* Static Link can steal Shadow Fiend's high physical damage output from Necromastery, lowering his damage output, and Static Link cannot be prevented by Black King Bar.
* Plasma Field and Eye of the Storm can melt down Shadow Fiend easily, due to his low health.

* Nether Strike can't remove Static Link and reduces Spirit Breaker's physical damage output.
* Eye of the Storm melts Spirit Breaker's armor, and makes him much less tanky.
Additional:
* Static Link drains damage bonus from Greater Bash, it cannot be removed by Nether Strike.
* Eye of the Storm melts Spirit Breaker's armor, and makes him much less tanky.

* Glimpse and Kinetic Field allows Disruptor to set up some early kills onto Shadow Fiend.
* Static Storm can be used to cancel the cast of Requiem of Souls.

* Glimpse drags Spirit Breaker back from an escaping Charge, or takes him out of a ganking Charge.
* However, after purchasing Aghanim's Shard, a well-timed Nether Strike will completely nullify the Glimpse during a gank attempt.
* Static Storm can be used to instantly stop his charge if absolutely necessary, and also prevent a follow-up Nether Strike.

* Void can be used to cancel Requiem of Souls.
* Crippling Fear prevents Shadow Fiend from using Shadowraze or Requiem of Souls.
* With Dark Ascension and Gem of True Sight, Night Stalker can find and kill Shadow Fiend easily. He is also a tanky hero that can fight Shadow Fiend at any stage of the game.

* Heroes that have a weak laning stage: Spectre, Nyx Assassin, Clockwerk, Spirit Breaker, Omniknight, Pudge.

* Heroes with channeling spells because Shadow Fiend has nothing to cancel channeling outside of Requiem of Souls: Bane, Enigma, Pudge, Shadow Shaman, Dawnbreaker, Warlock, Crystal Maiden.

* Solar Guardian can save an ally getting targeted and focused by Spirit Breaker

* Heroes who depend on attacks (such as Shadow Fiend or Drow Ranger) can be nullified by Fire Spirits' attack speed slow.

* Due to Spirit Breaker's low attack speed, Supernova is problematic for Spirit Breaker to take down, and even more so with Fire Spirits debuff applied.
* Icarus Dive grants Phoenix capability to quickly escape to safety.

* Lucent Beam and Eclipse with ministun talent can be used to cancel Requiem of Souls if Shadow Fiend does not have Black King Bar. Likewise, since Shadow Fiend is prone to buying Blink Dagger, an ill-timed Blink Dagger can give Luna a free chance to counter-initiate with Eclipse.
* Moon Glaives and Lunar Blessing allow Luna to outfarm Shadow Fiend in lane and the high physical damage output they provide her can also help her deal with Shadow Fiend even when he buys Black King Bar in late game.
* A well timed Eclipse will burst and kill Shadow Fiend before he even either initiates or gets a chance to retaliate, especially when equipped with Aghanim's Scepter and Ethereal Blade, this could become even worse for Shadow Fiend if he does not have Black King Bar. But bear in mind however, that smart and skilled Shadow Fiend can buy Wind Waker to counter this issue.
* Even though Shadow Fiend can evade all of Luna's abilities with Shadow Blade, a smart Luna will always buy Dust of Appearance to provide vision on Shadow Fiend to her and her team.
Additional:
* Lucent Beam and Eclipse with ministun talent can be used to cancel Requiem of Souls if Shadow Fiend does not have Black King Bar. Likewise, since Shadow Fiend is prone to buying Blink Dagger, an ill-timed Blink Dagger can give Luna a free chance to counter-initiate with Eclipse.
* Moon Glaives and Lunar Blessing allow Luna to outfarm Shadow Fiend in lane and the high physical damage output they provide her can also help her deal with Shadow Fiend even when he buys Black King Bar in late game.
* A well timed Eclipse will burst and kill Shadow Fiend before he even either initiates or gets a chance to retaliate, especially when equipped with Aghanim's Scepter and Ethereal Blade, this could become even worse for Shadow Fiend if he does not have Black King Bar. But bear in mind however, that smart and skilled Shadow Fiend can buy Wind Waker to counter this issue.
* Even though Shadow Fiend can evade all of Luna's abilities with Shadow Blade, a smart Luna will always buy Dust of Appearance to provide vision on Shadow Fiend to her and her team.

* Heroes who continue dealing damage while being stunned: Luna, Razor, Axe, Bristleback, Leshrac,

* Berserker's Call and Counter Helix allow Axe to kill Shadow Fiend if he stands too close to a creep wave.
* Battle Hunger is very strong against Shadow Fiend in the early game because Shadow Fiend's low attack damage makes it hard for him to get last hits.
* Axe's naturally high strength and health regeneration will be enough to tank a lot of Shadow Fiend's damage in the early game.

* Heroes who continue dealing damage while being stunned: Luna, Razor, Axe, Bristleback, Leshrac,

* Nethertoxin breaks both Necromastery and Presence of the Dark Lord, reducing his damage massively.
* Corrosive Skin gives Viper bonus Magic Resistance against Shadowraze and Requiem of Souls.
* Viper can easily take advantage of Shadow Fiend's lack of escape and mobility spells with Viper Strike and Poison Attack. Poison Attack also serves as a great way to harass Shadow Fiend.

* Heroes that can slow Charge of Darkness by a huge amount: Venomancer, Viper, Dazzle, Arc WardenLion

* Kraken Shell dispels both Shadowraze's damage amplification stacks and Requiem of Soul's damage reduction (provided Tidehunter has taken enough damage).
* Ravage cancels Requiem of Souls if Shadow Fiend isn't protected by Black King Bar.
Additional:
* Kraken Shell dispels the damage amplification stacks of Shadowraze as well as the damage reduction from Requiem of Souls (provided he has taken enough damage).
* Anchor Smash reduces Shadow Fiend's large attack damage, Kraken Shell makes Tidehunter the last target Shadow Fiend wants to attack.
* Ravage can easily cancel Requiem of Souls if Shadow Fiend isn't protected by Black King Bar.

* Durable heroes: Axe, Bristleback, Tidehunter, Wraith King

* Heroes with long animations can be frequently interrupted with Cold Snap: Earthshaker, Monkey King, Shadow Fiend Lina

* Cold Snap allows Invoker to interrupt Charge of Darkness and Nether Strike.
* Tornado's long range can be used to cancel Charge of Darkness.
* Deafening Blast prevents Spirit Breaker from right clicking and thus proccing his Greater Bash.

* Dragon Tail can be used to cancel Requiem of Souls.
* Breathe Fire reduces Shadow Fiend's damage even further.
* Dragon Knight's high strength and Dragon Blood means that he'll be able to tank Shadow Fiend's right clicks.

* Spirit Breaker's slow attack speed and moderate damage do very little to harm Dragon Knight, even if ganked with Charge of Darkness.

* Heroes that are hard to kill without lockdown: Puck, Weaver.

* Heroes that usually builds Linken's Sphere as a core item: Weaver, Medusa, Morphling, Queen of Pain, Storm Spirit

* Heroes with channeling spells because Shadow Fiend has nothing to cancel channeling outside of Requiem of Souls: Bane, Enigma, Pudge, Shadow Shaman, Dawnbreaker, Warlock, Crystal Maiden.

* Enigma can be a perfect counter-initiator with his ultimate. A perfectly timed Black Hole will turn the tide of any initiation, especially from heroes like; Spirit Breaker, Legion Commander, Axe, Puck, and Slardar

Additional:
* Malefice prevents Spirit Breaker from using his spells for the duration.
* Demonic Conversion's eidolons have high magic resistance, receiving little damage from Charge of Darkness.

* Squishy heroes or heroes without hard disables or silences: Shadow Demon, Shadow Fiend, Venomancer, Ancient Apparition etc.

* Heroes that usually builds Linken's Sphere as a core item: Weaver, Medusa, Morphling, Queen of Pain, Storm Spirit

* Heroes with high physical damage output but lack of reliable escape mechanisms are always a good target for a solo gank: Sniper, Shadow Fiend, Troll Warlord, Drow Ranger. Those heroes, however, are dangerous if they manage to close the gap, so take caution.

* Heroes with ways to protect themselves or allies from Spirit Breaker's initiation: Shadow Demon

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

* Mana Drain has an extremely 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.

* In the early game, Omniknight can look like an easy target for Spirit Breaker, but with Purification and Degen Aura, what could be an opportunity could quickly turn into disaster.
* Heavenly Grace can be used to counter Charge of Darkness by minimizing the damage and lowering the stun duration with status resistance.
* Spirit Breaker's Greater Bash from all sources (Charge of Darkness or normal attacks) deals lesser damage if he is within the radius of Degen Aura.
* Due to this, Spirit Breaker's damage will always be lower when targeting Omniknight.

* Living Armor can mitigate a large portion of Spirit Breaker's damage since his attacks are slow.
* Treant Protector can also counter initiate Spirit Breaker with Leech Seed and his bash from Nature's Guise before he manages to escape.
Additional:
* Spirit Breaker's slow attacks cannot harm a hero shielded by Living Armor.

* Due to Spirit Breaker's low attack speed, Tombstone is problematic for Spirit Breaker.
* The zombies summoned from Tombstone apply a stacking movement speed slow, which can significantly reduce Greater Bash's damage.
* Soul Rip and Decay allows Undying and his allies to survive from incoming ganks of Spirit Breaker.

* Earthshock prevents Shadow Fiend from escaping after Ursa used his Blink Dagger to get on top of him.
* Overpower and Fury Swipes allow Ursa to quickly kill Shadow Fiend.
* Enrage keeps Ursa alive in a manfight with Shadow Fiend and allows him to stay close, even if Shadow Fiend uses Requiem of Souls.

* Bramble Maze stops Charge of Darkness in its tracks. Its very long duration means it can be used as an obstacle to block off an incoming Spirit Break during teamfights.
* Shadow Realm and Bedlam can be activated when Dark Willow sees Charge of Darkness coming, preventing Spirit Breaker from using Nether Strike after the initial stun.

* Fissure interrupts Spirit Breaker during Charge of Darkness.

* Astral Imprisonment can be used to protect allies by imprisoning either them or Spirit Breaker.
* Arcane Orb will heavily drain Spirit Breaker's intelligence, rendering him almost useless and unable to cast spells. Spirit Breaker's low intelligence also means Sanity's Eclipse will deal a lot of damage to him.

* Shadow Fiend, a normal Shadow Blade builder often relies on its invisibility to escape fights. Corrosive Haze reveals Shadow Fiend and also weakens his already low armor.

* Shadow Fiend's lack of mobility and low base health make him an easy target for early ganks.

* Heroes with channeling spells because Shadow Fiend has nothing to cancel channeling outside of Requiem of Souls: Bane, Enigma, Pudge, Shadow Shaman, Dawnbreaker, Warlock, Crystal Maiden.

* Can easily interrupt and disable Spirit Breaker with hex if being charged.

* Enfeeble can be used to decrease Shadow Fiend's already abysmal level one damage even further, preventing him from getting farm and Necromastery stacks.
* Brain Sap allows Bane to heavily harass Shadow Fiend.
* Nightmare allows Bane to set up some early ganks onto Shadow Fiend.
* Fiend's Grip enables Bane to completely take Shadow Fiend out of a fight and potentially even kill him, even through Black King Bar.
Additional:
* Enfeeble can be used to decrease Shadow Fiend's already abysmal level one damage even further, preventing him from getting farm and Necromastery stacks.
* Brain Sap allows Bane to heavily harass Shadow Fiend.
* Nightmare allows Bane to set up some early ganks onto Shadow Fiend.
* Fiend's Grip enables Bane to completely take Shadow Fiend out of a fight and potentially even kill him, even through Black King Bar.

* Decrepify prevents Shadow Fiend from attacking for its duration, potentially preventing him from getting a kill.
* Nether Ward can do heavy damage to Shadow Fiend if he tries to cast his Requiem of Souls and his Shadowraze.
Additional:
* Decrepify prevents Shadow Fiend from attacking for its duration, potentially preventing him from getting a kill.
* Nether Ward can do heavy damage to Shadow Fiend if he tries to cast his Requiem of Souls or spam Shadowraze.

* Requiem of Souls is easily interrupted by Boundless Strike, due to its long cast time.
* Shadow Fiend's lack of mobility and escape makes him an easy target to ambush with Primal Spring, especially during laning stage.
* Being close means he cannot use all three razes on you before you get your Jingu Mastery stacks.

* Shadow Fiend's Requiem of Souls allows Rubick to output enormous crowd damage and control to the enemy team.
* Requiem of Souls has an effective range of 1000. Rubick can steal the spell out of the fear range with any level of Arcane Supremacy learned.
* Requiem of Souls has a significant cast animation which allows Rubick to predict the steal timing, since Shadow Fiend usually positions at the center of battlefield.
* Telekinesis can lift a unit right on top of Rubick with no collision size, forcing the victim to absorb all damaging lines of Requiem of Souls from Rubick, possibly resulting in a one-shot kill.
* Note that Requiem of Souls from Rubick still uses the original 1.67 second channeling time.
* It is advised to build Blink Dagger to jump in and cast Requiem of Souls given the opportunity.
* The three Shadowraze (Far) abilities are decent for farming and extra damage output.
* Note that Shadowraze (Near), Shadowraze (Medium) and Shadowraze (Far) are considered three separated abilities, only one is stolen per spell steal cast.
* It could be troublesome to cast Shadowraze (Far) immediately for damage output immediately after stolen since it is hard to react and recognize which of the three is stolen.
* Shadow Fiend's right click damage together with his ability damage may hurt Rubick bad. Consider items like Ghost Scepter and Glimmer Cape, together with wards to avoid being picked up.

* Doom has several disable abilities to choose from jungle creeps (e.g. War Stomp, Ensnare) to deal with Shadow Fiend who lacks escape abilities.
* When Doom combines creep abilities with Scorched Earth, Infernal Blade, and Doom, Shadow Fiend most likely will die as he cannot use Shadowraze and Requiem of Souls to protect himself, and also cannot even flee by using Shadow Blade or Blink Dagger.
* Although Shadow Fiend has a high physical damage output, Doom has a large health pool to survive it, meaning Doom's combo with high magical damage output will shutdown Shadow Fiend first.
* Doom usually buys Radiance to improve his damage, making his nuke combo more deadly to Shadow Fiend. The blind also prevents Shadow Fiend from landing his attacks often.

* If Medusa activates Stone Gaze, the charge will inevitably fail.
* Mana Shield and overall tankiness allows Medusa to easily survive Spirit Breaker's initiation.

* Heroes that can slow Charge of Darkness by a huge amount: Venomancer, Viper, Dazzle, Arc WardenLion

* Heroes that can slow Charge of Darkness by a huge amount: Venomancer, Viper, Dazzle, Arc WardenLion

* Heroes with channeling spells are very easy targets for Jakiro's abilities: Crystal Maiden, Dawnbreaker, Enigma, Pudge, Shadow Fiend, Shadow Shaman, Warlock.

* Squishy core heroes (Shadow Fiend, Sniper, etc)

* Heroes that can slow Charge of Darkness by a huge amount: Venomancer, Viper, Dazzle, Arc WardenLion

* Heroes that have small health pools and little to no escape mechanisms are even easier prey for Necrophos. Ghost Shroud's slow will allow him to catch him with them, and get nuked down with his abilities, even preventing retaliation due to Reaper's Scythe's stun. Such heroes include Crystal Maiden, Witch Doctor, Warlock or Shadow Fiend.

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

* Large area-of-effect with delay or require channeling: Enigma, Crystal Maiden, Invoker, Shadow Fiend, Pugna, Keeper of the Light, Dawnbreaker.

* Heroes who continue dealing damage while being stunned: Luna, Razor, Axe, Bristleback, Leshrac,

* Heroes that can gank Shadow Fiend in the early game: Earth Spirit, Nyx Assassin, Riki, Spirit Breaker.

* Heroes with channeling spells because Shadow Fiend has nothing to cancel channeling outside of Requiem of Souls: Bane, Enigma, Pudge, Shadow Shaman, Dawnbreaker, Warlock, Crystal Maiden.

* Heroes with channeling spells because Shadow Fiend has nothing to cancel channeling outside of Requiem of Souls: Bane, Enigma, Pudge, Shadow Shaman, Dawnbreaker, Warlock, Crystal Maiden.

* Heroes with mobility spells like Queen of Pain, Anti-Mage, Phantom Assassin, Riki, Puck, and Spirit Breaker that are cancelled by Frostbite can suffer greatly from the presence of Crystal Maiden. It is absolutely critical, however, to have followup from teammates, as all of the above heroes can make quick work of the squishy Crystal Maiden after they are released from her grip.

* Heroes that punish mobile heroes: Bloodseeker, Keeper of the Light

* Heroes with gap-closing abilities who attempt to use them for escaping Bloodseeker will suffer serious damage from Rupture: Phantom Assassin, Anti-Mage, Faceless Void, Riki, Slark, Spirit Breaker.

* Durable heroes: Axe, Bristleback, Tidehunter, Wraith King

* Heroes that can cancel Charge of Darkness: Ogre Magi, Earthshaker, Lion .

* Late game heroes are Sven's favourite kind of opponent, such as Anti-Mage, Spectre and Shadow Fiend.

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

* Heroes that usually builds Linken's Sphere as a core item: Weaver, Medusa, Morphling, Queen of Pain, Storm Spirit

* Heroes that usually builds Linken's Sphere as a core item: Weaver, Medusa, Morphling, Queen of Pain, Storm Spirit

* Arc Lightning allows Zeus to get farm in lane against Shadow Fiend without coming into the range of his Shadowrazes.
* Lightning Bolt can be used to heavily harass Shadow Fiend when he tries to get a last hit.
* Thundergod's Wrath and Lightning Bolt can be used to detect Shadow Fiend if he tries to escape with Shadow Blade.

* Shadow Fiend's fragility and lack of a natural escape mechanism makes him a great target for Templar Assassin's Meld.
* Shadow Fiend's burst damage, such as Shadowraze and Requiem of Souls, is easily nullified by her Refraction.

* Spirit Breaker won’t do much harm to Enchantress because of Untouchable and Nature's Attendants. Unless Enchantress is low on HP, Spirit Breaker won’t be able to catch her with mere spells.

* The Reflection of Shadow Fiend cause Presence of the Dark Lord to affect Shadow Fiend, reducing his armor and making it easier for Terrorblade to kill him. Shadow Fiend also doesn't have lots of survivability or control abilities in order to escape.
* If Shadow Fiend chooses to go for a physical damage item build, he'll have a hard time against Terrorblade's high armor.