A patch of green grass for some: ESL One Birmingham 2026 team and hero statistics

ESL One Birmingham 2026 marked the midpoint of the 2025/26 competitive season and brought us the biggest Dota 2 spectacle so far.

It was the first tournament of the season to be held with a large audience, and despite unfolding across just one week, from the 22nd to 29th of March, it forced the teams to compete on three different patches. The highlight was Patch 7.41 being dropped mid tournament, on the night before the last day in the group stage, on the 25th of March.

A couple of days later, on the night before the finals day, Valve also dropped a balance gameplay update. 7.41a, and nerfed some of the heroes that became highly contested and were deemed as a bit too overpowered, such as Alchemist.

For some teams, the 7.41 big patch released before the playoffs was a complete disaster. Aurora Gaming, for instance, were the absolute dominant force of the groups, advancing to the playoffs with a 13-1 game record. However, they got completely ravaged by the patch. “I feel like we're kind of lagging behind compared to other teams in learning the patch,” said to us Rafli "Mikoto" Fathur Rahma ahead of Aurora’s playoff matches. Their tournament run ended abruptly as they indeed failed to adapt to 7.41 fast enough.

Even so, Mikoto made an incredible impression in Birmingham with his mid lane performance.

ESL One Birmingham 2026 hero statistic

• Total games played: 142 (66 in the group stage)
• Total heroes picked: 112
• Number of unpicked heroes: 21

Most picked heroes

• Shadow Shaman: 64 games, 29 wins, 43.31% win rate
• Jakiro: 57 games, 37 wins, 64.91% win rate
• Tusk: 53 games, 27 wins, 50.94% win rate
• Phoenix: 45 games, 25 wins, 55.56% win rate
• Tiny: 45 games, 23 wins, 51.11% win rate

Most contested heroes

• Shadow Demon: picked or banned 130 games, 91.55% contest rate
• Batrider: picked or banned 121 games, 85,21% contest rate
• Largo: picked or banned 119 games, 83.80% contest rate
• Jakiro: picked or banned 113 games, 79.58% contest rate
• Puck: picked or banned 112 games, 78.87% contest rate

ESL One Birmingham 2026 unique heroes by team

Obviously, the 7.41 impacted the teams’ draft preferences and priorities a lot. However, some stood out through their hero pool diversity, while some made a mark with their consistency on what appeared to be meta-defining heroes.

Xtreme Gaming, who placed third in Birmingham, delivered the most diverse drafts and turned out to be the most flexible team of the tournament with 57 unique heroes picked across their 26 games. PARIVISION followed closely with 53 unique heroes in 23 games.

The runner-up Team Yandex closed the tournament with 49 unique heroes picked in 26 games, and interestingly enough, despite many players deeming Tiny as unplayable after the patch, Yandex insisted on picking it, including against Tundra Esports in both upper bracket finals and the grand finals, but with no success.

Tundra Esports vs Team Yeandex hot picks in Birmingham

Tundra claimed the tournament trophy with drafts that emphasised early map control and fast scaling for objective taking. They played a total of 44 unique heroes and managed to stay undefeated on Phoenix, Beastmaster, Mars, Sand King, and Batrider.

• read also: bzm interviwew - “We figured out some good heroes before other teams”

They heavily prioritised Tusk and Phoenix, two heroes known for being lane bullies. Matthew "Whitemon" Filemon sits at a perfect 100% win rate on Phoenix with 7 games played on the hero, while Ari lifted the trophy on the BP Pulse arena stage with 10 wins out of 11 games played on Tusk.

Phoenix was overall one of the top 5 most played heroes in Birmingham, and it was one of the top picks for Yandex as well. However, the high contest rate between the two grand finalists stopped at just Phoenix, Jakiro and Void Spirit.

Void Spirit served well both Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov and Ilya "CHIRA_JUNIOR" Chirtsov, but the latter got to play it more in the tournament, finishing with six wins and one loss on the hero. Void Spirit turned out to be the standout hero for Yandex, but the difference maker in the grand finals was Tundra’s clear game plan and execution.

Tundra walked home with the trophy in their hands and with the highest average GPM from all teams at ESL One Birmingham, 2750. They also lead in average XPM, 3619, which is a testament to how well they played the map, making sure to translate their good early game into clinical victories.

• read also: Tundra’s 33 on being the first to win on 7.41 patch, the target on their back, and a bad hotel shower

A special mention should go to Aurora, who, despite being eliminated early in the playoffs, were in the top 6; they still held the highest average KDA, 4.58, narrowly beating out Team Yandex’s 4.50 and Tundra’s 4.43. Aurora also boasts the second-highest win rate through the entire tournament, sitting at 73.7%, just behind Tundra’s 78.3% win rate.

In a parallel universe, they had probably figured out the patch faster and won this event.

TL;DR

• The greedy meta was real. GPM correlated with wins more strongly than any other single stat.
• Tundra found the most efficient heroes on the new patch. Seven heroes with 100% win rates over multiple games. (Phoenix, Beastmaster, Largo, Sand King, Batrider, Dragon Knight, Doom)
• Depth vs. mastery was a real trade-off. Xtreme Gaming had the deepest hero pool (57 heroes) but didn't make it to the grand finals. Tundra won with 44 heroes.
• Aurora Gaming was the tournament's deadliest team. Their 4.58 KDA proves that aggression, when timed correctly, can rival even the best farming teams.

ESL One Birmingham 2026 will be remembered as one of Tundra’s most impressive tournament victories and the one that brought Ari the first premier championship title won on home soil.