Anti-Mage

When do you pick Anti-Mage? What Items do I need before starting to enter team fights>?

I pick Anti-Mage when the enemy team has intelligence heroes and when they don't have good disables.

I usually get Power Treads, Battle Fury and Manta Style before team fighting.

Just pick Anti-Mage if your team needs a proper hard carry. I don't really think its necessary, that the enemies need many INT heroes. With enough farm, AM is one of the strongest carrys out there and there will always be easy targets for your Mana Void.

I agree with getting Manta before joining Teamfights. Without it, you are too squishy, whilst dealing not enough damage to really make a difference.

My most common build is: Tranquil Boots-> Battle Fury-> Manta Style-> Black King Bar OR Heart of Tarrasque-> Abyssal Blade/ Butterfly
anywhere between switch your tranquils to Treads or Boots of Travel

Reading my guide may help you out a bit ;). On a side note. You really should get a Manta Style before entering a team fight. Battle Fury isn't REALLY needed for a team fight, it's just for the farm, hence why the others mentioned it. About the int. heroes comment. I PREFER that the enemy team doesn't have more than 1 or 2 int players. This is because the Mana Break is super effective (Pokemon reference I know :P) against heroes with low mana pools. An example would be Drow Ranger. You can burn all of her mana and stop any possible Frost Arrows. On the topic of Tranquil Boots. I think they're great,but treads help you farm faster and the tranquils aren't REALLY necessary unless you're taking a lot of harass.

Part of being the hard carry is to make the right decisions. Sometimes your team may engage or be forced to engage in a teamfight, and all they need is a good Mana Void to win the fight. Or you may get a chance to clean up some low HP heros even if you're late to the fight. It all depends on map location, how the fight went down, levels/items of teams, etc.

My point is, your inventory does NOT determine whether you join teamfights. YOU do.

Mana Void does almost no damage at level 6, and at level 11 its also not really significant. on top of that, without Manta Style it takes way too long to burn an enemies mana for an effective Ult.

AM should not be in teamfights before he has farm and if your team desperatly needs you that early, somethings going wrong.
AM can split push like a king, what means he doesn't have to be in early teamfights to be useful.
Also he ie squishy like **** without Manta Style. if you get stunned you are most likely dead.

You are completely right: I usually pick Anti-Mage only if the enemy team has little to no stuns/stuns that go through BKB only, otherwise I think Faceless Void is a better hard-carry pick because of the Chronosphere (and they are even built in almost the same way).

Before teamfights Battle Fury and Power Treads are compulsory, then you can choose between Yasha + Black King Bar if the enemy team is full of stuns and you took AM anyway or Manta Style. So, at least ~10000-11000 gold worth of items are needed.

I don’t really know why people are so narrow-minded when it comes to building a late game carry. There are plenty of items that work great on Anti-Mage and I never see them in any guides/posts:
- Ring of Aquila is pretty nice for any agility hero. If you’re getting slapped too hard early on and you need to blink around a lot you might go for this along with Tranquil Boots to try and stay in business.
- Linken’s Sphere works miracles against certain setups + it builds up your hero quite well with all stats and regeneration. If you have the proper initiator and aren’t facing a group of heavy disablers this works even better than BKB.
- Midas is quite situational, but is very worth considering if you have a good start and manage to cash in on it before 7-8 minutes into the game. It might be a step in the wrong direction though, so I only recommend it if you’re facing a team of equally late bloomers
- Skull Basher – sometimes rushing this might really make a difference for you. It could be devastating around lvl 10-15 against heroes with mediocre mana pool and no escape.
On the other hand, I see that everyone is working under the assumption that BF is a MUST for Magina. Battle Fury is essentially an offensive/farming item and going for it under the wrong circumstances (e.g. when the bad guys are on the offensive) is quite dumb.
As with most other heroes, I feel that no item is an absolute necessity for Magina and there are various builds which you can pursue, according to the circumstances. My general advice would be to try and play it safe (not the ‘farm all day and let your teammates die’ kind of safe though) until you get at least one offensive (BF, Basher) and one defensive (BKB, Linken’s) item.

Isn't this a necropost?

Other than that, you say that people is narrow-minded which isn't completely true: as an Anti-Mage, you have to get that Battle Fury before ~15 minutes or you won't be able to keep up with the other carry. Because of this, Ring of Aquila is a waste of money while Hand of Midas is still viable (but, personally, not recommended by me) before ~5 minutes.
Your other suggestions are good, except for Linken's Sphere which I'd replace with a Heart of Tarrasque.

About your Battle Fury talk, I think you should always try to get it before 15 minutes: if you feel you can't farm enough keep your Perseverance and aim for a Manta Style or Drum of Endurance (in this case Ring of Aquila should work too), cost-effective items that boost your mid game.

I really don't see any reason or viability in an Anti-Mage that doesn't rush battlefury.