The tide has turned!

Introduction

Hi, I have seen quite a lot of people rushing Ethereal Blade in the recent patches. One of the problems with rushing Ethereal Blade is that you become more of a roaming ganker than a Hard Carry. In a team fight, your team cannot rely on you to dish out a lot of damage consistently.

Pros / Cons

Pros
-One of the highest potential carries
-Hard to kill
-Huge stat growth
-Has a nuke with no limit of power
-Versatile

Cons
-Item dependent
-Low starting attack damage, movement speed and range
-Early game mana problems

Items

Starting Items

The tango and salve is for harassment problems or when the enemies land a failed gank but get you low. The ring of protection helps Morphling get a bit of armor to mitigate some damage. This is later used to create Ring of Basilius. With the slippers of agility, you can create a Ring of Aquila later on. The two branches are to get some maximum health because Morphling is quite fragile early on like most carries.

Early Game

Boots of Speed
Boots obviously increase your movement speed. It is vital for Morphling to get this item quickly. This is because Morphling is very slow which makes him an easy prey for gankers.
Boots obviously increase your movement speed. It is vital for Morphling to get this item quickly. This is because Morphling is very slow which makes him an easy prey for gankers.
Preserverance
Preservance is required so that he can lane much longer which the health regeneration. The mana regeneration is also useful for using Waveform to receive multiple creep kills at once. This is later used to create the Linken's Sphere.
Ring of Basilius
The Ring of Basilius is an optional item for Morphling. The Ring of Basilius cannot be upgraded into a vital item for Morphling. However, it does help him in lane quite a bit. The ring helps with mana problems and gives bonus armor in a radius. A lane partner can benefit from the ring a lot. By using the mana regen, your lane partner can cast more spells, forcing opponents to retreat. By doing this, you can free farm for longer.

Mid Game

Linken's Sphere
You should have finished your Linken's Sphere by 20 minutes into the game. If you farmed very well, you can achieve 15 minutes. You should aim to have finished your Linkens and boots by 18 minutes. Linken's Sphere can be substituted by Black King Bar. If there are a lot of Single Targeting enemies like Vengeful Spirit, Bane or Lion, you definitely must get Linken's Sphere to negate spells like Magic Missile, Nether Swap, Fiend's Grip, Finger of Death, Earth Spike and Hex. However, if there are AoE based heroes (Leshrac, QoP, Sand King) on the battlefield, you would be better to build a BKB.
Power Treads
Power Treads give 5 more movement speed than ordinary boots which isn't really important but it does give 15 attack speed. For any carry, this is very important. Treads also give you 190 maximum health if you decide to toggle it on strength.
Ring of Aquila
The Ring of Aquila isn't very useful at this stage of the game. If you decide to buy Ring of Basilius early on and upgrade it to Aquila, it should be should very soon when you start to possess much better items.
Magic Wand
The Magic Wand is quite useless at this time as well. However, it does give you 225 health and mana when you activate it during full charge. Once it reaches Late Game, you should definitely sell the item.

Late Game

Manta Style
Manta is undoubtedly a core item for Morphling. This should be bought after Linken's Sphere. This item gives stats that are vital for any carry and 10% movement speed. With this item, no one should catch you if they don't have a slow/stun. It also adds a lot of pushing potential. Single target heroes would have trouble finding the real Morphling.
Ethereal Blade
Ethereal Blade can be used to 'Shotgun' an enemy hero down in seconds. Once you have your Manta and Linken's, you should be quite high level. With his gains, Ethereal Blade will be benefitted quite nicely. Ethereal Blade -> Adaptive Strike -> Waveform
Butterfly
Butterfly gives Morphling much needed attack speed and evasion. It also gives 30 agility which would increase the Ethereal Blade and Adaptive Strike damage by 60. Evasion would help greatly against enemy carries.
Satanic
With all the previous items, Morphling should hit for at least 250 without morphing agility. By activating Satanic, Morphling would heal for around 437.5 damage per hit, ignoring armor from this calculation. With the previous items, Morphling should already hit at about every 0.45 seconds. Not to mention the passive lifesteal. With Morphling's high agility, you could reach 30 armor easily. With lifesteal, there is no doubt that you can solo Roshan. Definitely not an item to ignore.
Boots of Travel
No one can have all epic items in a serious match. You would still need boots but would you rather have an epic item or still carry tps? Once you are maxed out on items, you should sell your treads and buy Boots of Travel. This way, you can kill the backdoorers or get back to base quickly when you're out of position or the opposition are pushing hard.

Skills

Waveform (Q)
Level up Waveform at levels 1,3,5,7
Useful for getting the last hit on an enemy. Can be used to take multiple creep kills at once. Useful tool for harassing enemies and receiving creep stats at the same time. This spell is Morphling's main escape mechanism. Combo: Waveform behind the target and Adaptive Strike to push them back.

Adaptive Strike (W)
Level up Adaptive Strike at levels 9,12,13,14
Very strong nuke during Late Game. This is Morphling's most versatile spell. Can be used to push the target back quite far and land a 3 second stun on the opponent or land a mini stun on the target and deal 80 damage in addition to 2x of your agility.

Morph (E)
Morphling's toggle spell. Can activate the Morph Strength to receive maximum health per second. This is useful to escape menacing foes. Morph Agility can be used to deal more Adaptive Strike damage.

Replicate (R)
Morphling's replicate is an annoying ability which allows Morphling to create a replicate of any hero on the map. It deals 50% damage and takes no additional damage. This is a annoying as AoE damage does not reveal the real or fake hero. Morphling can press R while the replicate still lives. If he does this, Morphling would instantly take the replicate's position, give Morphling another good escape tool. Replicate Flaw: You can tell whether a replicate is fake or not by looking at the mini-map. If the colour of the replicate is Morphling's colour (Blue, Teal, Purple, Yellow, Orange etc), then the replicate is a fake.