Hey guys, I'm Nightshade17 and am currently rank 6 Vladimir OCE (and top 300 global)
Across all of my accounts, I currently have over 250,000 mastery on Vladimir and have been playing him as my main for over a year now.
If you have any questions or just want to play feel free to add me on OCE at Nightshade17 or Nightshade19.

I started playing him due to the ease at which you can carry games and put your opponents in the dirt, however, I will warn you that Vladimir is not an easy champ with one of the 8 steepest learning curves https://twitter.com/RiotBlaustoise/status/1075515580570980352

Pros:
- Vladimir has the potential to hard carry a game through his insane damage and survivability
- Does better into assassins than most mages
- Massive healing
- Massive AOE burst


Cons:
- Has some very bad matchups
- Low range
- Shutdown hard by Magic Resist
- Low mobility
- Very flash reliant

Vladimir has one of the weakest laning phases in the game with his extremely long cooldowns, however, you still can win lane through good wave management and exploiting your opponent's mistakes.

Q Transfusion:
Your Transfusion has a very long cooldown early levels so take full advantage of it when it is up:
- Your empowered Transfusion does twice the damage but also heals you for a large amount and when it is about to come up
- Your bar decay while your empowered Transfusion is up stops while you are charging up your Tides of Blood, in your Sanguine Pool, or in Zhonya's Hourglass. You can catch out opponents like this by having your bar decay right to the end but charge up Tides of Blood, this will think your Transfusion bar is empty and try fight and you can get a free empowered Transfusion onto the,
- When your Transfusion is about to come up and your bar is full, try walking towards your enemy laner, sometimes they will not back off in time and the small movespeed boost that you get will be enough for you to catch up to them and get an empowered Transfusion off

W Sanguine Pool:
- Your Sanguine Pool costs 20% of your CURRENT health to cast this means that you should be using it later in the trade if possible or to dodge an important skillshot.

E Tides of Blood:
- Your Tides of Blood costs health to chare it up and therefore should be used sparingly throughout the lane, if you arent even hitting your opponent with it you are just dealing damage to yourself (like Dr. Mundos Infected Bonesaw
- This is your primary Waveclear tool and it is on a long cooldown early, this is one of the reasons why you need to rush CDR as otherwise, your waveclear is just downright terrible.
- One very important aspect of Vladimirs kit is that he can start charging up Tides of Blood and then use Sanguine Pool while its charging and release still while in Sanguine Pool

Late Game is where Vladimir shines:

During the lategame, you should be looking for teamfights with your Flash ( Vladimir is decent in a sidelanes but team fighting is where you shine). There is no champion scarier than Vladimir full build with Flash up in lategame teamfights.

The Combo that you want to do is:
- Charge up 3rd Transfusion on minions, monsters, etc.
- Start walking towards them charging up your Tides of Blood
- Flash onto them still charging up Tides of Blood
- Hemoplague them and then empowered Transfusion'ing the priority enemy target
- Release Tides of Blood (You want to release your Tides of Blood after ulting as your Hemoplague increases their damage taken)
- Sanguine Pool (only if required as this does lots of damage to yourself)
- Hextech Rocketbelt (you can Hextech Rocketbelt while in Sanguine Pool) (you can also use this at the start of your combo if you need to gapclose onto them)

Vladimir has many nuances to him that many people will no be taking advantage of:

Raptors Medics:
Vladimirs empowered Transfusion has a lower heal when used on minions, if there are no enemy champions that you can siphon health off or it isnt safe to try, ward over the wall to the raptors pit and you can Transfusion them from over the wall.
This is especially useful against poke intensive matchups like Lux and Xerath.

Setting up for a Teamfight:
Sometimes it is too easy to not make use of your Transfusion passive when a teamfight is about to start or you are running towards a teamfight.
Often it is useful to Transfusion jungle monsters or minions on the way to a fight to charge up your empowered Transfusion. This can drastically change the course of a teamfight as it may be the difference between you oneshotting the enemy adc and them living on 300 hp and lifestealing back up to full.

Phase Rush interactions:
Not many people take complete advantage of how phase rush works.

Every single thing you can do to an enemy counts towards phase rush this includes:
- Sanguine Pool damage
- auto attacks
- first Hemoplague proc (when you use it)
- second Hemoplague proc (when the damage comes through)
- Ignite (this is one of the reasons I take it every game I play mid)
- Hextech Rocketbelt