* Heroes with heavy magical nukes will take advantage of Slark's poor HP or force him to use Shadow Dance early: Lina, Lion, Zeus

* Heroes with long or multiple disables will prevent Legion Commander from winning Duels: Shadow Shaman, Lion

* Heroes who can drain mana can make Omniknight useless after he uses one or two abilities: Lion, Anti-Mage, Nyx Assassin.

* Lion's Mana Drain is a headache for Bristleback to deal with during the laning stage, as it denies him the ability to get last hits with Quill Spray.

* Heroes with abilities or items that can silence or disable Anti-Mage for long periods of time will prevent him from Blinking away: Lion, Silencer, Shadow Shaman, Grimstroke, Witch Doctor, Riki, Faceless Void, Skywrath Mage, Puck.

* Enigma is fragile, and lacks escapes, being dependent on Blink Dagger for mobility. Ganking Heroes or Heroes with burst damage will likely kill him before he can do anything. Such Heroes include: Lina, Lion, Luna, Puck, Slark, Nyx Assassin, etc.

* Sven is very vulnerable to chain stun such as Lion, Shadow Shaman or Magnus.

* Lion may upgrade Mana Drain, Hex and Finger of Death through Talent Tree and Aghanim's itens to make them affect secondary targets or turn them into AoE abilities. This can make things difficult for heroes like Phantom Lancer, Naga Siren and Terrorblade, who rely on illusion armies.

Additional:
* Both Hex and Mana Drain destroy Naga Siren's illusions in an instant, making it hard for her to teamfight or push against a team with Lion. If Lion chooses the AoE effect talent for Hex or the shard for multi-target Mana Drain, it can negate her pushing potential entirely.
* Earth Spike is an AoE disable with good damage. If used well, it can help distinguish the true Naga Siren by the damage they take (illusions take more damage).

* Hex and Mana Drain can be used to immediately destroy Spectre's illusion when she Haunts. A fast fingered Lion can protect himself and a teammate.
* Hex and Earth Spike are good lockdown spells to control and kill Spectre, especially if she doesn't buy defensive items like Linken's Sphere and Black King Bar.
* Finger of Death can be used to burst down Spectre when she is low on life as she has very poor magic resistance.

* The movement speed granted from Shapeshift means that Spectre has no way to punish Lycan if he wants to splitpush or pick off supports. Furthermore, he will kite Haunt and cannot be slowed by Spectral Dagger.
* Lycan is often part of an early game push strategy which is often the best counter to Spectre because she needs a lot of time and space to come online as a late game carry.

* Lion has two low cast point disables (Hex and Earth Spike) to control Ursa before he buys a Black King Bar.
* Hex is one of the few abilities that cannot be dispelled even with an Aghanim's Scepter upgraded Enrage.
* Lion can control Ursa's low mana pool via Mana Drain.

* Lycan's ultimate makes him immune to slows from Ursa's Earthshock as well as allowing him to outmaneuver Ursa during Enrage. Lycan can also easily chase down Ursa while shapeshifted, should Ursa try to flee.

* Drow Ranger has a very low health pool, allowing Lion to burst her down.
* Lack of any innate escape mechanism makes her an easy target for Lion's disables.
* Early on she can't deal as much damage to be life threatning. Her Gust is her best weapon against Lion.

* Shapeshift allows Lycan to get close and disable Marksmanship.
* Shapeshift also makes him immune to slows like Drow Ranger's Frost Arrows.
Additional:
* The Wolves's speed causes the knockback from Gust to be ineffective.
* Drow Ranger lacks escapes and loses her Marksmanship when someone is near her. Lycan can take advantage of these weaknesses of Drow Ranger.

* Heroes with forced movement abilities or non-interrupting forced movement, such as Lion, Drow Ranger, Magnus, Mars, as they can cancel blast-off mid air, removing his ability to initiate or escape.

* He can send wolves to defuse Proximity Mines, and he can catch up Techies and kill him before they can deny themselves. Even if the suicide is successful, Lycan can still survive because of his tankiness.

* Heroes with channeling spells, for Chen has no disables on his own, hates buying disabling items and his creeps are often not fast enough to cancel them: Enigma's Black Hole, Witch Doctor's Death Ward, Shadow Shaman's Shackles, Lion's Mana Drain, Bane's Fiend's Grip, Pudge's Dismember, Crystal Maiden's Freezing Field, Pugna's Life Drain, Dawnbreaker's Solar Guardian, and Naga Siren's Reel In from Aghanim's Scepter.

* Lycan can clear waves of Chen's creeps with his wolves from Summon Wolves, especially once Lycan takes +2 Wolves summoned talent. And even though Chen can convert one of his wolves with Holy Persuasion, Lycan can counter this by buying Helm of the Overlord to regain control of it. Uncontrollable wolves summoned from Aghanim's Shard upgrade Summon Wolves cannot be converted with Holy Persuasion.
* Shapeshift allows him to chase down Chen and kill him easily.
* Howl can reduce attack damage of both, Chen and his creeps.

* Heroes that can keep Marci for a long time in one place so she can't pursue her targets, like Bane, Lion, Shadow Shaman, Invoker, Disruptor and Kunkka.

* Howl reduces a good chunk of Marci's attack damage that she relies heavily on, and the armor reduction works better on her because of her low armor.
* Shapeshift renders Lycan immune to slow from Rebound and Unleash.

* Sniper lacks any protection against Lion's disables early in the game.
* Lion's Earth Spike and Finger of Death may roughly hit Sniper at the latter increased attack range, making it possible to gank and to disable him from afar in clashes.
* Finger of Death is incredibly dangerous for Sniper as it may shred him away from fights, or in the worst scenario, cause his death.

* You can easily kill a squishy Sniper, due to your high movement speed and his lack of escape.

* All of Lion's abilities are active making Demonic Purge break from Aghanim's Scepter useless.
* Hex and Mana Drain can make quick work of whatever illusions you're creating, especially when he acquires his Talents at level 20 and 25.
* An attempt to save an ally using Disruption can easily become a perfect setup for a Earth Spike or Finger of Death with Aghanim's Scepter for the enemy.

* Lycan and Weaver has abilities that allow them to move at maximum movement speed, and those abilities can't be dispelled, potentially wasting the slow from Demonic Purge.

* Heroes with silence and mana drain abilites, as Ancient Apparition relies entirely on his abilities: Invoker, Silencer, Nyx Assassin, Skywrath Mage, Shadow Shaman, Lion and etc.

* Shapeshift increases Lycan's movement speed and renders him unslowable, allowing him to easily avoid and escape Ancient Apparition's abilities.
* Lycan has fast summons, both his wolves from Summon Wolves can do heavy damage to Ancient Apparition due to his immobility and low armor.

* Wraith King has a very low mana pool and is extremely dependant on it to cast his high mana cost abilities, so Mana Drain will make him struggle way too hard, even not being able to active his passive ability Reincarnation, forcing the Wraith King to buy Aghanim's Shard as soon as possible.
* Althought Wraith King may not be as fragile to struggle against Lion's damage, it's much easier to disable and harass him, as Wraith King doesn't have any mobility at all, his only gap closer being Wraithfire Blast which costs too much mana for his mana pool, and may only affect one target.
Additional:
* While not being able to confront Wraith King by himself, Lion's Mana Drain helps in draining Wraith King's mana, preventing him from reincarnating unless he has his Aghanim's Shard.
* Lion's Earth Spike and Hex provide decent lockdown against Wraith King as well, preventing the latter from benefiting from Vampiric Spirit bonuses.

* Heroes with single-target abilities will be overwhelmed by Lycan and his summons: Wraith King, Bane, Phantom Assassin.

* Heroes that can drain mana negatively affect Viper's ability to use Poison Attack, Nethertoxin and Viper Strike: Lion, Anti-Mage

* Heroes who do not have nor rely on passive abilities make Nethertoxin much less effective: Clinkz, Pugna, Nature's Prophet, Dark Seer, Lycan, Tusk

* Since Windranger is bad against magical damage, heroes with continuous magical damage or magical nukes can blast her: Zeus, Tinker, Leshrac, Viper, Skywrath Mage, Lion, Lina, Venomancer.

* Windranger tends to fare badly against high mobility heroes that can easily dodge Powershot, close the gap on her when she uses Windrun or escape from Focus Fire's reach. Examples of such heroes include Spirit Breaker, Lycan, Storm Spirit, Earth Spirit, Void Spirit, Slark and others.

* Lion may upgrade Mana Drain, Hex and Finger of Death through Talent Tree and Aghanim's itens to make them affect secondary targets or turn them into AoE abilities. This can make things difficult for heroes like Phantom Lancer, Naga Siren and Terrorblade, who rely on illusion armies.

* Heroes who can summon illusions and summons because Terrorblade has no abilities to deal with multiple enemies at once outside Reflection: Shadow Shaman, Naga Siren, Broodmother, Lycan, Enigma, Chaos Knight, Phantom Lancer, Shadow Demon, Dark Seer, Nature's Prophet, Invoker, Morphling, Visage, Grimstroke with Aghanim's Scepter.

* Skywrath's pitiful defences also make him easy meat to heroes with high burst like Juggernaut, Lion, or Phantom Assassin, the latter occasionally downing a support Skywrath in a single Stifling Dagger.

* Once you get a Black King Bar, squishy spellcasters like Zeus, Skywrath Mage and others will be probably easy to deal with.

* Hex abilities can cancel the channelling of Fiend's Grip : Lion, Shadow Shaman, Dazzle from Aghanim's Shard with upgraded Poison Touch.

* Heroes with single-target abilities will be overwhelmed by Lycan and his summons: Wraith King, Bane, Phantom Assassin.

* Heroes with high magical burst can easily kill Huskar when he is at low health: Lion, Lina, Skywrath Mage

* Heroes with low armor and little mobility, like Huskar, Io, etc. will also have an unfortunate fate.

* Weaver's exceptional ability to elude and survive through clashes and ganks is hard countered by Lion in every aspect.
* Weaver is very mana dependent and has a rather small mana pool in the beginning of the game, of which Mana Drain can deplete and lessen his early game presence.
* Earth Spike followed by Finger of Death in the huge majority of the time is enough to kill Weaver.
* Earth Spike can be point targeted to hit through Shukuchi.
* Hex's has a fair long duration, by which Weaver will not be able to deal damage, or even survive a coordinated attack, and it is single target, of which cannot be dodged.
* Mana Drain easily breaks Linken's Sphere. Its low cooldown allows Lion to infinitely break it whenever it recharges.
* Earth Spike and Hex when paired for the longer lengths of disables may diminish Time Lapse efficiency, possibly causing Weaver to not undo as much damage as he would.

* Lycan doesn't care much about Lich's slows thanks to Shapeshift.
* Chain Frost can bounce to the wolves that Lycan summons.
Additional:
* Lich possesses a lot of slows, which Lycan doesn't care about when he Shapeshifts.
* Lich has no in-built escape, which makes him a good target for Lycan.

* Mana Drain depletes Necrophos's mana pool, preventing him from using his abilities.
* Finger of Death deals high magical damage, which becomes amplified by Ghost Shroud.

* Shapeshift allows Lycan to chase down Earth Spirit.

* Magnetic Field is useless against melee heroes, so Lycan can attack Arc Warden without missing.
* Flux doesn't affect Lycan that much, because Shapeshift grants immunity to slows and because he is never alone.
* If their Tempest Double has been called, Lycan can still kill Arc Warden before the double expires.

* Heroes with silences and hard stuns such as Doom, Silencer, and Lion can keep Mirana from Leaping away.

* Mirana's Leap is ineffective if Lycan uses Shapeshift. It also allows him to dodge Sacred Arrow.

* Hex and Earth Spike can hold Clinkz down, giving him no chance to use Black King Bar or Skeleton Walk.
* Finger of Death quickly kills Clinkz due to his low health.

* Lycan's high health allows him to easily shrug off Nyx Assassin's burst damage and fend him off.
* As Lycan commonly buys Black King Bar, he can use it to freely attack Nyx Assassin and chase after him with Shapeshift.
* Lycan can also use his wolves from Summon Wolves to attack Nyx Assassin while he has Spiked Carapace active without getting stunned himself.

* Mana Drain rapidly saps Morphling's already low mana pool, making him unable to use Waveform or Adaptive Strike. Additionally, Hex prevents these abilities as well.
* An Earth Spike and Finger of Death combo can burst an unwary Morphling down if he has his strength fully shifted to agility.

* With a lot of disables with good range, he might cancel your Echo Stomp.
* Mana Drain can be used to drain Elder Titan's already low mana pool.

* If Meepo ganks Lion with Poof and Earthbind, he will be an easy target for Earth Spike & AoE Hex from his level 25 talent.

* Despite her high mobility, Hex or Earth Spike can lock Phantom Assassin down, make her vulnerable and mitigate her damage output.
* Lion relies entirely on his abilities to be effective, rendering Phatnom Assassin's high evasion through ineffective against him. And Phantom Assassin's low health pool makes her vulnerable to Lion's magical burst without Black King Bar.

* Heroes with single-target abilities will be overwhelmed by Lycan and his summons: Wraith King, Bane, Phantom Assassin.

* Lion may upgrade Mana Drain, Hex and Finger of Death through Talent Tree and Aghanim's itens to make them affect secondary targets or turn them into AoE abilities. This can make things difficult for heroes like Phantom Lancer, Naga Siren and Terrorblade, who rely on illusion armies.

* Heroes with mana burn: Nyx Assassin, Invoker, Outworld Destroyer, Pugna, Lion

* Heroes with high burst damage: Lina, Lion, Luna, Nyx Assassin, Queen of Pain.

* Long range disables are really effective against dangerous area controllers and channeling Heroes, like Enigma, Faceless Void or Crystal Maiden, as it may cancel them or prevent enemies from doing further damage while keeping Lion in a relatively safe distance in the warzone.

* Heroes with high magical burst damage will kill Gyrocopter before he gets to do much: Lina, Lion, Zeus

* High priority targets like Queen of Pain, Drow Ranger, Ember Spirit can't get caught out from Lion's long range disables, making it harder to them fulfill their roles, and making it easy to target them.

* Once you get a Black King Bar, squishy spellcasters like Zeus, Skywrath Mage and others will be probably easy to deal with.

* Finger of Death can instantly shred many targets, especially fragile Heroes like Keeper of the Light, Ancient Apparition or Bounty Hunter.

* Heroes with hastes: Dark Seer, Lycan

* Heroes that can kill Death Prophet with nukes can prevent her from using Exorcism to its full duration or using it at all: Lina, Lion, Puck, Morphling.

* Finger of Death can instantly shred many targets, especially fragile Heroes like Keeper of the Light, Ancient Apparition or Bounty Hunter.

* Heroes with high burst damage through their physical attacks or spells can kill Dazzle or his allies before he has a chance to use Shallow Grave. (Lina, Lion, etc.)

* Multiple attackers thanks to summoned units or clones: Meepo, Witch Doctor, Lycan, Enigma, Shadow Shaman
* Heroes that can quickly deal damage to her, regardless of how weak they are, can easily break through her Refraction:
* Multiple attackers thanks to summoned units or clones: Meepo, Witch Doctor, Lycan, Enigma, Shadow Shaman
* Multiple attackers thanks to illusions: Phantom Lancer, Chaos Knight, Naga Siren (bonus for her Ensnare). Also despite the visual effects, Templar Assassin does not spill damage against illusions or buildings, so she is not a really good hero to clean up illusions.
* Weak damage but high tick rate or persist in a long time: Slark, Gyrocopter, Queen of Pain, Shadow Shaman (Shackles), Jakiro, Pugna, Doom

* Heroes with both illusions and summons, for Io has nothing to deal with multiple enemies at once outside from Spirits's weak area-of-effect: Beastmaster, Broodmother, Chaos Knight, Lycan, Naga Siren, Nature's Prophet, Phantom Lancer, Shadow Shaman, Terrorblade, Visage, Warlock, Wraith King.

* Lion's instant cast point shuts down his initiation and buys time for his allies to catch up.
* Void Spirit has to be cautious when fighting, as he has no protection against Finger of Death. If caught out in a stun, the high magic damage could end him quickly.

* Lion possesses two strong disables in Earth Spike and Hex and heavy magic burst with Finger of Death which help lock him down and prevent him from escaping with Activate Fire Remnant. When getting his Blink Dagger Lion can punish Ember Spirit's overextension immediately, or initiate a fight on him with disables.

* Shapeshift allows Lycan to escape from Upheaval with maximum movement speed.
* Warlock doesn't have a good solution to deal with Lycan's wolves from Summon Wolves.

* Void's slow is useless against Lycan by activating Shapeshift.
* Night Stalker's single target abilities (with the exception of Void upgraded by Aghanim's Scepter) is not very effective against Lycan's Summon Wolves during the early and mid game.

* Shapeshift is useful for killing or escaping Silencer.
* Summon Wolves, can be used to hunt and harass silencer - even when Lycan himself can't fight.

* Heroes with nukes: Bane, Lich, Lion, Skywrath Mage

Additional:
* Enchantress is very fragile without any form of magic resistance, allowing Lion to easily burst her down.
* Nature's Attendants is a slow heal, making not as much effective against Lion's burst as it could be.
* Her raw movement speed is a fair escape/mobility mechanism, which may allow her to avoid a blindly cast Earth Spike, but does nothing against the rest of Lion's abilities, since they are single target and can't miss.
* Since Lion's damage comes mostly from his skills, Untouchable does nothing to mitigate it.

* Heroes with haste can negate Enchant's slow: Weaver, Dark Seer, Lycan, Centaur Warrunner.

* Mana Drain has an fair long range and low cooldown. It can easily deplete most heroes of their entire mana pools, especially those with smaller mana pools such as Tiny or Spirit Breaker.

* Heroes with summons and illusions as Spirit Breaker has no strong AoE capabilities to deal with them: Chaos Knight, Phantom Lancer, Terrorblade, Naga Siren, Broodmother, Warlock, Visage, Nature's Prophet, Shadow Shaman, Lycan, Wraith King.

* Heroes with abilities that can close the gap can easily kill Muerta: Storm Spirit, Earth Spirit, Ember Spirit, Void Spirit, Lycan, Chaos Knight, Tusk.

* Hex greatly reduces Timbersaw's mobility.
* In addition, Lion can follow up with his Earth Spike and Mana Drain combo, preventing Timbersaw to escape with Timber Chain. And he can finish Timbersaw off with Finger of Death if the latter's HP is low enough.

* Mana Drain has an fair long range and low cooldown. It can easily deplete most heroes of their entire mana pools, especially those with smaller mana pools such as Tiny or Spirit Breaker.

Additional:
* Lion can continuously Mana Drain Tiny in the early game, depleting his small mana pool for his abilities.

* Hex's instant cast time will force Brewmaster into the awkward situation of needing some form of spell immunity or block to prevent being immediately hex upon blinking in, or wait until Lion has used all his crowd control before entering a fight. His direct magic burst also makes Brewmaster's Drunken Brawler worthless versus Lion.

* Long range disables are really effective against dangerous area controllers and channeling Heroes, like Enigma, Faceless Void or Crystal Maiden, as it may cancel them or prevent enemies from doing further damage while keeping Lion in a relatively safe distance in the warzone.

* Backline supports (Lion,Crystal Maiden) can keep Puck pinned long enough for a kill.

* A Lycan with Shapeshift can always run down Puck for a very quick kill due to its low armor. It is important to abuse as many cliffs and trees as possible to escape from a Lycan.

* Ranged heroes that can easily harass Axe: Drow Ranger, Sniper, Lion.

* Due to her slow movement speed,heroes with crowd control and slows can shut down Dawnbreaker:Lion, Crystal Maiden ,Venomancer etc.

* Medusa lacks mobility or escape mechanisms. Earth Spike and Hex can neutralize her strong damage potential and allow for Lion's team to focus her down.
* Mana Drain is a perfect ability to weaken Medusa's durability as it can quickly drain her Mana Shield, making her far less tanky. Mana Drain can also be used to restore mana of Lion's allies, which can nullify the mana steal from Mystic Snake.
* Mana Drain, along with Hex, destroy illusions instantly, which may be extremely helpfull and efficient against core builders of Manta Style, like Medusa herself.

* Heroes with long disables, like Lion, Night Stalker, or Legion Commander, can prevent Oracle from using spells or items.

* Heroes with summons: Lycan, Broodmother, Visage, Nature's Prophet, Warlock.