Grimstroke vs Shadow Fiend

How this matchup plays

Catching Shadow Fiend and a teammate with Soulbind is often all it takes to secure a kill. Because he's so fragile, any single-target stun aimed at his latched ally will also hold him in place long enough for him to get blown up. The threat of this forces the Shadow Fiend to maintain awkward positioning relative to his own team. Even without the ultimate, Grimstroke can disrupt his spell-casting rhythm with Phantom's Embrace, a silence that demands attention from either Shadow Fiend or his allies to remove.

This dynamic makes the mid-game very difficult for Shadow Fiend. Grimstroke is always looking for that opportunity to latch two heroes together and create a pickoff. The entire game for the Shadow Fiend player becomes about surviving until he can purchase a Black King Bar. Once he has that spell immunity, Grimstroke's control becomes far less relevant, and Shadow Fiend can finally play aggressively. The matchup is a race between Grimstroke's mid-game control and Shadow Fiend's item progression.