* 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.
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, especially when combined with Decrepify

* Cold Snap can prevent Timbersaw from using both Timber Chain and Chakram due to the frequent stuns interrupting the lengthy cast animations, as well as stopping him mid-chain. This can negate Timbersaw's attempts to escape or dole out extra ability damage.
* Later in the game, Invoker's heavy magical and pure damage can be difficult to avoid, meaning Timbersaw's armor is less useful.

* Nether Ward causes Death Pulse to actually damage Necrophos rather than heal him. Meanwhile, Reaper Scythe's gigantic mana cost while Necrophos is near the Nether Ward can often instantly kill him.
* Nether Blast and Life Drain both make quick work of Necrophos's small healthpool, especially during Ghost Shroud. The latter also makes him an unappealing target for Reaper's Scythe, and can often force Necrophos to use it defensively as he has no other means of interrupting his channeling.

* Tornado allows Invoker to purge Necrophos's Ghost Shroud, nullifying any benefits he could get out of it
* EMP allows Invoker to burn Necrophos's mana, preventing him from using his abilities constantly

* Cold Embrace is the perfect setup for all his nukes - Chaos Meteor, EMP and especially global Sun Strike.

* 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.

* His Forge Spirit can negate Flux.
* Provided he does a right combo with Chaos Meteor, Invoker can easily burst down Arc Warden (plus his clone if he spawns it.)
* An early Orchid Malevolence can shut down Arc Warden pretty hard, especially when Invoker has a good lane against him if he kills him early on.
* Deafening Blast and Ice Wall limit's Arc Wardens mobility and damage, crippling him greatly.

* Arc Warden can't use Magnetic Field to stall the damage of Nether Blast on towers, but he can buy Aghanim's Shard 20 minutes into the game to diminish its damage
* Arc Warden has no innate disables to stop Life Drain and Decrepify
* The short cooldown of both Life Drain and Decrepify also means Pugna can deal with Arc Warden and Arc Warden's clone simultaneously most of the time
* A good Pugna looks to end the match early while Arc Warden, a very item reliant hero, thrives in longer matches.

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

* Invoker can drain Wraith King's mana with EMP, preventing him from reincarnating unless Wraith King has his Aghanim's Shard.
* Even if Wraith King survives and reincarnates, Invoker still has an arsenal of spells to lockdown Wraith King, including an easily setup Ice Wall.
* Tornado applies an area dispel to clear skeletons.
Additional:
* EMP allows Invoker to burn Wraith King's mana to prevent Reincarnation from triggering (only until Wraith King gets his Aghanim's Shard).
* Ice Wall and Cold Snap are particularly crippling for Wraith King as they allow to kite him very effectively, preventing him from dealing melee attack damage.

* Quas-Exort Invoker can win the mid lane easily against Alchemist because Quas regeneration will nullify Acid Spray's damage over time and Exort damage bonus will allow Invoker to out last hit Alchemist.

* Pugna's Decrepify makes sure that either Alchemist is unable to hit anyone while also being slowed and susceptible to magical damage, or can protect an ally from physical attacks. Besides, Pugna can push early on, when Alchemist is not strong enough to repel it, so by the time Alchemist comes online, he might be forced to sit in base.

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

* Nether Blast, Decrepify and Life Drain deal 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 the heavy mana cost of Arena Of Blood.
* Pugna is one of few heroes that can contest Mars' ability to push and defend towers early on.

* 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.
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.

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

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

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

* Enigma's abilities have a huge mana cost, meaning that Nether Ward will deal a lot of damage to Enigma.
* Pugna can heal allies trapped inside Black Hole thanks to Life Drain.
* Nether Blast can easily kill Eidolons, especially when Enigma is pushing.

* Heroes who can clear the waves of Enigma's Eidolons: Lina, Luna, Dawnbreaker, Jakiro, Shadow Shaman, Death Prophet, Keeper of the Light, Invoker, Keeper of the Light, Puck.

* Invoker's spells will disable and destroy Legion Commander while she's locked in a Duel.

* 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
Additional:
* 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.

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

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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 to save them from Shadow Demon's abilities.
* However, it can be cancelled by Disruption unless Pugna buys defensive items.

* EMP allows Invoker to burn Medusa's mana to weaken Mana Shield.
* Medusa's lack of mobility makes her easy to kite with Invoker's spells.
Additional:
* EMP is a large mana burn nuke which can hit Medusa's Mana shield with enough damage to lose even more mana.
* Deafening Blast disarms Medusa's ability to deal pseudo-AOE damage during teamfights.
* Cold Snap allows the opposing team to repeatedly stun Medusa in short succession, preventing her from successfully casting her ultimate due to its long cast time.

* 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.

* Ice Wall and Ghost Walk can be used to kite and escape from Viper.
* Chaos Meteor and Sun Strike deal heavy damage and can quickly bring Viper down.
* Cold Snap, Tornado, and Deafening Blast are powerful disables that reduce Viper's effectiveness.
* EMP burns Viper's limited mana pool, reducing his potential poison damage.
* Forge Spirits can melt Viper's armor and reduce his durability.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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

* 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.

* 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).

* 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.
Additional:
* 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.

* Quas Exort Invoker has high physical damage in the form of Cold Snap and Forged Spirits that allows him to trade hits with Huskar.
* Although Huskar can dispel Cold Snap with Life Break.
* Sun Strike deals pure damage and pierces spell immunity, and Huskar tends to drain his HP, making him a susceptible target.

* Nether Blast will still hit Slark in Shadow Dance.
* Pugna can rarely target Slark directly with Decrepify, but he can use it defensively on an ally to prevent Slark from getting stacks.
* Despite being somewhat easy to break with Pounce, Pugna can damage Slark and provide vision over him with Life Drain.

* 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.

* Heroes that can gain vision over trees to catch Tinker: Invoker, Shadow Demon, Batrider

Additional:
* Tinker is relatively helpless against Invoker, as his Rearm and Boots of Travel can be easily interrupted by Invoker's long range disables, even if he blinks away.

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

* Tornado dispels Heavenly Grace and Guardian Angel from multiple targets.
* Guardian Angel is generally useless against Invoker as he primarily relies on magical damage.
* EMP depletes Omniknight's already small mana pool.
* Invoker's many disables keep Omniknight's team occupied until Guardian Angel times out.

* Heroes that can apply early pressure before Phantom Assassin has farm are massive threats: Axe, Viper, Meepo, Pugna, Slark etc.

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

* 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.

* Heroes who can summon illusions and summons because Terrorblade has no abilities to deal with multiple enemies at once outside Reflection: Shadow Shaman, Naga Siren, Broodmother, Lycan, Enigma, Chaos Knight, Phantom Lancer, Shadow Demon, Dark Seer, Nature's Prophet, Invoker, Morphling, Grimstroke with Aghanim's Scepter.

* 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.

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

* Heroes with silence and mana drain abilites, as Ancient Apparition relies entirely on his abilities: Invoker, Silencer, Nyx Assassin, Skywrath Mage, Shadow Shaman, Lion and etc.

* Heroes whose abilities can affect multiple enemies at once: Lina, Luna, Jakiro, Leshrac, Invoker, Lina

* 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 that outrange Plague Ward after obtaining talents that increase attack range.

* Some heroes with extreme range, like Zeus, Invoker or Clockwerk, can snipe your allies from anywhere after your Grave has expired.

* 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 that can keep Marci for a long time in one place so she can't pursue her targets, like Bane, Lion, Shadow Shaman, Invoker, Disruptor and Kunkka.

* Invoker's multiple spells can lock down Undying and disable him from doing much.

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

* 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.

* Invoker's arsenal of magical spells are troublesome for Sniper who has low HP and high armor, which does not benefit him much against Invoker.
* Besides magical damage, he can be disarmed and repeatedly mini-stunned with Cold Snap, preventing him from reacting.
* Leveling Quas can allow Invoker to lane effectively against Sniper despite right-click harassment.

* Any heroes with high intelligence, such as Invoker and Pugna.

* Any heroes with high intelligence, such as Invoker and Pugna.

* 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.

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

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

* Decrepify prevents Omnislash damage, until Juggernaut gets a Nullifier.
* Without a disable, Pugna's high movement speed makes it harder to chase him with Blade Fury.
* Juggernaut has low mana and his skills cost large amount of mana. Nether Ward will hurt him more and even worse, the damage from the ward is inflicted before the Spell immunity provided by Blade Fury.
Additional:
* Decrepify is the perfect tool against Omnislash until he gets a Nullifier, and even then he will probably waste a couple of slashes before he uses it.
* Without an extra disable, Pugna's high movement speed makes it impossible to chase him with Blade Fury.
* Unlike some other carries like Slark or Phantom Assassin, Juggernaut's spells cost a hefty amount of mana and he will seriously get hurt by Nether Ward. Don't forget the damage from the ward is inflicted before the spell immunity is provided by Blade Fury.

* Invoker's EMP is extremely effective against Earthshaker due to his low natural mana.

* Heroes with powerful area-of-effect disables can initiate on Meepo and his clones and shut him down, such as Enigma, Invoker, Magnus, Puck, and Sand King.

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