Hi, my name is Prof Bunghole, I'm a low Gold Vladimir player trying to rectify the situation of few updated build guides for Vladimir mid.

There are several starting items that you can choose between with Vladimir mid, and they are generally comfort picks.

1. Dark Seal + 3 potions (or refillable potion). This is generally a start for a matchup that you feel comfortable in winning or going even. Dark seal offers an early 15 ap plus the possibility of snowballing out of control. It also gives sustain with the unique passive powering up your potions.

2. Boots + 4 pot. I tend to like this rush. It gives you movespeed to help make up for the lack of mobility that is an issue for Vladimir. It also allows you to finish your core of Hextech Protobelt and Lucidity Boots 300 gold faster than if you take Dark Seal.

3. Doran's Shield + 1 pot. This is for matchups where you think you will be taking a lot of poke damage. I haven't ever tried this start before since I like to go aggro, but if you think you will be playing more passive or will be getting hit with a lot of harass, this is definitely viable.

4. Amp Tome + 1 pot. This is for the daring. It offers early ap, plus helps you build into an early revolver going into your protobelt. Be careful with this build, as you don't have a ton of potions. If you take one or two bad trades, you can get pushed out of lane extremely early.

5. Cloth armor + 4 pots. This is for difficult ad matchups such as Zed, Talon, or Jayce. It mitigates some of the damage they will be dealing, as well as giving you some solid effective health to help you stay in lane. In these matchups, I often recommend rushing Seeker's Armguard before getting your protobelt.

The Protobelt rush is one of the most widely accepted builds on Vladimir. It offers the early ap, hp, cdr, and a nice mobility active - all things that Vlad loves. If you find it lacking the oomph that you want from a midlane mage, then consider replacing protobelt with Luden's Echo. The movespeed on Luden's plus the tier 2 boots that you will be getting next can help out your mobility issues that you will be facing if you don't take protobelt. If this doesn't feel quite mobile enough for you either, try taking ghost instead of ignite.

One of the reasons that I love Vlad is because once he hits a two or three item spike, he can completely demolish the enemy team's back line, and just pool out after he is done with them. In order to do this kind of damage, however, you need to hit the upward slope of your power curve fast, otherwise you risk falling behind. To start your snowball into mid and late game, you often times want to try for a level 2 all in.

For those of you who take my advice and run ignite in the midlane, here is how the level 2 all in works. First, use your autos to cs throughout level 1. Use your Q, transfusion, whenever you see the opportunity. If you have to take a little bit of damage to get this off, don't worry about it too much. You will either kill them in the all in at level 2, or you will have the ability to heal it back off of minions or future trades. If you have been using your Q whenever you can level 1, then hopefully you will have your enemy laner down somewhere around 300 hp. When you hit level 2 (after the full first wave, and one melee from the second wave), take a point in E. Now, get your empowered Q charging. When it is nearly done, start walking up to the enemy and charge your E. When E is at full power, flash into range, Q, E, ignite, and watch the enemy laner's hp melt.

Yes, Vlad can still be played top lane, although most people prefer to play him as a bursty dps mage mid lane. I will be adding a top lane/mpen midlane build guide in the near future.