* Heroes with AoE abilities will hit Slark in Shadow Dance: Lina, Jakiro, Underlord, Leshrac, Dark Seer, Earthshaker, Timbersaw, Crystal Maiden.

Additional:
* Timbersaw can use Chakram as a scouting tool to find Slark if he tries to Pounce into the trees.
* None of Timbersaw's abilities require a target to be cast, allowing him to hit Slark inside Shadow Dance.
* Reactive Armor can be effective protection against a Slark who attacks quickly, since the strong armor and health regen cannot be stolen by Essence Shift.
* Timber Chain makes Timbersaw very mobile, meaning he is among the very few heroes who can actually give chase to a fleeing Slark.

* Enemies that possess high defenses through magic resistance, damage reduction, or high regeneration will make it difficult to whittle their health down to get to Reaper's Scythe's threshold. Such heroes include Bristleback (although only from behind), Spectre, Ursa, and Dragon Knight.

* Timbersaw's ability to destroy trees can be a serious problem for some heroes that use them, as either a way of enhancing their spells like Treant Protector, or heroes that tend to hide inside of them like Tinker and Monkey King.

* Reactive Armor makes Timbersaw very effective against heroes that control a lot of units, such as Broodmother, Lycan and Undying.

* Heroes who rely on abilities to deal damage (e.g. Timbersaw, Tinker) can fight a Razor even after Static Link.

Additional:
* Razor deals mostly physical damage towards the later game, and Timbersaw is also very mobile, making him a difficult kill to earn.
* Timbersaw rarely resorts to attacks, thus does not suffer when his damage is stolen with Static Link.

* All Timbersaw's abilities deal AoE pure damage and can easily deal with Phantom Lancer's illusions.
* Reactive Armor highly negates Phantom Lancer's physical damage, making him having a hard time killing Timbersaw.
Additional:
* Phantom Lancer's lack of burst damage and constant attacks will increase Reactive Armor to max level immediately.
* Coupled with Timber Chain, it makes an easy escape and almost impossible for Timbersaw to be killed by Phantom Lancer.
* Whirling Death and Chakram can instantly destroy large groups of illusions, negating Phantom Lancer's advantage, although Phantom Lancer usually builds Diffusal Blade. It can be a problem in late game.

* Bristleback's tankiness and damage reduction from the rear makes him very hard for Phantom Lancer to chase and finish off, due to his lack of burst damage.
* Quill Spray quickly destroys Phantom Lancer's illusions.
* Bristleback's passive costs no mana, meaning that it will continue to trigger even if Phantom Lancer drains Bristleback's mana with Diffusal Blade.
Additional:
* Bristleback's tankiness and damage reduction from the rear makes him very hard for Phantom Lancer to chase and finish off, due to his lack of burst damage.
* Quill Spray destroys Phantom Lancer's illusions.
* Bristleback's passive costs no mana, meaning that it will continue to trigger even if Phantom Lancer drains Bristleback's mana with Diffusal Blade.

* Timbersaw's pure damage will kill Dragon Knight surprisingly fast, especially if he gets caught in a bad position while laning.

* Viscous Nasal Goo slows down Dragon Knight and lowers armor, locking him down and making him more vulnerable.

* Strong area damage, particularly from Whirling Death and Chakram, lets Timbersaw clear out illusions quickly.
* Whirling Death directly reduces Strength from both Chaos Knight and his Phantasm illusions, reducing both the damage output and raw health that the hero relies on.
* Reactive Armor quickly builds stacks against Phantasm illusions, making Timbersaw harder to kill.
Additional:
* Reactive Armor helps Timbersaw to endure the damage from Chaos Bolt and Reality Rift combo.
* Timbersaw's large amount of pure damage AoE nukes clears Chaos Knight's illusions quickly, drastically reducing his damage.

* Quill Spray quickly destroys Chaos Knight's Phantasms.

* All of Timbersaw's spells deal AoE damage, killing Lycan's summons very quickly.
* Reactive Armor will gain stacks quickly because of Lycan's summons.

* Lycan's wolves deal little damage to Bristleback, and are easily killed by Quill Spray, even when they're invisible.
* Lycan's lack of burst damage makes it very hard for him to kill Bristleback, especially when his back is turned.
Additional:
* Quill Spray can be used to kill Lycan's summons.
* Bristleback allows him to stay alive against Lycan while dishing out counter attacks
* He can overpower Lycan with his Warpath instead.

* The percentage-based primary-attribute reduction effect of Whirling Death can be devastating for Pudge due to his high strength gain through Flesh Heap.
* Reactive Armor's health regeneration and common itemization for magic resistance and durability makes Timbersaw a poor target for Pudge.
* Timber Chain's high mobility makes it difficult for Pudge to hook or deal much Rot damage to Timbersaw.

* Bristleback is one of the hardest heroes to gank with a Meat Hook and Dismember combo, and attempts to do so sometimes backfire on Pudge.
Additional:
* Pudge is particularly susceptible to Bristleback's Viscous Nasal Goo and Quill Spray due to his naturally low armor and poor agility gain.
* Bristleback, in combination with his strength gain, high health, common itemization for magic resistance and damage reduction from Bristleback makes him a poor target for Pudge.

* Because multiple Meepos tend to clump up, they present an easy target for Timbersaw's many area abilities.
* Although be careful since Timbersaw cannot use Timber Chain to escape if rooted from Earthbind.

* Quill Spray usually hits Meepo's clones, although Bristleback cannot turn his back when rooted with Earthbind.

* Reactive Armor prevents Broodmother's spiderlings from being able to effectively harass Timbersaw in the lane.
* Timber Chain's high mobility makes Silken Bola's slow irrelevant, unless Broodmother already bought her Orchid.
* Silken Bola's miss chance doesnt affect Rizzrack that much because he does not rely on his autoattacks much.
* Lotus Orb items for Timbersaw make Silken Bola useless.
* Timbersaw's abilities can destroy any trees that Broodmother attempts to hide in and his AoE abilities can quickly clear her Spiderlings.
Additional:
* Spiderlings deal almost no damage against Reactive Armor. They also die quickly from Timbersaw's AoE abilities.
* Broodmother has no mobility ability except the movement speed buff from Spin Web, allowing Timbersaw to easily escape her Silken Bola with Timber Chain.
* Timbersaw's tree-cutting abilities make it difficult for Broodmother to hide, especially near the edges of the map.

* Quill Spray destroys spiderlings, and hits Broodmother even when she's regenerating in her webs. This makes Bristleback one of her hardest counters in lane.
Additional:
* Bristleback reduces most of Broodmother's and her spiderlings' damage.
* Quill Spray will hit any spiders in its proximity, hindering Broodmother's fighting and farming capabilities.

* All three of Timbersaw’s abilities give him an easy way out of Sprout, and can also destroy nearby trees so Nature's Prophet can’t spawn Treants.
* If Prophet tries to escape with a self Sprout/Teleport, Timbersaw can easily cut down all its trees to get to him and deal increased Whirling Death damage as well.
* Chakram heavily discourages teleports.
* Timbersaw is quite well suited to clearing massive waves of Treants almost instantly with all of his area of effect pure damage abilities, preventing Nature's Prophet from pushing.
* Treants can give Reactive Armor many charges quite quickly.
Additional:
* Timbersaw can easily cut down trees from Sprout, making it very difficult for Nature's Prophet to teleport away or trap enemies.
* Timbersaw's abilities quickly clear out treants.
* Reactive Armor negates most of the damage of Nature's Prophet's treants, and Timbersaw can often allow himself to be attacked in order to heal himself.

* Heroes that have AoE damage: Lina, Keeper of the Light, Timbersaw, Leshrac, Bristleback, Axe.

* Timbersaw: Lone Druid will have a hard time dealing with Timbersaw due to his tankiness and high Armor from Reactive Armor

* Lone Druid and The Spirit Bear cannot burst down Bristleback due to Bristleback
* Bristleback can easily run to Lone Druid without any hesitation, with Viscous Nasal Goo to reduce armor and slow the Spirit Bear or Lone Druid and Quill Spray can deal damage to both Lone Druid and the Spirit Bear at the same time

* Heroes who are not easily crippled by Fate's Edict or Fortune's End, such as Timbersaw, or those who can dispel them, such as Phantom Lancer, can kill Oracle unhindered.

* Fortune's End cannot dispel Warpath stacks on Bristleback or Quill Spray stacks on allies.
* Bristleback can heavily reduce Oracle's damage output. With it, Oracle may accidentally heal Bristleback with Purifying Flames, especially if Bristleback has bonus magic resistance.

* Reactive Armor is very effective against Beastmaster's summons during laning stage and entire game.
* Timbersaw can quickly clear Beastmaster's summons with his nukes.
* Lotus Orb item for Timbersaw can releases roar from the target position, stunning and damaging Beastmaster and knocking away, damaging and slowing allies that stand on the way.

* With Timber Chain, Timbersaw can slow, catch up with, or escape from Chen and his creeps.
* Chakram and Flamethrower from Aghanim's Shard can clear Chen's creeps and slow him.
* Attacks from multiple creeps will quickly build Reactive Armor stacks, making attacks of Chen and his creeps only tickle Timbersaw.

* Timbersaw's low cooldown and low mana cost abilities destroys the trees that Monkey King depends on.
* Timber Chain allows Timbersaw to escape Wukong's Command.
Additional:
* Timbersaw can easily cut down the tree that Monkey King is standing on, stunning him for a lengthy period.
* Timbersaw can use Timber Chain to easily escape Wukong's Command and Primal Spring's slow.
* However, when facing Monkey King mid, Timbersaw might get harassed out of the lane because of Jingu Mastery.

* Timbersaw's innate durability provided by Reactive Armor is very hard to deal with as Naga Siren as she mostly relies on sustained damage rather than burst damage unless if she is played as Nuker.
* Timbersaw's high pure damage and low-cooldown area-of-effect nukes which are Whirling Death, Timber Chain, Chakram and Flamethrower from Aghanim's Shard can also destroy Naga Siren's illusions very fast.
* Timbersaw is a common Lotus Orb wielder which allows him to reflect Ensnare back at Naga SIren.

* Timbersaw is often too mobile and durable for Gyrocopter to bring down with his area attacks.

* Tiny's nonexistent armor in the early game makes him very vulnerable to Quill Spray's large amounts of physical damage.
* Bristleback decreases Tiny's high burst damage against Bristleback.
* Viscous Nasal Goo can slow Tiny to a crawl and allows Bristleback to easily kite him with his high movement speed and Quill Spray's long range, as Tiny has no ability to escape.

* Viscous Nasal Goo can hinder Crystal Maiden's already abysmal mobility, which allows Bristleback (or his teammates) to run her down and kill her.
* Bristleback frequently builds Blade Mail, which can quickly kill Crystal Maiden if her ultimate is used while he is under its effect.
* The passive part of Bristleback will trigger many, many times under the damage from Freezing Field, and as the stacks increase, the damage output from each successive cast (or proc) will eat away at Crystal Maiden's small HP pool.

* The damage from Burning Spear can be reduced by turning away from Huskar.
* Bristleback can bait Huskar into using Life Break on him, then turn around and receive very little damage.
Additional:
* Bristleback's tankiness and Bristleback allow him to outlast Burning Spears' damage-over-time at almost any point in the game. In addition, if Huskar chooses to cast Life Break on Bristleback, Bristleback can simply turn around before it hits and receive little damage.
* Viscous Nasal Goo will reduce Huskar's low armor even further, and Quill Spray and Warpath will tear him down extremely quickly.

* Bristleback's abilities are nearly useless for Rubick to Spell Steal, as he does not gain the bonuses from Warpath.
Additional:
* Rubick deals little damage on his own, and Bristleback can simply shrug off all his spells and chase Rubick down with his Quill Spray and the damage bonus from Warpath.
* Rubick does not tend to charge forward in teamfights, stay in the front lines under most circumstances, yet effective casts of Quill Spray and Viscous Nasal Goo requires the opposite as they require multiple casts and close range to add up stacks.
* Rubick does not benefit from Warpath through casting the stolen spell.

* Quill Spray will hit Riki even when he is invisible.
* Cloak and Dagger's bonus backstab damage is rendered irrelevant against Bristleback.
* Smoke Screen does not stop Bristleback's passive from activating.
* Due to Bristleback's natural tankiness, he is an ideal Gem of True Sight carrier, directly countering Riki's invisibility.
Additional:
* The bonus Backstab damage from Cloak and Dagger is rendered irrelevant with Bristleback and hurts Riki more than him because of the passive Quill Spray.
* Riki can still get damaged by Bristleback's Quill Spray while invisible, and it can be hard to deal with in lane.
* Bristleback is not too bothered by Smoke Screen. Though he cannot use Quill Spray manually inside it, it still procs passively when he takes damage from the back. The movement speed from Warpath allows him to get out of the area easily.
* Due to Bristleback's natural tankiness, he is an ideal Gem of True Sight carrier.
* Riki rarely buys Silver Edge to break Bristleback's passive because the invisibility aspect of it is redundant.

* Timber Chain can kite Troll Warlord extremely effectively.
* Whirling Death and Chakram deals lots of damage to Troll Warlord.
* Reactive Armor makes Timbersaw extremely resilient to Troll's attack damage and extreme attack speed, especially during Battle Trance.

* Quill Spray is very effective against Io, as it has very low armor and has to stay close to the fight to not break its Tether.

* Combo Quill Spray and items Blade Mail can easily trigger from Focus Fire damage.
Additional:
* Using Focus Fire on Bristleback tends to fare badly for Windranger, as he can trigger passive Quill Sprays many times, especially when she attacks him from behind. In addition, Windrun does not protect her from both Viscous Nasal Goo and Quill Spray, rendering her helpless.
* Bristleback's natural tankiness makes it hard for Windranger to effectively burst her down throughout the game.
* Bristleback tends to continuously spam Viscous Nasal Goo to slow down Windranger when she uses Windrun to escape, potentially allowing him to outrun her with his Warpath stacks.
* Bristleback can build Lotus Orb to reflect Shackleshot and Focus Fire back at Windranger.

* Reactive Armor helps Timbersaw sustain harassment from Stifling Dagger.
* Phantom Assassin has a moderate health pool and usually appears in the front line of battle, making her vulnerable to Timbersaw's pure burst damage output.
* Timbersaw can easily escape from Phantom Assassin thanks to his Timber Chain.
Additional:
* Reactive Armor helps Timbersaw sustain harassment from Stifling Dagger, as well as ganking attempts.
* Phantom Assassin is a hero with moderate HP pool, and usually appears in the front line of battle. Because Blur does nothing against spells, she is vulnerable to Timbersaw's skills.
* Timbersaw can easily escape from Phantom Assassin thanks to his Timber Chain.

* Timbersaw Defeats Kunkka on the center line, due to the fact that he has a huge resistance to physical damage by Reactive Armor, which is why Tidebringer almost does not break through Timbersaw, and due to Whirling Death Timbersaw can very much break through Kunkka and force him to leave the line, or spend money on Tango.
Additional:
* Timbersaw easily beats Kunkka on the midlane, due to the fact that he has huge physical damage resistance from Reactive Armor, which is why Tidebringer almost does not break through Timbersaw, and due to Whirling Death and Kunkka being a strength hero, Timbersaw can very much break through Kunkka and force him to leave the lane, or spend money on Tango.

* Quill Spray will hit Sand King inside Sand Storm, damaging him and putting Sand King's Blink Dagger on cooldown, preventing him from escaping.
* Epicenter's numerous damage ticks will trigger Bristleback's passive repeatedly during teamfights.

* Bristleback's constant harass from Quill Spray will greatly hurt Enigma's laning and kill his Eidolons.
* However, Bristleback has no way of canceling Black Hole at all. And Bristleback is not a hero that goes for disabling items to counter that problem.

* Timbersaw relies on dealing massive amounts of pure damage, making Cold Embrace a good setup for his nukes.
* If he has Reactive Armor stacks, Timbersaw can tank the damage from his allies if he is targeted by Winter's Curse. If he's not the target, Timbersaw's abysmal attack damage will contribute next to nothing when he is cursed to attack an ally.
* As Timbersaw commonly buys Lotus Orb, he can use it to reflect Winter's Curse back to Winter Wyvern if she uses it impulsively on him or any other hero while affected by it.

* Reactive Armor will quickly stack up from Familiar attacks, making Timbersaw hard to kill.
* Visage's low mobility makes it easy for Timbersaw to line up his abilities.

* Timbersaw can use his plethora of tree cutting abilities to level entire sections of the forest, making hiding in the trees more difficult for Treant Protector and his team.
* Timbersaw can easily cut down Treant Protector's Eyes In The Forest once his team has detection. He may even do it unknowingly due to the sheer destructive and chaotic nature of his abilities.
Additional:
* Not only are all of Timbersaw's active abilities capable of cutting down trees, but Whirling Death and Timber Chain also require it to be effective, counteracting both Treant Protector's Nature's Guise and Eyes in the Forest abilities.

* Arc Warden has relatively lower armor and mobility, which makes him an easy target to apply Quill Spray and Viscous Nasal Goo stacks.
* Arc Warden also does not like to build a Silver Edge as it takes a long time to build up and may slow down the timings for other important items needed in the game like Gleipnir.
* However, do note that in a game where Arc Warden's team has many jumping capabilities or good passives, like a Tidehunter or Spectre, a Silver Edge becomes incredibly valuable on Arc Warden as not only can he run away from the jumps, he effectively gets 2 breaks, and Bristleback may not be the best pick.

* Heroes with damage-over-time abilities easily allow Bristleback to turn his back in order to proc Bristleback continuously and to massively reduce to damage dealt to him: Arc Warden, Venomancer, Luna.

* Heroes with high magical or pure damage will bypass Bulwark: Timbersaw, Dark Willow, Enigma, Invoker, Pugna, Skywrath Mage, Tinker, Zeus, Oracle.

* Bristleback's Viscous Nasal Goo can catch and slow Bounty Hunter. Warpath and Quill Spray can defeat him quickly due to his small HP pool when compared to Bristleback's.

* Heroes with high physical damage can damage Lifestealer more than he can heal: Bristleback, Clinkz, Luna,Shadow Fiend, Slardar, Terrorblade

* Special mention to Timbersaw as he has a way to deal with Axe in the laning stage, but still needs to be careful about Berserker's Call stun, the pure damage from Counter Helix and Culling Blade finishing him off before he can escape or heal from his passive.

Additional:
* Whirling Death reduces Axe's strength by 15%, which makes him less durable, especially from early game. It's also stackable.
* Blade Mail are not effective against attribute changes, and Timber Chain can wait out Blade Mail's duration to wear off.
* Reactive Armor makes it harder for Axe to finish off Timbersaw with Culling Blade.
* Chakram disarms Timbersaw, which makes Axe's Counter Helix useless against him.
* All Timbersaw skills deal pure damage, which bypass Axe's high armor or bonus armor from Berserker's Call.

* Heroes who can stop Axe from getting close will severely inhibit his presence in fights: Bristleback, Crystal Maiden, Batrider, Arc Warden, Winter Wyvern, Clockwerk

* Other heroes who has armor and slow debuffs won't allow Medusa to disengage from combat: Tidehunter, Bristleback, Slardar.

* Timbersaw's abilities combos all deal magical and pure damage, completely ignoring Terrorblade's high base armor and clearing his illusions very quickly due to the AoE damage.
* Reactive Armor negates most of Terrorblade's damage against Timbersaw, and its high health regeneration and armor bonuses can help Timbersaw survive after Terrorblade has used Sunder on him.
Additional:
* Timbersaw can take down Terrorblade's illusions with his area damage burst.
* Reactive Armor plus another armor item reduce much of Terrorblade's damage.

* The burst damage from Timbersaw's abilities is more than enough to deal with Enchantress and her creeps.
* Timbersaw doesn't rely on his physical attacks, which makes Untouchable useless against him.
* Timber Chain can close the gap between them and minimize damage from Impetus.
* Bear in mind, however, that Timber Chain can also work against Timbersaw if used to escape and that Impetus can ignore Reactive Armor if Enchantress is not a primary target for Timbersaw or if he is disabled.
* Timbersaw is a common wielder of Lotus Orb, which will allow him to reflect Enchant back at Enchantress and dispel most debuffs as well.

* Timbersaw’s reliance on nearby trees means he’ll usually be close to Hoodwink.
* More significantly, Timbersaw's tree destroying abilities cut off Hoodwink's escape options, passive and easily foil Acorn Shot or Bushwhack combos.
* While channeling Sharpshooter, Timbersaw can simply sit his Chakram on top of her and unleash his full combo, forcing her to cancel and disengage.
* Timber Chain can be used to dodge Sharpshooter.

* Axe, Bristleback, Centaur Warrunner, Spirit Breaker, Pudge, Huskar, Wraith King, Doom: These heroes are too tanky for Puck to burst down. Also, all of them have spells which can deal with and shut Puck down reliably.

* Heroes with damage-over-time abilities easily allow Bristleback to turn his back in order to proc Bristleback continuously and to massively reduce to damage dealt to him: Arc Warden, Venomancer, Luna.

Additional:
* Quill Spray and Bristleback harass Luna more efficiently than she does with Lucent Beam.
* Bristleback helps return a lot of damage to Luna’s team if she uses her nukes on him and he has his back to her.
* Viscous Nasal Goo and Warpath are enough to outrun a speedy Luna.
* Bristleback tends to be a frequent carrier of Crimson Guard and Eternal Shroud, which are good protection from Moon Glaives and Eclipse.
* For the same reasons, Bristleback makes a very powerful ally for Luna when they are in the same team.

* Macropyre's frequent damage ticks causes Bristleback to activate repeatedly, resulting in free damage as long as Bristleback faces away from Jakiro.

* Heroes who can continue dealing damage even while being stunned: Luna, Razor, Axe, Bristleback, Leshrac, Death Prophet, Jakiro.

* Quill Spray's constant AoE damage will hit Dark Willow even in Shadow Realm. Its automatic damage will hurt her if she tries to get close and use Bedlam.

* Heroes that can close the gap can easily chase Lina down, such as Timbersaw with Timber Chain and Anti-Mage with Blink.