* Burning Spear's magical damage is very troublesome for Mars in the laning stage.
* Life Break's percentage-based magical damage bypasses Bulwark, and can also be used to jump in or out of Arena Of Blood.

* Nether Blast, Decrepify and Life Drain deals high magical damage and bypasses Bulwark.
* Nether Ward reduces the amount of abilities Mars can use during fights and forces Mars to be careful about his heavy mana cost on Arena Of Blood.
* Pugna is one of few heroes that can contest Mars' ability to push and defend towers early on.

* Pugna's Decrepify can render Templar Assassin's physical attacks useless.
* Pugna can also cast Life Drain on Templar Assassin, burning her Refraction instances.
* On the other hand, Pugna generally has low health and armor. Use this to your advantage.

* Huskar's burn damage from Burning Spear is incredibly strong against Templar Assassin as it completely cancels out her Refraction from the burning over time which results in making her very vulnerable to being ganked or harassed, and in turn forcing her out of the lane.

* Magnus cannot manfight Huskar even with Empower, Berserker's Blood's high attack speed and health regeneration, combined with Huskar's high health and Burning Spear stacks will allow Huskar to kill Magnus before he can kill him.
* From a safe distance, Huskar can surprise and counter Magnus's initiation with Life Break and Burning Spear.
* Burning Spear also deals damage over time, disabling Blink Dagger and preventing him from initiating or escaping.

* Any hero who can counter-initiate in anticipation without getting caught in Reverse Polarity: Sven, Omniknight, Enigma, Luna, Naga Siren, Mars, Jakiro, Venomancer, Elder Titan, Faceless Void, Rubick, Keeper of the Light, Pugna, Invoker, Spectre, Alchemist, Treant Protector, Lina, Oracle, Zeus, Shadow Shaman, Phoenix, Razor, Huskar, Batrider, Kunkka, Tidehunter, Wraith King, Sand King.

* Nether Ward will make Skywrath Mage next to useless in fights, as his low hp pool will not allow him to sustain through the damage of the ward should he choose to cast spells. Be wary though that Skywrath's huge burst will make very quick work of Pugna's low hp should the ward be destroyed, and Decrepify won't help you at all.
Additional:
* Due to the high mana cost of his spells and the low cool down of them, Nether Ward can seriously damage Skywrath Mage if he isn't careful.
* Skywrath Mage's fragility makes him very susceptible to Pugna's high burst damage.

* Berserker's Blood works proportionate to lost health, but Huskar has a decent health pool, and the attack speed granted from Berserker's Blood powers him up.
* Skywrath's armor and agility gain is very low so Huskar can outdamage him or take Skywrath down with him.

* Any hero that can outrange Plague Ward can neutralize them without putting themselves at risk of receiving Poison Sting: Arc Warden, Chen, Clinkz, Drow Ranger, Lina, Mirana, Nature's Prophet, Pugna and Sniper.
* Special mention to heroes has attack range talent can also outrange Plague Ward.

* Vulnerable spellcasters with no escape mechanisms are easy targets for Huskar: Lich, Crystal Maiden, Silencer, Keeper of the Light, Venomancer, etc.

Additional:
* Huskar can easily regenerate lost health from DoT spells through Berserker's Blood rendering them ineffective
* Venomancer has little armor and mobility, and rarely builds Linken's Sphere, so he is quite vulnerable to Life Break.

* Sprout will not protect Nature's Prophet from Huskar if he has already locked on with Life Break.
* Even a farmed Nature's Prophet is usually not durable enough to fight Huskar alone.

* Berserker's Blood can potentially out-heal the damage over time from Ink Swell and Phantom's Embrace.
* Life Break can break Soul Bind if used correctly.

* Life Break and Burning Spear usually kills Gyrocopter before he can do much damage to Huskar.
* Inner Fire applies a disarm on all enemies, which can be a hindrance to Gyrocopter.

* Ember Spirit does minimal damage to Huskar until the very late game.

* Since Tidebringer has a 4 second cooldown, Kunkka has little availability to manfight Huskar.

* Nether Ward will cause an unfriendly area for Medusa, draining her mana.

* 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 spamming 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 and his Shadowraze.

* Nether Ward can do a ton of damage to Disruptor because of his high mana costs.
* Life Drain can be used to heal an ally trapped by Static Storm-Kinetic Field combo (if Pugna is not a target).

* Leshrac needs to be close to target in order to do damage, Pugna can outrun Leshrac with ease due to his superior movement speed.
* Split Earth can also be hard to land on Pugna for the same reason.
* Leshrac uses huge amounts of mana to do damage, Nether Ward forces him to either not contribute in a fight or kill himself in the process.
Additional:
* Nether Ward punishes Leshrac's constant mana usage from spamming spells.
* Leshrac needs to be in the thick of the fight to deal damage, and so cannot escape from Nether Blast nor Life Drain easily.

* Cold Embrace is a death sentence against Pugna, since its the perfect setup for all his abilities, especially Life Drain.
* Decrepify can be cast to save the ally under Winter's Curse effect, wasting most of its duration.
* Winter Wyvern's abilities require a lot of mana, allowing Nether Ward to deal lots of damage.

* Nether Ward can punish Timbersaw, as Timbersaw is a spell-caster with low cooldowns. Furthermore, Timbersaw usually appears in the midst of battle, placing himself in range of Nether Ward's Mana Flares.
* Timbersaw has no stuns or silences to stop Life Drain. Since all of Pugna's Spells are magical, the damage can be devastating to Timbersaw, especially when combined with Decrepify
Additional:
* Nether Ward can punish Timbersaw, as Timbersaw is a spell-caster with low cooldowns. Furthermore, Timbersaw usually appears in the midst of battle, placing himself in range of Nether Ward's Mana Flares.
* Timbersaw has no stuns or silences to stop Life Drain. Since all of Pugna's Spells are magical, the damage can be devastating to Timbersaw.
* Decrepify can further increase all the magical damage done to Timbersaw, bypassing the enhanced physical resistance he can get from Reactive Armor.

* Huskar's high attack speed can counteract Fire Spirits, and easily destroy the Supernova.
Additional:
* Berserker's Blood will let Huskar easily face down a Supernova with increased attack speed.
* Icarus Dive may not be an easy escape from Huskar either as he can chase Phoenix during it with Life Break if Huskar times it right.

* Life Break along with Burning Spear can quickly kill Razor before Static Link steals enough damage for Razor to take down Huskar.
* Berserker's Blood can make stealing Huskar's damage and using it against him somewhat dangerous, as Huskar will be able to inflict more and more Burning Spears rapidly.

* Pugna can save allies with both healing or by making them ethereal.

* Nether Blast is one of the best tower pushing abilities in the game, with a low cooldown. A competent Pugna will (at the very least) destroy tier 2 towers and make space for his team before Spectre can finally come online.
* Spectre's spells, while not spammable, have a fairly high mana cost, so Nether Ward can be fairly damaging to Spectre early game. The mana degen will also dampen Spectre's early game power significantly.
* Once Pugna gets Aghanim's Scepter, he can spam Life Drain on any illusion Spectre summons, whether it'd be from Haunt, Manta Style, or some other means.
* In addition, Pugna can disable Spectre's Desolate ability (although its damage is pure, it requires physical attacks) with his Decrepify ability, leaving Spectre only with Spectral Dagger.

* Even though Pugna's low HP means that he can be quickly burst down, his Nether Ward heavily punishes casters whose spells cost a lot of mana, like Zeus. Casting 4 of his active spells, including Nimbus, close to an enhanced level 4 Nether Ward, can make the ward deal up to 1750 magical damage.
* Decrepify can further increase the damage dealt by Nether Ward upon Zeus. However, if used on Pugna himself or on one of his allies, it will amplify the damage done by Zeus' abilities.

* Life Break closes the distance between Huskar and Drow Ranger, dealing large amounts of damage and disabling Marksmanship.
* Berserker's Blood and Burning Spear allow Huskar to beat Drow Ranger directly and pile on damage.

* Vulnerable spellcasters with no escape mechanisms are easy targets for Huskar: Lich, Crystal Maiden, Silencer, Keeper of the Light, Venomancer, etc.

* Burning Spears can put Monkey King's Tree Dance on cooldown.

Additional:
* Inner Fire can push Monkey King out of Wukong's Command.
* Burning Spear's damage over time will constantly put Tree Dance on cooldown.

* Bristleback, Centaur Warrunner, Spirit Breaker, Pudge, Huskar: 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.

* Huskar can burn down Dragon Knight's health quickly during the early to mid game, but is not as effective during the late game. However, Life Break remains a constant threat due to the slow and percentage-based damage.

Additional:
* Huskar can negate Dragon Knight's passive with multiple trades of Burning Spear.

* Heroes with damage burst can often kill Chen or his allies before he can use Hand of God: Lina, Techies, Shadow Fiend, Pugna, Nyx Assassin.

* Heroes with high movement speeds like Pugna and Meepo can run around, to, or away from Snapfire during Mortimer Kisses and dodge the projectiles easily due to their slow speed.
* Heroes with mobility spells (such as Queen of Pain's Blink and Clockwerk with Hookshot) can easily avoid Lil' Shredder and Mortimer Kisses.
* Heroes with high movement speeds like Pugna and Meepo can run around, to, or away from Snapfire during Mortimer Kisses and dodge the projectiles easily due to their slow speed.

* Pugna: Decrepify prevent the Spirit bear from attacking or protect allies from it.

* Vulnerable spellcasters with no escape mechanisms are easy targets for Huskar: Lich, Crystal Maiden, Silencer, Keeper of the Light, Venomancer, etc.

Additional:
* Lich is going to have a hard time nuking Huskar because of his high health regeneration from Berserker's Blood.
* Lich is a squishy support without an escape mechanism, making Lich an easy kill thanks to Life Break and Burning Spear.
* Once Huskar has Armlet of Mordiggian, even a maxed out Frost Blast will struggle to finish Huskar off.

* Heroes with damage over time abilities can quickly eat through Gravekeeper's Cloak charges like Huskar, Jakiro and Queen of Pain.

* Vulnerable spellcasters with no escape mechanisms are easy targets for Huskar: Lich, Crystal Maiden, Silencer, Keeper of the Light, Venomancer, etc.

* Huskar's huge damage output and attack speed can get rid of Undying and Tombstone quickly.

* Heroes who are reliant on physical damage will be nullified by Decrepify: Riki, Wraith King, Juggernaut.

* Heroes that can punish aggressive heroes, such as: Leshrac, Shadow Demon, Pugna, Death Prophet.

* Heroes who are reliant on physical damage will be nullified by Decrepify: Riki, Wraith King, Juggernaut.

* All of Pugna's abilities are active making Demonic Purge break from Aghanim's Scepter useless.
* Nether Ward punishes Shadow Demon's constant mana usage from spamming spells, especially Shadow Poison.
* An attempt to save an ally using Disruption can easily become a perfect setup for a Nether Blast for the enemy.
* Life Drain can be used to heal Pugna or an ally against Shadow Demon's abilites.
* However it can be cancelled by Disruption, until Pugna buys defensive items.

* For the better part of the game, he will take more damage from your ward than he deals to you with Arcane Orb.
* It will take a huge difference in farm or itemization between you for him to deal any damage to you with Sanity's Eclipse, provided he doesn't die first from casting it next to your ward.
* Decrepify allows Pugna to be immune to the attacks from Arcane Orb.

* Nether Ward discourages Tinker from using abilities and items due to its high damage against heavy mana usage.

* Troll Warlord can't switch targets at will, in order to build Fervor stacks, which makes it easy to use Decrepify in order to save allies
* During Battle Trance, Pugna can easily use Nether Blast, Decrepify and Life Drain on him

* Earthshaker's stuns will rarely save him once Huskar has initiated on him with Life Break.
* A full initiation combo will not kill Huskar, only lower his health and increase his attack speed.

* Weaver cannot Time Lapse out of Huskar's burn damage.

* Decrepify on either hero stops Legion Commander from completing a Duel, and dissuades her from initiating Duels on ethereal allies.
* Life Drain can help Pugna's teammates win a fight, either by killing Legion Commander or replenishing her target's health.
Additional:
* Decrepify prevents Legion Commander from attacking allies during Duel, regardless if it's used on her or on the ally .
* Pugna can easily cast Decrepify, Nether Blast and Life Drain on Legion during the 4/4.75/5.5/8 seconds of duel

* Decrepify turns the target ethereal, protecting them from Chaos Knight's and his illusions' attacks.
* Life Drain instantly destroys illusions. It can effectively negate Phantasm when upgraded with Aghanim's Scepter.
* Nether Blast quickly clears out illusions and can harass Chaos Knight in lane.

* Decrepify prevents Faceless Void from attacking trapped allies inside Chronosphere, wasting a large portion of its duration if Faceless Void can't dispel it.

* Amazingly, Enchantress has even lower health than Pugna. Though she does pack quite a punch through Impetus, she can't use it if she is under Decrepify.
* Pugna's Magical DPS is way greater than the heal from Nature's Attendants, which will also harm her quite a bit if she's next to Nether Ward.

* Since Life drain takes out illusions instantly, Pugna with a scepter is decent versus plenty of illusion heroes, most notably Naga Siren and Terrorblade and the aforementioned Chaos Knight. Phantom Lancer is an exception.

* Nether Ward will be problematic for heavy nukers and spammers like Skywrath Mage, Lina, Lion and Invoker, but don't use Decrepify defensively against them as you'll be helping them out more than anything.

* Nether Ward will be problematic for heavy nukers and spammers like Skywrath Mage, Lina, Lion and Invoker, but don't use Decrepify defensively against them as you'll be helping them out more than anything.

* Ethereal state disarms the target and makes them more vulnerable to magic damage, both of which Phantom Assassin despises. Especially Pugna and any hero that is wielding Ethereal Blade, such as Mirana, Nyx Assassin or Morphling.

* Certain heroes can mess up with Pangolier's positioning and timing (especially if he intends to use Rolling Thunder during combat): Vengeful Spirit, Keeper of the Light, Huskar, Dark Seer

* Decrepify can be used on allies to prevent them from attacking Axe and triggering Counter Helix during Berserker's Call. He can also cast it on Axe to prevent anyone from attacking him.
* Life Drain can be used to heal himself or allies caught in Berserker's Call, preventing them from dropping low enough for Axe to kill them with Culling Blade.

* Pugna's Decrepify allows him to save allies from being ganked by Viper, since Viper mostly relies on direct attacks in order to deal damage.
* Nether Ward can discourage Viper from spamming his abilities.
* Viper's damage over time is not enough to kill Pugna as he will have more than enough time to save himself (or his allies) with Life Drain and Viper has no solutions to cancel it.
* Pugna has no passive abilities, which renders Nethertoxin nearly useless.

* Huskar with Life Break
* Heroes that can remove the Track debuff with their skills:
* Abaddon with Aphotic Shield and Borrowed Time
* Huskar with Life Break
* Juggernaut with Blade Fury
* Legion Commander with Press the Attack
* Lifestealer with Rage and Infest
* Naga Siren with Mirror Image
* Omniknight with Heavenly Grace
* Oracle with Fortune's End and False Promise
* Phantom Lancer with Doppelganger
* Slark with Dark Pact
* Ursa with Enrage
* Weaver with Time Lapse
* Tidehunter with Kraken Shell when damage received reaches the threshold.

* Pugna's Decrepify prevents the target from taking physical damage or doing damage, which poses a huge problem for Lycan, as he mainly deals physical damage.

* Pugna's Nether Ward damages Sand King when he channels Epicenter, preventing him from using Blink Dagger afterward.

* Clockwerk cannot go head-to-head with Huskar in Power Cogs, as Berserker's Blood and Life Break will destroy him faster than the other way around.
Additional:
* Clockwerk's abilities cannot handle Huskar in a one-on-one fight, even if he gets the jump on him.