How do you counter Tiny?

I have been in two games now — one with Tiny on my team and one on the opposing team — where he has taken over the game.

In both games, he was the sole person in the middle lane and proceeded to gank and become unstoppable really fast by feasting on opposing squishies. His avalanche + throw combo can 1-shot most non-tanky heroes, and once he gets blink dagger he becomes unstoppable.

What are some good ways to counter him and which heroes/items should I be looking at?

Solution 1:

You need to recognize burst gankers like Tiny are a threat early in the game and adjust your play around them. Typically, this means that I'll be picking up strength Power Treads and/or a Bracer to give myself extra strength to survive. If the other team has multiple magic damage heroes, you can also look into picking up a Cloak or even a Hood or Pipe.

This should prevent Tiny (or Nerubian Assassin, or a few others when they're ported) from ganking you by himself, he'll need teammates or a truly massive advantage to do so. Tiny has powerful burst but after his combo (which deals ~900 magic damage, ~675 damage to standard magic resistance) plus the damage from a couple of autoattacks, if he hasn't killed you there's no way he should be able to: you have your own spells and hopefully aware teammates.

Other things you can do to prevent a Tiny from snowballing apply to every game: have good wards up at all times and help your middle lane rune control if possible. Limiting Tiny's early game mana really slows him down because he's not much of a threat without that 240 mana to combo. You can also put strong laners against him, since Tiny has such low base armor, and seriously limit his early game farm. Some common options to counter a solo melee hero in mid lane include:

• Ancient Apparition
• Batrider
• Viper
• Venomancer
• Warlock
• Lich

Solution 2:

Tiny initially relies on kills and level before it takes over a game. Avoid giving kills to Tiny early game. Try not to give him runes on the either side and keep an eye on tiny's mana in lane, it helps a lot.

In addition to above said hero's in my opinion if you really want to counter tiny safest way get Silencer, keep using curse initial game and you will be fine.

Though everything depends on other players and your team, it is not necessary that a particular strategy will be successful every time.