* Ice Blast stops Attribute Shift (Strength Gain) from recovering additional 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.

* Ice Blast prevents Lifestealer from lifestealing and healing with Infest in fights.

* The passive armor provided by Berserker's Rage makes Troll Warlord resilient to Feast in early game.
* The 60% miss chance given by Whirling Axes (Melee) is useful when Rage is not active.
* Battle Trance can purge Open Wounds, negating a large amount of Lifestealer's sustain in fights.

* 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.

* Dark Pact can be used to remove Open Wounds.
* Shadow Dance allows Slark to attack Lifestealer for its duration without any way for Lifestealer to fight back.
* Slark commonly buys a Silver Edge, which can break Lifestealer's Feast, severely diminishing his damage output and lifesteal.

* Heroes with blink or movement abilities, which are disabled by Pounce's leash: Anti-Mage, Earth Spirit, Faceless Void, Magnus, Mirana, Monkey King, Morphling, Pangolier, Phantom Assassin, Phoenix, Puck, Queen of Pain, Riki, Sand King, Spirit Breaker, Timbersaw, Tusk.

* Heroes with spell immunity can still be disabled by Fiend's Grip: Juggernaut, Lifestealer, Pangolier.

Additional:
* Fiend's Grip can disable Lifestealer through Rage.

* 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.

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

* Many physical-only single-target heroes like Lifestealer, Sven, Wraith King, Phantom Assassin etc.

* Lifestealer cannot use Rage, Infest or Open Wounds when affected by Smoke Cloud's silence, and Feast cannot heal him effectively because of the blind, leaving him very weak both offensively and defensively.
* Infest ganks are harder when the enemy team has a Riki, as there are often only four heroes on the map that you can initiate on.

* 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.

* Counterspell's bonus magic resistance causes the Ethereal Blade and Adaptive Strike combo to deal significantly less damage.
* Counterspell's active component can reflect the Ethereal Blast and Adaptive Strike combo 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.

* Lacking any stun and being heavily dependent on his physical attacks and spell immunity, Lifestealer has no way to stop Black Hole, assuming he does not initiate Enigma first with Abyssal Blade.
* Enigma's abilities, with exception of Malefice, can pierce spell immunity and deal pure damage (and percentage-based damage in Midnight Pulse's case), putting Lifestealer in potentially adverse situations.

* Time Dilation affects Morphling low cooldown spells, making 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.

* 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.

* Although he can avoid Eclipse with Rage and Infest, Luna's physical damage can be enough to deal with him.
* Manta Style is a common pick on Luna, which can help her dispel Open Wounds. In addition, Lifestealer is not good against illusions created by Manta Style.

* Chaos Knight's Level 20 Talent: Reality Rift Pierces Spell Immunity allows for quick bursting down of Lifestealer during his Rage.
* Phantasm dispels Open Wounds.
* Lifestealer has no way of dealing with Chaos Knight's illusions.

* The Swarm is not blocked by Rage and can be used to lower Lifestealer's already low armor, making him even more vulnerable to physical damage.
* Shukuchi renders the Open Wounds slow pretty useless, as it gives Weaver maximum movement speed, allowing him to escape or kite around Lifestealer.
* However, Weaver is a common Linken's Sphere carrier to block and Time Lapse to dispel Open Wounds.
Additional:
* Open Wounds's slow is ignored by Shukuchi.
* Lifestealer has no other lockdown and relies on being on top of enemies; Weaver can kite him with ease.

* 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.

* Reverse Polarity pierces through Rage, wasting part of it's duration.
* Magnus is tanky and mobile hero and hard for Lifestealer to focus and kill in all stages of a game.

* Most of Morphling's armor comes from his high agility and it is reduced by Natural Order.
* However, the aura has only 350 range and Elder Titan can be bursted down by Morphling's nuke combo if he isn't careful.
Additional:
* Morphling's high armor is primarily from Morphing agility, which is reduced by Natural Order therefore making the hero very vulnerable when it has morphed a lot into agility.
* Morphling usually will Morph into high agility and low strength. This can be taken advantage of with a good stun or silence or by bursting him down before he has the time to Morph back to strength.
* Morphling is very vulnerable to Blade Mail under Natural Order and can easily burst himself down with his own auto-attacks or his magical damage combo.

* 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.
Additional:
* Morphling's abilities can cause unique interactions on their own:
* Waveform is a damaging pseudo-blink, giving Rubick much needed mobility.
* Attribute Shift (Strength Gain) is a great ability for Rubick:
* The changes done by it are permanent even after losing the ability. Pumping all the agility into strength makes him much tankier. The armor loss due to reduced agility can be mitigated by cheap items like Medallion of Courage or Solar Crest.
* The extra strength allows Rubick to survive Morphling's Ethereal Blade - Adaptive Strike (Agility) combo.
* Beware when using Attribute Shift (Agility Gain)! Unlike Morphling, Rubick does not gain damage from it, since agility is not his primary attribute.
* Adaptive Strike (Strength) is a long-ranged stun.
* The true power of this ability is revealed when Attribute Shift (Strength Gain) has been stolen previously: it gives a 4 second ranged stun every 10 seconds, which greatly counters heroes with mobility, such as Morphling himself.
* All of Rubick's abilities break Linken's Sphere, a core item for Morphling.

* Lifestealer's low mobility makes him easy to kite.
* Stone Gaze pierces Rage, wasting its cooldown and making Lifestealer unable to fight.

* Lifestealer's Feast will most likely not out-heal the damage from Fury Swipes and Overpower in the early to mid game.
Additional:
* Lifestealer can't fight Ursa in any stage of the game because of his high physical damage with Fury Swipes and Overpower.

* Earthbind disables Waveform, effectively keeping Morphling in place for an extended period of time, allowing Meepo to deal considerable damage with Poof.

* Lifestealer's Rage and Open wounds become useless when Meepo has 4 or more clones, as Ransack will heal Meepo too quickly for Lifestealer to take down.

* Aside from his ultimate, Lifestealer has no AoE abilities to deal with Phantom Lancer's illusions, nor does he have the mobility to escape Phantom Rush.
* Doppelganger dispels Open Wounds.
Additional:
* Doppelganger dispels Open Wounds.
* Lifestealer has no way of dealing with Phantom Lancer's illusions.
* Phantom Lancer also commonly builds Diffusal Blade, which poses a large problem to Lifestealer and his low mana pool.

* Since Untouchable pierce Spell immunity, Lifestealer cannot burst her down even with Rage ; meaning she can heal herself back to full HP.

* Heroes with summonns: Lycan, Broodmother, Visage.

* With the exception of Magic Missile (unless the player takes the Level 25 Talent "Magic Missile Pierces Spell Immunity"), all of Vengeful Spirit's spells ignore Spell Immunity. This also makes her good against heroes with built-in Spell Immunity like Lifestealer or Juggernaut or heroes that tend to pick up Black King Bar, like Sven.

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

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

* Heroes with summonns: Lycan, Broodmother, Visage.

* Heroes who can delivers a big chunk of damage in few hits will find themselves struggle against Templar Assassin's Refraction: Sven, Phantom Assassin, Ursa, Wraith King, Lifestealer

* Heroes with illusions: Chaos Knight, Naga Siren, Phantom Lancer

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

* 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.

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

* Heroes with high base damage (Morphling, Tiny, Drow Ranger), heroes with mana burning abilities (Anti-Mage), and Diffusal Blade users (Juggernaut or Riki) will suffer from Reflection's illusions.

* Terrorblade's illusions and ranged attacks in Metamorphosis can burst down Lifestealer very quickly.
* Terrorblade has low health due to his low strength gain, which reduces Feast's lifesteal and damage.
* Terrorblade's high armor makes Lifestealer's Desolator useless.
* Because Lifestealer usually walks around with high HP in fights due to his lifesteal (and sometimes Armlet of Mordiggian), he is a great target for Terrorblade's Sunder.
Additional:
* Reflection's illusion carries Feast as well, making it useful in fights.
* Open Wounds is a lot harder to land on the real Terrorblade if he has illusions around him.
* Lifestealer relies on right-clicks to deal damage, and Terrorblade's high armor can reduce his damage by quite a bit.

* 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.

* 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.

* Heroes that lack burst damage will have a difficult time taking down Monkey King, and fare badly against Jingu Mastery: Legion Commander, Lifestealer, Weaver, Wraith King

* Melee carries such as Sven, Ursa or Lifestealer can be slowed and easily kited with Demonic Purge.

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

* Sprout is good for trapping melee carries with no escape abilities: Sven, Ursa, Alchemist, Lifestealer etc.

* Primal Roar pierces Rage and can disable Lifestealer in fights.

* 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.

* 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 Devourer 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.