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Welcome to my masterpiece. The day I started this guide I knew it was going to become a gigantic chunk of words. To keep everything nice and tidy we will have the guide divided in different big chapters. So if you want to go straight to the information, or are looking for something in particular, use the index right up there.
Let's move out of the preface and get into the guide, we have a quite a way ahead.
The midlane is the heart of DotA, it is not only the shortest lane, but the lane that leads to your throne. Mid means duel, means a face-off between the two sides represented by their midders, its like their number 10 in football, it's like the queen in chess, the vocalist in a band. 1v1, Mid only, mid or feed, ez mid, push mid, please commend tinker.
Unless it's a duo mid, I will get into that later.
Whoever goes mid is bound to the hero they are playing. The way you play mid depends on two things: One, your play style, aggressive, passive, thoughtful, bully, etc. Two, the nature of your hero. This is dictated by:
-Skillset
-Farm and Exp Use
-Farm and Exp Hunger
-Early to Mid Game Potential
-Level Dependence
-Core Item Dependence
Don't worry, I will go into deeper insight on certain heroes.
Tinker's 
Boots of Travel or 
Magnus' 
Blink Dagger, you can also take your position 1's farm, under the single condition that you will utilize the gold effectively, or have more impact with it than what they would have otherwise, but don't delay other key core items or early farming items, so don't kill steal the Antimage with half a 
Battle Fury, or the 
Nature's Prophet that is struggling to get a fast 
Hand of Midas. In pubs this might get you some hate or draw attention, but if you are confident of your limits, your act and plays will speak by themselves, but don't be an *******. In a team this is of course no problem, as your teammates trust your skill, and know that if you snowball harder is better than the carry farming, as with the gold you will create farming space for him.
First things first.
What is blocking? Body Blocking your creeps in their way to find the opposing creeps, with the 0:00 wave. This is done by simply walking in front of them and constantly stopping your hero, so they stop aswell and try to path around.
Why should you do this? Blocking your lane gives you an advantage as your creeps reach mid later than the opposing creeps, pushing your lane back. Having the creeps fight in your side of the uphill makes fighting that wave easier, as the opponent, if ranged, will have a 25% chance of missing their auto attacks, so you avoid harass and can hide in the fog or war (Details later on), it also keeps you closer to your tower, and so you stand safe from ganks from supports, and if you are a farming mid you should be expecting level 1 ganks, and even 
Smoke of Deceits.
How to block? Its different for each side. See the next sections.
Here is a 1 minute long video by Slahser showcasing the best way of blocking Mid from the Radiant Side:
Again here it is another short video on how to do it, this time Dire side:
This method of bodyblocking actually pushes the lane further if not done in the midlane. So dont try it when not midding.
Alright, so you already understand the concept of stopping and making the creeps path around, but there is a more efficient way of doing it, and its by using the hero's hitbox to the max, this method is done naturally by pros, when creeps go slightly to a side, causing a longer creep stop. You can actually exploit this by pushing the wave over to a side and then back to the middle, causing two stutters on their pathing.
Your hero will be stopping at 45° every time you want the creeps to stop back and stutter.
Look at this sophisticated MsPaint diagram I made:
As you may know, 6.83 implemented a change in which the first rune spawn, at 0:00, makes both runes bounty runes, but steroid bounty runes, that give out double exp and 100 gold (!).
Let me put it this way. Its 0:00, and its giving you half a level of exp and a creepwave worth of gold, effortlessly. This rune right here is first blood material, fights are going to break out for this little thing, so be very very careful if you plan grabbing it as the Mid.
If you want to take the full advantage of the runes do as following.
-Someone in your team must purchase Smoke of Deceit.
-The support with the highest movement speed buys the ward.
-Activate the Smoke.
-Rush with the support with wards to the top rune.
-Ward uphill and if you are on radiant side block jungle camps if needed.
-Hide in the fog.
-At -3 seconds for battle begin move out the support to scout, move out of the fog and grab the rune.
-Run back quickly and stutter block from the second half of the lane.
Do not attempt if you have under 300 movement speed or if there is a lineup that could 5 man gank you if you are a farming mid.
If you succeed you will have better wards for laning phase and a faster 
Bottle in mid.
Sure laning is about last hits, denies, and keeping the opponents controlled. But Mid behaves in a slightly different manner, and remember, you are alone in mid.
Unless its a duo mid lane, I'll get to that later.
Here we have another fancy diagram section.
This picture represents roughly how your zones are layed out in mid (for the tier 1) from the radiant side.
(I say roughly because your zones vary depending on who is mid against you, the hero you are playing, and also your movement speed.)
Pudge
Vengeful Spirit
Brewmaster
Tusk
Axe
Puck if level 6.
Earth Spirit
Ember Spirit
Storm Spirit
Invoker Magnus with rune or level 6.
Slark
Same as before, this time for the Dire side.
The Radiant Side Tier 1 Mid Lane is a really scary zone of the map. You are going to be diving Radiant side way less than Dire, because of all the paths possible that supports could take to close you off. What makes it even more powerful is that you can take a 
Town Portal Scroll way further up in lane, and this can lead for some really bad rotations from supports. So DO NOT dive Radiant Side unless you are really confident OR have a 
Force Staff, since the uphill to the top side is extremely overpowered escape for 
Blink heroes or heroes that core a Force Staff.
Moving on...
Smoke of Deceit, get spotted by jungle 
Observer Ward, or rotations are coming, take the light green route if its the uphill ward what got you, so you stop updating their information on you. And as the midder, try to not draw attention and back off, or try grabbing the top rune.
Observer Ward coverage, this can be a dangerous place to be. If they have eyes on you, the midder can rotate towards the top rune, and someone can rotate TPing into the tier 2 mid, and close you off sandwich style. The best reason to be up here is if the tower is being pushed up, and you are thinking of initiating... or have a Force Staff.YES! Have you seen those cool smoke throws in CS:GO? Where they setup and land a smoke across de_inferno? Well, this is equivalent of that knowledge in Dota 2.
Using Map Cues can be a faster way of knowing the tower ranging, instead of just feeling it out, what you achieve with experience, the gut feeling.
Take a good look at these. Credit to Axxhelairon, from /r/dota2, he did this imgur album a while ago now. But we only care about Mid in this guide.
The pictures here for Fog or war range include some key positions and the tower vision range.
I am including this because its always useful to have this information and the guide wouldnt be quite complete without all this stuff.
From now on we will call "Off Time" to any moment there is nothing going on in mid, no ganks, no runes, no blocking, no pushing; just last hitting, denying and harassing.
During off time is when you realize who is the best midder. It makes the player work on a certain set of skills, particular to the midder character.
See the next sections including these set of skills.
Number 1: Last Hitting. Yes, as simple as it sounds, practice makes perfect, and its not only last hitting, but last hitting in an environment in which the opposing mid denies, harass and there is overall a lot of variables and threats. Practice your mechanical skill to last hit, with at least 8 different heroes, your favourite mid heroes if I may.
Averaging the creepwaves to 5 creeps each, for 10 minutes:
Bad: 0(!) to 20 last hits.
Poor: 20 to 30 last hits.
Decent: 30 to 55 last hits.
Substancial: 55 to 70 last hits.
If you can get over 50 last hits, and help in ganks, and deny, you are solid at creep scoring. Grats.
So in your experience maybe you have had some trouble last hitting under towers, here is a general guideline to ease your suffering.
Number 2: Denying. If you arent the highest skilled player you probably believe denying creeps is an advanced technique, that outplays the opposing mid humilliating them into a lost lane and a sad life. But actually denying isnt that big of a deal, if you can do it, alright good; but its far more important focusing in getting your own farm, and then in second hand, meddling in their farm.
Allied creeps and siege units can be denied once they fall below 50% health. Denying an allied, non-hero unit grants half experience to enemies within a 1300 range. To deny a unit, you must force an attack command on it. 50% for creeps, 25% for heroes, and 10% for towers.
Denying creeps is an excellent way to control a lane and gain a lead over your opponent. It not only prevents them from gaining gold and moves the lane towards your tower, it also denies your opponent experience which can cause a noticeable level difference in lane.
Recently, denying creeps got buffed, making it so a denied creep only rewards half the regular exp, but still, the effort you put into denying your creeps can be better spent zoning out the opposing mid, maybe out of lane, where they really lose exp.
Denying a tower is a big deal though. Considerably reducing the gold reward.
Number 3: Harassing the opponent. Harassing is attacking the opposing mid to force them under a point in their hp that they have to either retreat, waste their regen items, leave lane, or be left exposed for initiation and potentially die.
Targeting a hero in lane for an attack draws you aggro, this means that their creeps will target you, like if they were defending the hero. Your attack doesnt necessarily needs to land to draw this aggro, which you can use to your advantage, or to draw aggro with a melee hero being far away; I will explain this in the next section.
Anyway... using spells doesnt draw aggro. So you can do it freely, some honorable mentions for good lane control spells:
- Puck's 
Illusory Orb
-
Queen of Pain's 
Scream of Pain
- Tusk's 
Ice Shards
-
Pugna's 
Nether Blast
-
Shadow Fiend's 
Shadowraze
-
Lina's 
Dragon Slave
Among many others
And powerful harass nukes:
-
Skywrath Mage's 
Arcane Bolt
- Tinker's 
Laser & 
Heat Seeking Missile
-
Bane's 
Brain Sap
Physical harassment should be countered with items that provide damage block, health regeneration or armor: A Poor Man's Shield, combined with a Ring of Health can render a Hero almost immune to regular harassment.
Harassment with Spells can be mitigated with a Magic Wand, as they will constantly gain charges and provide the holder with a steady supply of mana and health.
Some abilities are excellent counter-harassment tools. If a player faces heavy harassment, he might consider adapting to a defensive skillbuild, (e.g. investing as many ability points as possible into Dragon Blood or Backtrack).
In some laning situations, it is better to force a small skirmish and attempt to kill an enemy Hero instead of just passively allowing the enemy to gain lane dominance through constant harassment. For example, a Vengeful Spirit and Pudge lane will quickly lose the lane against Drow Ranger and Ancient Apparition icon.png Ancient Apparition in terms of harassment. However, they have a distinct advantage if they try to kill their opponents instead of just passively laning against them.
Number 4: Aggro. This can be tower or creep aggro. Although they are very different they are both critical to your laning success, and are perfomed in a similar fashion.
See the next sections.
This is the most important of the two.
Creep Aggro means creeps are trying to attack/already attacking you.
For example: Entering the boundaries of a Jungle Camp draws the neutral's aggro towards you.
Lane creeps target first enemy lane creeps, secondly enemy heroes, and lastly enemy siege creeps. Nearby creeps will report their aggro on you if you attack an enemy hero, allowing you to bring them behind your own creeps in order to farm more safely. Lane creeps can also follow you very far, inside the jungle and even as far as another lane. They stop chasing you if they lose sight of you for a long time.
Tower Aggro is different, and even if its not as vital for laning, it is important and will become handy, especially to take more of those windows of opportunity, when combat gets a bit out of hand.
Towers have a specific targeting priority that determines which enemy it will attack. This list represents that priority in descending order:
1. Closest enemy unit or hero attacking a friendly hero with auto attack.
2. Closest enemy unit or hero attacking the tower itself with auto attack.
3. Closest enemy unit or hero attacking any friendly unit with auto attack.
4. Closest enemy unit.
5. Closest enemy hero.
6. Closest enemy catapult.
The tower will only switch targets under four circumstances:
1. If the targeted enemy unit or hero goes out of range.
2. If the targeted enemy unit or hero dies.
3. If an enemy unit or hero targets a friendly unit or hero.
4. If an enemy hero being attacked by the tower manually attacks another enemy unit or hero (in which case, the tower will select a new target based on the above priority order).
Number 3 is what I was talking about. This way you can draw tower aggro off of you without backing out of the range.
Doing it is simple. You just have to do like if you were about to deny a creep (it doesnt have to be under 50% health), and the tower will target that creep instead of you for the following shots.
Offtime jungling has become slightly less significant than what it used to be, but its not obsolete just yet. So here you go.
Shadowraze, its really low cost, really high damage, and you have three on separate cooldowns. Other spells like Scream of Pain, 
Shockwave, etc, do the trick aswell.As the mid lane tends to be the home of the 1 on 1 fightning, sometimes the experience can be summarized on a rock, paper, scissor drafting. With mid heroes that will just out straight dominate others. Like putting a 
Zeus up against a Pudge.
As it would be an inhumane task to list all of the most relevant mid match-ups, and saying a few doesnt represent much to be honest, I will rate some heroes, and with that scale, based on a general criteria, you can judge who would win mid; sounds good?
So here we go:
Brewmaster. Despite being a melee hero, he is tanky, has evasion and guaranteed critical hits on his side, a powerful aoe nuke and slow, that he can use to follow up on the opposing mid and push the creepwave. And when he gets level 6 he can not only kill you with ease, but escape any gank you throw at him. Axe, as of 6.82 Axe can take the mid role and dominate most match-ups, Axe will destroy you if you are a melee hero, and if you are a ranged hero, you are usually not very tanky (think about it, the most tanky you get as a ranged hero mid is a Quas-ed Invoker) and he will spam you off with 
Battle Hunger. For mid lane build him WEWQWRWEEQREQQSR. Bane, the 1v1 intelligence hero by excellence. Two disables, 
Enfeeble that disables your right click power, and a pure damage nuke that also sustains him. He is sort of easy to gank, but in the end he can deny himself or sleep the gankers undertower.
Clockwerk, yes, you can take mid on Clockwerk, similar to Axe he is supposed to be play as a bully hero, zoning out any jumps you would try to perform on him. Build spells as EWEQEREQWQRQWWSR and for items get your early Bottle, boots of choice (I like 
Phase Boots), then a Force Staff and then 
Aghanim's Scepter. A common mistake with Clockwerk is buying him a blademail, you should not buy it unless there is a massive nuker on the opposing team, as you will be building armour, 
Shiva's Guard, 
Crimson Guard and eventually 
Assault Cuirass, you will mitigate the damage your blademail output. Mid lane Clockwerk is supposed to be a rock on the opposing team's shoe. Earth Spirit will destroy any mid matchup, except Slark, since the 
Pounce leash doesnt break with Force Staff or 
Rolling Boulder. Magnus, top 5 mid heroes on my list. Tanky, has a solid escape, does amazing things with level 6 and rune control and has a really cheap range nuke. He will lose mid against a couple of bully heroes, maybe 
Razor if played well.
Necrophos sent mid will get a dagon level 1 under the 10 minute mark, and has some kill potential on the opposing mid if they push up too much. Great to counter hard farming mids.
Phantom Assassin mid, with a Bottle having a 180 pure damage nuke, with crit chance, and a ridiculous range, by just 15 mana cost, and having runes on my side; will represent a lot of kill on the midlane if you get a support to stun. Puck, just as Invoker, they have been nerfed out of the meta. But Puck hasnt totally disappeared yet, he just moved to the offlane role, he can still be played mid, but he wont success like he used to. Pudge, I honestly do not understand how this hero isnt more picked in the competetive scene, is it because it falls off if not fed up, or because the drafter doesnt trust his midder. He has the potential to be a fourth ban at best, and thats really good for a melee mid hero without 
Primal Split. Pugna is forgotten at the moment, just as Necrophos has a ton of potential, but its wasted because of the best options out there. Queen of Pain; massive, with the new buff to Blink there is nothing you can do to stop her of constantly ganking your sidelanes other than back out. Also, the buff to Blink is an indirect buff to 
Shadow Strike as now you can get early points on it, instead of the mandatory levels on Blink. Shadow Fiend, pretty good right now. Still wouldnt draft it for myself on a competitive match. Tinker rest in peperoni. Now you can only build him as QWQWQWQWR. And that has worked really well for me, with it, and with no ancient farming, I have gotten Boots of Travel as early as 6:30. Pretty gnarly.
Tiny+
Io duo mid. Dominating the meta right now. Check out this VOD with Power Rangers destroying with the combo:Ugh... damn full guides. Well, here we have warding, which is placing Observer Wards, exciting am I right?
The following are 10 key spots for observer wards, with the "why are they useful".
Iron Branches to have yourself some wards, and play confortably. Dont risk it for 150 gold.In contrast to "off time". Hot Time is the parts of the game where stuff is going on, ganks, rune constests, pushes, teamfights.
Knowing what to do during hot time and doing it properly is the signature of a kickass mid, so check it out.
See the next sections.
Simplifying it a tad. A window of opportunity is when the opposing mid ****s up. This means that he is out of position, is at low hp and its not leaving, is attempting an obvious gank, or is trying to contest a rune when you are going to win it, and maybe even turn around and get the kill if its a good rune.
So. How to take advantage of the windows of opportunity?
Tidehunter he is a massive early rotation machine if given a window of opportunity. Heat Seeking Missiles are going to reach, and knowing if they are getting the kill, is extremely rewarding. Pudge dont run around like a headless chicken, but have well measured moves, so you minimize the chance of getting caught out. Dont dive people with disables, all that stuff.This section is aimed for early fighting posibility. Not creep blocking.
If you have seen competitive matches, you will see that in those ultra mlg level 1, 5 man ganks or teamfights, you will notice that they use their hero to bodyblock enemies and stutter block them to slow them and the rest can catch up. This is actually not that hard once you are positioned well.
With tons of practice, and a proper hero, you can do this when in 1v1 situations, stutter bodyblocking and ocassionally right clicking, of course if you have a slow is better, but this can create some extra couple of seconds to right click someone down.
My favourite heroes for doing this are:
- Pudge
- Queen of Pain
- Vengeful Spirit
Especially Queen of Pain as with a level 1 blink you can position yourself really well for bodyblocking, but try to not be predictable.
Ganking! Wheeee!
To make my life, and the guide easier I will refer to the Dota 2 Wiki here, and do a small synthesis here to what is relevant.
Bounty Hunter without any form of detection. Vengeful Spirit is an excellent roamer for having a strong guaranteed level 1 stun while Bane is more powerful at level 6 when his ganks have a almost 100% chance of success. Nature's Prophet? - get 
Quelling Blade or make sure you have tree clearing abilities. Lina and Zeus are excellent examples. If these heroes are too far away, wait for them to come closer. Smoke of Deceit helps you walk past wards. Town Portal scrolls allow you to be across the map in seconds. When TPing, obviously avoid letting the enemy creeps see you coming. Night time, it is a lot easier to do this. Later in the game, blink dagger and force staff are awesome for surprise initiation, as is Tiny's throw. Storm Spirit is a hero who excels at surprise initiation. Blink, you want to make sure that there is some overlap between the disables so there is no risk of the target escaping. Lina ganking, I would save Dragon Slave for later as it has sick range and will prevent enemy heroes from escaping. This doesn't mean KS. Use your abilities to guarantee kills but don't use it to KS guaranteed kills from your carry.
Black Hole on an enemy Antimage is worth it if it guarantees the kill. Bounty Hunter and get rich.
Lifestealer is very very hard to kill. If you wanna gank him, make sure you have the right stuff - preferably a stun that goes through magic immunity, enough DPS. Kill all the creeps near him with AoE abilities so he can't 
Infest.
Night Stalker. Still, tower dive only if you know what you're doing. As always, not dying > kills in most situations.A sidelane rotation towards mid is needed when the opposing mid is, either getting out of hand, or is a farming mid that can farm safely, and there is not much you, as a mid, can do alone.
This is when supports come in! yay!
Actually landing a gank on mid as a support is simple, its as simple as:
-Having better warding.
-Dewarding.
-Being sneaky and knowing good gank routes (see below).
- Smoke of Deceit, and using it to it max potential.
-Good setup. Stun, disable of sort, maybe a good slow such as 
Leech Seed could work in some situations.
To clarify the title, these are ganking route for ganking the radiant midder.
Frostbite, 
Disruption or if you landed a long stun 
Sacred Arrow.
Leap or 
Skewer.
These are some common routes for ganking the dire mid hero.
Slark. Coming down from that uphill really closes any escape windows, but positioning yourself up there requires quite a walk, so see if its worth it.
Routes you, as a Mid, can take to gank the dire sidelanes.
For the Dire Mid, this is some routes to kill radiant sidelanes.
Ganking junglers as a midder is really easy.
Until the 10 minute mark, most junglers have no way of escape, except for Nature's Prophet, that can teleport. Coming in with some right clicks and a nuke is usually enough. If you get a haste rune and there is no lane to gank, and the opposing mid is too strong, gank their jungle.
The key to not cause a fall back is too go along the treelines, so you are hidden in fog, and look for any evidence, like an empty camp, and predict where they are gonna be, and close their escape routes that way. Most of the time a jungler's escape route is just the shortest way back to their base.
Oh no, they are doing it. You know how annoying is when you are doing a great job mid, and your teammates just come over and push the enemy tower down?
Taking down the tier 1 mid tower happens in two different situations
-There is a big teamfight from defense and offense from both sides.
OR
-Nobody cares and creeps push it over.
In your experience I am sure you have noticed this, that those early tower defenses almost never happen in mid lane, its just sidelanes, because yes, losing mid leaves you sort of exposed, but mid is a short lane and a few meters up there is another tower. However if you are playing Dire side and your top tier 1 falls, your entire jungle is left exposed, and it will be a pain in the neck farming from behind.
So, most of the time you are going to be pushing the mid tower by yourself, there are heroes really good for these kind of jobs.
-
Techies Demolitions
- Pugna and his Nether Blast
-
Kunkka with his fast clearing creepwaves and high base damage.
If you won your lane, you can take down the tower by yourself in three creepwaves, of course, if said creepwaves are not pulled back, etc, its also a sort of push and pull between you and them.
Get the last hit on the tower, is a big pile of gold. And dont get denied, even better, lure them into trying to deny the tower and gank them around, I do that a lot with Pudge for example.
Defending the mid lane, especially the first tower is really tricky. The lane is so short that people either go all in and force the defense out, or dont push at all. The key to exploiting this is on the smoke of deceit, moving similarly as if you were to gank the opposing mid laner, but this time, you are going to gank a full team.
Refer to the gank routes on previous sections.
Midders I really like for defending my tier 1 tower with my team:
- Magnus
- Puck
- Shadow Fiend (if I went for 
Shadow Blade or my team has initiation)
- Brewmaster.
Midders I really dont like defending with:
- Tusk even though he is great at it, he isnt mighty with walrus punch on cooldown.
- Pudge, sure, if you can fish out a carry that will serve as initiation, but you have to position yourself really well or else you are initiating on yourself.
If you are playing a farming mid you will find this really annoying and will **** up your farm speed, transition into the jungle or attempt to hurry up the initiation to get it over with.
Runes are the Mario Kart Boxes of DotA. Runes are stronger than what people think, if you don't see haste runes as easy double kills you don't get the point.
I consider Bottle core on anyone who takes mid, maybe it can be skipped on some farming mids for a faster core item, etc. But your best bet is buying a Bottle, as your first purchase after starting items.
On the vast majority of heroes, a full bottle means full health and mana pools, by far. This means that if you have a rune that you can grab safely, uncontested, you can literally, empty your mana pool at the other mid as harass, refill 100% of your mana pool, get the tune, and have a full bottle + a rune effect to kill the other mid if they didn't retreat from your harassing, or 50 gold and some exp.
If you need hp or mana and lose the possibility of a rune, you are going to have to bottlecrow, and in the meantime, the other mid who did get the rune is going to zone you out horribly, and you will lose exp.
So contesting runes is key. See the next section.
Bottle. Runes that are stored in bottle will be automatically used after two minutes. A hero that stored a rune can use the stored rune manually by using the bottle. Using a bottled rune will refill the hero's bottle to 3/3 Full. Bottles cannot be dropped or transferred if they have a rune in them. Bottle, since the haste runes duration is rather short, activating it just when you need it makes it really strong, guaranteed kills if they arent hugging a tower. Great for initiating the fights.
Divine Rapier. The double damage rune is, as you may think, good on high base damage heroes, some nasty heroes with double damage are those with critical hits built in, such as Tusk and Phantom Assassin, however, the main difference is that the double damage does not serve as an initiation tool, but as a follow up tool, it adds more weight to your side of fights.
Dismember, 
Duel, 
Flaming Lasso, a spooky 
Nether Swap, a point blank Techies suicide squad attack, a 
Reverse Polarity-less Skewer. Also when bottled is a free escape. Bottled illusion on Clockwerk, 
Hookshot into 
Power Cogs, use the rune and mess them up, Bane, activate the rune, 
Fiend's Grip, micro illusions into attacking, 
Necronomicon style, also with 
Legion Commander, same logic.Contesting runes is something that will happen really often if the lane and matchup is balanced. One support is enough to control a rune race from happening, as he doesnt have to fight to prevent the enemy mid from taking the rune, but just take it and go back to lane. If you are caught in a similar situation, move up to him, and compell him to grab it, but dont go in dangerous situations; by doing this, you are making the support have no other option but take it, as you are approaching, however, coordinated or experienced teams and supports, will try to bring you to the line as close as they can, and use this strategy I am telling you, against you, as an initiation tactic. So if you dont feel confident dont risk it.
If there is a brand new wave arriving, and it is important that:
-You get the rune, for whatever, refilling, for a gank.
-They don't get the rune, sustain, etc.
Moving in for the rune at xx:54 is usually enough, when warded, when not warded, going at xx:51 or even xx:48, can serve as a signal for supports nearby that you are going to camp it, and if contest happens, you will have people on your side; and if the rune spawns as haste or double damage you could have an easy pair of kills.
So, Mid heroes. Heroes that excel in solo play, and in fact, are limited when teammates are around or more than one enemy are up against them. Mid heroes are most of the time dependent on their spells, and so, mana injection, via bottle.
Also Mid heroes are known for being powerful early, from having an exp and gold advantage, and using it to push their teams advantages.
Mid heroes are divided into two big groups, the, what I like to call, swift mids (ofter called ganking mids, combat mids, killing mids, etc), and the farming mids.
On top of these, there are some special lineups, not commonly seen, that run a duolane mid.
See the next three sections.
Swift Mids. I will trust your experience and try to address what swift mids are by telling you various examples, before giving you a proper definition.
- Puck
- Pudge
- Queen of Pain
- Magnus
-
Huskar
-
Mirana
- Night Stalker
- Slark
- Storm Spirit
- Earth Spirit
- Tusk
- Zeus (depends on the player)
For the most part, some others can be considered too:
-Pheonix
- Axe
- Vengeful Spirit when played mid
-Some playstyles of Invoker
As a swift mid, you want to be on top of your opponent, a 1v1 on mid with two swift mid heroes is where the most action happens. In these scenarios is when the most rune contesting and mid killing mid happens.
If you dont want to risk the game leaving mid to be a true 1v1 (as someone who doesnt trust whoever is midding), support ganks to mid generally do the trick, and limit the possibilities of a swift mid, especially if killed a couple of times or zoned out, leaving them underleveled.
Farming mids. So these are less exciting, the concept of a farming carry is to give the possibility of easy farm to a hero with potential lane dominance. These are very spell dependent to keep a good lane equilibrium and to keep the opposing mid cornered.
Main examples for this that come into mind are:
-Farming mids. So these are less exciting, the concept of a farming carry is to give the possibility of easy farm to a hero with potential lane dominance. These are very spell dependent to keep a good lane equilibrium and to keep the opposing mid cornered.
Main examples for this that come into mind are:
Death Prophets Crypt Swarm, Razors Plasma Field, Dragon Knights Breath Fire & Outworld Devourers Astral Imprisonment.
Other heroes played as farming mids that come into mind are;
Viper, Templar assassin, some playstyles of Tiny, some playstyles of invoker, most playstyles for ember spirit, necrophos, Lycan, Legion Commander, Drow Ranger, among others.
The farming mids tend to not leave mid unless it is completely necessary, this can represent any sidelane ganking, rune contests, etc. They are primarily focused in completing a solid creepscore and so, gold advantage, and so, item advantage, for an upper hand later in game.
Farming mids are sometimes considered so bound to their lane that they can delay their ult skill for level 9-10, to keep skilling spells to aid them lane, for example Death Prophet, while the other mid, for example, can already have something like Dream Coil available, and your laning becomes more and more dangerous, especially then that you dont really have a proper big item. See Offtime jungling as an option.
-
Death Prophets 
Crypt Swarm
- Razors 
Plasma Field
-
Dragon Knights Breath Fire
-Outworld Devourers 
Astral Imprisonment
Other heroes played as farming mids that come into mind are:
-
Viper
-
Templar Assassin
-Some playstyles of Tiny
-Some playstyles of Invoker
-Most playstyles for Ember Spirit
- Necrophos
-
Lycan
- Legion Commander
-
Drow Ranger
-Among others.
The farming mids tend to not leave mid unless it is completely necessary, this can represent any sidelane ganking, rune contests, etc. They are primarily focused in completing a solid creepscore and so, gold advantage, and so, item advantage, for an upper hand later in game.
Farming mids are sometimes considered so bound to their lane that they can delay their ult skill for level 9-10, to keep skilling spells to aid them lane, for example Death Prophet, while the other mid, for example, can already have something like Dream Coil available, and your laning becomes more and more dangerous, especially then that you dont really have a proper big item.
See Offtime jungling as an option.
Duo Mids! Aw rubbish, nothing like doing your block mid, arriving to the river and realizing you are going to have to mid to two people at the same time. Its heartbreaking, and you know that you are going to have the toughest lane of all, its like playing offlane, but in a shorter lane and with less juke paths.
Actually, a proper duo mid is really good, viable option. If done in the optimal conditions, breaks the lineup from their mid point, and is really good against strats that depend on a powerful mid movement, except King of Pain (not to be confused with Queen of Pain, king of pain is an old, gimmicky, strategy, that actually with 6.83 may become viable again, where you level 1 rosh with a Queen of Pain, a 
Lone Druid and three other heroes, when roshan is low, everyone leaves except Queen of Pain and the spirit bear, giving the aegis, last hit gold, and almost 6 levels straight to Queen of Pain, that means Bottle, 
Boots of Speed, and possibly first blood).
There are three weaknesses on playing a duo mid, even when played properly, your other lanes are left weak, and you are using one of the supports in mid. Second, the heroes that can run a duo mid can run a solo mid aswell, and sometimes it is just better; this is not the weakness, but those heroes are really limited, there are not much heroes that can duo mid without that much withdraw of exp and gold. And finally the third weakness is that, by doing a duo mid, you are asking for a centralized game, these occurrences tend to happen more on pubs than in proper matches, but they result in a really strange game, where most of the people have severely hurt economy, and lack of exp.
Centralized games are those that call all 10 people to defend and attack tier 1 mid constantly, but there is no initiation, and when there is, and teamfight happens, most of the time the heroes return and the situation is still stuck, people are afraid of going out and farming because when noticing movement, the teams move in big groups, 4 and 5, and getting caught out alone by that large group is not only resulting in your death, but in a possible teamfight.
To avoid this happening, your duo mid must focus their objective on taking the opposing mid tier 1 tower as soon as possible, and your teammates from the sidelanes, push up aswell, so any rotation is controlled by multiple pushes.
Basically how the duo mid plays out is that you play a hero that is great at almost killing, such as Tiny or Dragon Knight, that have a good kit but never quite get the kills done if the foe is at full hp at first. Heroes that need follow up on their fighting in order to complete kills, and that is what the duo mid support does, contributes with damage output, and sustain, such as healing, mana replenishing and ultimately, rune control.
For your core duo mid component you can get creative, under the criteria I gave you, but here are some really good duo mid support components:
The infamous Wisp (thats Io for you dota 2 newbies), 
Keeper of the Light, 
Omniknight (
Degen Aura is broken in duo mids), 
Undying (surprised? 
Decay, healing; 
Tombstone is one of the best spells for early fighting), Situationally abbadon, but he is really defensive and thats not what a duo mid is for, Vengeful Spirit (best hero ever, fits everywhere), 
Shadow Demon! (he is amazing along Kunkka, Disruption is a great setup spell, and you can brainlessly land a ghost ship with it, with Soul Catcher amplification).
Gyrocopter (So much burst damage, if you catch them without creepwave, 
Rocket Barrage does a ton of damage, and having a 500 magical nuke in 
Homing Missile, ranged, that no one can kill by themselves is really an easy win, also, Force Staff), Kunkka is great at 1v1 because he has so much lane control, his 
X Marks the Spot was buffed beyond ridiculousness with 6.83, landing 
Torrent and ghost ship is really easy now, at least at one hero, get phase boots and a crystalys and you are good to go; but dont forget your bottle. 
Meepo, he is amazing at sustaining a lane once he has a second meepo to stack the jungle, go back to base and back to lane effortlessly, if you know a bit of micro you can do earth bind after earth bind, and 
Poof is a ton of damage output aswell, and on top of that you have a slowing attack. Any of these will destroy your typical Pudge or Shadow Fiend. Kunkka could have problems with Templar Assassin but thats it.Aw shieeeet, nothing like dodging, except disjointing, thats better. Dodging is simple, its basically avoiding getting hit by stuff, spells, attacks, tower shots, whatever. Although technically has nothing to do with Mid lane, it does make you a better overall player learning this things. Stuff to dodge with:
Easy: 
Phase Shift, 
Sleight of Fist, 
Ball Lightning, Primal Split, 
Omnislash (you can Omnislash creeps to dodge 
Assassinate for example (you can also spin, just saying)), Infest, 
Vendetta, Astral Imprisonment and Disruption, 
Snowball, 
Shadow Dance & doppleganger.
Medium: 
Nightmare (when self cast has an instance of invulnerability the first half second), 
Phantasm, 
Fire Remnant, 
Time Walk, 
Mirror Image, 
True Form, any form of Blink, Burrow Strike, 
Haunt, 
Relocate.
Hard: 
Manta Style, 
Chemical Rage, 
Waveform and Nether Swap.
Contrary to popular belief, 
Time Lapse does not disjoint projectiles, and 
Track cannot be dodged.
Stuff that you will have to dodge:
Easy: 
Death Pulse, Homing Missile, Arcane Bolt, Heat Seeking Missile, 
Chain Frost, 
Mystic Snake, 
Stifling Dagger, Shadow Strike, 
Storm Hammer, Slow ranged auto attacks.
Medium: 
Unstable Concoction, 
Spawn Spiderlings, Lifebreak (yea), Earth Bind, 
Soul Assumption, fast ranged auto attacks, 
Ensnare, Earth Split and 
Concussive Shot.
Hard: Assassinate (well, not that hard, but if you dont see it coming its really quick reaction time). 
Glimpse (see video below) and Sleight of Fist (unpredictable most of the time).
Laguna Blade, 
Finger of Death, Laser and the damage from 
Ethereal Blade (there are many more though, dont remember from the top of my head).
I have to make a section on this item just because it has so many uses.
As you have already seen, the blink ability can be used to disjoint spells, forward a bodyblock, escape, bait, hard initiation if you get it early and a burly ganking tool.
Mid heroes I consider Blink Dagger is a core pickup.
Brewmaster, Magnus, Templar Assassin, Axe, Bane, Kunkka (in some builds, personally I dont like blink first item Kunkka), Necrophos, Puck, Core 
Venomancer, Greedy Lina builds and some 
Windranger builds, position 4 Tusk, Tinker (rip in peperoni).
When you have practice and feel comfortable using a Blink Dagger often, consider it on any hero, even if your brain tells you need more damage items or survivability, get it if you need it.
It boosts your farming considerably aswell, if you are the jungling type.
BUT, THERE IS A BETTER OPTION!
If I had to pick between Blink Dagger and Force Staff, I would pick Force Staff every time, except on Tinker.
The Force Staff is the best item you can purchase at the 12 minute mark, no doubt. Its an amazing initiation, and its an amazing escape, if used properly. Actually practicing to use a Force Staff is a tad harder, but the best part of it is that it does not use cursor action, so its great for queueing spells and items; what does this mean, for example, you want to hook someone that is behind a creepwave, with a Blink Dagger you would put your cursor over behind the creeps, then aim your hook and use it, this method is sluggish even when using quickcast. With a Force Staff you already have aimed your hook, you walk towards the creepwave, the opposing mid thinks you are just last hitting or denying, instinctively, he turns around and contests the farm, with your cursor already aiming at them for 
Meat Hook, you double press Force Staff and that self casts it, jumping over the creepwave and terrain, even if they react in time, the turn rate of their hero prevents them of running to a side and evading the hook. And if they are close you dont even have to hook them, but go straight for the Dismember.
The Force Staff is also amazing for closing distances, most of the time cast distances. Imagine you are Tusk, and you are chasing down someone, but you are not in range for Ice Shards or Snowball. If you had a Blink Dagger, from the cursor moving and the cast animation you already lost the distance you covered with the blink; double tap the Force Staff, queue the Ice Shards and instantly after the Force Staff effect is over, cast Snowball, and instantly press Snowball again. This closes the distance and traps with Ice Shards, which, even better, cause path around, you just closed the distance. Force Staff is a solid situational pickup, on any hero.
As an escape, Force Staff is not put on any cooldown when hit or hurt. This makes it great for those early skirmishes where you get stunned if you have a Blink Dagger. For instance, you are under hits from two heroes and a tower, for some reason, and they have a Vengeful Spirit, you see the casting animation of 
Magic Missile, if you had a Blink Dagger you could disjoint it, but it is on cooldown, because you are getting hit, Force Staff yourself out of the tower range just as the Magic Missile is cast, this will make the spell follow you, as you when force staffed move faster than the projectile, when the force ends, you will get stunned, but in that 1.75 seconds that you are stunned, they arent hitting you, they are walking up to you, and when they get to you, the stun is already over, and you can continue running to try and perform your escape.
The Force Staff is able to be casted on enemies, ******** this is broken as ****, if you havent pushed a warding support up the cliff they are warding you havent done anything. Also, pushing people into your mines, or into a forming 
Kinetic Field, or better, a Black Hole, or a 
Chronosphere, or catch them looking towards your side of a teamfight and push them in tower range, your imagination is the limit.
Force Staff provides 10 intelligence which is over 100 mana pool, thats a free spell. Also a little hp regen, from 350 gold, good item to start building your force staff really early on. And as its bought in parts it doesnt hurt as much your economy as a Blink Dagger. Also, if you get killed while building it you dont lose a ton of unreliable gold, but just what was left over from the last part you bought.
Now, it does have some drawbacks. First, I dont consider 25 mana cost a drawback, but its there, then, the cooldown is 8 seconds longer, for balance, since is not cancelled when attack, and last drawback, and the most important one is that it destroys trees, again, this is done so the item isnt completely broken, but when forced, you break any trees you come in contact to, so you cannot do something like Blink into the trees and tp out, as you are left visible.
If you cannot decide, buy both. Who cares, I do buy both on 
Rubick, Magnus, Bane sometimes, of course 
Batrider, etc, its really efficient, unless you intend going 6 slotted.
Why the hell not, lets give out some more bad advice shall we?
Alright, these following concepts are about the stuff behind the show, stuff that has helped me in the past improve and get more confortable with concepts, especially practicing mid.
I hope its something helpful anyway.
Meat Hooks or 
Sun Strikes without practicing and feeling confortable with their playing.
So, I hope you find all this gibberish helpful, drawing the pictures was a paint in the butt, and it was nice to mid you. Damn this puns Im on fire.
Anyway, If you read the whole thing or at least what you needed, let me know, and if you read guides merely for sport, tell me what I forgot to add, because I feel its a lot for such a long guide. I will for sure add more stuff later on, but this is what I had in mind.
2014 remember Tinker rip in peperoni. And buy Force Staff.
Force Staff.
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