Saw a match from this past week where EG picked Spirit Breaker as a Morph/Lycan counter. It actually made a decent amount of sense:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66_Woa6LIFE&feature=g-all-u

It's definitely a pretty weird game! Highly recommend.

Spirit Breaker is so cool. I wish he wasn't such a scary pick that no one really dares to try.

Can't wait to get home and watch that game, cause Spirit Breaker has a special place in my heart.

They should really make his bash and ult go through BKB. I think he would be a semi-competitive pick with that.

I'll agree with you there. He needs something to make him a utility pick. Although, I played a match against a Spirit Breaker yesterday. I was playing Beastmaster and was 3 man ganked (spirit breaker, rubick, and lion) for an attempted first blood and just walked away (I was maybe halfway towards their tower). I have to say, it was one of the easiest suicide lanes I've ever played when it was just SB and Lion.

I tend to mostly repeat the statement of the competetive scene, that SB is a terrible hero. On the other hand, played a 5 some days ago and the opponents had BH and SB, so the first one roamed the jungel, found me, the latter one charged and they killed me together. That was pretty powerful in my opinion.

So, do you think the reason why he is not seen in competetive is because of his skills or that he doesn´t fit in the usual laning right now?

Pretty much. We played a game last night where we had an SB (played by Greivous), DP, Enchant, SK and Nyx (played by me) and we basically did the same strat. I scouted, SB charged, and I used Vendetta/stun for a relatively easy kill. The best part was the other team has a PL. Whenever we saw a bunch of a illusions we'd wait until we found the real one and once again, SB would charge, so we were always able to keep track of him, without dust, for a really long time.

Spirit Breaker is a hero that absolutely requires a good start, but doesn't fit well into any laning situation that would allow him to get that start. He will lose solo-mid, and will have a difficult time in a solo hard-lane. He doesn't scale very well, so safe-lane farming isn't a great option in comparison to other heroes that are better late-game. A mid-game carry like Juggernaut is more useful than Spirit Breaker earlier on in the match. He has a powerful ganking ability, but has little to help him gank effectively. He has no slow, a sort of effective stun, and too little burst damage. He needs to rely on his level of farm to finish off opponents with right-clicks, and needs to do so in a way that ensures he won't be kited. On top of that he can be disabled while charging if he is noticed. With Invoker I have had no problem hitting SB with a tornado when I caught him charging me. He can be powerful in certain situations, but those situations are very limited.

Compare him with a Night Stalker who runs around at the first night like a maniac, or a Templar Assassin who can dominate mid lane, or Batrider who is just as effective at travelling across the map and disabling a hero long enough to make a kill.

I've found SB to be effective against invis or illusion based heroes when your team has an invis hero. His charge can target the real or invis hero so that you can always pop dust at the right time/kill them.