When to draft Enigma?

I've become super interested in Enigma recently b/c I played my first game ever as 'nigma yesterday and got not one, but two five-man Black Holes. Best feeling in the world. Also 13 minute mek + blink.

Anyway, my team is gonna do some tourneys and stuff soon, so I wanted to know when this hero should be drafted. I think he's pretty much a soft counter to everything, provided you get everyone in the hole. My problem is knowing who he should definitely not be picked against. I'm assuming it's heroes with a lot of lockdown, but are there others who will ruin you if they aren't in the hole?

He counters BkB carries pretty well, but does he suck against others? For example, can Faceless Void Backtrack the damage procs?

Pretty much any info on Enigma draft situations would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

When you can get away with being greedy.

Like, Enigma is less about pushing and ganking than Chen and Enchantress, and is more about greed, because he is the fastest farming jungler in the game, and has no real ceiling in terms of ceiling. Sure, he still gets an early mek, and forces down towers, but he's less reliant on doing so. You are basically saying 'I don't think your heroes can punish our laning set-up as it stands, so we are going to get a really greedy jungler, and get more from the map than you will'.

Because he's not going to rotate out of lane till he hits less 6 really. Sure, he can get a super fast level 6, but he still won't. Which means you have very little chance of going for ganks with your other support, and if the enemies lanes, or support do is strong, they can apply a lot more pressure knowing you can't punish them early.

So, basically picking him is more of a case of good judgment of how the laning stage plays out. There will also be heroes you don't want to pick him into, like Rubik (Rubik says, make your ulti perfect, or you can't use it).

Oh you can also pick him in a wombo-combo line-up, but remember those are all about execution. You can have the strongest 5 on 5 team-fight combo in the game, but if you cant execute it, it's worthless compared to easier to execute, but less powerful ones that can also be used in ganks.

Don't pick Enigma into heroes who can cancel Black Hole through Black King Bar. Example : Silencer, Vengeful Spirit, Beastmaster, Clockwerk, Lich, Spirit Breaker, Warlock, Winter Wyvern, Anti-Mage
(this is not exhaustive, they're the main ones I can think about)

Don't pick Enigma against a heavy early game aggression lineup, since jungling Enigma is almost as greedy as jungling a carry. So any support duo or lineup that can apply high pressure in the early game should be avoided or countered in some way.

Don't pick Enigma against a heavy rat dota lineup with heroes like Anti-Mage, Nature's Prophet, Morphling, Weaver etc, since he's only good in teamfights.

He's a good pick in literally every other situation.

I'd largely echo these comments (aside from saying Enigma can and should gank lanes early if the chance to do so is on), and add that very aggressive early line ups and dangerous offlaners mean you should be careful.

Roamers, aggro-trilanes etc can all pick you off pretty easily if you get caught out, and ruining your farm with wards is possible too. Sure, Eidolons provide good protection and the chance of kills while they're active, but a roaming duo can also totally screw you over.

Many people get Black Hole fever when with/against Enigma - sure it's a big power, but kind of overrated in my book - if you haven't got setup or the chance for good counter-initiation, you'll struggle to land big Black Holes against good players - they simply won't group up without good reason, or one BKB piercer will hang back to break your channelling.

Sure, it can be game changing if you get it right, but focus more on the reliable things that Enigma brings - great early pressure, farming speed, pushing, scalable nukes and the threat of big team fight. Treat him as a really greedy #4.

By the way...I really don't get the fact that Enigma is considered a support..."greedy utility core" would be a much more honest way to tell his role IMO.

I mean, this hero is all about the GPM, he's as item-dependent as a hard carry...maybe even more so. He needs a Blink Dagger and a Black King Bar to do anything in the game. He always has to farm a Mekansm as well. And he needs a Refresher Orb...all that stuff with good timings.

Sure he can kind of gank with eidolons even before he hits 6 (he could do it a lot more if eidolons didn't have 260 movement speed tho), and he can apply pressure with Black Hole...when it's not on cooldown...and when he doesn't get stunned.

I mean seriously, I've played jungle Doom and jungle Enigma a lot, and for me Enigma is greedier, significantly even. At least Doom only needs a blink to be useful, and he can make space and win his lanes whenever he has ult. Enigma needs 3 items to do anything.

The thing with enigma is though that you can be extremely usefull and mot use a single black hole. Te hero isnt reliant on the spell, so saying that he 'needs' 3 items is untrue.
The amount of farm that you are able to get isnt relevant when classing heroes as 'support' or 'core'. The hero is a jungler and therefore support, participates in the buying of support items, and does whatever is most usefull on the map. Suppirting isnt sitting on a lane babysitting, thats the mistake that bad supports make.

It's also the "Black hole threat"

Just the threat of BH is often enough to win you fights.

And so does a jungle Sven who buys wards. He even has a better stun than Enigma so more pickoff potential...by far, since Enigma's stun needs to be level 4 to be useful. And he can push harder than Enigma. Jungle Sven legit confirmed by your definition.
Oh wait...

I see no things that make sense in this comment and fail to see the point......

I'm not quite sure where the jungle Sven example is going... Enigma is a much better pusher and jungle farmer. Enigma does tend to break down the whole core/support paradigm - he's kind of like a second #3. And #3's should be helping out if they have to.

I guess the whole numbering thing is about PRIORITY anyway, so although Enigma benefits a lot from farm, I'd still be annoyed if he's taking it from his #1 for example. The hallmark of a bad Enigma is one who's still AFK in the jungle 20 minutes into the game.

He's a hero who farms really fast, but should be active relatively early. Get kills/assists from safe/mid if they're available (the main thing holding you back is the high mana costs - you don't want to slow your jungling if possible), you should certainly be looking to gank and push once you're level 6.

The thing about farm on Enigma is he only NEEDS a relatively small amount (mana regen/pool) to be able to do his job, provided his team can provide setup / extra pushing power. It's far more usual to see him with more though - he can pick up a Mekansm so fast, and the extras both help him land powers effectively, and scale well. He's generally a hero you want to put farm on.