This is my new favorite way to play Malzahar. He is a character that doesn't require you to worry about mana and therefore has amazing lane staying power if done properly, which this build aims to do. I will be brief because I don't know any better and I will try and update if I get any suggestions or questions on anything.

This build focuses on a few main things.

First spell vamp fast for massive lane staying power.

Spell pen, CDR, and Mana regen for farming and killing.

You need to be really good about keeping your malefic visions going with just auto-attack and minions or else your going to have mana problems and not be able to do this build properly. Part of the reason this build can be so expensive is because you should be able to kill any minion wave from about level 3 on with just your malefic visions getting most if not all the kills.

All of this leads to you being able to:

1. Farm minions extremely well gain mana doing it.

2. Never be out of mana for incoming ganks or the next team fight with proper malefic visions control.

3. Harass the other team in lane almost constantly while maintaining nearly full mana for a real attack.

4. From level about level five on (maybe earlier if your doing really well) you should have your Hextech Revolver and be able to stay in lane almost forever between timing Malefic Visions for your mana and it doing damage and lasting for whole minion waves gives you a ton of health from this point on.

5. All that magic pen your building up naturally is already destroying people you will more than likely become the target fast after level six because you should be able to kill all but extremely high health champs, which it is tough to gain enough health/magic res if you are doing a good job keeping people down ;)

Rune choices are fairly standard for an ap caster.

9x Greater Mark of Magic Penetration
9x Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration
9x Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction
3x Greater Quintessence of Health

I think the only thing that could be changed for this build would be the Greater Quintessence of Health traded for Greater Quintessence of Cooldown Reduction or possibly Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration depending on how it feels to you in game, that said I don't think the Greater Quintessence of Cooldown Reduction will be needed as much as the [Greater Quintessence of Fortitude]] for early game or the Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration for the whole game.

Masteries are also pretty standard.

The important things to note in the trees:

Attack:
CD Reduction -- Sorcery
Spell Pen -- Archaic Knowledge

Utility:
CD Reduction -- Intelligence
Mana/Mana Regen -- Meditation / Perseverance & [[Expanded Mind

Start of with a Doran's Ring in combination with the health quints will give you enough health for an early gank if you have a strong lane partner or alternately if you're mid more security from any early ganks. The regen is also helpful for when your Malefic Visions isn't able to be cast because of mana while your cleaning up minions and harassing.

Next get the Hextech Revolver. This is a core item and you should be able to get it fairly quickly if you are taking advantage of Malefic Visions well :).

Next pick up the Ionian Boots of Lucidity important because of the cd reduction. Sorcerer's Shoes wont be needed with this build.

Next item is Tear of the Goddess.

This is where you should be deciding what kinda defensive item you want and you can start getting the first piece of that. Usually for me this end up being the Negatron Cloak because of the casters and/or because of magic res but if ad is the problem you would pick up the Chain Vest on your way to Zhonya's Hourglass. For now tho just pick up the vest/cloak if your find you need some more staying power.

next is the Archangel's Staff from your tear

Now is the time for a Needlessly Large Rod and Rabadon's Deathcap. This completes the core items.

Your next couple items are dependant on how your doing and what your facing

If your problem is ap then your defense item buy was the Negatron Cloak which you should follow into the Abyssal Mask. If your issue was ad then you should be getting your Zhonya's Hourglass at this stage.

Now we clean up our items a little and get Will of the Ancients to help out our team a little more and get a little more spell vamp and ap.

I have intentionally left one item out from my item list because it is my situational dps item. I will describe my choice for that last slot and try and give an idea when to get it.

If the other team is getting magic resistance I will get a Void Staff to counter it, usually as a sub for Abyssal Mask initially leading to Rabadon's Deathcap and then getting the Abyssal Mask after. You will have so much magic pen at that point you will be tearing through anybody regardless, especially if you got the Abyssal Mask as is the preferred choice.

The other choice is if they are not stacking magic res and the Abyssal Mask is enough along with your runes pick up a Rylai's Crystal Scepter for the health and slow if will help out the team alot when your dot is slowing people for everyone to chase down. Usually just a for fun item late game. If you find yourself needing just a little more time to do damage before they get away even with Ghost than replace the Abyssal Mask with Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

My last recommendation is Mejai's Soulstealer. If you are doing well early and you have the feeling you will be for awhile then absolutely get it, and early. Get it after the first boots so you have some speed and after you pick it up continue on to your Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

This is a pretty common skill order for mal. Your main damage is Malefic Visions and Call of the Void. Using only one point in Null Zone until you cap the others because it will end up getting a huge bonus because from all of the ap you end up getting. Your main goal is to stay back and get Malefic Visions on the minions to get back life and mana when you run low from harassing. if you do it right you can use most of your mana harassing and in only 2 minion waves be at full mana and at least more health ready to harass again with good use of visions.

Ghost and Ignite are my skills of choice.

Ignite along with Malefic Visions, Call of the Void, Null Zone, and Nether Grasp will destroy almost anyone and is therefore essential imo.

Ghost is great for the chase, getting that last Malefic Visions or Ignite for the kill or maybe even a Call of the Void but it is the one skill maybe worth changing for...

Flash this can save your life easily. Cooldowns come up fast and you get life back fairly quickly with any minions around but sometimes you have a charging or pulling enemy and this is the only way to get out of aoe ultimates in time to get a call of the void down and maybe stop a devastating ultimate.

Teleport is an option tho i'm not a big fan of this spell. While Mal can easily stop massive minion waves in a pinch so it could be helpful to get back fast to towers in danger, he is not tanky enough to handle 3 people. Most of the time you can handle 2 people tho with Malefic Visions and Call of the Void so if you're a fan then you can replace Ghost with this instead.

Skills you should never get:

Clarity if your getting this with mal your doing it all wrong. You simply should never have to worry about it. Even in team fights when minions come you should be able to gain more mana than the cost of Malefic Visions with every wave so in a 2 or 3 wave stalemate you have full life and mana.

Revive you shouldn't need it period. Ever.

Thank everybody for the comments so far I have cleaned the guide up and made it more readable. I also put the pictures in to make it pretty for everyone to look at and not just brutal walls of text heh. If there is anything else I can explain or breakdown better please ask! I am updating the guide constantly to be more descriptive on intended play style so as to avoid anyone complaining about not enough mana or something in the future, since the point is you shouldn't need anything more than what i'm showing you :P. All comments good or bad as long as they're helpful are wanted! Thanks again everyone.