Twin sons to the great Prophet, Terrorblade and Magina were blessed with divine powers: Terrorblade granted with an unnatural affinity with life forces; Magina gifted with energy manipulation. Magina's eventual overexposure to the magics gradually augmented his elemental resistances and bestowed him the unique ability to move faster than light itself. Now, broken by Terrorblade's fall to the dark side, Magina answers the Sentinel's call in a desperate bid to redeem his brother. Every bitter strike turns the Scourge's evil essences upon themselves, culminating in a finale that forces his enemy to awaken to the void within and spontaneously implode.

Although Magina is called the Anti-Mage, there is a wide debate about how effective he actually is against Intelligence heroes. Even though Magina has Spell Shield to protect him from spell damage, his low HP, reliance of physical attacks and the fact that he is melee makes him very vulnerable against disables which happen to be the type of spells that Intelligence heroes have. What makes it worse is that Anti-Mage is a hero with very bad lane control, his Mana Break burns very little mana and Mana Void only becomes useful after the target has already finished casting his/her spells. Nevertheless, he has received a huge buff thanks to the Blink Dagger change, and he is one of the few carries with a blink type ability.

Skill Explanations

Mana Break

Mana Break is your primary offensive ability. This skill allows you to deal exceptionally large amounts of damage with little investment as well as severely debilitate any hero that your blade meets. It is what makes your enemies fear you and is what allows your ultimate ability to function. When attacking heroes the damage dealt per hit with Mana Break is reduced by 40%. Therefore, level 4 Mana Break only does 38 damage per hit. However, the amount of mana burnt remains constant.

Each attack burns mana based on spell level.

Level 1 - 16 mana per hit.
Level 2 - 32 mana per hit.
Level 3 - 48 mana per hit.
Level 4 - 64 mana per hit.

Orb effect.

Blink

Blink is infamous for being one of the most versatile and powerful skills in the game. This along with Mana Break makes up the focal point of your hero. Blink gives the Anti-Mage maneuverability that is unmatched by any other hero. Proper Blink usage is what can make or break an Anti-Mage.

Short distance teleportation that allows one to move in and out of combat.
Costs 60 mana.

Level 1 - 12 second cooldown.
Level 2 - 9 second cooldown.
Level 3 - 7 second cooldown.
Level 4 - 5 second cooldown.

Spell Shield

Nifty is the word that sums up this ability. Although extremely useful this is a skill that requires little mention, just watch as Finger of Death only scratches you and leave it at that.

Magina channels a powerful warding magic, damping the negative effects of spells.

Level 1 - Reduces magic damage by 10%.
Level 2 - Reduces magic damage by 20%.
Level 3 - Reduces magic damage by 30%.
Level 4 - Reduces magic damage by 40%.

Mana Void

Probably the skill that newbie players manage to botch up more than any other, Mana Void will be the source of many of your kills throughout the game. To explain it better let us look at a Pugna with 1200 mana. If this Pugna has 1200/1200 mana then Mana Void will do no damage to him. If Pugna has 600/1200 mana then level 3 Mana Void will do approximately 600 damage, as Pugna is missing 600 mana and Mana Void deals damage per each point of mana missing. If Pugna has 0/1200 mana then Mana Void will deal a whopping 1200 damage.

The power of this skill increases greatly as the game progresses. Early in the game it will often only have the potential to deal 200 damage to heroes like the Centaur but later will be an instant kill for unwary Intelligence heroes and still deal a good chunk of damage to any hero, Intelligence or not Intelligence.

This ability is really your finishing move. It is your fatality, so to speak. After you’ve burnt away all of your enemy’s mana with Break and after he’s foolishly wasted his spells on you to get you off of him you finish him off with Void.

Note that Mana Void also stuns the hero for a very short period. This can, surprisingly, turn the tide of a battle during the early part of the game as well as cancel channeling spells and things of that sort. Let me assure you that the mana cost of all three levels of this skill will become very, very familiar to you after playing this hero. I'll probably remember them when I'm in the nursing home screaming for a diaper change.

Creates a powerful void in an enemy unit caused by a lack of mana. For each mana point missing, the unit takes damage.

Level 1 - .6 damage per mana point missing. 175 mana cost.
Level 2 - .85 damage per mana point missing. 225 mana cost
Level 3 - 1.1 damage per mana point missing. 275 mana cost.

Skill Build

Level 1- Blink
Level 2- Mana Break
Level 3- Mana Break
Level 4- Stats
Level 5- Mana Break
Level 6- Mana Void
Level 7- Mana Break
Level 8- Blink
Level 9- Blink
Level 10- Blink
Level 11- Mana Void
Level 12-15- Stats/Spellshield
Level 16- Mana Void
Level 17- 25- Stats

Mana Break is essential for dealing any kind of damage and is maxed first. Blink is necessary for just about everything the Anti-Mage does; one point is placed in it early. Because you're horribly fragile early in the game you should only need to use Blink sporadically if an enemy gives you a very easy opportunity to kill him or if you need to run. You need to farm to Vanguard/Hood/Linkens before you can do stuff, so you can get Stats and farm early. The extra stats give you extra mana for when you do need to Blink. Maxing Blink early is still viable, however and I tend to only take one level of stats to max early chasing potential. Max SS as you feel necessary, most likely it will be taken at 12-15 though.

Spell shield is normally necesary, however there will be occasions when it isn't really needed, on these occasions don't bother until later on, I haven't played an anti-mage game in memory where the enemy haven't had some sort of decent spelldamage though...

Item Build

Core Build

-4-6 Tangoes + Branches
-3 Wraiths
-Linkens/Hood/Vanguard
-Complete Power Treads
-TP SCROLLS
-Bfly
-Another one of those damage items OR Heart of Tarrasque OR Assault Cuirass

Ok. Here goes:

Tangoes and Branches are obvious. Linkens, hood and Vanguard all give some form of regen, which is key to magina, they also supply you with some kind of resistance. I used to always get vanguard or hood, but now I'm really inclined to linkens, it costs less than before, the perseverence is better than it was, the 20 sec spellblock cooldown is GROSSLY powerful on magina, you get permablink you get hp, you get mana, you get damage. It is a lot more expepensive than the other options, but I really feel that, especially if the enemy team are packing some kind of targetable spells, it is not an option to be overlooked.

Vanguard is a cheaper form of hp and regen, it gives damageblock, which is nice, but the regen is relatively poor (although recently buffed), and the damage + permablink are certainly missing.

Hood is taken as a method of not being ripped to shreds by casters like Zeus, Lina and the like, I am now partial to one of the other two options over Hood, although it certainly has its place, it is also cheaper than linkens. if disables and singletarget spells are the problem then Linkens is a no-brainer though.

Treads are obvious, you have Blink for maneuverabiliy, the dps you obtain from it combined with your wraiths and burn means casters hate you. Your -ms is sufficient with treads, it will be at 385, and as you Semi-Rush them you will not suffer from enemies all having BoT. If you don't have BoT... w/e Get it lategame when you have more ias.

The recent buff to treads makes them even more powerful, I leave it to the player's discretion as to whether they use strength or agility treads, personally I have them on agility because I like the extra damage + attackspeed, If my hp is insufficiant and I'm killing people easily I could obviously turn them to strengthtreads instead.

Wraith bands give damage and mana and strength.

-TP scrolls are highlighted, as there is nothing more scary than a surprise Magina. Your ally is ganked by a crystal maiden and a lina. The crystal maiden and lina towerdive your ally, tower is raping them, and they are using mana like crazy trying to kill your ally. Most likely your ally will die. However, you have tped in, and the enemies now suffer a couple of hits, one of them then dies to your void, while the other is hunted all the way back, and most likely killed. TP SCROLLS LADS. THEY SAVE LIVES. Always have 2 on your person.

Now that Bfly is cheaper (new 1/4staff), i'm discinclined to get anything else. Sometimes MKB COULD work but butterfly is honestly the best option. You get evasion and tonnes of attackspeed = niiiice.

After the core damage item I would almost always recommend a heart, you need hp badly as Antimage.

Item Build: Late Game Options, Criticism of Other Builds

After the obvious heart during the lategame there are a few choices of items. I have recently been really taken by battlefury anti-mage, the extra farm is sort of funny and it's really good for pushing and farming up the money for buyingback, it is NOT to be underrated at any cost as a lategame option.

A Buriza would seem to be obvious in terms of extra damage, critical strike is going to be a real boost when "the shit hits the pan" and you have to outcarry someone, and I would never choose to ignore it as a choice very late in the game.

Vladmirs offering is lifesteal, now that it is %age based, very cheap, and you have a lot of agility based damage I think that it's a real option. However, I would not consider it to be as powerful as a Buriza, Battlefury or Basher very late in the game.

Basher is a ridicululously underrated item. This is partly due to the stereotypical pubbers who take 2 bashers earlygame on heroes like Magina and Troll. This isn't how we use bashers. My "basher build" takes place after I have all of my core items. It is a very lategame option which allows you, with your innately high agility gain, low attack cooldown and butterfly + treads, to SLOW an enemy by around 25-35%, reduce the enemy DPS, and break channeling ultimates. It is the ultimate in lategame anti-DPS item, there have beeen games where a Basher has broken the game, completely shutting down an enemy DPS option and .. yeah owning stuff.

This is some Math done with help from the Mech people to help illustrate the Power of Basher on an anti-mage lategame.

As a magina you have a lower attackcooldown, however you have a smaller chance to bash.

At level 25 with Agility treads, Butterfly, Heart, Linkens, Basher and a TP scroll you will have:
89+75 agility and 65% ias resulting in 164 + 65 229 ias.
1.45/1+2.29 = 0.441 game seconds per attack.

Assuming bash occurs once every 6.66 hits this results in a 1.1 second stun every 2.94 seconds.
1.1/3.1 resulting in approximately a 37.5% chance of slow.

A conservative estimate of slow % (taking into account bash overlap etc) would be 27.5-37.5% at this point in the game. That's better than an eye of skadi, and cheaper aswell as reducing their DPS by 100% during these bashes