I have been playing Vlad for a while now, and I feel that I have knowledge that other serious Vlad players would greatly apreciate. The Game Play chapter of this guide is very in depth and if you take a few minutes to read it, I promise you will come away from this as a vastly improved Vlad player.

Vlad is the ultimate escape artist.
You need to get Ghost and Flash.
Reason why is further explained in Skill Sequence/Game Play

As everybody knows, it is hard to make a build that will be effective in every game but it is possible to go through some of the most plausible team composition situations.
Also, you should read the other chapters to find out more about game play.
Check to see if the other team has a decent amount of magic damage champions.
If that is true, you will be building a Force of Nature.
If that is not true, you will be building a Spirit Visage.
I will be making a seperate build for each of these situations when I come to update, for right now just know that if they don't have a lot of magic damage characters build the Spirit Visage instead of the Force of Nature.
When you first spawn, you want to buy these items:
(this is the Force of Nature build)
Regrowth Pendant and Health Pot
When you come back to base for more items you will be getting:
Regrowth Pendant and Basic Boots
Next you will be getting:
Negatron Cloak, and finishing your basic boots into Ionian Boots of Lucidity
When you come back to base you should have enough to finish your Force of Nature.
Now we will be building Rylai's Crystal Sceptor.
Start with the Giant's belt, then the Blasting Wand and lastly the Amplifying Tomb.
Finish your Rylai's. Now you have two slows. Now your target is going to have a really hard time getting away from you and your team.
Now you can make a decision on what you want to buy depending on how your team is doing. I usually buy the Haunting Guise, because it is easy to buy in one swift swoop and helps out with AP after that I would suggest to go for Rabadon's Death Cap. You can buy these in either order, depending on your situation. As a finishing item, if the other team is building magic resistance to try and out build you, buy the Abyssal Sceptor. If you have a squish on your team that is needing some held during those epic team fights, you should get Aegis of the Legion for an aura that will help your fellow teamates.

Firstly, Vlad should be used as a 5's Mid character. That is what he does best. Vlad is scary when he has outleveled the opposing team and is very hard to be killed. Whoever decides to go against you Mid should be quite weary of you.

If YOU ACTUALLY READ THIS YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO FARM REALLY WELL, GET THE OPPOSING TEAMS TOWER DOWN FIRST AND KILL OFF THE ENEMY SO YOU CAN OUTLEVEL AND CONCURRENTLY OUT BUILD, MAKING YOU THE ULTIMATE ADDITION TO A TEAM COMPOSITION

I get Q first for obvious reasons. It is your basic early game farming tool, and also used to annoy your opposiong team. Second you get E to help with early game farming. Use E when you are not low on health. (because it costs health to use) You need to get in the middle of the minions to use it to it's full advantage. You want to hit all the targets in view. Using the E while the opposing champion is in range is a huge plus, not only did you damage all the minions, but you damaged the enemy as well with one spell.

Next you get W. You wait to get W because with the Summoner Spells we are going to chose you already have two escape tactics at hand, and we are going to be using W for killing, not escaping... hopefully. You need to be super annoying with vlad. Be aggressive and try to range your opposing champ. The most important part to Vlad game play is minion killing. I know this may sound a bit strange, but this will help you late game, I promise.

You should be focusing only on minions and not bothering the other champ in the lane unless you need to. Vlad is the ultimate minion killer. Once you have the advantage to get your minions to the opposing tower, you should almost never get too far backed off from it. You are being aggressive remember? But make sure to watch for MIA's.. because the other team is going to want to gank you. Once all your minions have been killed off by the tower, you are probably still waiting for your other minions to catch up. Don't run away too quickly though. Get out of range from the tower and immediatly keep attacking minions while slowing moving toward your minions. You will confuse the other champ and get an advantage to their minions being hurt before they even reach yours. While you are slowly moving backwards toward your minions from their tower, use Q on the first in line, and a quick E. This is only for early game though. Later, you will Q, then slow and decrease minion health with W and then E to finish them off, sometimes before they even reach your minions. This will give you a huge advantage and scare off the other champ. They think "woah.. he does so much damage to those minions so fast... maybe I need to back off, he must be good". Lolz.

If you follow these instructions to the tee you will soon become the target of ganks. For this you will have you W at hand. When you see an enemy champ run behind you and the other coming fast towards you, run towards your tower, using W right before you make contact with the enemy coming from behind and you will slip right under him. If W is not off cool down then use your Flash to bolt away. MAKE SURE WHEN YOU GO BACK TO BUY THAT YOU ALERT A TEAMATE TO COME COVER MID. YOUR TOWER IS PRECIOUS.

Since you have been mainly focusing on killing minions and not getting killed by the other champ, you should of out built him by now. Now it is time to kill him. Don't make it obvious you are trying to do so. Start to pick at him with some Q's and get near him with an E that looks like you were just trying to hurt minions. Now that you have picked his health down a little, and you have built yours up with Q and the W's you use for minions getting close to reaching attack distance to yours, Target the enemy with a Q, then E, slow and damage with W, and then finish with another Q that is off cooldown by now.

The enemy tower should fall down quite nicely because you haven't gotten far from it at all with your aggressive farming, and now that the enemy is dead attack that tower until the last green minion is standing on your side and then turn into your pool and slither away. If the tower is about to break and you see enemies coming, continue to beat, but turn on your ghost to be able to run away or use your pool to get away, either way it will be faster and you will escape death. After you knock down that first tower, the other team hardly stands a chance. Now you are going to use Vlad to strategically slow enemies with your pool while killing them, and making it easier for teamates to get a few hits in too. You will find more often than not, that if you are in a team fight and there are low health enemies, that if you Q, E, and fall into your pool, you are going to kill them. Probably KS a few too. POOL KILLS. Know that.

You should also know that Vlads ultimate is not very effective and you can wait until everything else has been maxed out before you get it. You will only be using your ultimate in late game team fights when you can hit as many of your enemies as possible. It is most useful on low health champs that think they are going to get away. AND BOOM they are dead.

If you follow these steps you should have no problem beating the other team.