Anti-Mage

Anti-Mage is a very fast melee hero with high spell resistance that can tear through enemy casters. However he has a small health pool which means he must avoid damage at all costs, blink goes a long way in achieving this. Because he's very dependent on farming to keep up his potential, Anti-Mage requires smart moves and good planning in order to succeed. Like most carry heroes, he reaches his full potential in the late game. Anti-Mage is recommended for intermediate players.

Anti-Mage's true strength comes in his ability to decimate enemy casters. Though he's weak against armored heroes, such as Slardar and Tidehunter, his spell resistance and mana burning powers make him fearful against many intelligence heroes. His main ability is Mana Burn. Not only does it deal additional damage, but it also leaves casters defenseless, and opens them to his very powerful ultimate. Blink works as both an escape and a means of chase, though don't rely on it too much, as silence will leave you open and immobile. Spell Shield allows you to shrug off the damage dealt from most nukes and abilities, making you truly unstoppable in the eyes of casters. And finally, Mana Void lets you finish off a target after you've burned up all of their mana.

Basic Strategy

 * Blink is your only choice on level 1. Put some points into Spell Shield and stats if you are facing strong opponents or go for Blink, Mana Break if you have a superior lane.
 * Blink is the best escape mechanism in DotA. You can also use it to chase, maneuver, or to avoid spells during battles.
 * Manta Style is a commonly built item on Anti-Mage as your illusions can also burn mana with Mana Break, allowing you to burn 192 mana per hit.
 * Sometimes it's more useful to focus your mana burn on heroes with smaller mana pools, because every hero in DotA has to cast spells and leaving them mana-less in the beginning of the battle helps a lot. Unfortunately, this won't work on most of intelligence heroes since their mana pools are too big to be burned out fast enough.
 * Anti-Mage becomes a real threat somewhere around level 13 if he is not underfarmed and underleveled too much. Keep farming, ignore distractions, don't hesitate to steal kills from your allies. Anti-Mage is a hard carry after all.
 * Your laning phase is an absolute nightmare. Many heroes can cripple your early game by harassing/chasing you away. And if you don't utilize your laning phase the game might as well end before you reach Anti-Mages maximum potential. Ask your teammates to babysit you.
 * Anti-Mage has relatively low HP. If you don't have your core items yet or you can't kill an enemy in a couple of hits it's not very wise to chase them for too long. The situation can go wrong anytime.
 * While Spell Shield does a very good job protecting you from magical damage it does not save you from nasty side effects like slows or disables.
 * Mana Void is very difficult to use to full effect. Don't bother with calculations, just use it as your finisher on low-HP fleeing opponents. Note that it does have a stun when you need to to break channeling spells and cancel teleports.
 * You are utterly useless in team fights if you can't physically attack enemies. There are many ways to counter raw physical damage in DotA, especially if it's melee. Decent players will buy items like Scythe of Vyse, Blade Mail, Ghost Scepter to shut you down. Timing your entrance into the battle is everything for you.
 * If you find yourself being killed quickly with stun locks and high physical damage, it is a good idea to pick up Vanguards for the HP boost and damage reduction.

Trivia

 * Anti-Mage is voiced by Sam A. Mowry.