Sand King
The sands of the Scintillant Waste are alive and sentient--the whole vast desert speaks to itself, thinking thoughts only such a vastness can conceive. But when it needs must find a form to communicate with those of more limited scope, it frees a fragment of itself, and fills a carapace of magic armor formed by the cunning Djinn of Qaldin. This essential identity calls itself Crixalis, meaning 'Soul of the Sand,' but others know it as Sand King. Sand King takes the form of a huge arachnid, inspired by the Scintillant Waste's small but ubiquitous denizens; and this is a true outward expression of his ferocious nature. Guardian, warrior, ambassador--Sand King is all of these things, inseparable from the endless desert that gave him life.
Base STR
23 +2.3
Base AGI
19 +2
Base INT
17 +2
Move Speed
290
Attack Range
150
Base Armor
1
Attack DMG
19–29
Projectile
900
Innate Abilities
Caustic Finale
Sand King's attacks inject a venom that causes enemy units to violently explode when they die that does a flat amount of damage and an additional amount based on the dying units max health.
EXPLODE RADIUS:
400
BASE DAMAGE:
17
MAX HEALTH DAMAGE:
2.5%
DURATION:
4.5
An injection from Crixalis makes one brittle and as dry as the arid wastes, subject to implosive demise.
Abilities
Burrowstrike
Cooldown
14 / 13 / 12 / 11s
Mana
100 / 110 / 120 / 130
Sand King burrows into the ground and tunnels forward, damaging and stunning enemy units above him as he resurfaces. Adds Caustic Finale poison to heroes hit
Can be put on alt-cast to immediately cast in the desired direction, without walking towards the targeted location.
STUN DURATION:
1.2 / 1.4 / 1.6 / 1.8
- Does not trigger spell block or spell reflect.
Crixalis often lies in wait, burrowing under the surface to ambush his adversaries.
Sand Storm
Cooldown
40 / 34 / 28 / 22s
Mana
85
Sand King creates a fearsome sandstorm that damages enemy units and grants Sand King Invisibility while he is in it. The effect ends when Sand King leaves the area.
RADIUS:
475 / 550 / 625 / 700
DAMAGE PER SECOND:
30 / 50 / 70 / 90
BLIND:
%
DURATION:
16 / 20 / 24 / 28
- Sand Storm can be used to dodge projectiles.
- Sand King briefly becomes visible upon attacking or using spells while in Sand Storm. Sand King will become invisible again in 0.7 seconds.
Some say Crixalis is a mirage; his carapace appearing then vanishing between the whirling sands of the Scintillant Waste.
Stinger
Cooldown
15 / 12 / 9 / 6s
Mana
35 / 40 / 45 / 50
Sand King strikes an area, performing an attack on all enemies in the area of effect, dealing extra damage to each. Enemies within an innermost radius of 125 take 40% extra damage. Applies Caustic Finale and a slow to all enemies hit.
RADIUS:
230 / 250 / 270 / 290
BONUS DAMAGE:
50 / 75 / 100 / 125
SLOW DURATION:
4 / 5 / 6 / 7
MOVEMENT SPEED SLOW:
10 / 12 / 14 / 16%
Crixalis is certainly capable of mercy, but the soul of the sand finds few foes worth sparing.
Epicenter
Cooldown
120 / 110 / 100s
Mana
150 / 225 / 300
After a cast point of 2 seconds, Sand King sends a disturbance into the earth, causing it to shudder violently. All enemies caught within range will take damage and become slowed. Each subsequent pulse increases the radius of damage dealt.
PULSES:
12 / 16 / 20
DAMAGE PER PULSE:
60 / 70 / 80
BASE RADIUS:
500
INCREMENTAL RADIUS:
13
MOVEMENT SLOW:
-30 / -40 / -50%
ATTACK SLOW:
-30 / -40 / -50
RADIUS:
0
DEBUFF DURATION:
3
EPICENTER DURATION:
6
- The pulses are centered on Sand King, not where he first cast the spell.
Many an explorer was lost to the quicksands of the Scintillant Waste.
Talents
Aghanim's Scepter
Epicenter
When the pulses start, 0 Stinger attack areas are created every 0s at random locations, each measuring 0% of the Epicenter's current radius, that apply 0% of Stinger damage to enemies hit. Shard pulses cause 0 attack(s).
Aghanim's Shard
Epicenter
Increases Epicenter damage per pulse. Every 3s causes a small single Epicenter Pulse around Sand King.
Hero Performance
Median across all public matches · OpenDotaForm
49%
Win rate in recent matches
Performance
84%
KDA ratio (kills + assists / deaths)
Laning
42%
Last hits per minute over full game
Farm
61%
Average gold per minute
Fighting
27%
Average kills + assists per match
Experience
77%
Average XP per minute
Strategy
When to Pick Sand King?
Let me be real with you about where Sand King actually stands in the current meta before talking about how good he is with Aghanim's Scepter. His win rate right now is sitting just below 50% on both mid and offlane at high MMR. DM's tier list of the best offlaners did not include Sand King at all—not even in A-tier. So you cannot just blindly pick Sand King every game and expect to climb.
BUT—and this is a very important but—the "extremely strong with Aghanim's" framing is completely correct, and that is the entire point of understanding this hero in the current meta. The Aghanim's Scepter on Sand King does something that almost no other hero's Scepter upgrade can claim: it turns an already powerful kit into a completely different threat level.
Without Scepter, Sand King is a strong initiator who blinks in, burrowstrikes multiple targets, and channels Epicenter while hoping nobody silences or stuns him before the pulses finish. That is fine. With Scepter, Sand Storm actively applies Burrowstrike effects around its radius—which means Sand King, hidden in his own sandstorm, is simultaneously invisible AND stunning everything that walks near him continuously.
Add that the Scepter also reduces Epicenter's cooldown, increases its pulse count, and dramatically extends Burrowstrike's initiation range from Blink Dagger, and you have a hero whose entire threat profile changes the moment that one item appears in his inventory.
The Aghanim's Shard compounds this further—Epicenter passively releases a single pulse every 3.5 seconds while it is off cooldown, AND every 700 distance Sand King walks during Sand Storm triggers an additional passive pulse. A Sand King roaming with Sand Storm active and Shard purchased is PASSIVELY dealing epicenter damage to anyone he walks near while simultaneously being completely invisible.
The current meta's laning patch emphasis on early aggression makes the Scepter timing window critical—Sand King needs to survive the laning phase long enough to hit Blink Dagger into Aghanim's Scepter before his impact becomes truly threatening, and that timing in the current aggressive meta is not always guaranteed.
He is disgusting in grouped-up melee lineups that cannot spread out easily—a five-hero melee draft that wants to fight in close proximity means every Epicenter pulse hits all of them simultaneously, every Burrowstrike stuns multiple targets in the chain, and Caustic Finale's venom detonating on killed units deals AOE damage to anyone standing nearby.
He thrives specifically when the draft gives him a frontliner who forces the enemy team to group—Tidehunter's Ravage pulling everyone together, Enigma's Black Hole holding them in place—because the longer an enemy team remains clustered in Epicenter's expanding radius, the more total damage the pulses accumulate.
He pairs beautifully with heroes that provide the setup he needs to channel Epicenter safely—Enigma Black Hole making the entire enemy team unable to stun him during the channel, Faceless Void's Chronosphere freezing enemies in position so Epicenter's expanding radius hits them as they stand unable to move away, and Bane Fiend's Grip locking a key hero while Sand King's pulses tick down on the rest of the group.
Avoid picking him into lineups that can easily interrupt Epicenter before it completes—Silencer Global Silence arriving during the channel, a quick stun from a hero with a 2-second cooldown disable, or a team built around silences and hexes that prevent the channel from resolving.
He is also noticeably weak in the current laning patch against aggressive dual-range safe lanes that can range-harass him completely out of the offlane before he accumulates the farm his items demand.
Tips & common mistakes
- Aghanim's Scepter is not a luxury item on Sand King—it is the item that transforms the hero from decent to genuinely threatening, and it should be prioritized as the third item after Blink Dagger and usually either BKB or Eul's Scepter depending on whether you need to protect your Epicenter channel. Most pub Sand Kings who delay Aghanim's Scepter past the 35-minute mark are playing a dramatically weaker version of the hero for twenty minutes when the game is most volatile.
- Epicenter channels for two seconds before the pulses begin—most pub Sand Kings channel in plain sight and get stunned before a single pulse fires. The correct approach is to channel from behind a cliff or inside a tree line or while Sand Storm provides invisibility, then Blink into the enemy team the moment the channel completes. The channel cannot be interrupted after it finishes — the pulses fire regardless of what happens to Sand King afterward, including if he dies. Commit to the channel in a safe position, THEN blink in.
- Burrowstrike has true strike on all of its instant attack components—which means it always hits regardless of evasion sources like Blur or Butterfly. Against a Phantom Assassin or Windranger who built evasion, Burrowstrike's physical component bypasses it entirely. Most pub Sand Kings never think about this and avoid burrow-striking into evasion heroes unnecessarily.
- Sand Storm provides invisibility while channeling—most pub Sand Kings use it purely to escape ganks reactively. The correct offensive use is channeling Epicenter inside Sand Storm while hidden, then blinking onto the enemy team as the channel completes. The enemy team does not see the channel animation, does not know Epicenter is about to fire, and gets hit by a full-duration Epicenter from a hero who appeared from nowhere.
- Caustic Finale now being Sand King's innate means it applies automatically to all of his attacks without requiring ability investment—every creep and hero Sand King hits in lane already has the death explosion venom on them. In the laning phase this means Sand King can attack a creep near the enemy hero, and when that creep dies from the last hit, it detonates near the enemy hero, dealing damage and a slow. This is an aggressive laning tool most pub Sand Kings completely ignore because they do not realize the innate is applying automatically from minute one.
- Overwhelming Blink is one of the strongest upgrades available for Sand King specifically because the Blink now deals damage and slows all heroes in a radius on landing—combining Overwhelming Blink into Burrowstrike into the beginning of Epicenter creates a three-layer instant impact on landing that applies damage and slow from the Blink, stun from Burrowstrike, and then Epicenter pulses starting immediately. The combined initiation happens faster than any enemy hero can react even with BKB available.
- BKB is mandatory in most Sand King games because a single disable interrupting the Epicenter channel before the two-second threshold wastes the entire cooldown and leaves Sand King standing in the middle of five enemies with nothing to show for it. Most pub Sand Kings skip BKB, trying to maximize damage items, and then watch helplessly as the enemy Lion Finger interrupts the channel before the first pulse fires.
Summary
and King is a hero whose power is entirely front-loaded into one item timing—the moment Aghanim's Scepter arrives, this hero goes from a respectable initiator to a genuinely terrifying zone-control threat that can hide invisibly in his own sandstorm while simultaneously stunning everything nearby and passively pulsing Epicenter damage with the Aghanim's Shard.
His win rates below 50% are honest—in the current aggressive laning patch he is not the easiest offlaner to pilot, and DM's tier list reflects that. But in the right draft, with the right setup heroes providing Black Hole or Chronosphere to hold the enemy team in place during Epicenter and with Aghanim's Scepter in the inventory by the twenty-five-minute mark, Sand King is one of the most oppressive teamfight presences available in Dota 2. Channel safely. Blink after.
Let the pulses do the rest.
Popular Items
Starting Items
Early Game
Core
Late Game
Popular Neutral Items
Pro Players Known For This Hero
