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

* Rage will dispel Laser's blind and turns him spell immune for the duration so Tinker cannot damage him.
* Feast will quickly bring down Tinker due to being so fragile.
Additional:
* Lifestealer's Rage makes him immune to all of Tinker's damage and debuffs.
* Lifestealer can infest any mobile hero (teams usually pick one against Tinker), which ensures that Tinker will die if he is caught.

* Rage can be used to escape from a Glimpse and to move out of Kinetic Field.
* Infest allows Lifestealer to dodge Glimpse.

* 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.

* Leshrac's high magic damage is ignored by Rage.
* Lifestealer can get in Leshrac's face with Rage and mitigate any other damage taken by Leshrac with Open Wounds.

* 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.

* Feast's lifesteal makes it nearly impossible for Axe to initiate and bring Lifestealer's health low enough for Culling Blade, even with many procs of Counter Helix.
* Feast's damage is calculated as a percentage of health, turning Axe's high health against him. This allow Lifestealer to hit Axe much harder than most other heroes.
Additional:
* Feast makes it impossible to put Lifestealer's health for a Culling Blade and also deals high damage to Axe due to his naturally high health.
* However, Lifestealer's Rage can be pierced by Berserker's Call.

* Rage ignores all of Viper's magical damage.
* Feast and Open Wounds combine to heal through Viper's physical damage.

* 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.

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

* Lifestealer excels at killing high health heroes with Feast, and Sven is no exception.
* Rage stops Storm Hammer from hitting Lifestealer.
* Rage and Open Wounds helps Lifestealer survive against Sven's high physical damage.

* 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.

* Rage is very useful against Zeus, as it negates magic damage and provides spell immunity. In addition, the increased attack speed can tear Zeus apart in combination with Open Wounds.
* Lifestealer can avoid Thundergod's Wrath with Infest.

* Heroes with built-in spell immunity can become immune to all of Outworld Devourer's spells: Lifestealer's Rage and Juggernaut's Blade Fury.

* 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 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.

* Rage provides spell immunity to Lifestealer and thus nullifies all of Lion's abilities.
* Open Wounds allows Lifestealer to easily catch Lion out and prevent him from escaping.

* Rage protects Lifestealer from all of Lina's abilities (except an upgraded Laguna Blade).
* Open Wounds is great to keep Lina in place because she has no abilities to help her escape.

* 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.

* Feast is good against high health strength heroes such as Alchemist.
* Rage allows Lifestealer to not be targetable by Unstable Concoction, possibly making Alchemist stun himself.

* 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 that can instantly kill creeps greatly reduce the effectiveness of Chen's converted army: Lifestealer, Doom, Mirana, Clinkz.

* 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.

* Rage allows him to dispel Blinding Light from himself.
* Open Wounds allows him to slow and kill Keeper of the Light.

* Rage ignores all of Gyrocopter's magical attacks.
* Open Wounds makes it hard for Gyrocopter to get away.
* Feast helps Lifestealer out-damage Gyrocopter at close range.

* Rage negates Kunkka's X Marks the Spot.
* As a strength hero with high strength gain and very little armor, as well as low agility gain, Kunkka is vulnerable to Lifestealer's Feast and Open Wounds.

* Feast will deal a large amount of damage to Tiny's large health pool.
* Rage protects Lifestealer from Tiny's magical burst damage.

* Lifestealer's Rage lets him clear Remote Mines and Proximity Mines with proper vision.
Additional:
* Rage protects Lifestealer from all of Techies' magic damage and disables and dispels Stasis Trap's debuff .
* Usually teams will have a hard time pushing high-ground against Techies, but Lifestealer can just pop Rage and walk uphill without fear of Techies.

* Feast is an effective tool against Centaur Warrunner, who generally has high health and low armor, and compensates the reflected damage of Retaliate.
* If activated, Rage protects Lifestealer from Hoof Stomp, Double Edge, and Stampede.

* Feast deals damage and heals Lifestealer based on the target's maximum HP, which is greatly effective against naturally high HP heroes such as Doom.
* Rage allows Lifestealer to become spell immune to negate the magical damage of Infernal Blade and Scorched Earth.
* Doom has no effective means of escape from Open Wounds. This is particularly devastating in lane, where Doom may have to play a much more passive, conservative play style as a result.

* 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.

* 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.

* Rage protects Lifestealer nearly from all of Invoker's spells.
Additional:
* Rage grants immunity from Invoker's spells and can dispel most of the disables such as the armor loss from Forge Spirit and the constant stuns of Cold Snap.

* Because Invoker relies on casting a large amount of spells to contribute to fights, Nether Ward can force him to not cast anything at all or take a large amount of damage to cast spells.

* 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

* Rage grants Lifestealer immunity to all of Jakiro's spells. Note: magic resistance will not dispel the attack speed slow effects from Dual Breath and Liquid Fire.

* 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.

* Rage renders Lifestealer immune to the damage from Burning Spears and Life Break.
* Feast and Open Wounds makes Lifestealer one of few heroes that can outlast Huskar in a one-on-one fight.

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

* Ogre Magi has nothing against Rage and his high health pool amplifies Feast.
Additional:
* Lifestealer's Rage makes him immune to all of Ogre's magical debuffs and also dispels them.
* Ogre's as hero with great durability and high health is great target for Lifestealer in any stage of the game, thanks to Feast.

* Rage protects and dispels all of Dark Willow's abilities.
Additional:
* Rage protects Lifestealer from all of Dark Willow's abilities.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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 spell immunity-granting spells will render Phoenix useless against them, as Phoenix has almost no spell immunity-piercing ability, other than the stun at the end of Supernova: Lifestealer, Juggernaut.

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

* Juggernaut and Lifestealer have abilities (Blade Fury and Rage respectively) that prevent Crystal Maiden from using her spells on them in the early game, before Black King Bar and other magical reduction is even an issue.

* Heroes with abilities that can save are also effective such as Shadow Demon, Dazzle, Oracle, Bane, Pugna, Tusk, Winter Wyvern, Io, Underlord, Treant Protector and Keeper of the Light.

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.

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

* 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.

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

* Slark, Lifestealer, Morphling and such with a good escape mechanism are a nuisance to deal with in the early-game.

* In general, heroes with spell immunity abilities won't be caught inside by Pit of Malice: Juggernaut, Lifestealer.

* 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.

* Lifestealer can close the distance to Sniper by using Infest on a fast or durable creep to tank Sniper's damage.
* Open Wounds will reduce Sniper's mobility heavily, and Rage's attack speed bonus helps in taking down Sniper.

* The lifesteal of Feast scales accordingly to the health of its target, which is effective against Pudge due to his high health and further health granted by stacks of Flesh Heap.
* Lifestealer can activate Rage to completely negate magic damage, therefore rendering the damage of Rot and Dismember null.
* Pudge's plentiful health makes him an ideal target for Open Wounds.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* Rage prevents Earthshaker from damaging and stunning Lifestealer.
* Feast is very effective against Earthshaker, because of him being a strength hero, allowing Lifestealer to heavily harass and kill him.
* Open Wounds prevents Earthshaker from escaping after he initiated.
* Infest gives Lifestealer an easy way to escape should he get caught out by Earthshaker.

* 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.

* Heroes with spell immunity or pseudo-blinks which provide invulnerability: Lifestealer, Juggernaut, Omniknight, Huskar , and Tusk have spells which allow them to easily escape Dream Coil.

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

* 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.

* 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

* Rage completely negates all of Nyx Assassin's abilities except Vendetta, while Open Wounds allow him to quickly close the gap.
* Infest combined with an ancient creep makes Nyx Assassin an easy target with Dust of Appearance or a Gem of True Sight.

* 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.

* Lifestealer with Rage and Infest
* 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.

* Lifestealer's Rage negates Sand King's spells which do magical damage.

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

* Heroes with magic immune abilities can negate most of Visage's attacks like Pangolier and Lifestealer.

* With Feast and Rage, Lifestealer is nearly impossible for Clockwerk to bring down, and is the last hero Clockwerk wants to be trapped with in Power Cogs.