Phantom Lancer: banning is the best counter

Phantom Lancer has a solid lane phase, and Doppelganger makes him a difficult target for gankers.

Thanks to his optimal stats, high armor, agility, the slow that works also as a nuke in the early/mid game, and his skill-set useful to both engage or escape from nasty situations, PL is a powerful hero even without illusions.

Later on, he relies on his army of illusions for survivability as he can generate them at an insane speed. Single-target attacks are pointless: you need to figure out who is the real hero, and destroy him before he can reset the fight with Doppelganger.

When fighting PL, AoE is your best option, and of course pro players are well aware of the best heroes to deal with him, but the real issue is that most of them don’t work in the actual meta. For example, heroes such as Axe, Sven, Timbersaw, Bristleback, Magnus, Sand King, and Leshrac have been barely picked.

Indeed, some great counters like Earthshaker, Phoenix, and Gyrocopter are among the top picks, but you can’t always have them in your lineup, and without a counter PL will eventually become an unbeatable force after the mid game.

The Battle Fury isn’t a popular item

If the team is lacking counters via picks, you can always rely on items, and the Battle Fury is the best one to counter PL as it transforms any physical DPS in an AoE damage dealer, but it has been bought only 11 times during the entire TI8. In the past, I have already explained why the carries do not use this item anymore, below a quick summary:

The 7.07 update reworked it, and even if the attack damage bonus decreased from 55 to 50, it became a must-have item in most games. In order to diminish its pick rate, IceFrog lowered the damage to 45 in 7.07b.

Starting from 7.08, the Quell passive no longer worked with illusions. Honestly, before the effect was overpowered against illusion-based heroes, and annihilated almost any chance to play them.

All these adjustments have been of great help for the comeback of Phantom Lancer, and 7.14 gave the last push increasing the total cost of the item by 300 gold.

A typical core wants the Battle Fury as soon as possible to boost his farm, but it became a too expensive option for the current fast-paced meta. It weakens the entire lineup because the supports must devote resources and time to secure the farm of their carry. By the time you complete the Battle Fury, Phantom Lancer might have already wrecked your team.

The Maelstrom also grants AoE damage. This cheaper and extremely popular item has been picked 201 times during the LAN event - but it only helps while PL doesn’t have items. Once he stacks up stats and strength, he will have too many health points, so the Maelstrom won’t be enough to deal with his illusions.