0.8%	48.3%
Earth Spirit	59	12.3%	39	8.1%	20	4.2%	41.0%
Troll Warlord	59	12.3%	31	6.5%	28	5.9%	48.4%
Undying	58	12.1%	36	7.5%	22	4.6%	58.3%
Lycan	58	12.1%	18	3.8%	40	8.4%	38.9%
Sven	58	12.1%	37	7.7%	21	4.4%	67.6%
Dazzle	57	11.9%	39	8.1%	18	3.8%	48.7%
Anti-Mage	54	11.3%	23	4.8%	31	6.5%	56.5%
Bristleback	53	11.1%	24	5.0%	29	6.1%	41.7%
Shadow Demon	51	10.7%	30	6.3%	21	4.4%	60.0%
Huskar	50	10.4%	14	2.9%	36	7.5%	50.0%
Chaos Knight	48	10.0%	26	5.4%	22	4.6%	19.2%
Meepo	47	9.8%	13	2.7%	34	7.1%	46.2%
Queen of Pain	47	9.8%	15	3.1%	32	6.7%	46.7%
Grimstroke	43	9.0%	32	6.7%	11	2.3%	43.8%
Enchantress	43	9.0%	13	2.7%	30	6.3%	30.8%
Ancient Apparition	38	7.9%	17	3.6%	21	4.4%	47.1%
Zeus	35	7.3%	17	3.6%	18	3.8%	23.5%
Warlock	33	6.9%	28	5.9%	5	1.0%	46.4%
Dark Seer	31	6.5%	20	4.2%	11	2.3%	40.0%
Enigma	29	6.1%	17	3.6%	12	2.5%	64.7%
Shadow Shaman	28	5.9%	21	4.4%	7	1.5%	42.9%
Axe	28	5.9%	19	4.0%	9	1.9%	26.3%
Pugna	27	5.6%	19	4.0%	8	1.7%	36.8%
Earthshaker	27	5.6%	23	4.8%	4	0.8%	52.2%
Oracle	26	5.4%	20	4.2%	6	1.3%	35.0%

In tier 4 and 5 we find all the situational heroes. They are strong when paired with others, or against specific lineups. These heroes aren't bad, they just don't work in every game, so the pick and ban rates aren't outstanding.

Tier 5

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Jakiro	24	5.0%	20	4.2%	4	0.8%	25.0%
Clockwerk	23	4.8%	16	3.3%	7	1.5%	50.0%
Wraith King	23	4.8%	17	3.6%	6	1.3%	41.2%
Mars	22	4.6%	13	2.7%	9	1.9%	61.5%
Juggernaut	21	4.4%	7	1.5%	14	2.9%	28.6%
Luna	20	4.2%	14	2.9%	6	1.3%	28.6%
Death Prophet	20	4.2%	13	2.7%	7	1.5%	38.5%
Nyx Assassin	17	3.6%	10	2.1%	7	1.5%	30.0%
Necrophos	17	3.6%	10	2.1%	7	1.5%	50.0%
Monkey King	16	3.3%	14	2.9%	2	0.4%	57.1%
Sniper	16	3.3%	8	1.7%	8	1.7%	37.5%
Pangolier	15	3.1%	13	2.7%	2	0.4%	53.9%
Underlord	15	3.1%	11	2.3%	4	0.8%	63.6%
Spirit Breaker	15	3.1%	13	2.7%	2	0.4%	46.2%
Dark Willow	14	2.9%	13	2.7%	1	0.2%	61.5%
Phoenix	14	2.9%	9	1.9%	5	1.0%	33.3%
Silencer	14	2.9%	7	1.5%	7	1.5%	71.4%
Tinker	14	2.9%	8	1.7%	6	1.3%	50.0%
Slardar	13	2.7%	11	2.3%	2	0.4%	54.6%
Techies	10	2.1%	1	0.2%	9	1.9%	100%
Bane	10	2.1%	8	1.7%	2	0.4%	25.0%
Visage	9	1.9%	3	0.6%	6	1.3%	100%
Phantom Assassin	9	1.9%	6	1.3%	3	0.6%	0.0%
Witch Doctor	9	1.9%	9	1.9%	0	0.0%	33.3%
Tidehunter	9	1.9%	8	1.7%	1	0.2%	62.5%
Lion	8	1.7%	7	1.5%	1	0.2%	28.6%
Windranger	8	1.7%	6	1.3%	2	0.4%	66.7%
Medusa	6	1.3%	2	0.4%	4	0.8%	100%
Spectre	6	1.3%	3	0.6%	3	0.6%	33.3%
Bounty Hunter	6	1.3%	4	0.8%	2	0.4%	25.0%
Arc Warden	1	0.2%	1	0.2%	0	0.0%	100%
Riki	1	0.2%	1	0.2%	0	0.0%	0.0%
Pudge	1	0.2%	1	0.2%	0	0.0%	0.0%

Heroes not drafted

Next Tier List: January 2020

Header image (Affront of the Overseer loading screen for Razor) and hero icons: Valve - Statistics: DatDota