Tinker counter?

Initial thoughts

• Pugna's ward - destroys Tinker if ignored, but getting in a situation to actually use it in a 5v5 teamfight is hard
• Silences. But this won't matter if you don't have initiation/can't see him because he's in the trees
• The only viable way I see to play against a hero with ridiculous turtle, amazing comeback potential, flash farming and damage... is to actually shut him down early
• Vision heroes. Beastmaster, maybe even Night Stalker with Aghanim's Scepter.
• Quick blink initator
• Avoid pubs for a month/play Captain's Draft

Heroes can counter Tinker

 

Storm Spirit, Beastmaster, Tusk, Skywrath Mage, Pugna, Night Stalker, Broodmother, Clinkz, Axe, Treant Protector, Ember Spirit, Earth Spirit and Earthshaker, Spectre, Clockwerk, Bloodseeker, Vengeful Spirit is good too. Note these are counters to only Tinker, and most of them are rarely picked in a team comp.

Gameplay

 

• It's so obvious, but stuns, this hero is so squishy and rarely buys Black King Bar. Usually Tinker is the only farmed on their team and he's so easy to lock down most of the times.
• Don't even think it's a good idea to 5 man Blade Mail and stand in march, it's not good or smart.
• It can be hard to gank a Tinker after a few levels, so gank him early. If your mid is someone like a Shadow Fiend and Invoker who can't really help with ganks, you're straight up going to lose.
• Stick together, obviously.
• Tank up, carry Urn of Shadows, Mekansm, Tranquil Boots, late game Heart of Tarrasque. He's good at harrassing and instantly killing you, if you survive the initial burst then you're probably going to win the team fight.

For heroes you have Clockwerk and Storm Spirit which are really good, they can initiate from very farm, Blade Mail is a very good item on Clockwerk and in this case it's even better vs Tinker because it means he won't want to burst down and Storm Spirit generally gets items like Orchid Malevolence, and Scythe of Vyse so that, his cc make him great as well. Overall any hero with a stun a Blink, for example Lion with Blink and Earth Spike is great.

Meepo is another amazing counter, you can just leave a Meepo in the trees in one lane waiting for Tinker to come, then you fuck him up all the while pushing out the other lanes.

I think in terms of carries, Weaver is pretty great vs him for several reasons. Weaver has Linken's Sphere as a core item and that forces Tinker to at least wiff one spell/item which can give you time to run away, Weaver is very mobile and hard to lock down, after Linken's Sphere you can get Monkey King Bar to ministun him and stop him from Town Portal away.

Faceless Void is also a great hero vs Tinker, his Chronosphere is great, he can  Backtrack some of the huge nukes Tinker has, Naga Siren can be good to go up a Tinker in the backlines of a fight.

Overall yeah you can ward his ancients and gank him early, just not take fights early and always remember that even if you think you have a 3 v 2 fight in your favor, Tinker cna always Town Portal in and turn it around, and that's how Tinker gets alot of his early boost from because sure he farms quickly but he also gets alot from those small skirmishes in the early game.