Reign of Gaming

Ashe is tierless

she obviously transcends the tier list

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The only place Muramana syndra could fit Void Staff in is by replacing Banshee's -- the combo of Seraph's and Rab's is just too much to give up. 

You state that Syndra is defensively weak while stacking double tear, but I disagree... if anything, she's defensively stronger.

Start: Crystal plus optional 2 pots

Push like crazy for the next two? waves to get 300 gold, back, and tear. You push so that when you back you don't lose too many creeps.

Spam Q on your way back to lane, it isn't necessary to use Q on creeps.... and this lets you avoid pushing as well.

While stacking the first tear, get the necessary defensive item to counter your opponent and boots. Negatron for AP and Chain vest for AD. Start building Frozen heart or banshee's veil while stacking tear. 

When you reach 1k mana on tear, back and buy a manamune. It will instantly turn to Muramana. If possible, save so that you can buy Muramana and tear in 1 back, in order. From here, start stacking the other tear and attempt to get AAS as soon as possible, while finishing up the other two defensive items. 

After your 5 item build is complete, create a Rab's.

Nowhere in this build do I see anything that implies Syndra will push like mad or be weak to the attacks of her opponent, as she gets defense early on, and she is not forced to use her Q on creeps. 

1 -- After that first wave is down and pushed past the mid-point, I'll be sure to gank that lane for an easy kill for my mid. Also, how do you deal with a mid who can push as hard as you can, such as Morgana, Brand, or Cassiopeia? The moment you leave, the wave will be pushed to your tower, denying you the XP and gold, thus setting you farther behind. Additionally, using Q while returning to lane has a minor impact. It helps, sure, but you're going to be using most of the abilities to CS so I feel that is a moot point, and you will want to be using them to cs because your mana regen will still not be high enough to spam as much as you would like.   

2 -- Buying a defensive item leaves you weak offensively. You still have to consider that you need to spend about 1100 gold on tier 2 boots, 700 gold on the Tear, and then about 700 gold on the Chain Vest or Negatron Cloak. This is 2500 gold with at least three recalls that have done absolutely nothing to help your damage. Your mid opponent with instead have a mid-tier item to help his/her damage and boots of some kind. In addition, you'll still be pushing so you are still open to ganks.

3 -- Building both Seraph's and Manamura takes a long time to charge. Assuming you can charge both tears as soon as you can, it's still 9 minutes and 24 seconds to charge each of them... baring the gold barrier if you don't have enough. So that's effectively 18 minutes and 48 seconds where you have items that are doing nothing to help your survivability and damage. Around 20 minutes is when teams may contest dragon, and the double-tear AP will not have the damage to fight. This also isn't considering that both mana items make the other more inefficient. Using 25% of your mana on shield means that your ult will deal less damage.

Your build hopes that you can farm long enough to get the gold and mana needed. However, the amount of time it takes to do this will put the game into a point where team fights will start breaking out over objectives and towers will need to be pushed (god forbid the mid tower is destroyed after being ganked). So the potential for this build to work means the game has to go very slowly and your team has to cover for you until you have to damage and survivability to do something useful. I don't see this happening in a typical game, and therefore a good team will capitalize on the 30 minutes where the enemy's AP is extremely weak.

First, you're only pushing until 3:00. Morgana for example, is a weak pusher until 3-5 pool. In addition, the enemy jungler can't proceed to gank you until he finishes his buff, which is normally 2:10. He could gank you in this 50 second period, but if he fails his gank, he might have to back for lowered HP, and becomes extremely prone to counterjungling, as your own jungler will now know his HP levels and be ahead of him in terms of farm and levels. 

You're weak offensively untill maybe 15-20 minutes. Again, we come back to the point that Syndra's AP ratios are not amazing, and most mid laners damage comes from the base damage in this point of the game. 60 (or even 150) AP is a drop in the bucket compared to the base damages.

Syndra will have her Muramana by 20 minutes if she remembers to use her Q constantly. You still forget the teamfight utility that Syndra can bring, which is not something that relies on damage. With her ult, she can also quickly pick off an enemy champ, making a 4v5 advantage in her favor -- this ability to pick off a single champ is much greater on Muramana syndra than AP. By 20 minutes, AP mids are still mostly relying on base damages, so Syndra is not at a massive disadvantage st this point. The Seraph's is a mostly late game item which relies on synergy with Rab's. You assume that we will shield before ulting, but a lot of the time, this shouldn't be the case. This does result in a lower shield, but a 500-700 shield is STILL an extremely strong shield.

On the contrary, your team will capitalize on the extreme midgame burst of Muramana Syndra. Also, this build is cheaper than AP -- The limiting factor is less the gold, and more tear stacks.

Finally, I realize that this build results in reduced end game damage. (and mana-tank is a bad name for the build, mana-bruiser is more accurate) --

However, the most optimized damage build is a Muramana build, (mana glass cannon) though unviable, due to the incredible squishiness of the build. (Sorc - Muramana - RoA - Void - Seraph's Embrace - Rabadon's) and due to the fact that there's not just one, or two, but THREE items with a ramp up time. However, it has a generally lower cost in terms of gold, but what you don't pay in gold, you pay in time. You could avoid RoA, but your only other real options are the Iceborn Gauntlets and Frozen Heart and both are quite expensive items.

The only place Muramana syndra could fit Void Staff in is by replacing Banshee's -- the combo of Seraph's and Rab's is just too much to give up. 

You state that Syndra is defensively weak while stacking double tear, but I disagree... if anything, she's defensively stronger.

Start: Crystal plus optional 2 pots

Push like crazy for the next two? waves to get 300 gold, back, and tear. You push so that when you back you don't lose too many creeps.

Spam Q on your way back to lane, it isn't necessary to use Q on creeps.... and this lets you avoid pushing as well.

While stacking the first tear, get the necessary defensive item to counter your opponent and boots. Negatron for AP and Chain vest for AD. Start building Frozen heart or banshee's veil while stacking tear. 

When you reach 1k mana on tear, back and buy a manamune. It will instantly turn to Muramana. If possible, save so that you can buy Muramana and tear in 1 back, in order. From here, start stacking the other tear and attempt to get AAS as soon as possible, while finishing up the other two defensive items. 

After your 5 item build is complete, create a Rab's.

Nowhere in this build do I see anything that implies Syndra will push like mad or be weak to the attacks of her opponent, as she gets defense early on, and she is not forced to use her Q on creeps. 

Rylai's isn't a questionable choice at all: Syndra has great kiting as long as she can avoid getting gapclosed upon. Her QWE can all be cast without interrupting movement, which when one has Rylai's plus Ms quints, Syndra can cover her retreat extremely well, spawning Q's behind her every appx 3 seconds.

When you say "I forget about the weakness of the early game of tear builds", I do take it into account, but Syndra has extremely strong laning against anyone who isn't Kat, Diana, or Morgana.  If you can get one kill in lane, you can easily snowball, allowing one to accomplish the Muramana with little to no risk. The power curve is pretty smooth from there on, with another spike at AA staff and a final spike at Rabadon's.

You also chose to ignore the difference in survivability in the two builds. You overestimize the negative effects the two items have on each other, and having 3700 mana rather than 4000 does not throw off the calculation that badly; and the shield is still at appx 900 strength even after ulting. Smart play with the build would involve backing before major teamfights or simply having blue buff - the mana regen scales with your mana. 

Finally, the largest disadvantage of zhonya's I can think of in this case is when your team is retreating, you're low, and you're about to be hit by a strong nuke. If you zhonya's it, you're dead, if you don't zhonya's you're dead, but if you have embrace: 

1. Nuke has CC attached, you're dead. or 2. Nuke has no CC, you might stay alive

 I am probably biased towards towards Muramana, but I think both have certain benefits and advantages, and put out similar amounts of damage.

You seem to be highly biased against Muramana and Muramana Syndra.

Assume the following.

21/0/9

mpen red, hp/level yellow, mr blue, ms quint

Mana build: sorc, muramana, frozen heart, seraph's, banshee's, rab's, cost 14700

AP build: sorc, grail, void, rab's, rylai's, zhonya's, cost 15295

pros of AP: 136 AP, 32% pen, 200 HP, zhonya's active (can be disadvantageous or advantageous to be rooted while taking no damage)

pros of mana: 2700 mana, 5 mr, 40 armor, 5% cdr, muramana toggle (keeping autos semi relevant) and seraph's active (there are certain pros about being able to move while boosting your ehp, the disadvantages are that you may mistime shield or be stunlocked due to lack of stasis.)

Now the true damage difference between the two builds is: 

Q/W: 95 damage per cast in favor of AP

E: 54 damage per cast in favor of AP

R: 1064 damage in favor of mana

Assuming 3 Q casts, 1 W cast, and 1 E cast, damage per target is off by 434 damage per person. Assuming no resists or pen, as long as Syndra hits less than 3 targets with her QWE, then R damage more than makes up for it. The math has shown this. And it is true, that most teamfights are over within this 12 second time span.

Now with resists, the game changes. 

Mana qewqrq: 5162 magic damage single target, or 2639 * targets hit + 2523 single target.

AP qewqrq: 3085 * targets hit + 1459 single target.

Assume average resists for units hit in AoE is 150 while the main target has 100 resists.

Resists after pen, mana : 115 / 69

Resists after pen, AP : 67 / 37

mana damage: 1240 * targets hit + 1493 single target

AP damage: 1847 * targets hit + 1064 single target.

As evidenced: 

Mana build has more EHP, less damage

Autoattacks were unfactored, Mana could pull ahead w/ autoattacks.

In order to 1v1 a carry, all of the damage allowed to Syndra, appx 2.6 to 2.8k single target, is enough. Syndra will lose less HP in a duel with mana build due to higher burst and higher resists.

And the value of burst is undervalued in the game: if you can instantly drop the carry to 0 rather than leaving 2/3 bars, then you run no risk of the carry lifestealing back to 100. In that respect, the 5 extra bars of burst muramana gives you might be valuable. Similarly, the ability to tactically pick off a unit before a teamfight looks to be undervalued in these analyses

The cost of AP build is generally higher than the mana build. The AP build has two NLRs, rather than only one, creating more periods of weakness while saving for those 1600 items. In comparison, the mana build's power curve is rather smooth after completing the Muramana.

The conclusion I have come to is that both builds are equally viable. AP Syndra may have stronger AoE damage due to superior pen, but she is also more prone to being blown up. In addition, her dueling ability comes at much greater risk to herself in comparison to Mana Syndra's. Mana Syndra allows a slightly larger room for error, brings similar amounts of damage, and pushes more strongly than AP Syndra. In the end, it is the player's choice of which build seems best and most fun to them.

1. One can manage to fully stack a tear by the 15th to 20th minute. This is because the change to mobility makes boots start not as necessary, and thus you can start Mana Crystal and base at 300 gold, while pushing hard in order to avoid losing a great deal of farm.

2. I agree with this, but after completing embrace, the active shores up these weaknesses in EHP.

3. The other AP item gives appx 200 AP, which ends up giving a high deal of synergy with Rabadons. You can boost it a little with Blue Elixir.

Syndra is unique in that she has the ability to safely rush mana items because of her innate strength in laning and lane dominance. A Syndra is fully able to screw over most midlanes without any semblence of an AP item, due to her ult, even without Muramana increasing its strength. Her base damages are still strong, and her ratios are not extremely high either. Syndra herself shores up early game weakness, lane dominance can carry you through midgame, and Muramana Syndra's lategame is multiple times stronger than pure AP Syndra's.

@OP, why not build her like this:

Muramana, Frozen Heart, Banshee's Veil, Seraph's Embrace, Rabadon's Deathcap, and choice of boots?

You end up appx. 400 AP and 4000 mana, giving a strong balance between ult and ability power. And Syndra's ratios aren't necessarily that strong.