Help! Counters for the most picked heros.

It's still not worth spending 2k+ gold on anyone who has farm priority less than 3, except jungling supports. It's just that bad compared to other items you can get for that money. And tanky cores don't have the manapool for it. They should either make it scaling or reduce the mana cost to what it was before - it's notlike the item was strong even before the nerf, it was just the meta.

Phantom Lancer IMO is very overlooked right now as i feel it counters a good amount of the current metas heroes. His doppelganger allows you to dispel the miss chance from trolls Whirling Axes (Melee), Phantom Rush is a good way to close the gap with a sniper and Omnislash is basically useless against him. Troll can only focus down one target at a time so playing against a Phantom Lancer can be hell for him.

It can go either way in a Troll vs PL fight. If troll is well geared then Pl illusions would have very little chance.

I pretty much consider mek to be like medallion or urn for supports. You usually will get that early or mid game and probably won't get much else till late game.

A few cores; mostly mids will be the ones to get Mek in games in place of supports. Viper and Razor are the two big ones that come to mind as Mek carriers. They don't have to go mek but it doesn't hurt them either due to them usually going an aghs build.

OD is also another decent Mek carrier. Not the best but he can.