the current meta does not need a mid laner who has magic + physical damage
you either have

1. mobility and fast pace
2. blade mail + heart

or both of them
but sf has non of them so he is far behind
if the mid laners are squishy heroes outside of this meta, sf can win mid so easily

You lose as SF If you dont build 6 shadowblades

My SF is fire af

I don’t think people here can conceptualize how bad a 43% winrate on protracker actually is. It’s far worse than a 43% winrate across all brackets, because that means that only hero specialists are picking the hero and only in the best situations for the hero. If people in 9k+ games picked SF at the same rate as players in lower brackets in the same draft situations, the hero would genuinely have like a sub 30% winrate.

It’s viable with the new Topson build

Fuck that hero, keep it out

They earned their right to pick SF by getting matched in your games. You are ranting at players at your own skill level which is kinda ironic.

Destroying people in turbo with SF the difference in mango and courier delivery is so massive, I was 9/1/9 and 12/0/7 the last 2 SF games.
Yes, I also lost my last 2 ranked SF games despite snowballing early but in low divine people not really a fan of being coordinated, so we lost eventually.
I personally 80% of the time always getting edge, thorn and hex, so I don’t always rely on my teammate to disable the enemies before they stun/ slow me to escape.
I would only go full DPS if I see a good lineup and thinks I can entrust disabling enemies to those guys.

I played it often in turbo as offlane. Most of the time I win the lane. Sf + good support ez lane. Raze good during laning.

Item I pretty much rush meka and that mana boot and upgrade it. From that i pretty much buy normal offlane item like those aura items and sometimes bought blademail too.