High-level Templar Assassin guide

Introduction

THIS IS NOT A VERY NOOB-FRIENDLY GUIDE, IF YOU ARE VERY NEW TO THE GAME I DO RECOMMEND READING THIS BUT IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND SOMETHING SEARCH IT UP AND LEARN IT, IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH TERMS USE:
https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Glossary https://liquipedia.net/dota2/Glossary

In the future it is extremely likely this guide will be outdated, but not to the point it is completely different, read it and understand the reason behind the majority of the build, then go to https://www.dotabuff.com/heroes/templar-assassin and check the current high MMR builds and adapt.

Templar Assassin, also known as Lanaya, is probably one of the best heros to carry a game and also one of the best heros to get to high MMR, often used by boosters or smurfs, this hero is played very poorly the vast majority of the time, even in decently high brackets, and I aim to change that with this guide, those who read this should get a great idea of Templar Assassin's potential and get better with her.

Templar Assassin is obviously a hero that is only played mid, being played mid with 89.28% of the time according to Dotabuff right now, with a 48.83% winrate on such lane (and 48.16% average), which is interesting because Templar Assassin has 45.93% winrate and 5.91% pickrate at Herald/Guardian/Crusader and 51.55% winrate and 10.89% pick rate at Divine/Immortal, showing that such hero with a decent team and players that know what they are doing has a lot of potential, and low winrate on lower brackets because the hero has to be played in a very specific way to be effective, with core mistakes of lower MMR players being capable of destroying this hero, this is a very hard hero to master that might require a lot of practice, mostly using Psi Blades but also Meld if you are a bad player.

General explanation of what the hero does and her skills

Templar Assassin does damage, that is all, she is not an utility hero that disables people, she is not a tanky hero that... tanks, she does damage, and she does that very well, it is not like you cannot itemize for specific scenarios, but your main focus is going to be killing creeps, heroes, towers and Roshan, but you can still be kind of an utility core in specific scenarios I will explain later, but how does Templar Assassin do damage? and why is she played mid?

Templar Assassin has an attack range of 140 (200 with Psi Blades at level 1, 56(53-59) damage and 65(62-68)+2 damage with the starting items you should get, 5 armor (6 with the right items), an agility gain of 3.2 (3 bonus damage every level), a base attack time of 1.7, collision size of 24, projectile speed of 900, a turn rate of 0.7 and 305 movespeed. The hero is not tanky, but has decent damage early on.

Refraction creates a shield around her that has 3/4/5/6(+4 with talent) charges that ignore an instance of damage of over the value of 5 after reductions), skills considered as HP removal do not count ( Ghostship rum buff delay, False Promise, Dispersion, Poison Sting, Static Field, Heartstopper Aura, Orb of Venom and Envenomed Weapon - the skill the reep Vhoul Assassin has).
Refraction also gives you 3/4/5/6(+4 with talent) instances of additional 24/50/75/100 damage per hit, Templar Assassin does not lose charges if attacking an allied unit, but also does not get the bonus damage, this skill has a cooldown of 17 seconds and also a duration of 17 seconds, this means it has a 100% upkeep if you do not lose the charges, it costs 100 mana which can be a problem for Templar Assassin since she does not have a lot of mana and might not build mana-regen items, a great tip is to use it before a fight and use it again during the fight to regain your charges, and always tread-switch it (I will explain this in the part where I explain why Power Treads is amazing on Templar Assassin, while in the lane bring multiple Clarity's to keep it up since you have the block which makes it hard for them to be cancelled.

Meld makes Templar Assassin invisible as long as she does not move gives 50/100/150/200 damage to her next attack, reduces 2/4/6/8(+3 with talent) armor, lasts for 12 seconds and also has a talent that gives her a 1s bash that pierces spell immunity, forced horizontal movement cancels Meld so Vacuum, Black Hole, Power Cogs, Fissure, Skewer, Spear of Mars, God's Rebuke, Arena of Blood, Rolling Thunder, Meat Hook, Snowball, Flamebreak, Gust, Deafening Blast, Sonic Wave, Charge of Darkness, Tornado(vertical movement does not cancel it, but the cyclone debuff does while Impale or Ravage do not) and Havoc Hammer are your enemies agaisnt this ability, also makes her phased - making so she does not collide with units, it is applied as a separate damage instance, meaning that if Razor steals all your damage with Static Link you are fine, but also means you cannot lifesteal or crit out of such additional damage, it does not work on buildings, multiple instances stack, making so you can double Meld someone for 2x the armor reduction, since the duration is 12 seconds, you can use it, wait for the cooldown, hit, Meld, hit, wait 6 seconds and Meld again and hit again, this makes so the target has 3 times the negative armor, if you have trouble hitting people right after using Blink Dagger, you can attack on the ground with the quick-attack option turned on, and it will hit the closest unit, I do not recommend doing this, if you hit a unit that is not in your attack range Templar Assassin walks up to them to hit them, this skill costs 50 mana and tread-switching or not is up to your personal preference, but I believe it is worth it since the agility bonus is very minimal, you can also disjoint projectiles with it since it makes you invisible, instead of using this skill when you first encounter an enemy, think if it is worth it, multiple heroes with stuns will use it at you and you might not get the kill, instead, blink in with your Blink Dagger, hit them, when you see the projectile coming/their cast animation, then use Meld, then hit them, this does not apply if you have the level 25 bash talent, you can also use Meld to juke people, if someone is running into you, try to get into the fog and then Meld, they might think you escaped or juked them, and that is true if they do not think about Meld, but think if the situation does not make it obvious that you are invisible.

Psi Blades makes so her attacks pierce the units, and whoever is 590/630/670/710 range away within 90 width from the attacked unit gets Templar Assassin's attack damage (after reductions) as Pure damage, this is very good versus heroes with high armor like Terrorblade or Morphling, also adds 60/120/180/240 attack range, attack modifiers are only applied to the main target (critical strike still does additional damage to units since it changes the attack damage when it hits, also even bashes or Meld increase it, since both work as attack damage), it is able to hit invisible units but unable to hit wards or buildings, also Psi Blades applies the spill effect when the projectile hits, so if Templar Assassin moves while the project is in the air, you can get some interesting things to happen, this gives you some great potential with Blink Dagger, you can also kill couriers with Psi Blades.
Image from the DOTA 2 gamepedia wiki of the area of Psi BladesAnother image that shows the width but with actual heroes in it:

Psionic Trap puts a trap at where you click at with a 0.3 cast animation,
it is considered as an unit with 100 health, 0.5 health regeneration and 400 vision range, which you can allow your allies to use by letting them control your allied units (in the game score screen), they also give 25 gold when destroyed, after two seconds the trap goes inivisible, the cast range is 2000 and there is a limit of 5/8/11 traps, the slow builds up as 30% at 0 seconds, 37.5% at 1 second, 45% at 2, 52.5% at 3 and 60% at 4, at 4 the trap is fully charged and does 50/60/70(+32 with talent) for a period of 5 seconds, this makes so the traps do 250/300/350(+160 with talent), and the area around the trap that is affected is 400, traps do not block neutral creep camps, you can stack such camps if you detonate a trap at x:52, but you have to be within 1800 range of such creeps or it will not work, there is an instance of damage every second, if you place another trap and detonate it, the slow is refreshed but the debuff is replaced with the new debuff, making so it stops doing damage and slows for less.
Do not use Trap to detonate, instead select every single individual trap you want to detonate, Trap has a cooldown of 0.5 and picks the one that is the closest to you, making so you cannot stack multiple camps and also making so you can detonate the wrong traps, the best places to put the traps are over your high ground, over the enemy high ground, at runes, over the top of stairs, jungle camps (so you know if someone is farming them/so you can stack them/so you can farm them), you can kill a creep wave with two traps, since creeps gain health as the game goes on, you will basically never be able to one-shot a wave, this skill costs 15 manaa and has a cooldown of 11/8/5.

Aghanim's Scepter gives Templar Assassin a new skill, called Psionic Projection, which teleports her to the closest trap to the where you active such skill at, with a cast animation of 0.2, detonates such trap and also allows Templar Assassin to be under the effect of Meld, this skill has a 15 second cooldown and a channel time of 1 second.

Skill build and Talents

The skill build goes as follows:
Psi Blades, Refraction, Refraction, Psi Blades, Refraction, Psionic Trap, Refraction, Meld, Meld, TALENT, Meld, Psionic Trap, Meld, Psi Blades, Psi Blades, TALENT, NOTHING, Psionic Trap
In specific lanes you can get a point at Meld at level 4, to dodge some abilities, I will mention this again in the lineup parts, you can also skip the talents and get more points in Meld earlier, which can be great but it is up to personal preference.

The talents should go as the following:
+15 attack speed, DEPENDS! -3 Meld armor reduction, 1s Meld hit bash

But at times Meld Dispels is amazing, if you really have to dispel something, pick it, also at times if you are playing versus like Techies the +4 Refraction Instances can be useful, but the bash is pretty much a casual Abyssal Blade you get when you hit level 25.
The 15 movement speed can be useful but if you have to run after people to kill them things are not going well! you can also easily use Blink Dagger in a more aggressive way that is closer to where the enemy probably is going to move to, that generally being his side of the map, but in some situations it can be useful if everybody is really fast on the enemy team, but keep in mind attack speed also greatly helps since you get to hit more when you are within attack range, it is also a good situation to get attack range items.
The level 15 talent is very useless, lately I've been getting more points in Psi Blades because evasion should not be very important since Templar Assassin is not really supposed to be tanking hits and at most trading, and the Psionic Trap damage one does not allow you to one-shot a creep wave and it also is not very useful because it is rare for you to be able to detonate a trap after 4 seconds later in the game, earlier on it is much more useful, and you might get to use it if you hit level 15 earlier, in a general way, only pick the evasion one if the enemy team is going to hit you a lot and they have a decent amont of damage coming from it.
Another possibility is not leveling the level 10 talent and instead leveling Meld and I've been seeing that as more effective if you are stomping a game and getting multiple kills, but the attack speed is better for farming, the additional points in Meld also greatly help with Roshan earlier, and in specific games you can also skill Meld and not pick Psionic Traps at level 12, if it is a more passive game that might get aggressive soon, with heroes of your team or the enemy one hitting their core timings (the enemy case you can still level Psionic Traps and position them in a defensive way.
There is also a weird pattern where some high MMR players skill Psi Blades at level 9 instead of getting additional points in Meld, I believe it is mostly to get one additional hit off when going for kills but this is a more aggressive style, I do not recommend.

Items

You start with two Slippers of Agility, a Circlet, one Faerie Fire, an Iron Branch and two Tango (Shared), and you either get one Observer Ward to put in a good mid position (up to your preference) or you tell your support to put one there, but you should put it there since your support is going to be better when contesting the rune, I explain this better under the Early Game chapter.
If you are versus a lane that might kill you, consider getting two Circlets and one Slippers of Agility, it is going to give you slighty more HP.
Remember you can use your Tango (Shared) on the Iron Branch to double it's regeneration effect.
After that, if the enemy midlaner has any damage potential, get yourself a Healing Salve to heal so you do not have to leave the lane, an keep a constant income of Claritys, Bottle is terrible, it is 650 gold for a item that gives you some mana and health, but you only need the health early on and even then you barely need it considering you have Refraction, and 650 gold means you get to buy 13 Claritys, ****ing 13, that is a lot of mana, with the gold you did not waste on a Bottle, you are getting one or two Wraith Bands, the reasoning for such item is that you need some extra HP and stats early on to stay on the lane, typical of every agility core basically, get two if the enemy has kill potential but if the enemy has basically already won their lane only get one and sell the other Slippers of Agility when you are having slot problems.
It is very good to also get one Blight Stone when getting the Wraith Band Recipe since it greatly boosts your damage on enemy heroes, creeps and of course Psi Blades spill damage, if you ever need more HP regeneration get more Healing Salves, 110 gold is worth the experience you are getting by staying in the lane (at times, will explain this better at the mid lineups part of this guide).
After that, work towards your Power Treads (the reason you go for it is that you can change it to intelligence before activating Refraction and thus keeping a lot of mana, this is called tread switching), get Boots of Speed to you before since there are individual couriers now, and get boots earlier in some lineups (also going to be in such specific part of the guide), you should have Power Treads with all of your other items from 5 to 9 minutes.
After that, get your Desolator, your core damage item, the armor reduction + the Meld armor reduction and the bonus damage from Refraction is amazing, at times you can consider getting Blink Dagger first but that is up to your personal prefernece and playstyle, I always go Desolator first, since it not only allows you to farm much faster but also do a lot of damage to not only heroes but also towers, and it also allows you to kill Roshan (and get the Aegis of the Immortal), you should have Desolator by 9 to 15 minutes (almost always 10-14), also get another Blight Stone to get an additional -2 armor since Desolator and Blight Stone stack.
Then Blink Dagger which allows you to initiate or escape, since you do not get damage while under Refraction, this item is amazing, it also allows you to chase people together with Psionic Trap and get into great positions for you to use Psi Blades for maximum damage since the spill considers the position Templar Assassin is at when the projectile hits.

After this there is a lot of variation for this build, but the vast majority of the time, if not always, you should go Black King Bar, Templar Assassin is squishy, and Refraction can be destroyed with some skills, but the biggest problem is that she cannot be disabled, if she is then she is pretty much dead, and you do not want that to happen, and that is what Black King Bar is for, but at times there are skills that pierce it, so you might consider a more only damage focused build, or with more utility items that allows you to kill whoever disables you, or a status resistance ala Arteezy playing Terrorblade in 7.26.

So now I'm going to talk about the other items, when you should get then and why:
Daedalus is the typical damage-extension item, if you believe you need more damage, or if you don't really have any other item to build, get it, the critical strike ability is amazing and can even allow you to one-shot people, the extra damage is also amazing.
Bloodthorn used to be better since it had Crystalys in it, but now you get attack speed, making it a buff for heroes like Outworld Devourer but worse for Templar Assassin, but the silence is still very useful, if you need to silence someone for some reason, just get this, but there are other options, keep in mind that at level 25 you get the bash talent, the mana regen from this item is also pretty amazing.
Nullifier was amazing, together with Bloodthorn you would completely shut down a hero, but now it has changed, but this item still is amazing since it gives 80 damage which is a lot and the active is also great since it dispels Ghost Scepter which is a common item for supports or even midlaners to get when playing agaisnt Templar Assassin.
Monkey King Bar is a possible choice if you are playing agaisnt evasion, the problem is that it only pierces evasion only 75% of the time and the proc damage is magical, but the proc damage still does pierce Black King Bar making it not so bad, can be useful when versus enemies with low HP and high armor like Terrorblade or Morphling but you can also get...
Divine Rapier since it now gives true-strike, and it gives you a massive amount of damage, if you have a few items this item can be amazing to finish games you are having problems winning but no problems staying alive.
Butterfly is good if you are having problems with being hit by people, if you need some pure DPS (since it gives attack damage and attack speed), and it also gives armor.
Hurricane Pike is a good option if you want to hit people from far away and if you need the active to get away from people, it can at times even take Blink Dagger's place if you know what you are doing, I prefer getting it in games that I am losing because of the attack range being good at defending high-ground and allows me to stay back and hit people like a more typical carry.
Scythe of Vyse might look weird at first but it makes a lot of sense, it gives you a bit of mana regen which is nice, some stats which are always welcome, and the active is perfect, you get 3.5 seconds to kill someone, you should be able to, with the bash talent, you get 4.5 seconds, which is almost enough time for you to bash them again, get this if you have to shut someone down to kill them.
Satanic can be useful in games where Black King Bar is bad and you also have to trade hits with people, the status resistance is also amazing agaisnt disable that pierce Black King Bar, like Reverse Polarity, Abyssal Blade or Primal Roar, but you can also get...
Linken's Sphere when playing agaisnt skills that are point-click single-target, the mana regen is also nice and the stats are always welcome, also great versus Duel or even Heaven's Halberd which is typically built when playing agaisnt Templar Assassin, but people can just use some random ability to break it, making it less effective versus higher MMR players.
Manta Style used to be picked up more often before the Meld dispels talent, it still can be picked at times if you need to for some reason split push or have other units or maybe agility, it is rare and very situational and up to ones own preference, if you are good with it you can of course manta-dodge abilities like Reverse Polarity which is by the way, not as hard as people think, Reverse Polarity has a cast point of 0.3s while the average human reaction time is around 2.5 seconds, it is definely possible considering the invulnerability period is 0.1 seconds, Berserker's Call is 0.4 seconds, Slithereen Crush is 0.35 seconds and Hoof Stomp is 0.5 seconds, the movespeed from Yasha is also nice but if you need it...
Boots of Travel is always an option, there are also neutral items that I believe do this function much better, this item does give a lot of mobility in general since you can split push with the teleport ability, if you want movespeed you can also get...
Sange and Yasha which is not a great item, if you went for Satanic you could consider getting this, but the majority of the time just buy this when you are near their fountain or just grab another Desolator or whatever, the status resistance and the stats are great but not what Templar Assassin truly needs.
Diffusal Blade also used to be picked up more often, but with the bash talent it also became less common, it used to give more agility too making it worth it even on heroes like Anti-Mage which is bizarre, but the mana burn is physical damage so it is not all bad for Templar Assassin, can to an extent be used together with Manta Style, the active + the slow from Psionic Trap was absurd but you can also just get Nullifier for the slow.
Mjollnir is only viable if you are playing agaisnt an illusion hero like Phantom Lancer or Naga Siren and you need to clean the illusions, such heros **** with Templar Assassin and I will explain more about why in the lineups part of the guide, back then when Psi Blades did not affect illusions for some reason, this item was much more important, now it is not as much, still viable at rare times.
Assault Cuirass is pretty weird, the attack speed is welcome but Templar Assassin should not be the one getting hit by people, that is what the vast majority of offlaners or hard carrys exist for in some games, but the armor reduction is nice, not a common item but in some situations I can see it being viable.
Eye of Skadi gives you slow on your attacks which combined with your Psionic Traps is amazing, but then the same thing I said about Diffusal Blade and Nullifier also applies here, you might want to cut someones regeneration with this item instead, which is much more valid and the stats are also great but not so good since it mostly makes you tanky and you do not need that, good versus heros like Huskar or Alchemist that heal a lot.
Silver Edge works in a similar way, it is situational and to disable passives, the invisibility can be very good and together with Meld it can be very interesting to use, and the damage is not bad, the stats are always welcome but you only get this if you need to disable some passives, Huskar, Mars, Timbersaw, Bristleback, etc.
Abyssal Blade is an item I've seen purchased twice, but one time it was by CCnc/Quinn, I've never used it but it can be a magic-immunity piercing option to get instead of Scythe of Vyse, it does give less stats, including damage, but it does give you a chance to bash, which is small, I am adding this here because I do see myself getting this in very specific games.

Late game you should get the typical stuff, Moon Shard to give you more attack speed because it is welcome, Aghanim's Blessing so you can teleport to Psionic Traps, both defensive and aggressive, Boos of Travel 2 for the same reason but your own team heros (and it also lowers the cooldown of Town Portal Scroll, and if you ever feel like needing more damage, Divine Rapier is there for a reason.

Some of the items mentioned might look bizarre, to make sure I am not being completely biased over my own opinion, I looked daily at the guides part of dotabuff for Templar Assassin to check if high MMR players build such items, and they do, within the circunstances I mentioned you should consider such items valid.

Skill build and Talents

The skill build goes as follows:
Psi Blades, Refraction, Refraction, Psi Blades, Refraction, Psionic Trap, Refraction, Meld, Meld, TALENT, Meld, Psionic Trap, Meld, Psi Blades, Psi Blades, TALENT, NOTHING, Psionic Trap
In specific lanes you can get a point at Meld at level 4, to dodge some abilities, I will mention this again in the lineup parts, you can also skip the talents and get more points in Meld earlier, which can be great but it is up to personal preference.

The talents should go as the following:
+15 attack speed, DEPENDS! -3 Meld armor reduction, 1s Meld hit bash

But at times Meld Dispels is amazing, if you really have to dispel something, pick it, also at times if you are playing versus like Techies the +4 Refraction Instances can be useful, but the bash is pretty much a casual Abyssal Blade you get when you hit level 25.
The 15 movement speed can be useful but if you have to run after people to kill them things are not going well! you can also easily use Blink Dagger in a more aggressive way that is closer to where the enemy probably is going to move to, that generally being his side of the map, but in some situations it can be useful if everybody is really fast on the enemy team, but keep in mind attack speed also greatly helps since you get to hit more when you are within attack range, it is also a good situation to get attack range items.
The level 15 talent is very useless, lately I've been getting more points in Psi Blades because evasion should not be very important since Templar Assassin is not really supposed to be tanking hits and at most trading, and the Psionic Trap damage one does not allow you to one-shot a creep wave and it also is not very useful because it is rare for you to be able to detonate a trap after 4 seconds later in the game, earlier on it is much more useful, and you might get to use it if you hit level 15 earlier, in a general way, only pick the evasion one if the enemy team is going to hit you a lot and they have a decent amont of damage coming from it.
Another possibility is not leveling the level 10 talent and instead leveling Meld and I've been seeing that as more effective if you are stomping a game and getting multiple kills, but the attack speed is better for farming, the additional points in Meld also greatly help with Roshan earlier, and in specific games you can also skill Meld and not pick Psionic Traps at level 12, if it is a more passive game that might get aggressive soon, with heroes of your team or the enemy one hitting their core timings (the enemy case you can still level Psionic Traps and position them in a defensive way.
There is also a weird pattern where some high MMR players skill Psi Blades at level 9 instead of getting additional points in Meld, I believe it is mostly to get one additional hit off when going for kills but this is a more aggressive style, I do not recommend.

Items

You start with two Slippers of Agility, a Circlet, one Faerie Fire, an Iron Branch and two Tango (Shared), and you either get one Observer Ward to put in a good mid position (up to your preference) or you tell your support to put one there, but you should put it there since your support is going to be better when contesting the rune, I explain this better under the Early Game chapter.
If you are versus a lane that might kill you, consider getting two Circlets and one Slippers of Agility, it is going to give you slighty more HP.
Remember you can use your Tango (Shared) on the Iron Branch to double it's regeneration effect.
After that, if the enemy midlaner has any damage potential, get yourself a Healing Salve to heal so you do not have to leave the lane, an keep a constant income of Claritys, Bottle is terrible, it is 650 gold for a item that gives you some mana and health, but you only need the health early on and even then you barely need it considering you have Refraction, and 650 gold means you get to buy 13 Claritys, ****ing 13, that is a lot of mana, with the gold you did not waste on a Bottle, you are getting one or two Wraith Bands, the reasoning for such item is that you need some extra HP and stats early on to stay on the lane, typical of every agility core basically, get two if the enemy has kill potential but if the enemy has basically already won their lane only get one and sell the other Slippers of Agility when you are having slot problems.
It is very good to also get one Blight Stone when getting the Wraith Band Recipe since it greatly boosts your damage on enemy heroes, creeps and of course Psi Blades spill damage, if you ever need more HP regeneration get more Healing Salves, 110 gold is worth the experience you are getting by staying in the lane (at times, will explain this better at the mid lineups part of this guide).
After that, work towards your Power Treads (the reason you go for it is that you can change it to intelligence before activating Refraction and thus keeping a lot of mana, this is called tread switching), get Boots of Speed to you before since there are individual couriers now, and get boots earlier in some lineups (also going to be in such specific part of the guide), you should have Power Treads with all of your other items from 5 to 9 minutes.
After that, get your Desolator, your core damage item, the armor reduction + the Meld armor reduction and the bonus damage from Refraction is amazing, at times you can consider getting Blink Dagger first but that is up to your personal prefernece and playstyle, I always go Desolator first, since it not only allows you to farm much faster but also do a lot of damage to not only heroes but also towers, and it also allows you to kill Roshan (and get the Aegis of the Immortal), you should have Desolator by 9 to 15 minutes (almost always 10-14), also get another Blight Stone to get an additional -2 armor since Desolator and Blight Stone stack.
Then Blink Dagger which allows you to initiate or escape, since you do not get damage while under Refraction, this item is amazing, it also allows you to chase people together with Psionic Trap and get into great positions for you to use Psi Blades for maximum damage since the spill considers the position Templar Assassin is at when the projectile hits.

After this there is a lot of variation for this build, but the vast majority of the time, if not always, you should go Black King Bar, Templar Assassin is squishy, and Refraction can be destroyed with some skills, but the biggest problem is that she cannot be disabled, if she is then she is pretty much dead, and you do not want that to happen, and that is what Black King Bar is for, but at times there are skills that pierce it, so you might consider a more only damage focused build, or with more utility items that allows you to kill whoever disables you, or a status resistance ala Arteezy playing Terrorblade in 7.26.

So now I'm going to talk about the other items, when you should get then and why:
Daedalus is the typical damage-extension item, if you believe you need more damage, or if you don't really have any other item to build, get it, the critical strike ability is amazing and can even allow you to one-shot people, the extra damage is also amazing.
Bloodthorn used to be better since it had Crystalys in it, but now you get attack speed, making it a buff for heroes like Outworld Devourer but worse for Templar Assassin, but the silence is still very useful, if you need to silence someone for some reason, just get this, but there are other options, keep in mind that at level 25 you get the bash talent, the mana regen from this item is also pretty amazing.
Nullifier was amazing, together with Bloodthorn you would completely shut down a hero, but now it has changed, but this item still is amazing since it gives 80 damage which is a lot and the active is also great since it dispels Ghost Scepter which is a common item for supports or even midlaners to get when playing agaisnt Templar Assassin.
Monkey King Bar is a possible choice if you are playing agaisnt evasion, the problem is that it only pierces evasion only 75% of the time and the proc damage is magical, but the proc damage still does pierce Black King Bar making it not so bad, can be useful when versus enemies with low HP and high armor like Terrorblade or Morphling but you can also get...
Divine Rapier since it now gives true-strike, and it gives you a massive amount of damage, if you have a few items this item can be amazing to finish games you are having problems winning but no problems staying alive.
Butterfly is good if you are having problems with being hit by people, if you need some pure DPS (since it gives attack damage and attack speed), and it also gives armor.
Hurricane Pike is a good option if you want to hit people from far away and if you need the active to get away from people, it can at times even take Blink Dagger's place if you know what you are doing, I prefer getting it in games that I am losing because of the attack range being good at defending high-ground and allows me to stay back and hit people like a more typical carry.
Scythe of Vyse might look weird at first but it makes a lot of sense, it gives you a bit of mana regen which is nice, some stats which are always welcome, and the active is perfect, you get 3.5 seconds to kill someone, you should be able to, with the bash talent, you get 4.5 seconds, which is almost enough time for you to bash them again, get this if you have to shut someone down to kill them.
Satanic can be useful in games where Black King Bar is bad and you also have to trade hits with people, the status resistance is also amazing agaisnt disable that pierce Black King Bar, like Reverse Polarity, Abyssal Blade or Primal Roar, but you can also get...
Linken's Sphere when playing agaisnt skills that are point-click single-target, the mana regen is also nice and the stats are always welcome, also great versus Duel or even Heaven's Halberd which is typically built when playing agaisnt Templar Assassin, but people can just use some random ability to break it, making it less effective versus higher MMR players.
Manta Style used to be picked up more often before the Meld dispels talent, it still can be picked at times if you need to for some reason split push or have other units or maybe agility, it is rare and very situational and up to ones own preference, if you are good with it you can of course manta-dodge abilities like Reverse Polarity which is by the way, not as hard as people think, Reverse Polarity has a cast point of 0.3s while the average human reaction time is around 2.5 seconds, it is definely possible considering the invulnerability period is 0.1 seconds, Berserker's Call is 0.4 seconds, Slithereen Crush is 0.35 seconds and Hoof Stomp is 0.5 seconds, the movespeed from Yasha is also nice but if you need it...
Boots of Travel is always an option, there are also neutral items that I believe do this function much better, this item does give a lot of mobility in general since you can split push with the teleport ability, if you want movespeed you can also get...
Sange and Yasha which is not a great item, if you went for Satanic you could consider getting this, but the majority of the time just buy this when you are near their fountain or just grab another Desolator or whatever, the status resistance and the stats are great but not what Templar Assassin truly needs.
Diffusal Blade also used to be picked up more often, but with the bash talent it also became less common, it used to give more agility too making it worth it even on heroes like Anti-Mage which is bizarre, but the mana burn is physical damage so it is not all bad for Templar Assassin, can to an extent be used together with Manta Style, the active + the slow from Psionic Trap was absurd but you can also just get Nullifier for the slow.
Mjollnir is only viable if you are playing agaisnt an illusion hero like Phantom Lancer or Naga Siren and you need to clean the illusions, such heros **** with Templar Assassin and I will explain more about why in the lineups part of the guide, back then when Psi Blades did not affect illusions for some reason, this item was much more important, now it is not as much, still viable at rare times.
Assault Cuirass is pretty weird, the attack speed is welcome but Templar Assassin should not be the one getting hit by people, that is what the vast majority of offlaners or hard carrys exist for in some games, but the armor reduction is nice, not a common item but in some situations I can see it being viable.
Eye of Skadi gives you slow on your attacks which combined with your Psionic Traps is amazing, but then the same thing I said about Diffusal Blade and Nullifier also applies here, you might want to cut someones regeneration with this item instead, which is much more valid and the stats are also great but not so good since it mostly makes you tanky and you do not need that, good versus heros like Huskar that heal a lot.
Silver Edge works in a similar way, it is situational and to disable passives, the invisibility can be very good and together with Meld it can be very interesting to use, and the damage is not bad, the stats are always welcome but you only get this if you need to disable some passives, Huskar, Dragon Knight, Timbersaw, Bristleback, etc.

Late game you should get the typical stuff, Moon Shard to give you more attack speed because it is welcome, Aghanim's Blessing so you can teleport to Psionic Traps, both defensive and aggressive, Boos of Travel 2 for the same reason but your own team heros (and it also lowers the cooldown of Town Portal Scroll, and if you ever feel like needing more damage, Divine Rapier is there for a reason.

Some of the items mentioned might look bizarre, to make sure I am not being completely biased over my own opinion, I looked daily at the guides part of dotabuff for Templar Assassin to check if high MMR players build such items, and they do, within the circunstances I mentioned you should consider such items valid.

Neutral Items

The order in which I put the build is the order of priority, from left to right, of what items you should get if possible, and now I shall explain why:

TIER 1:
Royal Jelly solves all of your HP regeneration problems if you have to tank a few creeps to farm, and mostly, greatly helps with your mana so you can keep Refraction up as I will explain in the laning part of this guide, Mango Tree also fits that, gives you some nice passive regen from Enchanted Mangos but also the active which is just amazing for mana, and it is also why you get Arcane Ring if it is possible, it just makes so you do not have to spend as much gold on Claritys as you would without such items, Keen Optic also is great since it gives the same mana regen as Ring of Aquila which was core for Templar Assassin back then, if you do not get mana items, Iron Talon greatly improves your farming speed, mostly when farming ancients or big creeps, and the attack speed also is welcome (if you get this you can consider not getting the level 10 talent at level 10), Ironwood Tree and Ocean Heart just give some stats which are pretty much the same as getting a second Wraith Band and that is always welcome, Broom Handle gives you some damage and if you get it and there is no better hero for it, just use it, and Poor Man's Shield also fits that, its 7 agility, is it great on you? no, but if there is no better fit for you and if nobody on your team wants it, use it.

TIER 2:
Imp Claw is amazing, the critical strike really helps at farming and also at killing people, the additional damage is also pretty great, this is better if you are fighting more in a game, as you probably should be, but if you are farming more then Ring of Aquila might be better, since it gives some nice stats similar to a Wraith Band but with the mana regen, which is great and you should get, but then in a game that you are fighting another hero might be able to give you mana with Arcane Boots or another hero might just hold this item to give you mana since it is an aura, if you do not get them Vambrace gives you some nice stats which are welcome, Grove Bow is a better item in games you are losing and have to stay far back, this plus Dragon Lance/ Hurricane Pike and maybe a Telescope on your team allows you to defend high-ground easily, Philosopher's Stone might look bizarre and it actually is, you would not constantly use it, instead you would keep it in your backpack or neutral stash, so when you die you equip it to get the +70 gold per minute while dead, but that if nobody is using it.

TIER 3:
Orb of Destruction lowers peoples armor, Meld also does that, and Desolator also does that, why not? that is 5+12+6=23, 35 if you double Meld, that is like, getting into one-shotting Morphling when full on agility if you have a Daedalus, Mind Breaker is great since it is kind of like a pocket Orchid Malevolence/ Bloodthorn, giving a little bit of attack speed and the ability to silence those you hit, which is great and might allow you to kill supports easily, Spider Legs kind of gives you a slot for a bigger item since you can sell your Power Treads while keeping high movespeed if needed, but even then you can still get a better neutral item, Greater Faerie Fire gives 35 damage which is great, but the active is not amazing on Templar Assassin, Enchanted Quiver is good for defending high-ground since it gives attack range but also finishing those who are low on a fight and also at times even one-shotting supports or some specific heros, Telescope is kind of like Grove Bow but it gives slighty more range and makes Scan more usable, since Templar Assassin only has magical damage from Psionic Traps the bonus magical damage from Grove Bow is not very useful, if you have no support or aura offlaner to hold the Telescope, you can use it.

TIER 4: The Leveller is first because there is a very important thing people have to know about Templar Assassin, she is not a late-game hero, she wins kind of early, not as early as Broodmother or Meepo but early, and you have to finish a game at around 40 minutes most before you get weaker and weaker, the attack speed is obviously nice but the bonus structure damage is very good, Ninja Gear gives some agility which is nice but the active is very good for you to pick off supports during and also not during teamfights, the movespeed is also great for you to not have boots, Prince's Knife is amazing, but it can be better at other heroes a lot of the time, heroes with bad projectile speeds or heros with no disables, and by 40 minutes you are going to have the level 25 Meld bash talent, but using this, then Meld gives you around 3 seconds to kill the hero, which should be enought, Flicker can be good if there is nothing better, the movespeed can allow you to not have boots and the active can save you at times, but most of the time I'd rather keep a tier 3 item instead, but if you also did not get good tier 3 items this might be your best shot.

TIER 5: Desolator 2 is obviously great, since you love Desolator, 10+12+6=28, with double Meld that is 40, even at 60 minutes you are going to do a lot of damage, you can also even take away the Desolator and get a better item for the game time, the 75 damage is also obviously nice, it is pretty much a better Desolator for the 7th slot, Ballista is amazing for high-ground defense and if you are playing Templar Assassin 60 minutes into a game you are extremely likely to be the one defending it or defending mega-creeps, the pure damage is good but it does not go well with your hero's skill set, Fallen Sky can be used together or replace your Blink Dagger, giving you another slot or a lot of mobility, you can use it to escape or initiate, depends on the situation, in general it is nice, Woodland Striders gives you a lot of movespeed and if you have no better item, it is great, the regeneration is pretty bad, Mirror Shield is kind of like Linken's Sphere but worse since it does not work versus Duel or Sunder, but in some games it can be very good, Pirate Hat gives you attack speed, at this point not only you are going to have 10 Refraction attacks but the attacks will not be so important for your damage, since you probably did not build a lot of attack speed items or agility items, this can be great, Force Boots gives you the force ability which can be good but then, the other items are better and the movespeed is welcome but you might not even need it and Woodland Striders is just better at it.

Midlane matchups

In this part I will talk about difficulty in lane matchups, and how to deal with them, I will consider the most common midlaners and also ones I got to play agaisnt in my matches that I believe are worth mentioning, I will order this using dotabuff's mid presence as the criteria for ordering, I will remove supports that are there because they roam or whatever and some very rare cases like some hard-carrys mid but the ones that might be considered a counter to you I will still comment on.

Tinker is fairly easy, as much as Laser is annoying, he cannot spam it on you for damage, and he cannot really harass you out of lane easily because of Refraction, he does not attack fast and he has a fairly high attack damage for early into the game, your kill potential alone is low in this lane (unless Tinker positions poorly), I would focus on stacking camps and farming them, and Tinker is also going to focus doing that, you can put Psionic Traps on the camps he might be stacking and steal them or even kill him since Tinker might get very low on HP because of Soul Ring and I've seen cases where just activating the trap killed him, items you really should consider are Black King Bar of course, Bloodthorn and Scythe of Vyse so you can catch him, and of course Blink Dagger should be obvious, the hero is squishy, if he goes Ghost Scepter or Ethereal Blade get Nullifier, but only use it when you are close to him because the projectile is very slow, Monkey King Bar is also good versus Laser, in a general way a balanced matchup, later into the game beware the Scythe of Vyse of his and consider getting Linken's Sphere or Mirror Shield, and beware March of the Machines since it destroys your Refraction, if he goes for the aggressive build where you max Laser and Heat-Seeking Missile just use Refraction or Meld for Heat-Seeking Missile, it is extremely unlikely that he is going to kill you with such build.

Shadow Fiend depends, but mostly later into the game, into the lane, you can consider even skilling Refraction at level 1 to deal with Shadowraze, in a general way you should be able to delay his souls and actually you can solo kill him fairly easily, put Psionic Traps at the jungle camps he might farm and keep pressuring him, even if you do not kill him you are forcing support rotations and as long as you do not feed you are winning your other lanes, if he goes physical damage you will still do a lot of damage to him but not as much as you did early game so keep that in mind, and he might be able to manfight you, if he goes magical damage, the Eul's Scepter of Divinity and Requiem of Souls combo will one-shot you even with Refraction since he can easily triple Shadowraze you after it, so consider Black King Bar and if he goes Scythe of Vyse Linken's Sphere and Mirror Shield are amazing because he probably does not have many active items and has zero skills naturally, in a general way this lane is very favorable for Templar Assassin but do not get overly cocky as if you lose your Refraction charges during the lane he can easily kill you, so beware the tower and creeps hitting you, and he can also quickly steal your stacks.

Storm Spirit is fairly balanced, he does have some kill potential since Overload counts as two damage instances, and Static Remnant also removes one charge, if he pulls you into the creepwave with Electric Vortex he might even be able to get a kill on you, he also is not that squishy on the lane, but you should be able to harass him a lot with Psi Blades, and he also farms fast, your kill potential is low because of Ball Lightining since you rely on slowing people to kill them, but you probably can farm faster than Storm Spirit since he needs mana to farm and you do not, if you get disables like Bloodthorn or Scythe of Vyse he should be an easy kill later on, but keep in mind it is common for him to build Shiva's Guard which is great versus you, and of course, Black King Bar as always should be considered, Storm Spirit also often builds Eul's Scepter of Divinity so consider getting Scythe of Vyse instead of Bloodthorn unless you have good followup if you get to stun him, if you get Prince's Knife you can use it with the Meld bash talent to kill him too, do not dive him since Electric Vortex is amazing at turning dives agaisnt you, both sides have little kill potential but I would say Storm Spirit has a slight edge in this lane.

Invoker depends, if he goes Exort and Quas, you can kill him fairly easily, and he even gives you more gold with Forge Spirits, but then, he has two damage instances, Cold Snap also counts as an additional one, and Chaos Meteor burns Refraction, but Invoker early on is very squishy, slow, and barely has any mana, get Dust of Appearance to counter Ghost Walk to get some kills on him, when you get your Desolator he is going to be very squishy, you farm much faster than him so even if you do not kill him you are still going to be stronger than him, Quas Wex is more complicated since he burns your mana, but every time you see Tornado going at you, use Refraction before, to at least not take the damage, consider getting Enchanted Mangoes on this lane, always check his invoked spells and mana, Deafening Blast really ****s you up as well as Ice Wall if you are diving him but he barely has any mana early on, and you can solo kill him as a whole and heavily harass him, Quas gives a lot of regen but you can really destroy him early on, making him spend a lot of gold on Healing Salves, just remember that he might be able to kill you, this lane is without a doubt in the side of Templar Assassin, but get disables for him later on like Bloodthorn or Scythe of Vyse but consider that you might be able to kill him with the Meld talent with high damage items like Daedalus, also get Black King Bar to make him useless, but he can kite it quite easily, during the lane phase constantly look at the skills he has Invoked, the levels he has in each orb and when he uses Invoke, the cooldown is basically 6.7-4.6 seconds early on, keep that in mind.

Outworld Devourer is also fairly easy, he has basically no kill potential on you because he hits hard few times, during the lane until around level 8 or 9 his only kill potential is harass with Astral Imprisonment and rick clicks and then use Sanity's Eclipse if he has a big mana difference, and he does have, but you can just ignore all of that with Refraction, killing him is hard because of Astral Imprisonment but if he uses it to farm just pop your trap and keep it's cooldown on your mind, 24/20/16/12, and Astral Imprisonment lasts for 4 seconds, you have 16/12 (12/8 considering the time you are disabled if he uses it on you) seconds to kill him, later on he does a lot of damage on you but Refraction ignores it, but keep in mind Arcane Orb and his attack are two damage instances, so 3 hits and your Refraction charges are gone, but he attacks slow early on, you can actually bait him if you use Refraction, wait for it to almost end, he goes on you, and you can even kill him, consider getting Bloodthorn and Scythe of Vyse since he is very good at escaping, if he uses Astral Imprisonment on himself and has Blink Dagger put Psionic Traps at where he might blink to so you can keep up, and also of course, get Black King Bar for him to be useless versus you during it's duration, keep in mind that if he gets Scythe of Vyse he can solo kill you, Mirror Shield and Linken's Sphere can be good since Astral Imprisonment has a cast animation of 0.25 which gives you time to react and Blink Dagger your way out, but he also often gets Hurricane Pike which is instant so later on it might be harder, but then you can easily destroy him since you outfarm him a lot, the kill potential from both sides is low but Templar Assassin of course gets the edge, Outworld Devourer has very little health regeneration so you can win your lane by simply harassing him with Psi Blades and if he wants to keep up he is going to have to spend his gold on Healing Salves, that plus you farming faster means you basically won the lane.

Queen of Pain is a pretty balanced lane, both sides have kill potential, if Queen of Pain goes for a more defensive skillbuild with Blink early she will have less damage so you are more fine, the most important tip here is that you can dodge Shadow Strike with Meld if there is no truesight in the area, so leveling it up earlier is a good move, you can easily outfarm Queen of Pain but you really cannot defend your team from her ganks, focus on getting runes or at least getting information on it so your team does not get ganked a lot, later on get disable items, and of course Black King Bar, another tip is to put a trap betwen the enemy tier 1 and 2 in case she Blinks with low health so you can detonate the trap and kill her, or just continue the dive, she should not kill you easily since Scream of Pain and Sonic Wave are one instance of damage for Refraction each and she is pretty squishy too, focus on outfarming her and only go for kills with supports that might help you or if you do get a lot of harass with Psi Blades, another tip is to not use Blink Dagger in such an agressive way, as a defensive item it can be great versus her because if she Blinks she can die easily and if she Blinks when she sees you you can use Blink Dagger and follow her with Psionic Traps.

Death Prophet is pretty complicated actually, you can harass her on lane and mostly on early levels and she cannot really harass you easily like he normally does with most heroes, using Crypt Swarm, but instead she can use Spirit Siphon and for a more aggressive play that kills you/gets your tower/both she can use Exorcism, both skills destroy your Refraction charges and deal a ton of damage, and since she is healing you might not have the damage to kill her, the general objective here is to abuse Psionic Traps to kill waves early and damage her, using Psi Blades for harass while outfarming her in the jungle, since she farms much slower than you, and only go for kills when you have items, but always fear Exorcism since it is a very strong skill, but even then you will need Black King Bar to have a chance fighting but Exorcism will still destroy your Refraction charges and you so I would say either kill her very quickly or try to engage and disengage fast trying to bait as many skills as possible so you can fight without Black King Bar, another option is split pushing since you deal a ton of building damage too, and if has to back things are fine, she also builds items that get her very tanky at times which makes things complicated, decently hard lane and pretty hard game in general.

Ember Spirit is an interesting lineup that depends a lot on what build Ember Spirit chooses for and the skill of the player, there are so many builds so I will not be able to go specific, so I'm going to mention some possibilities, laning he is likely to skill Flame Guard to destroy Refraction, Sleight of Fist is not effective for harassing because of Refraction but if he uses it a lot he can get you out of mana to try to kill you, Searing Chains is also kind of destroys Refraction so he can also level that up, but you deal a ton of damage on him, since he is squishy, so you have to destroy him at level 1 with Psi Blades since he does not have much he can do, if he goes agressive try to make so he loses farm and DENY THE RANGED CREEP, you need level advantage versus him, he should play aggressive and he can kill you, so play defensive and only trade if you know what you are doing by abusing Psi Blades, if he goes for an early Urn of Shadows use Psionic Traps defensively to not allow him to get to you or to give him problems if he goes into you, if he goes into you and backs Flame Guard is probably going to end soon so Psionic Traps can do damage and you can use the creepwave to damage him, also keep an eye on his mana, Ember Spirit can steal your stacks and kill you while you farm them or stack camps, he also is better at contesting runes, Ember Spirit's 5th highest winrate is versus Templar Assassin and it is a very hard lane but you can win the lane, if you get level advantage and abuse levels where he might not have a lot of damage you can even kill him, do the same thing I recommend you doing with Queen of Pain and put a Psionic Trap betwen the tier 1 and 2 if he tries to escape, DO NOT DIVE HIM since he has one disable and multiple ways to destroy Refraction, with ally ganks you can easily kill him at earlier levels but enemy ganks really **** you up, you can still outfarm him but he needs fewer items to fight, if he goes with a focus on magical damage Black King Bar is a must, physical should be better but it is still complicated, mixed is a problem but still get Black King Bar and try to play in a more defensive way, focus his team because him alone does not do much, he is a good hero to defend high ground tho because of Sleight of Fist, while laning put defensive Psi Traps near camps you might farm and on runes if he goes for ganks on your team, you cannot fight the runes but you can warn your team, you might consider getting disable items like Bloodthorn or Scythe of Vyse to kill him since it is possible later on when he does not have as much damage on you, but always keep that in mind, his damage, if he has Radiance he will destroy you, but that is rarer these days, Blade Mail is not as much of a problem because of Refraction but with Flame Guard it is a problem, but keep in mind that with Black King Bar he does not do much versus you and the later the game goes the less problems with him you are likely to have, just try to win the lane, or at least, not lose it.

Zeus is annoying, but later on it is pretty easy, early on lane just try to keep Refraction up, mana items are cheaper than health items, as much as they give less value in correlation, you still get bonus damage from Refraction and that helps, you can outfarm Zeus very easily and his kill potential is low unless it is a gank or if you **** up near creeps, Static Field ignores Refraction but he should not level that a lot early on, but try to stay out of it's range, just outfarm him, you can kill him easily too if there are no creeps and he walks into a Psionic Trap that is charged, but that is unlikely because of Lightning Bolt and it's truesight, later on he is pretty squishy, and has no escape, at most he goes for Eul's Scepter of Divinity which if he uses at you you can still go on him, if he uses on himself he is pretty much dead since Meld exists and Psionic Trap also does, but the real gamewinner here is Black King Bar, you can also harass him a lot on lane if he is more aggressive and most Zeus players are used to that, also consider getting Spell Wand during the lane phase instead of a second Wraith Band if you were going for it.

Puck is an easy lane, Puck is almost unable to damage you and you can harass Puck a lot with Psi Blades while not being harassed by right clicks or spells, the silence from Waning Rift is pretty irrelevant unless Refraction is about to end or if Puck initiates on you, Illusory Orb aggressively used means nothing and you can kind of ignore Dream Coil, and since you hit creeps to harass, Phase Shift ends and you just hit the creep again, you can outfarm Puck and you also have kill potential by putting Psionic Traps where he might use Illusory Orb at, keep in mind it is kind of common for Puck to go to the medium camp near the midlane instead of betwen the tier 1 and tier 2, so keep that in mind and put one there, you also outfarm Puck so go farm and stack and all, Puck does basically nothing if you also try to get the enemy tower so go ahead when you are able to, the only problem is ganks but that is mostly on the part of the enemy supports, later on gets disable items if you want to get kills but really, that is not even that necessary, Puck is going to be looking at you hitting the tier 3 and... do what?

Void Spirit is pretty easy, you have kill potential mostly before he hits level 6 but even if he does, doing the trick of placing Psionic Traps betwen the tier 1 and 2 can secure it and you can even dive him if you know he used Aeter Remnant or has no mana for it, also place one near the medium camp near the midlane because for some reason Void Spirit players just like Puck players like to go there, the damage resistance aspect of Resonant Pulse is easily destroyed but even then, Psi Blades does pure damage so you can harass him a lot and he really has no real kill potential because he does few instances of damage with high values, but his entire kit can kind of **** Refraction but after that he has no way to kill you, later on with a disable item you can easily kill him, he is squishy after all, but you team can also do the job.

Meepo is complicated, oh boy, out of all heroes until now, Templar Assassin outfarms all but maybe Shadow Fiend but even then I still believe Templar Assassin does but not to a point where it is very relevant, what happens is that, Meepo outfarms you and wins earlier than you, his first item is Ethereal Blade that makes so you cannot hit him and gives him a ton of damage, and that item is 4500 gold, while your core is 3500, and a good Meepo wil have more stat items like Wraith Bands earlier and get his Ethereal Blade at the same time you get your Desolator, the only thing you have over him are the few first levels, until he hits level 4 and gets his clone, before that, Ransack is two Refraction charges per hit so beware, try to harass him and deny all ranged creeps, but he is going to hit that level and he is going to farm, put aggressive Psionic Traps in his jungle and stack yours but put Psionic Traps there too in case he tries to farm it, put one on Roshan too so you know if he goes for it, get a Black King Bar and well, at some point he is going to get Scythe of Vyse, you can consider getting Linken's Sphere but is it really worth it? because he is going to get quite tanky later on and he farms more than you, maybe a damage item and stay close to your team? but it also depends on his team, try to **** his farm while farming yourself, it is very complicated but Together We Stand destroys Refraction and Earthbind also does reveal Meld and really, allow you to do nothing, this is a very team dependant lineup, and really, you are likely to lose, just don't trade farm with him unless you know that later on your team can **** him up.

Arc Warden is pretty hard actually, Flux makes you lose Refraction charges very easily, the most important tip is that when someone affected by it is close to an allied unit, the skill does not do damage, which is crucial in the midlane, so you either go close to your creeps, taking damage from his attacks, or you run and take damage from Flux, problem is that with Tempest Double he can use Flux twice, which is a problem, but even then its two units hitting you for Refraction charges, but you probably should go near the creeps and attack them to try to hit him, if he levels Magnetic Field it is going to be more complicated, you can try to run if you have a Psionic Trap at where and his clone are at, but the general best choice is to not get into such situations and play more defensively after he hits level 6, you have more damage, better projectile time and more ways to harass Arc Warden so abuse that, if you get level 6 earlier than him and advance the creepwave, he can easily die, you also naturally outfarm him, but the problem is that Arc Warden often goes for Hand of Midas since he has two, that is pretty much 200 additional GPM and pretty hard to outfarm, mostly if he gets it early, Arc Warden is pretty squishy because of his low armor and generally he does not itemize with tanky items, but the hero does get a lot of HP naturally so keep that in mind, Monkey King Bar to deal with Magnetic Field is very nice, Black King Bar to deal with Flux, Spark Wraith and the items he might get like Bloodthorn or Scythe of Vyse, in a general way it is a hard matchup but it is definely possible.

Viper is living hell, everything he has destroys Refraction, he has area damage with Nethertoxin so you can't Meld your way out, but you can still use it to dodge Viper Strike's projectile, keep that in mind, but really, a good Viper after level 3 or 5 is going to destroy you and he only needs Poison Attack to do that, you cannot trade, you cannot escape, the general optimal way of dealing with him is to farm jungle, he is slow and farms slowly, with Psionic Traps you can safely farm, and later on with items you, most importantly Black King Bar, you can easily win, just tell some support to stay mid to get the experience and go to your jungle, it's pretty odd but there is not much to it, do not try to fight for runes, do put Psionic Traps there to warn your team and to get information on if he is capable of getting you, defending the midlane tower is pretty hard and basically always is going to involve detonating a Psionic Trap to kill the creeps and slow Viper but after level 6 he can still kill you even with that so play safe.

Sniper is annoying but not a problem, early on it might be hard to harass him with Psi Blades but it is possible, later on it is much harder without being punished, put Psionic Traps at his high ground, jungle camps and also near your jungle camps in case he tries to kill you, Sniper can actually farm pretty fast, you do outfarm him long term but earlier on he farms faster than you mostly considering that with some points in Shrapnel he can farm a camp plus the wave very early, you can kill him easily if he positions poorly and has no Shrapnel, and he is very squishy, later on all you have to do is use Blink Dagger, get near him, disable him in some way or just kill him fast or do something so he cannot Hurricane Pike away, the Meld bash talent can do the majority of times, positioning well is very important in this matchup.

Alchemist should be fairly easy during the lane phase, harass him a lot, like, a lot, he outfarms you when he has Radiance but before that he does not, just constantly destroy his farm using aggressive Psionic Traps and farm your Desolator while doing that, he has very low armor and he is going to melt, try to dominate his jungle, and beware Acid Spray since it takes Refraction charges away very fast, but you should get an advantage fairly quickly to the point it is irrelevant, if he does get farm you are going to have problems since he builds armor items and is going to get very tanky and Radiance also burns away Refraction charges very quickly.

Lina is actually pretty balanced, it is hard for you to harass her because of her long attack range, she mostly does damage with Dragon Slave and you can tank that easily with Refraction, same goes for Laguna Blade, the problem is that Fiery Soul makes her hit fast and for a lot which makes so your Refraction charges go to oblivion, she farms pretty quickly but you should be able to outfarm her because of her dependence on mana, but not by much, similar to Shadow Fiend, she can get your tower and even kill you, but you can also kill her if she misses Light Strike Array or before she hits level 6, or if you know she has no Laguna Blade by using Psionic Traps or simply considering her cooldowns, 8 seconds for Dragon Slave and 7 for Light Strike Array, shes farming a camp and you have a Psionic Trap? get close and detonate, and try to get a kill in that time window but keep in mind Fiery Soul gives movespeed and that can be a problem, later on get Black King Bar and unless she goes Aghanim's Scepter all she has is physical damage, and you are going to have more of that, you at least should.

Dragon Knight is easy and hard, Psi Blades does pure damage, hitting creeps does a lot of damage, but then hitting him does not do much because of Dragon Blood and he can take the harass because of it's regen, early on not so much so pressure him, he has very little kill potential and you outfarm him, just try to protect your tower, mostly when he hits level 6, which is when he might get a kill on you because Elder Dragon Form at level 1 does damage per second and that is of course a problem for Refraction, and it does a lot of tower damage long term, just push the wave, later on with Desolator Meld with the talent and Blight Stone you can do a lot of damage and lower his armor a lot, but he probably will go for some armor item, outfarming him is the way to go, there is not much to do other than that.

Kunkka is easy and hard, depends on the skill of the enemy Kunkka, every time he hits the wave try to use Refraction, after lvl 6 you might need it to survive his X Marks the Spot Torrent Ghostship combo, early on you can harass him a lot so abuse that, a good Kunkka outfarms you by stacking the medium camp near the midlane with Torrent at x:57, but you can put a Psionic Trap there to steal the stack or try to kill him if he tries to farm it, Kunkka has low armor so you are going to do a lot of damage but he has the rum buff and a lot of health which can complicate things, and sometimes goes for Radiance, try to disrupt his farm while outfarming him and if he spends his spells you can get a kill.

Razor is very hard, Static Link is your enemy, he is going to run down at you and you are going to do nothing until you have your Psionic Traps at level 6 but by then he has Eye of the Storm that destroys Refraction, if you almost escape he can use Plasma Field, harassing him is hard, but you do outfarm him, so stack the jungle and farm it, your kill potential is low unless you have help, get some items and then fight but you have to be sure he does not get Static Link on you, which is complicated since it pierces spell immunity, in a general way go on him only later or after someone else initiates, a good Razor will fight you in your jungle but abuse Psionic Traps to run from Static Link and maybe get a kill if he plays too aggressively.

Leshrac should be fine, Diabolic Edict does a lot of damage to Refraction but really, everything else kind of does not, even his ultimate since it takes so long to do damage, all you need is Black King Bar and you're fine, but you can easily trade with him and by using Refraction at the right time you can even get a kill, he is pretty fast so you might have to wait until level 6, during the lane you are able to harass him quite a lot, pretty squishy but gets an armor talent at level 10 and often builds Shiva's Guard which can generaly some problems, but you still should be able to kill him with not much problem, just outfarm, but keep in mind Leshrac can steal your stacks.

Huskar is living hell, similar to Viper but better during lane, worse during the general game, Burning Spears is damage per second, that is complicated, but that plus Berserker's Blood giving attack speed, him having higher attack range and Inner Fire moving you (breaks Meld but it also disarms so you cannot hit, you are likely to lose the lane but this one is not impossible, constantly pull creep aggro and try to harass him, stack the jungle, if he goes for it put defensive Psionic Traps and you might even get a kill, he has no way of clearing them easily so keep that in mind, mostly if it is a camp with magic resistance, Huskar has low armor thanks to the god icefrog, but he does build Armlet of Mordiggian, Heaven's Halberd that gives infernal evasion and at times Assault Cuirass, at least Solar Crest was nerfed to oblivion, but if you get your Black King Bar you should be fine.

Visage is not so often played as a mid hero, but if you do get one, it is going to be hard, Gravekeeper's Cloak is a problem since Templar Assassin hits strong few times, Summon Familiars destroys Refraction, so after level 6 you have to be defensive, but you deal a lot of damage on the familiars, and they give a lot of gold, if possible kill them, maybe even use Psionic Traps for it if you know he cannot go aggressive, put defensive Psionic Traps in a lot of places and few aggressive ones, kill potential is not high unless you hit level 6 earlier, but you are able to harass him with Psi Blades early and his main source of damage is Soul Assumption but you can use Refraction to ignore it's damage, you can also dodge it with Meld, you do really outfarm Visage so, outfarm him! he cannot farm stacks so if he fights for your stacks you can just let him and go to another place or back to the lane, later on I'd say focus the familiars and his team, mostly if he goes for tanky items.

Windranger is pretty hard, during the lane she should position in an aggressive way which makes it hard for you to hit her with Psi Blades and she is going to abuse Windrun to win the trade, but you do outfarm her, she is going to play aggressively, try to wait for her to use Powershot before using Refraction and you can dodge Shackleshot with Meld, Focus Fire destroys Refraction but she should not be able to kill you easily, after level 6 if she uses Windrun in an aggressive way you can go for an aggressive play, if you have traps of course, put defensive traps since she is going to dive you if she is able to and has Dust of Appearance, you do outfarm her but she should not allow you to, it is a pretty hard lane but with game time it should get easier, going for solo kills is dangerous, mostly if you do not have Monkey King Bar, Black King Bar is welcome but Monkey King Bar pierces it and it is a common damage item, while a lot of it is physical and some magical with Maelstrom that might be a pick, all of these count as different attack instances so Refraction goes to hell even quicker, it is a lineup you might need help.

Broodmother is pretty hard, bully that spider out of lane early on before she has Spawn Spderlings and a lot of mobility and regeneration with more Spin Web levels, deny her the most you can, Broodmother can easily solo kill you since Spawn Spiderlings creates spiders and also the spiders also create spiders so that is a ton of damage instances and Refraction goes to hell, she can dive you and there is not much you can do, you can kill the spiders with Psi Blades and Psionic Traps and always do that when possible, but a good Broodmother will try to bait that not using all of her spiders to try to get a kill, so play safe if you are playing versus a good player, do not fight for her jungle camps and instead play safe and farm what you can from yours, she should try to farm yours and if that is the case either request a rotation or farm in a safer place, try to defend your tower, if she goes on you Psionic Traps can greatly help to make you survive, going for her is more complicated because of the unobstructed pathing of Spin Web and the bonus movespeed, really, not much you can do, trading farm is bad because she will get items earlier and she farms faster than you, being aggressive in a general way can be bad for you, not much you can do, she cannot really farm stacks that well so stack safe jungle camps she might not go to, and get a Black King Bar to deal with Incapacitating Bite and her possible Diffusal Blade, but she can easily bait all of that out, she is not that tanky so you can still get kills, mostly if she is unable to hit you, but it is going to be about your team, a lot actually, but it could be much worse since you can at least clear the spiders, also you can dodge the Spawn Spiderlings projectile with Meld.

Medusa is pretty easy, bully her with Psi Blades, use Refraction to ignore the damage from Mystic Snake but you can also dodge it with Meld, you outfarm her early before she has more points in Split Shot, and really Medusa does not want to level Stone Gaze early and you can just walk into her and hit her, even dive her, there is not much she can do if you have the damage and you do have it, get her tower, bully her, farm your Desolator and play in a general way aggressive if you don't want her to get items, and you do not want that, try to end the game early too, she does not do much without items, put Psionic Traps at the camps she might farm of course, and that is pretty much all.

Clinkz is easy and hard, early on he can trade very well with Searing Arrows but at like level 3 you are able to win trades so in that point you pressure with Psi Blades and Refraction, he is squishy and if he goes inivisible with Skeleton Walk you can use Dust of Appearance with Psionic Trap to slow him down a lot, you outfarm him but it is likely that he will gank so put some Psionic Traps for information, get some disable items if you have to, if he goes for Nullifier or Scythe of Vyse or Orchid Malevolence/ Bloodthorn remember that Linken's Sphere and Black King Bar are there, you can kill him very easily with Blink Dagger and Desolator and you should get that fairly quick since he does not have the damage to kill you when you have Refraction up, if he walks into a Psionic Trap and you have detection he should be pretty much dead, you can also proc Psi Blades on his Burning Army skeletons so keep that in mind.

Magnus should be fairly easy, he farms fast but you should be able to still farm slighty faster, he has little kill potential unless he Skewers you into his tower, so do not be aggressive with how you position yourself, you can do a lot of damage with Psi Blades and can even get a kill if he is low, remember the Psionic Trap betwen tier 1 and 2 and pull that off if he uses Skewer to escape,, Enpower cleave does damage to your Refraction so beware that with how you position, he can steal your stacks but you can punish him a lot if he does that, and Shockwave is actually worse for it's pull effect that might make so creeps hit you and make you lose your Refraction charges, and of course, beware Reverse Polarity, you should either kill him early or ignore him in a fight, that is his main skill so just beware it.

Pugna should be fairly hard, try to bully him out at early levels with Psi Blades but when he gets Decrepify your kill potential becomes very low, because he can just that use it on himself, unless he is aggressive and you have two traps mid, go into him and bait both Decrepify and Life Drain, the second does multiple damage instances so keep that in mind, use Refraction safely mostly after level 6 since he can easily kill you with it, you should always use Refraction to ignore the damage from Nether Blast, important detail is that Meld does not cancel Life Drain so keep that in mind, you do outfarm him but that can cost your mid tower, try to defend it cleaning the wave and then stacking and farming, most of the kill potentials are when you are level 6 and he is not, and that is not hard to achieve actually, mostly if you are able to get a jungle camp that he did not get, later on get Black King Bar to handle his damage and Nullifier or Bloodthorn to deal with Decrepify, I recommend the first more since it also works versus Ghost Scepter.

Tiny should be fairly easy, Avalanche does multiple damage instances but Toss does not, the general idea is that you start the combo with Toss because units in the air take more Avalanche damage, but it is unlikely he is going to kill you because of Refraction, on lane Tree Grab gives him more damage than you unless you are under Refraction and the cleave also takes away Refraction charges, but just pull aggro and harass him, beware to not be Tossed under his tower but at level 6, mostly if he does not skill Grow, you can easily get a kill because of how low his armor is, but he typically also goes for Phase Boots so keep that in mind, kiting him is the key to killing him, you can also outfarm Tiny and you should, but keep in mind he can steal your stacks so put defensive Psionic Traps and also put them on runes because he might try to get some ganks, often builds armor because that together with Grow makes you unable to explode him, and that might be a problem, if the magical damage is a problem get Black King Bar, but in a general I would say that you should focus his team and kill him last.

Monkey King should not be hard, he depends on the few hits he gets with Jingu Mastery but you can ignore them with Refraction, the same applies to Boundless Strike, you deal a lot of damage on him because of his low armor and you can harass him with Psi Blades too, the only problem is Wukong's Command which deals multiple damage instances and gives him armor, not only you can easily win the lane but you can also outfarm him, another problem is that Tree Dance makes the vision from Psionic Traps not so useful, but it does make so he is unable to dive or escape from you, if you win the midlane constantly pressure him while farming his jungle, if the lane is balanced, also keep in mind that you can damage him while he is on the trees with Psi Blades so keep that in mind, in a general way not a hard matchup.

Skywrath Mage is annoying, and yeah, he is annoying, Refraction greatly helps, get some regen items, that casual Spell Wand, he does a ton of damage but he is very squishy, try to bully him with Psi Blades and Refraction, mostly at level 3 and 5, after 6 beware [[Mystic Flare, you obviously outfarm him but he should play aggressively, but he can be punished because he is very squishy, few hits and you destroy him, thing is, he is fast, but just use Psionic Traps wisely, after the lane phase get Black King Bar and things will be much easier, and focus him on the fights, if he gets Ghost Scepter get Nullifier, and in a general way Bloodthorn is welcome, Scythe of Vyse is not really needed since you kill him very easily and the bash talent or simply Blink Dagger is enough for you to kill him.

Necrophos is annoying, the kill potential is not that high because of Ghost Shroud, the general tip is to harass him more than he harasses you and outfarm him, beware Reaper's Scythe at his level 6, use Refraction kind of late for it, you outfarm him and he is slow so if he tries to fight for your camps you can abuse Psionic Traps to harass him, later on get Nullifier or Bloodthorn and Black King Bar is also welcome, also Heartstopper Aura does not remove Refraction charges because it is HP removal, that greatly helps, Necrophos might go for Radiance and that is annoying, you either focus him or ignore him if he is able to get Reaper's Scythe off.

Mirana is rarely played as a mid but if she is, you are pretty fine, she does not have a ton of damage, just don't take the Sacred Arrows and if you do be sure to Refraction before it hits at least, killing her is hard but with the Psionic Trap betwen the tier 1 and 2 you might be able to, but that is very hard still, you easily outfarm her, and vision really makes her game hard and you have Psionic Traps, there is not much to it, to kill her you might need disable items, but she tends to not be a big problem in the majority of games, if she goes for the magical build dodge the Ethereal Blade and Starstorm damage, Meld dodges Ethereal Blade so keep that in mind, there is not much to this lineup, focus on outfarming her since killing her is quite hard.

Morphling is easy and hard, Morphling has high armor and low HP, that is not so great for you, but if you do manage to disable him before he Attribute Shift (Strength Gain)s might help, but even if he does that, his armor lowers so you damage increases quite a lot, during the lane harass him a lot with Psi Blades which ignores his armor, you can get a kill on him at lower levels, beware that he can use Adaptive Strike (Strength) to push you into the creep wave or his tower, you do outfarm him but with fewer items he might do more than you, Morphling should be pretty defensive so casually put some traps in the camps he might farm and even if you do not go for kills, detonate them, that takes away a lot of his health because he is probably going to be Attribute Shift (Agility Gain)ed , later on you can dodge the Ethereal Blade and Adaptive Strike (Agility) with Meld and Refraction, just get some disable items like Bloodthorn or Scythe of Vyse even, maybe get Eye of Skadi since now it lowers HP regeneration, but it is in a general way better for your carry to get it or your team to get Spirit Vessel, outfarm him and be annoying, there is not much he can do, also the Psionic Trap betwen the tier 1 and 2 greatly helps to get a kill even if he Waveforms away.

Riki mid is pretty bizarre to this day but it is decently common so I guess I will talk about it, harass him, he has high regeneration and armor, Psi Blades is the key, he does not really have a lot of damage but Blink Strike takes away two Refraction charges if he gets the hit off, killing him is not that hard, if you do get him low do the thing with the Psionic Trap betwen the tier 1 and 2 because he can Blink Strike to creeps that are there, he has a lot of armor so later on you will not do a lot of damage on him, the invisibility from Cloak and Dagger is annoying but keep Dust of Appearance, maybe get Black King Bar to deal with Diffusal Blade and Smoke Screen but Monkey King Bar might also do it, there is not much about this lineup, it is pretty generic and passive, he cannot steal your stacks and farms slow, abuse that.

Silencer is not often played mid but if he is it should not be very hard, Glaives of Wisdom do count as two instances of damage and Arcane Curse makes you lose Refraction charges very easily, he is not that squishy but still fairly squishy and he does not get a lot of armor the majority of time, he farms slowly and uses his skill for it, during the lane pull aggro, try to harass him with Psi Blades and only really use Refraction if you know he is unable to use Arcane Curse or if he is going to hit you or twice with Glaives of Wisdom, outfarm him, you can easily kill him if he walks into one of your Psionic Traps, which you should put near camps he might farm but since he is a ranged hero keep that in mind and try to guess where he is going to be, get a Black King Bar later and you can kill him very easily.

Bloodseeker is rarely a midlaner too, and he is also not that hard, you do outfarm him but he is unable to farm early on and handle the harass from Psi Blades, focus on denies more than usual and pull aggro so he does not get many denies off, do try to outfarm him, if he spams Blood Rite just use Refraction before it hits unless you can easily tank the damage, having full health and mana is a waste since you are not using the regeneration feature, unless you know he might try to kill you, he can try to go for your stacks or stack himself so steal them, if he Ruptures you, just use Town Portal Scroll, but you can trade with him, unless he has something like Blade Mail, killing him is hard since he gets fast when low on life and that kind of nullifies Psionic Trap's slow, but he is likely to go to a jungle camp to farm when low to recover his health with Bloodrage, so put Psionic Traps there in case he decides to farm it and you can just activate them, if he goes Radiance things are more complicated, in such case I would even recommend getting Black King Bar, the lane phase might not be so hard but the later the game goes the harder he is going to get, the spikes being level 6 because of Rupture but not limited to that, since he often goes for items like Blade Mail (broken item atm btw) and Radiance it can make things complicated.

Lone Druid is pretty hard, Summon Spirit Bearis another unit so that makes things complicated, not only that but Entangling Claws does damage per second which is not very good for Refraction, the bear is tanky but Lone Druid himself is not, it is hard to harass him during the lane phase with Psi Blades if he is a good player, I'd focus on farming but he also farms pretty quickly so keep that in mind, I would say focusing on the bear is not a bad idea since it gives a high amount of gold and has low armor early on, if he walks into Psionic Traps activate them, put defensive ones since he can easily dive you and he is pretty fast, Meld is only useful for aggressive purposes since Savage Roar makes you move, but it is not very common for them to level up such skill early, after the lane phase try to burst Lone Druid himself with Black King Bar.

Phantom Assassin is not often mid, mostly these days, and is not that hard to deal with, Psi Blades does a lot of damage to her, the Stifling Dagger spam is not much effective since Refraction exists, Meld also disjoints the projectile, and Phantom Assassin hits few times but strong, mostly depending on Coup de Grace, since the chance is pseudorandomic (I might have to explain this some day in some guide), if you know she has just critted, wait a bit before using Refraction for maximum efficiency, and of course, get Monkey King Bar, you outfarm her and she does not do much, with Monkey King Bar you deal a ton of damage to her, but she also does a lot of damage to you if you do not have Refraction up and even with it up the bonus attack speed from Phantom Strike can make it not as useful as it is early on.

Naga Siren is also not often a midlaner, but since she is very good versus Templar Assassin I think mentioning her here is important, the lane should be a traidng of farm, she can go on you if you misposition since Mirror Image destroys Refraction but that alone is not enought since Rip Tide also exists, you can cancel Ensare's cast animation with Meld but also disjoint the projectile, and also remove the root by becoming invisible, you do outfarm her early on but I think you should fight early and try to fight for the mid tower, you will not do much damage to her since Naga Siren has high armor and builds agility items that give armor, consider getting Monkey King Bar to deal with the evasion she gets from her level 25 talent and Butterfly which is basically always built, also Black King Bar to deal with the Diffusal Blade she also basically always builds, just play around your timings and not hers.

Gyrocopter is one I am not so sure about the difficuly of because all the times I got to play agaisnt him mid it was very good players, and basically always I've lost because of how Rocket Barrage destroys Refraction, but I do think you are able to outfarm him if he is more of a passive player, if he is aggressive then try to abuse Meld to deal with Rocket Barrage instead of using Refraction for that, keep it for Homing Missile and Call Down, he easily can steal your stacks with Call Down and Flak Cannon, put defensive Psionic Traps, also aggressive ones since he often stacks and if he does not his team will, trading farm is not as bad as it might look since you do a lot of burst damage, consider getting Black King Bar and Monkey King Bar since he often builds Butterfly and has low health but high armor, his Aghanim's Scepter can really help with spending Refraction charges so try not to position yourself far but not far to the point it focuses you, but it might be better than it focusing the support, harassing with Psi Blades during the lane phase is of course important since he does not have a lot of health and depends on high armor to stay in the lane, just don't go too far.

Timbersaw is pretty hard and pretty easy at the same time, early on you can use Psi Blades to deal with Reactive Armor, since it is pure damage, and his damage mostly comes from few big instances like Whirling Death and Timber Chain, and even Chakram does mostly damage when it passes and does not tick very often, he can easily steal your stacks and might also stack so try to fight for his stacks, you really cannot kill him mostly at later levels, since early on it is hard to get a kill purely on Psi Blades and later on he is going to have Timber Chain at a higher level as well as in a general way be more tanky, and your Psionic Trap slow is not very useful here, the magical damage does help, but harassing him does not do much since he recovers his health easily, if you do get your Desolator and Blink Dagger and see him with no Reactive Armor stacks, he should be an easy kill.

Venomancer is quite often a midlaner used to counter Templar Assassin in lower MMRs because of the damage per second he has, and as basically all supports when played mid, he is extremely likely to win the lane, but really, just go farm the jungle and stack it, your tower might fall but try to not feed him, constantly check his mana, Venomous Gale does damage every 3 seconds, so that is not a big problem, Poison Sting is HP removal so it does not remove Refraction charges, and his Plague Wards are other units and they do remove charges, and of course Poison Nova does a ton of damage but it only takes one charge per second, so he is not the biggest problem ever, you can use Refraction earlier than usual in case he uses his skills on you you can ignore the bigger instances of damage from Poison Nova and Venomous Gale and use it again since such skills last pretty long, and really, he is squishy and slow, has no escape, you can easily kill him if you are not slowed, just get Black King Bar, use Blink Dagger to get on his face, Meld and well he should be dead, not really a counter I believe.

Batrider is very hard to deal with, rarely a mid hero but often used to counter Templar Assassin at cases, Sticky Napalm is annoying but not really the biggest problem, Flamebreak moves you so RIP Meld and does damage per second which is not very good for Refraction, Firefly makes him faster and does damage per second, first of all, get Magic Wand, jungling is complicated because he can go for kills on you while you jungle and steal your stacks, staying on the lane is also hard, tell a support to try to stack deep in the jungle, put some defensive wards, he does not deal a ton of tower damage so get a support to be mid, farm deep within the jungle and if he goes for an aggressive move, teleport to the midlane since Flamebreak does not cancel Town Portal Scrolls anymore and just farm, you farm faster than him and he has little lategame, get Linken's Sphere if you need to but consider that Eul's Scepter of Divinity and Force Staff are common items.

Weaver mid is also pretty rare, but annoying, the kill potential is extremely low, you do outfarm Weaver but Weaver is an annoying piece of **** who is going to constantly fight you when you try to stack or while you farm stacks, go deeper into the jungle and really, trade farm during the lane, harass with Psi Blades if possible and try to keep Refraction up, you can get a kill if you get to level 6 before, if you know you are winning pretty hard on denies or if you get a jungle camp he did not get the XP for, get Dust of Appearance and go for a kill, and later on just go for disable items once you have decent damage, Weaver can remove Refraction fast with The Swarm, Geminate Attack and items like Maelstrom or Diffusal Blade, which are annoying, and there is not much you can do, Black King Bar can be useful but after all, there is a lot of physical damage present, so not much you can do other than be the one who initiates first and actually kills the other, depending on your team can be very important in this, but you do outfarm Weaver but it is not like that really makes any difference.

Pangolier is also not a very common midlaner, but if he is, it should not be that hard, he mostly wins by spamming Swashbuckle and by getting items that make it deal more damage, most importantly the casual Javelin he is going to get during the lane phase,, yes, Swashbuckle destroys Refraction but you are able to handle the spam better than basically all mid heroes, his kill potential on you with Rolling Thunder is low since it does few instances of damage and Refraction is there, and he can disarm you with Lucky Shot which is very annoying, you do outfarm him, but if he has vision or plays in a very aggressive way farming is going to be hard unless it's in the deeper parts of your jungle, your kill potential on his is very low because he can use Swashbuckle to escape and might even disarm you while escaping, and you have no real way of stopping Rolling Thunder other than killing him, which is made easier because of Psi Blades but still not very viable, I would say just outfarm him, constantly check his mana and remember that Swashbuckle has a cooldown of 20/16/12/8, but it only has 4 strikes, which early on is not a problem but with all the procs he will get, it will be harder, if he goes for Diffusal Blade I believe Black King Bar is core, if he does not you can actually skip it if you can dodge Rolling Thunder and that is not very hard since you will go for Blink Dagger and that with Refraction makes it pretty easy, get some disable items if you believe you have to, should not be a big problem if you go on him after he uses Swashbuckle.

Mars is not a mid hero, but from time to time you might see one, Spear of Mars is annoying, God's Rebuke is pretty useless because of Refraction, Bulwark makes it extremely hard for you to kill him, it's active can be a big deal since Templar Assassin is a ranged hero, Arena of Blood is very annoying and can generate some kills, the real deal is, you outfarm him and if he goes on you try to dodge Spear of Mars and if you think it is going to hit just use Refraction, play safe, put some defensive Psionic Traps, stack camps, mostly deeper into the jungle because he can steal them with God's Rebuke, and outfarm him, in teamfights ignore him, easier done with Black King Bar, and kill his team, and your team should be able to kill him or at least make so he is not facing you making it possible for you to kill him.

Phantom Lancer is rarely played mid, but thing is, this is a Templar Assassin guide, and Phantom Lancer counters Templar Assassin, but used to counter more when Psi Blades for some reason did not work on illusions, well, he does not have a ton of damage before Diffusal Blade and farms slower than you, he destroys Refraction with Juxtapose but also Doppelganger, and Doppelganger also greatly difficults using Psi Blades to clear his illusions if he is a good player, when he was more popular mid he would go Aghanim's Scepter and max Spirit Lance which was not very useful because Refraction ignores the damage and Meld disjoints the projectile, these days Phantom Rush is maxed, put defensive Psionic Traps and farm, you outfarm him, put aggressive Psionic Traps to check for the possibility of a kill, mostly if you get Desolator or a level advantage before he gets Diffusal Blade, if he gets Diffusal Blade, either depend on your team's Earthshaker or whatever, or farm that Black King Bar, consider getting disabling items, if he gets the evasion talent consider Monkey King Bar, mostly since he also often builds Butterfly.

Phoenix is also not a mid hero, but people really love damage per second versus Templar Assassin, the kill potential is low, for Phoenix actually, Fire Spirits does not tick frequently, Sun Ray makes Phoenix easy to hit, Phoenix Dive would be a problem if you did not do that thing I suggested a million times where you put a trap betwen the tier 1 and 2, the only problem is Supernova which during the lane you can simply hit, Phoenix is squishy and slow too, and just keep dodging Fire Spirits and harassing with Psi Blades, beware the attack speed slow from Fire Spirits if it hits you, you also outfarm Phoenix but defend your stacks since Phoenix can steal them, but that is costly in both mana and HP so put defensive Psionic Traps, get Black King Bar, maybe some disabling item, silences also work and to deal with the attack speed slow and hit Supernova faster, Bloodthorn is great, and I guess that's all.

Jakiro fits the same criteria but he is actually better, he is a bit tankier and can spam spells more, and actually get your tower, you do outfarm him still, stack, he can steal the stacks in a much easier way than Phoenix or Venomancer or all these mid DoT supports, but you can harass him with Psi Blades still and even get a kill, constantly look at his mana and cooldowns, it is unlikely that he will level Ice Path early if mid, the same applies to Macropyre, but that depends a bit more, he is squishy, get Black King Bar and kill him, he is slow, put defensive Psionic Traps if he goes for ganks on you while you farm the jungle, constantly defend your tower with Psionic Traps or going there yourself.

Other mentions about heroes and items

There are a few heros I want to talk about in correlation with Templar Assassin, and some generic things for you to think about and apply to your game:

Terrorblade just like Naga Siren and Phantom Lancer is an illusion hero, but he has even more armor than both, but is more squishy by pure HP, and depends on his armor, him mid versus Templar Assassin does not happen because of Psi Blades being pure and melting a meele squishy core like Terrorblade, while he is situationally viable versus like Alchemist, but as a carry he is a big problem for Templar Assassin, since she will not be able to easily burst him, mostly considering that Sunder could not care less about Refraction, so she will need disables to kill him, I also recommend Monkey King Bar because Terrorblade has an evasion talent and often goes Butterfly.

Dark Seer is also a problem, Ion Shell makes anyone who is near Templar Assassin destroy her Refraction charges very fast, Surge also makes it hard for her to finish people making the slow from the Psionic Traps pretty much useless, Vacuum moves her while in Meld and Wall of Replica creates illusions which well, multiple damage instances and her illusions are going to do a pretty high amount of damage.

Beastmaster has a disable that ignores Black King Bar and the only way you can stop it is Linken's Sphere or an equivalent, thing is he can build a cheap item to remove it and use Primal Roar on you, and he also has those ****ing Call of the Wild Boar which not only are multiple damage instances but also annoying, they slow you a lot and slow your attack speed too, and Beastmaster in general makes people hit more often which means less Refraction charges with Inner Beast, the reason he does not work as a midlane is because he actually loses his lane versus Templar Assassin, I've only played versus him once and I got like 5 kills in 6 minutes and then he went jungle and I killed him more times to the point the two supports were mid, that is the amount of space I created, he has low armor and has no way of hitting Templar Assassin and keeps giving her free gold with his summons during the lane.

Spectre not only goes Radiance and Manta Style (which happen to have Desolate) but she also has Haunt which means there is one illusion removing Refraction unless you kill it during a teamfight and Spectre can just focus Templar Assassin by going on her with Haunt and then using Spectral Dagger to follow up, if Templar Assassin fights back Spectre is going to take less damage because of Dispersion and that damage will go to Templar Assassin, which pierces Refraction, also Desolate counts as two damage instances and Spectre often goes Diffusal Blade on top of that.

Troll Warlord just fights better than Templar Assassin, high armor and evasion because of Berserker's Rage and Whirling Axes (Meele) but also hits fast and that means less Refraction because of Fervor and Templar Assassin cannot really burst him because of Battle Trance, but if he does use his ultimate use Meld, even if the enemy has detection they are going to spend it and that is gold spent and you should be dead anyway.

Slark has high armor because of Essence Shift which also happens to ignore Refraction so Templar Assassin wil lose 20 max HP per hit, but that is irrelevant because Dark Pact destroys Refraction and Templar Assassin can't even fight back because of Shadow Dance unless she has a good position to use Psi Blades on him, and he also goes Diffusal Blade.

Omniknight has Guardian Angel which makes people immune to physical damage, do I really have to explain how this is a problem? keep in mind Nullifier purges it.

Winter Wyvern either kills an ally or Templar Assassin herself with Winter's Curse, mostly the first option since she hits very strong and supports cannot really do anything.

Heros that are tanky are also a problem for her, Mars as mentioned but also Abaddon who can just escape the majority of time and also purge the Psionic Trap debuff, or Ursa who can use Enrage, or someone who makes heros tanky like Dazzle with Shallow Grave or as I mentioned before Omniknight.

Also heroes that have disables, someone like Lion or Shadow Shaman can use Hex if Templar Assassin uses Blink Dagger on them unless she has Black King Bar, but if she blinks at their backs they have to turn and that gives around 1 or 2 hits for her to kill them which is not hard if she uses Meld, if it has a big animation like Frostbite has, then you can hit twice, as she turns and does the animation you Meld and then you hit again, also put down a Psionic Trap to slow them while you are stunned so you can get the kill.

She also dislikes some items.
Ghost Scepter makes people immune to physical damage, allowing them to Blink Dagger away, or use a Town Portal Scroll, but if she gets Nullifier that will not be a problem.
Eul's Scepter of Divinity does pretty much the same thing, but a bit worse since it can be used on her but lasts longer (2.5 seconds), Nullifier also cancels the cyclone so keep that in mind.
Heaven's Halberd disarms her, also gives evasion which is annoying, should be fairly obvious.
Radiance does DoT, Urn of Shadows and Spirit Vessel also do DoT, burning Refraction charges and disabling her Blink Dagger.
Force Staff can give some time alive for some heroes, as much as Templar Assassin might still be able to get them, they can get out of range and if they have a skill they are unable to use let's say because of Black King Bar, that spends her precious time with it's active affecting her.
Manta Style creates two illusions, multiple damage instances that tear down Refraction faster.
Items that count as two instances are also bad, Javelin, Maelstrom/ Mjollnir, Monkey King Bar or Skull Basher.
Diffusal Blade burns her mana even if she has Refraction up which is annoying and might not allow her to use it twice on a fight to escape or deal more damage.
Detection items like Sentry Ward and Gem of True Sight show her Psionic Traps and also her during Meld, in the second case Dust of Apperance also does.
Blink Dagger is very good because unless she has an instant active item that disables you ( Scythe of Vyse/ Abyssal Blade, you can just blink before the projectile hits you.



On the other hand, Templar Assassin is very good versus squishy heroes, being able to kill them very easily, Skywrath Mage, Drow Ranger, Warlock or Nature's Prophet suffer.

She is able to win games early making it hard for heroes that are unable to fight early win, like Anti-Mage, since she is able to do a ton of damage to him and kill him quickly since he is very squishy for a hard-carry and needs a lot of space and Templar Assassin tends to end games pretty early.

Also heroes that depend on a single instance of big damage, Outworld Devourer depends on few hits with Arcane Orb and Sanity's Eclipse but something like Laguna Blade or Finger of Death can easily be ignored, also of course Techies who has each Remote Mines doing 600/750 damage at max level/with Aghanim's Scepter, it is very expensive for Techies to put enought mines to be able to kill her if she has Refraction up.

Early game

During the draft, check if Templar Assassin is a good hero with the information on heroes I wrote about before, think about how they will itemize and what your team is going to do and needs, basically always lastpick otherwise you will get Huskar or Viper and you know the deal, asks for two Tango (Shared) from your supports, and buy one Observer Ward, which you are going to place in the midlane, now think about it for a moment, and use this tool for warding:
https://devilesk.com/dota2/apps/interactivemap/?x=504&y=-33&zoom=1

Where I typically ward for RADIANT: https://devilesk.com/dota2/apps/interactivemap/?x=-32&y=-395&zoom=3&observer=-1472,-178;-262,-1205;-1529,221;409,-1545;770,-2286;911,-419;-462,554
Where I typically ward for DIRE: https://devilesk.com/dota2/apps/interactivemap/?x=212&y=-575&zoom=3&observer=504,-247;-521,491;-667,1166;-262,2040;1162,-417;2009,-770;-163,-1262;-1553,-99
More aggressive wards can be put if you are going to play in a more aggressive way but get there fast since it is likely the enemy midlaner will have a ward there, more defensive ones are useful if there is someone who can gank you a lot, like Spirit Breaker, Pudge or Earth Spirit.

Move your courier to something like this, the dire equivalent should be obvious, so it gets to you faster, mostly if you believe the lane is going to be hard and you are going to need health, so you can get the Healing Salve I'm going to mention soon faster:
Go to the midlane, if on radiant stand up in your highground to block, if on dire stay on the stairs, and do the best block you can, practice this if you are bad.

In the midlane at first focus on denying, position yourself so you get the first last hit while getting the first deny with Psi Blades, after that if the enemy midlaner pulls aggro you also pull aggro and hit him while doing that using Psi Blades - always focus on hitting on denies early on - if he does not then do the same thing, if the wave advances pull aggro to your mage creep, if he has the high ground move in and activate Refraction and deny the mage and try to secure yours, if he also pulled aggro try to hit a creep that will hit the mage, spend the other damage charges with harassing and if possible last hitting, if you did not get level 2 then pull aggro and stay close to your mage to try to deny his ranged creep, if you are taking damage and if the enemy mid has kill potential buy one Healing Salve after the first wave and bring it to you.

Focus on denying the ranged creep always, and try to deny and get last hits at the same time, try not to pull aggro with Refraction charges up so you do not get hit by creeps and it goes to oblivion, next waves keep doing the same thing, if the enemy midlaner goes for last hits position yourself so you can damage him with Psi Blades, last hits over denies, call your courier when you have one Wraith Band done and also get the Blight Stone, if you went for Magic Stick in a specific lane also get it, maybe before the Blight Stone, one or two Claritys are also welcome.

At the 3 minute mark or around that you can start stacking, go for the medium camps near the midlane, leave at around the x:45 mark and stack it, and try to get the rune near the camp you stacked, what to do with runes:
Rune of Illusion is great since it allows you to double stack, put one illusion near a camp you want to stack and the other near the other camp you want to stack, put them on a hotkey (I use 3), I recommend putting them in a medium and a big camp, with them being near each other, at x:53 make the illusions attack each individual camp, at x:54/55 walk away with them, you can triple stack by also stacking with your main hero.
Arcane Rune can be good to farm a stack early, I recommend a medium camp, use Refraction twice at most, lower levels on Meld are not worth using even with this rune.
Rune of Double Damage can give you kill potential but also allow you to farm a stack early, without even having to use Refraction, up to your choice, you can do both actually.
Rune of Haste can give you some minimal kill potential, if you harassed your enemy a lot you can go for a kill, even diving him, keep an eye out for possible teleports and if he has some way of stopping this rune ( Invoker's Tornado does that).
Rune of Invisibility is pretty bad but you can use it to do some harassing at the enemy mid, by far the worst one you can get.
Rune of Regeneration can also be good for farming a stack early, use Refraction before getting it so it makes you full mana and if someone does damage to you it will not cancel the rune instantly.

Keep stacking and farming mid, you can push the middle wave by using Refraction and hitting the creeps, always be sure to get the ranged creep, at level 5 it should be very easy to get due to Blight Stone and 3 points in Refraction, at around the minute 5 mark get yourself another Observer Ward and put it where you think it is going to be a good place in the midlane, when you hit level 6 put down Psionic Traps where you believe it is wise to put them at.
A map where Sentry Wards are situational Psionic Trap positions and Observer Wards are extremely common Psionic Trap positions:
https://devilesk.com/dota2/apps/interactivemap/?&x=-107&y=31&zoom=3&sentry=-913,-754;-200,-52;-561,-344;297,-762;-1080,218;1098,-1302;-2594,2056;-1969,-1742;-1005,-1702;81,-2238;-271,-2495;323,-2923;-3403,-1525;-2308,9;-3403,-266;-2664,-523;1969,-309;2730,17;1021,1212;293,1947;-596,2370;1415,3236;-178,3554;-73,-3428;-1819,-4029;1538,1011;312,284;-1247,-1038;-1648,989&observer=-920,-742;-185,-36;-1599,950;1164,-1294;2057,-266;-29,-2191&mode=observer

When you are about to farm a stack, most importantly ancients if your supports stacked it for you, is to put a Psionic Trap and wait for it to charge so it deals damage and slows the creeps so you can hit them, if the middle wave is advancing activate the two Psionic Traps you have there so you farm the wave, use them to harass the enemy midlaner too, if they buy Sentry Wards try to get an idea of where they are located at and do not play around that area unless needed.

Keep stacking, you should get your Power Treads, mana problems? get Claritys, lost a lot of health? get a Healing Salve, do not go base, going base is time wasted, the resources you get are the time of farming a camp and the gold you get should be slighty over how much you spent, but you also get experience from it, Templar Assassin should not gank, but if an aggressive trilane is diving your safelane tower, teleport there, if you get a Rune of Haste you can go for kills in other lanes but be sure it is going to work, keep an eye out for the enemy midlaner and try to steal his stacks if he has any, use Psionic Traps to cancel his Bottle charges, Healing Salves and Claritys, in a general way keep stacking, flash farming the mid wave, if possible getting kills or a lot of damage out on the enemy midlaner, you should get your Desolator soon with a pretty high level, once you get your Desolator you can go get the Aegis of the Immortal if you know there is no vision, if you want to be sure buy Smoke of Deceit, you can also farm your Blink Dagger before doing Roshan, at this point of the game you cannot kill it alone but soon, like 4 minutes of farming, having your Blink Dagger, maxed Meld, maybe Black King Bar allows you to do it too, getting a Rune of Illusion or Rune of Double Damage also allows you to do it.

So now, before you get into a real match, get into a practice lobby, no bots, no cheats, no nothing, and farm, try to see how efficient you are, try to not depend on RNG things such as runes, if you get a good rune do not use it, and check in the worst possible free-farm scenario, how much you get, if you are doing things right you should get about this:Level 12 and a 10:49 Desolator, in practice it should come to you by around 11:30 since you should hit the creeps in the mid wave in the last picture and then call it.
(I levelled Meld because I got a lot of big centaur creeps in the jungle and they take long to far without points in Meld, the Arcane Ring is not RNG since you basically always should get either Arcane Ring, Keen Optic, Mango Tree or/and Royal Jelly, in this case I also dropped Keen Optic, and I bought 3 Claritys and used all of them, also in the first picture I picked the Rune of Invisibility but it means nothing and I got the Bounty Rune after the 5 minute mark)
But in practice you can get a Desolator to as early as 7 minutes if you get the kills and your team stacks for you, Miracle- has got one as early as 9 minutes in actual professional games, if you practice this multiple times at some point you are going to only get good runes, like two illusion runes then a double damage one, and if you do things such as stack the enemy medium camp (I farmed it because really, what would the enemy midlaner be able to do in a typical game? I do that in normal games, taking farm from the enemies is a very important thing.

Mid game

You have your Desolator and your Blink Dagger ready, time to win, keep farming, always farm, as you move around the map, farm the camps around you, play more aggressive now, but check for what heroes the enemy team has, do they have a ton of magical damage and disables that come early? then wait and farm your Black King Bar, if they do not, then go ahead and try to get kills, "oh the enemy Lion is walking at the top of my Psionic Trap!", Blink Dagger, hit then Meld then hit, or Meld then hit and hit if he is not looking at you, oh, he is dead! try to help the lanes that are losing, get your middle tower, the go for the safelane tower since it opens a lot of space in the map, control their jungle, tell your team to control their outposts, once you have Black King Bar (if it not important then go for like Daedalus or some big damage item, Monkey King Bar if they have evasion, or Bloodthorn if a silence is important, if they have escapes but silencing is not good enought (if the enemy Morphling already has Yasha), then get a Crystalys or Daedalus (in this specific case Monkey King Bar is nice because its a specific hero) and then go Scythe of Vyse, and go get towers, once you have Black King Bar or Crystalys or Orchid Malevolence or Hyperstone you should be able to do Roshan solo, but your team should be playing with you and you should have done it earlier, this should be by around 18-25 minutes, just go win, hit the towers, kill the enemy heroes, if it is hard then farm more, control their map, get all the tier 1s, then the tier 2s, always get two that are close, I recommend getting the safelane and the middle towers since these are the ones that give more map control and the farming triangle is very hard to control since it has very defensive ward positions that are hard to control without winning a teamfight.

You can blink into the enemy high ground and activate Black King Bar and kill people if there are few escapes and magic-immunity piercing disables and you have Aegis of the Immortal, which by the way, you should mark the time you kill Roshan at and it expires 5 minutes after, and he respawns from 8 to 11 minutes after his death, try to use it, during teamfights try to focus the squishy damage dealers or disablers, and try to ignore the tanky cores, you should focus on winning from 25 to 35 minutes, even earlier than that if possible, a bit more than that in a game that is not so easy is valid, mostly if your team does not follow your calls, try to get megas and focus the meele barracks since it spawns stronger creeps than if you destroy the ranged one, but the meele barracks has regeneration while the ranged one does not, do not go fountain diving with Templar Assassin she is not very good at it, Divine Rapier is also not a very good item until late-game.

And you should win, there is not much to say here, I recommend watching high skilled Templar Assassin players, I might play some games and upload them to youtube or give the IDs here, but I think that there are players much better than me, w33ha, Quinn/CCnC, Sccc, Ryoya, even Ferrari_430 as much as he is an older player from different meta and times.

Late game

TEMPLAR ASSASSIN IS NOT A LATE-GAME HERO, she falls off a lot, people get their Assault Cuirass or their Shiva's Guard, people get more health, the supports get Ghost Scepter, you should itemize for Nullifier in such case and also start considering Divine Rapier depending on how late it gets, other items are very situational but lategame you do not need boots, if it is high-ground defense read the items that give attack range, at this point the game is more on your carry than you, but you have to do your job, manfighting is going to get more and more dangerous as the game goes by, and your advantage is going to get smaller (this assuming you have one since it is lategame), but use Psionic Traps wisely lategame, put them at where you think the enemy team will rotate but will have no Sentry Wards, the Roshan pit, the secret shop so you can check for Divine Rapier purchases, consider selling your Desolator for a better item, buyback is important but only if your team has it, if you are the only one with it and you know the enemy team does not have it you can even go for a suicidal buyback play, it all depends, this is by far the hardest part to explain in a guide, there is no formula, it is all situational and it is all hard, greatly dependent on enemy heroes, but you should try not to go late-game, it is still possible to win, no doubt about that, also if you went Monkey King Bar consider getting Divine Rapier in it's place to keep the true-strike and also have damage, also your Black King Bar is going to be very limited late-game so be wise with it, you can go for rat dota plays and split pushing, it is a thing you are pretty good at as Templar Assassin since you have a lot of damage, but consider any game that you overextend as a loss, not as in you lost your 20/30 MMR points, but as a conceptual loss, unless there is a very good reason for that to happen like the enemy team has Tinker, Sniper and Techies or something.

Conclusion

Templar Assassin can give you a lot of MMR, with the nerfs to the Nullifier and Bloodthorn full-lockdown build she lost some winrate, but Templar Assassin is still an amazing hero, I believe if you follow what I wrote in this guide well you can get at least to 5k MMR, the majority of the games bellow that bracket are very easy, the biggest problems are people wanting last-pick to pick something that does not need lastpick like Juggernaut or in a general way people being ******ed and dumb throwing games, but you should be able to solo win basically everything, keep in mind that there are games impossible to win, games where the 5 players in one team are going to the other 5 players, games where the picks are auto-loss for one team, or where the combination of players and heroes is an auto-loss, no matter what you do, practice, getting Psi Blades to the point you win basically every lane with it takes practice, I recommend practicing everything alone one or two times, then one game with bots where you should go like 50/0 and I'm not kidding then you play an actual game, and feel free to differ from me for your playstyle! are you more of a team player? change it up, I would swear at you and say you are trash but maybe I am wrong and you win the vast majority of games doing that! iceiceice does Shadow Fiend, Sniper and Meepo on the offlane, Topson does mid Techies, ana won the ****ing The International with io as a position 1 carry, as n0tail wisely once said: "Anything can work"

And for an epic end, just watch this Ferrari_430 Templar Assassin play: Play Video