Phantom Lancer — hero grid for mains

The in-game name is Phantom Lancer — the same in the English and the Russian client. Short names for Phantom Lancer you will see in chat: “pl”. Russian-speaking players say “Фантом Лансер” (or “пл” and “лансер”).

The hero's line in Valve's list reads: “Creates illusions of himself to trick or attack foes”.

The site's “Choose a hero” window finds Phantom Lancer by any of “Phantom Lancer”, “Фантом Лансер” and “pl”.

Phantom Lancer: Agility attribute, shared with 34 other heroes; melee attack; Valve rates the complexity medium, 2 of 3.

Role dots from Valve: Carry ●●○, Escape ●●○, Nuker ●○○, Pusher ●○○ — no role at the full three.

In the ready layouts that means the “AGILITY” (8th of 35) block of By attributes and the “MEDIUM” (33rd of 59) band of By complexity.

One position only for Phantom Lancer: carry (1), with the next best score at just 0.04. All five scores (best = 1): carry 1 · mid 0.04 · offlane 0.01 · soft support 0 · hard support 0 — which is why the editor's Auto-pick places Phantom Lancer in the “1 · CARRY” row and nowhere else.

Lanes over 1,273 parsed OpenDota matches as of 23 Sept 2026: safe 96%, mid 3%, off 2%. Median GPM 636, XPM 854 — core-level gold on the site's scale (540 and up).

In Classic: positions 1–5 Phantom Lancer sits in the “1 · CARRY” row, 4th portrait of 18.

Other ready grids with Phantom Lancer: Meta by stats — “CARRY”, 1st of 10; Two columns — “CORES”, 4th of 44.

The “Make a grid with Phantom Lancer” button opens Mains + situational with Phantom Lancer first in the MAINS block, followed by Terrorblade, Anti-Mage and Phantom Assassin — all three share the same main position (carry), the same attribute and melee attack.

To get the grid into the game, press “Download grid” and, with Dota closed, put hero_grid_config.json into Steam → userdata → account number → 570 → remote → cfg — details in how to install a hero grid.

In the OpenDota snapshot of 23 Sept 2026 Phantom Lancer shows up in 538,131 games (25th most played of 127) and wins 53.6% of them (3rd).

Low (53.1%) and high (53.8%) brackets differ by less than two points. Players pick Phantom Lancer more than usual at Guardian (+8%) and less at Ancient (−7%).

Phantom Lancer in the snapshot's pro matches: 2 picks, 2 wins, 1 ban. Turbo: 218,836 games at 56.4%, noticeably better than in ranked brackets.

For a grid with a Phantom Lancer portrait, bring your own art: Picture to dots draws it in dots right on the field. Among the heroes with skins that are also played as carry, the closest to Phantom Lancer are Terrorblade, Juggernaut and Anti-Mage — their dot drawings are ready for a carry grid.