Anti-Mage

Anti-Mage is a hero of the clock. Not of kills, not of damage, not of teamfights: of the clock. He exists to reach a point in the game before the enemy reaches theirs, and everything the hero does from the first wave to Manta serves that race. The problem is that most players understand half of it. They understand they need to farm fast, and stop there. Farming fast is the means. Turning farm into map is the end, and that is where the hero loses.

Farm that does not become pressure is farm given back

An Anti-Mage with Battle Fury at minute 12 and Manta at minute 20 is on schedule. If at minute 25 all three enemy tier 1 towers are still standing, he is late, and no GPM number fixes that. Every minute the AM farms without threatening a tower is a minute the enemy team farms too, with one more hero in every fight that happens.

The question that separates the Archon AM from the Divine AM is not how much gold per minute. It is: where are the enemy waves dying? If they are dying at your tower, the enemy controls the map and you farm what is left. If they are dying at their tower, you choose where to farm, and that is worth more than any item.

Blink is a lane tool, not an entry tool

Anti-Mage's Blink is the most misused ability on the hero, and the mistake comes in two opposite forms:

• Below Legend: Blink is used to escape, only. The player takes the creep out of fear and never learns to jump to the camp next door, kill the wave and the camp in sequence, and jump back. AM farm is farm from two places at once.
• Above Legend: Blink is used to enter fights. AM jumps onto a support with 800 HP, kills, and is left without Blink with four heroes around him. The AM who blinks in and has no Blink to leave is not a carry, he is a donation.

The use that defines rank is the third one: Blink to cut the wave behind the enemy line when their team is grouped to push. It is the AM that makes the enemy choose between their tower and yours, and while they choose, the AM is already gone.

The timing that decides

If a row of the table slips by three minutes, the item slips by three minutes and the game slips by ten. The AM does not recover time: he only gains what the enemy loses. That is why the hero fits teams that know how to play with four on the map, and falls apart with teams that need five in every fight.

Mana Void: who and when

Mana Void is not an ability to finish a carry. It is an ability to punish whoever spent everything. The right target is almost always the big-mana hero who just used the whole kit: the Storm who jumped in, the Crystal Maiden who cast the ultimate, the Invoker at the end of his rotation. The Void on that target is area damage in the middle of the enemy team, at the moment they have no answer left.

Mana Void on a carry with 200 mana at the start of the fight is the most common wasted ability in student replays.

When Anti-Mage is the wrong pick

The AM loses before the game starts in two situations. Against a fast push lineup (Chen, Enchantress, Lycan, Beastmaster): the enemy ends the map at minute 18 and no clock solves that. And against a low-mana lineup: an Anti-Mage against Ursa, Bristleback, Legion Commander and Wraith King has nothing to burn, and Mana Break becomes a small bonus instead of the reason for the pick.

In both, the hero can win, but not for the reason the player picked him. And that is usually enough to lose.

The useful question

*If I keep farming for three more minutes, what will the enemy have taken down in that time?*

If the answer is nothing, keep going. If it is a tower, the AM is being paid in map for the item he is stacking. And map is the currency in which Anti-Mage is richer than any other hero. Spending it badly is the only way to lose with him.