* Jumping on Axe with Waveform will make Morphling an easy target for a counter-initiation with Berserker's Call.
* Morphling is often played at low health to maximise the bonuses from Attribute Shift (Agility Gain), and also because his abilities cost health to use. This makes him especially vulnerable to Culling Blade.
* However, Morphling is common Linken's Sphere carrier to block Culling Blade forces Axe to use Battle Hunger to pop the Spell Block first.
* Attribute Shift (Agility Gain) gives Morphlig no protection against the pure damage of Culling Blade. Its attack speed bonus also means that Counter Helix will proc more often.

* Berserker's Call prevents Sven from bursting his targets before Axe can interfere. The worst kind of opponent for Sven is one who can stop him from attacking who he wants to, which is exactly what Axe does.
* Culling Blade may finish off Sven before he has the chance to lifesteal or run with Warcry.
* Axe is a very common Blade Mail carrier which will make very short work of a Sven with God's Strength activated.

* Arcane Orb deals pure damage, effectively bypassing Morphling's high armor from Attribute Shift (Agility Gain).
* Sanity's Eclipse is more effective against a low health and mana pool Morphling, enabling Outworld Destroyer to burst Morphling down before he can shift to Strength.
Additional:
* Arcane Orb deals high damage regardless of Morphling's high armor from Attribute Shift (Agility Gain).
* Because of Morphling's very low intelligence gain and base intelligence, Sanity's Eclipse will almost always be effective against Morphling.

* Tanky melee heroes that can easily be kited, which allows Outworld Destroyer to deal heavy damage with Arcane Orb from a distance: Sven, Underlord, Bristleback.

* Necrophos's Reaper's Scythe can finish off a low-health Morphling.

* His Heartstopper Aura deals the same gradual damage over time no matter how high Sven builds his strength or health pool up, and should he fall down to a certain percentage, his high health will no longer matter if Necrophos manages to land his Reaper's Scythe, killing him instantly. But it is best if Necrophos can either catch him off guard before he can possibly use his Black King Bar (which is an item Sven players commonly purchase), or bait him out of it.
* Ghost Shroud prevents Sven from hitting Necrophos, and if he doesn't have his Storm Hammer available, it could make him completely immune to Sven and allow Necrophos to easily kite him around.

* Heroes that rely on right-clicks will find that their attacks will miss a lot, due to Whirling Axes (Melee)'s miss chance. Such heroes include Phantom Assassin, Terrorblade, and Morphling.

* Whirling Axes (Melee)'s blind makes Sven nearly useless in the early game and allows Troll Warlord to take him on comfortably.
* Battle Trance will mean Sven will never take Troll out in a 1vs1 with equal farm.
Additional:
* Berserker's Rage together with Troll Warlord's high attack speed gives Troll a high chance of rooting enemies, which allows Troll Warlord to man-fight Sven.
* Whirling Axes (Melee) provides a 60% miss chance, and the passive armor provided by Berserker's Rage makes Troll resilient to physical damage in early game. Sven's God's Strength is much less effective as a result.
* Beware that Sven can farm much faster than Troll Warlord by stacking ancients and clearing them with Great Cleave.

* Winter Wyvern's Winter's Curse turns Morphling's high attack damage and attack speed against his targeted teammate.

* Cold Embrace saves any ally Sven initiates on and wastes the duration of God's Strength in team fights.
* Winter's Curse can be devastating to Sven's team, as his massive damage can take out a teammate before there is much time to react.

* 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.

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

* Heroes with silencing abilities that are not blocked by Linken's Sphere, like Puck's Waning Rift, Death Prophet's Silence or Silencer's Global Silence.

* Melee heroes that get kited easily have hard times dealing with Puck without any lockdowns, as Puck is one of the most mobile heroes. Heroes like Sven, Lifestealer, Ursa and Alchemist may have problems to get to Puck without proper initiation items. They also lack reliable lockdowns, as their disables are easily avoidable for Puck, or are just a soft disable.

* Cloak and Dagger makes Sven unable to detect where Riki is until he shows or his team provides detection.
* Smoke Screen will make Sven miss attacks before he has his Black King Bar.

* Sacred Arrow's long stun duration can prevent Morphling from casting his Waveform or Morph Replicate, making him unable to escape and easier to gank.
* Moonlight Shadow also allows Mirana's team to surprise Morphling while he tries to push towers.
* Mirana usually buys Linken's Sphere to protect herself from single-target abilities, making Morphling's Adaptive Strike and Ethereal Blade harder to use on her.
* However, Mirana also provides a chance to become a good Morph target, allowing Morph to use Leap to run away, if necessary.

* Undying can use Decay not only to reduce Sven's maximum health, but also to reduce the damage he can deal with his ultimate.
* Zombies spawned by Tombstone together with Flesh Golem slow Sven down significantly. Landing Sven's powerful but somewhat slow right-click on Tombstone would be a waste.

* Sven can be easily kited since Weaver is a natural Linken's Sphere carrier and Sven relies on Storm Hammer to disable and kill a hero.

* Ice Blast stops Morphling from gaining additional health with Attribute Shift.
* Using Attribute Shift would even bring Morphling closer to the shatter threshold.
* In the lane, Ice Vortex slows Morphling's already poor movement speed to a crawl; this, coupled with the amplification of magic damage, can set up an early kill on Morphling if Ancient Apparition has a suitable lane partner.
Additional:
* Ice Blast stops Attribute Shift (Strength Gain) from recovering adional health, and using it will even bring Morphling closer to the shatter threshold.
* In lane, Ice Vortex slows Morphling's already poor movement speed to a crawl; this, coupled with the amplification of magic damage, can set up an early kill on Morphling if Ancient Apparition has a suitable lane partner.

* Arcane Bolt's low cooldown allows him to deal consistent damage to Morphling, and is a viable way to disable Linken's Sphere.
* Ancient Seal prevents Morphling from using any of his skills, giving Skywrath Mage and his team ample time to burst Morphling down.
* Mystic Flare coupled with a stun/root can easily burst Morphling down, especially if he has more stats shifted to Agility.
* Alternatively, Morphling can use Morph to use Skywrath Mage's own silence and nukes against him.

* Geomagnetic Grip is not blocked by Linken's Sphere and can silence Morphling, preventing Morphling from using Waveform or Attribute Shift to escape from ganks.
* In addition, Boulder Smash and Rolling Boulder provide a solid lockdown if used together.

* Morphling usually has low max health due to shifting strength into agility, which combined with Blast Off's silence will prevent him from using Waveform and Adaptive Strike (Strength), leaving him defenseless and making him an easy target to burst down.

* Multicast Fireblasts over the course of fights are a decent nuisance to stall Sven's massive damage output.
* Bloodlust and Ignite gives Ogre Magi's team the movement speed difference needed to chase and/or disengage against a Sven and his Warcry.
* Ignite provides strong damage over time to pressure Sven early on in the laning phase and keep his health low, delaying his transition into the jungle. Ignite is also an easy way to disrupt Blink Dagger, Sven's most popular way of initiation.
* Ogre Magi's presence in the laning phase both in terms of damage and durability keeps high pressure on Sven in lane.
* Purchasing an Aghanim's Shard allows Ogre Magi to greatly reduce the burst damage of Sven, who tends to build items focused on damage per hit instead of attack speed.

* Sven has no easy way to burn Refraction charges and needs help from teammates to kill TA successfully.

* Time Dilation affects Morphling's low cooldown spells, making them unusable for a long time, rendering Morphling nearly useless.
* Morphling cannot use Attribute Shift while he is inside Chronosphere which makes it easy to kill him.

* Sharpshooter can kill easy when Morphling is going on full agility strategy (Only in early and mid game).
* Scurry can help to catch up Morphling when using Waveform or for escape.

* Pugna can save allies with both healing or by making them ethereal but needs to be careful of Sven's Aghanim's Scepter purge.

* Rubick's ability to steal Attribute Shift (Strength Gain) makes him extremely annoying to deal with because Rubick's shifted attributes will remain even if he steals a new spell.
* If Rubick moves enough points to strength and then steals Adaptive Strike, he will have a powerful 3-second ranged stun in his arsenal as well.
* Waveform provides a reliable nuke/escape to Rubick.
* Rubick can steal most abilities Morphling uses while Morphed, allowing Rubick to steal his own allies' abilities if the Morphling is not careful.
Additional:
* Morphling's abilities can grant unrivaled utility for Rubick.
* Attribute Shift (Strength Gain) is a great spell that has a longlasting effect, since the attribute change is permanent even after losing the ability. By casting the spell, Rubick becomes significantly tanky after pumping all his agility into strength.
* As the cost of the shift, Rubick's attack speed as well as his armor is hindered. Since the right click damage of Rubick is relatively trival in teamfights, armor items such as Medallion of Courage or Buckler could greatly increase Rubick's effective health to physical damage.
* Rubick must be careful not to confuse Attribute Shift (Strength Gain) with Attribute Shift (Agility Gain).
* Adaptive Strike (Strength) is a long-ranged stun.
* If Attribute Shift (Strength Gain) has been stolen and cast, the spell can stun the enemy for 3 seconds. The stun counters mobile heroes such as Morphling.
* Waveform is a damaging pseudo-blink, giving Rubick much needed mobility and farming potential.

* Against her Untouchable, Sven is barely able to hit Enchantress even with his Black King Bar.

* Stone Gaze allows Medusa to easily kite and kill Sven.
* Mana Shield negates much of Sven's burst damage.
Additional:
* Mana Shield makes it very hard for Sven to burst her within Storm Hammer's stun duration.
* Stone Gaze makes it very difficult for Sven to manfight Medusa at any stage of the game.
* Mystic Snake can slow Sven down enough for allies to capitalise on his commitment in a fight.

* Muerta's attack during Pierce the Veil ignore Sven's Warcry
* Sven using God's Strength can be completely ignored by using Pierce the Veil
* Sven with Aghanim's Scepter still cannot purge Muerta's Etheral form during Pierce the Veil
* However you will need to play around his Black King's Bar

* Heroes that deal few, powerful instances of damage, like Oracle, Lion, or Sven, have a hard time breaking through Gravekeeper's Cloak.

* Heroes who can take advantage of Gods Strength being on cooldown are also not great matchups, such as Templar Assassin, Morphling and Huskar.

* Heroes with silencing abilities that are not blocked by Linken's Sphere, like Puck's Waning Rift, Death Prophet's Silence or Silencer's Global Silence.

* Fate's Edict cripples many heroes who rely on attacks, such as Phantom Assassin, Sven, or Enchantress, without a dispel or a Black King Bar.

* Heroes who thrive on teamfights can be a problem such as Venomancer, Necrophos, Centaur Warrunner...

* Heroes that can prevent Sven from farming are very strong against him. Such as Riki and Bounty Hunter with their respective invisibility.

* Underlord's Atrophy Aura reduces Morphling's high base damage gained through agility shift.

* In general, attacks of the melee heroes who are entirely reliant on dealing physical damage and/or have very little to no area-of-effect abilities will make Underlord tickle and will have no effect against him, and will be unable to ambush Underlord and his team if Underlord chooses to use Dark Rift to get to a designated point of the map: Phantom Assassin, Terrorblade, Troll Warlord, Drow Ranger, Phantom Lancer, Chaos Knight, Sven, Wraith King, Bounty Hunter, Alchemist, Templar Assassin, Nyx Assassin, Bane.

* Jakiro's early pushing ability from Liquid Fire makes Jakiro very strong against heroes, that take a long time to get online: Morphling, Naga Siren, Spectre.

* Heroes who thrive on teamfights can be a problem such as Venomancer, Necrophos, Centaur Warrunner...

* Melee carries during the laning phase: Sven, Slark

* Low-health, normally mobile carries with a lot of damage are vulnerable to Bane's nukes and disables: Anti-Mage, Clinkz, Drow Ranger, Faceless Void, Gyrocopter, Juggernaut, Luna, Meepo, Mirana, Monkey King, Morphling, Phantom Assassin, Phantom Lancer, Riki, Shadow Fiend, Slark, Sniper, Terrorblade, Troll Warlord, Weaver.

* Heroes with naturally low mana can be easily shut down by EMP: Sven, Tiny, Wraith King, Omniknight

* Batrider often hides in the trees to initiate on a target. As such, he has a slight edge against heroes that have no scouting tools and cannot see him coming, such as Lion or Sven.

* Heroes that lose a great amount of damage output and become less threatening: Phantom Assassin, Sven, Slark, Phantom Lancer.
* Once you have an Aghanim's Scepter, Shadow Demon instantly reaches a new power spike and becomes a counter for a variety of heroes that have strong passives.
* Heroes that lose a great amount of their tankiness and become easier to finish off: Bristleback, Spectre, Phantom Assassin, Enchantress, Dragon Knight.
* Heroes that lose a great amount of damage output and become less threatening: Phantom Assassin, Sven, Slark, Phantom Lancer.
* You can always stack camps and farm the scepter with Shadow Poison.

* Heroes that rely on physical damage are ineffective against Dragon Knight due to his high armor: Phantom Assassin,Bloodseeker, Lifestealer, Troll Warlord, Sven

* Counterspell's bonus magic resistance causes the Waveform and Adaptive Strike combo to deal significantly less damage.
* Counterspell's active component can reflect the Adaptive Strike back into Morphling, dealing significant damage or even killing him.
* Mana Break combined with Manta Style can quickly burn away Morphling's mana, leaving him unable to use his spells. Black King Bar can no longer be reliably used against Anti mage due to its 50 mana cost.

* Primal Roar takes Sven out of the fight completely, even with Black King Bar.

* Void Spirit can greatly pressure Morphling's farm, which is very bad for a hero who needs a large amount of space.
* Waveform does not provide better mobility than Astral Step.
* If Morphling shifted all of his strength to agility, he can be bursted down by Void Spirit before he can react.
* Doing an Ethereal Blade combo on Void Spirit is incredibly difficult, as Dissimilate and Astral Step can allow him to escape or dodge the projectile.

* Heroes who just want to farm and avoid Lone Druid early will find it very hard to do so when he starts knocking on towers: Templar Assassin, Phantom Assassin, Ember Spirit, Morphling.

* Heroes who can fight back easily are not ideal matchups for Sven, such as Troll Warlord as mentioned above, Lone Druid and Templar Assassin.