Pano's Guide To The Competitive Magina

Lovin' the guide, lovin' the use of Armlet.
A few minor errors of facts on numbers (though I promise all of these only strengthen your point):
1. Heroes start with a base 25% magic resistance, not 30%, so the multiplier of value for Anti-Mage's Spell Shield is actually .75, which leads to 19.5% additive magic resistance for the first level and an additional 6% for each level afterwards. Unimportant to your point that the first level is way more efficient, though.
2. Vanguard's effective block is determined by pseudo-random distribution, and Valve doesn't seem to be very good at math because Vanguard's actual block chance is about 10% lower than its listed chance. Good news for you, though, because you can list Vanguard as avg. 24 block instead of 28.
3. Finally, MKB does NOT interact with Faceless Void's Backtrack. Backtrack is interesting because it is stylized as evasion but functions as a 100% damage block, which is why FVs can build a Butterfly and take full advantage of it.

Just saying, I always hate it when one of my teammates rushes a Vladmir's Offering: the lifesteal will be so low you won't even notice it before 20-25 minutes while the rest of the aura is only useful if you want a fallback item. I would only buy this if my team wants to Roshan very early on.

Aside from that, the idea is pretty nice: I would personally stick with the Drum of Endurance + Manta Style build, but the Armlet is a nice addition if you can get it in a decent amount of time. Still, I would prefer buying a Helm of the Dominator (for stacking ancients and getting easly survivability) or even just Tranquil Boots (very cost-efficient, plus they don't require 5 minutes of farm) instead of Vlad's to sustain it.

About the skill build: in my opinion you can either go for the maxed-out Blink by level 7 (which in my opinion is better for this kind of playing style) or the 1-1-1-1 plus stats build (which is still good if you're freefarming); putting points into Mana Break before having attack speed-increasing items is not useful.

Let me first start off and say that I like this guide. Armlet Anti-Mage is pretty ridiculous. A 2s armlet toggle and a 5s blink allow you to just survive things and escape with even just moderate juking skills.

But! Yes, you had to see this coming, I do not agree with some of the items and your analysis in comparisons. I think that Vanguard is a very viable option for this build. I think your analysis is very biased against this because "rushing a vanguard" will hardly compete with 4 smaller items. We are assuming that the Anti-Mage that "rushes a vanguard" has 5 empty item slots? While it is obvious that you wanted to compare costs, you should also recognize that the item slots should be accounted for because they do matter. It would be like me comparing an Ogre's Club (+10S for 1000g) to 2 Belt of Giant's Strength (+12S for 900g).

With that addressed, I think a more objective analysis would be comparing a Stout Shield and a Ring of Health to a Bracer and a Poor Man's Shield. I suppose on the surface the second one is better. You have those early game stats, but your argument is that the anti-mage needs more early-mid game presence... which leads to my next point...

A typical AM gets his BFURY at around the 10-12 minute mark. This is usually when we "should" have some presence. Let's not talk about pushes before that, because trying to prepare an AM for to counter an earl-game chen push seems silly (like a carry crystal maiden). So BFURY at around 10-12 minute mark, with some tranquil boots and having used some consumanbles most likely, we are looking at around 5.5k gold that a typical non-cleaving AM will have. Use that 5.5k Gold and make some comparisons. And then make some comparisons at the 10k gold mark, etc.

Vanguard is good because you are not rushing it, you have a ring of health and a stout shield while you are farming your treads/vlad's. And that Ring of Health can go towards a battle fury depending on how the game goes. It is still an amazing item, and the ~2k health you reach (and 19hp/s regen) so early is amazing.

My 3 must have items at 12m would probably be Belt of Giant Strength, Ring of Health, and Vlad's (the stout shield would be taken over the circlet beginning game).
At 24m would be Treads, Vanguard, and Armlet. I would probably have 1 point in stats at lv 4.

That is just how I would do it, but I would love to hear your input!

Very nice build. i win my last game for AM :)
Thank you :)

You're right, Battlefury rush is good too. I do it all the time when I have a strong lane and I am up against another strong hard carry on the enemy team. But that's a farming/split push build. You can and will farm like a beast with the Battlefury but that's where the problem lies too; that's all you can really do with it till you get another major item. Armlet is now more than ever an even better item for Anti-mage with the recent buff it received. You can toggle abuse it even easier than most Str users can due to your insane mobility. It's more cost-efficient than ever. And believe it or not you can farm pretty fast in your downtime with this build too. iIn fact in games where you're being pressured alot an enemy team can delay your battlefury significantly. Let's see them try to delay this build, it's much harder to do because it's so efficient.
Anti-mage's biggest problem in the current meta is that he can't contribute much till he farms up alot. It takes alot of organization and puts alot of pressure on the other 4 members of your team to hold pushes while you farm up. This build lets him come online much faster.He really doesn't peak off as much as you think with this build. He's still anti-mage and scales incredibly well into the lategame. Battlefury+Manta rush is very expensive and easy to suppress, that's my main issue with it. Aside from that though it's good if you're looking to do a split pushing/farming strat. With the recent buffs to heroes like Sven and Magnus though I feel like you really need to come online faster to keep them down (especially the Sven, screw that massive cleave).
As a side note, the goal times thatI recommended for getting the items is obviously not the fastest you could do it. If you're in a scenario that you can complete a 12-13 minute battlefury then obviously you can complete this build much faster too. These are just times to aim for in a conservative scenario.

I have one question for you. Considering the fact that you should be tri-laning or safe duel laning with anti-mage why would this be any better than Battle Fury rushing? Yes I know that you get to be semi useful throughout the early and mid game, BUT, if I farm well with Battle Fury and start coming into team fights from late mid game to end game completely farmed as it always ends up. How is that not better? You're going to start falling off in the end game. You have a manta style at 30 minutes but I will generally get one at 25 minutes and have a B fury to stack on top of that. True you have vlads and will be able to help your team with rosh, but, I'm able to help in team fights at around the 25 minute mark quite consistently and win them! I think this is a great guide and will +1 it. I use this method when my team runs a mid game aggression comp. I agree that it's great for early to mid game but in the late game you REALLY need that good farm that B fury is so helpful for. It sets you up for success so much easier. Again, +1. I can see you obviously put in time and know the mechanics of Magina quite well. :)

Surprisingly good build, only thing is that your team thinks you're crazy until you start wrecking the other team lol. Kind of sad that i don't see something like this more often, its really fun and better then vanguard if you can properly armlet toggle.

I didn't know that was considered a short amount of time. An average teamfight is like 8 seconds right now.

Plus you have lifesteal and these great aura for you team. This is definitely the best alternative build to battlefury.

Your skillbuild might be a bit old, but maybe stat levels don't make sense for your build given the early drums/vlads/armlet.

do you know that it only takes armlet 15 sec. to do more dmg to you then you get from it?

dont forget tranquil boots