Intro

As a Samira enjoyer but hater of the ADC role, I've been OTPing Samira mid (with top secondary) for a couple of years now. Up until this split, Samira mid was playable (a lot more so than typical sheep players would think), but had no particular benefit compared to botlane. You could make it work, but it was a labor of love, and you were basically nerfing yourself compared to playing bot.

This split, however, there is genuinely an advantage to playing Samira mid that you cannot physically get in botlane. That advantage is the Gluttonous Greaves upgrade, Immortal Path. I assume the upgraded boots have been discussed here before, but probably been widely considered cope (by neuronally deficient peers), so I want to share my experience and how I've been taking advantage of them. Btw, yes, I know you're still making your team have no mage in mid, maybe double adc, etc, etc by playing Samira mid; I'm not here to discuss that or get lectured about how "Samira's passive needs a stun to be used" (you actually need to take an exam if you unironically write that). Just here to share the build for those interested in learning about a different approach to the champ we all love.

Build

Runes for Samira mid are pretty stock standard:

Conqueror, Triumph, Legend: Bloodline, and Last Stand. You can play around with secondaries, but I usually just default to Sudden Impact + Treasure Hunter.

The item build is where I diverge the most from the general consensus. My build is:

• Start: Doran's Blade (always; the 2.5% omnivamp scales very nicely)
• 1st: Immortal Shieldbow
• Boots: Gluttonous Greaves
• 2nd: Infinity Edge
• 3rd: Lord Dominik's Regards (or rarely Mortal Reminder)
• 4th+: Situational. Kaenic Rookern against heavy AP (or high AP threat), QSS against high CC, Randuin's Omen against heavy AD (2+ crit users), Jak'Sho, Blood Thirster. Pretty much up to you.

Reasoning

"Why not Collector?"
First of all, I generally don't like Collector, especially in mid. Even before this split I honestly prefered Stormrazor or Blood Thirster in mid. My philosophy is thus: Yes you can get ahead and snowball, etc, but there's more variety of matchups in mid and your role in midgame is different (you have to solo sidelane a lot more). You don't *have* to snowball lane to win. You scale really well. No point coinflipping with meh items (plus the reasons below).

"But why Shieldbow?"
There's approximately three reasons to go Shieldbow first. Firstly, it has a pretty good build path, so you can remain strong while building it and always keep your solo kill and skirmish threat (which, even without Collector, you have a lot of). Secondly, it synergizes extremely well with Last Stand and the new boots; I'll explain more in the next section. Thirdly, you are trying to scale as quickly as possible (which you do by finishing crit items) and Shieldbow is tied cheapest. Also, because I typically only build 3 crit items for 75%, I'm trying to make sure I have the best possible set of three, and Shieldbow makes the cut over Collector or Stormrazor every time.

"What's the synergy? Why are the boots good?"
First off, the 4% scalling to 10% omnivamp is extremely nice, and combined with Legend: Bloodline, Doran's Blade, and the boots' passive gives you very strong healing without even having to buy BT. But you already know that; after all, botlane Samira likes them too. The upgraded boots' passive is what we're *really* here for, though. Above 50% HP, you deal 5% increased damage. That's comparable to Cut Down, Coup de Grace, and Last Stand. With the first two, you have the potential to stack the bonuses, which could be worth exploring, but with Last Stand you ensure that 100% of the time, for the whole game, your damage is multiplied by at least 5%. For 1000g. In practice, I find the bonus damage over the course of a game tends to be in the same realm as Last Stand's (which actually offers higher damage than you're used to with this build, as you'll see soon). But wait, there's more! When you're below 50% HP, you gain 15% increased Healing and Shielding. I wonder what consistently provides us with a Shield when we're at low HP... Wait... does that let us stay alive longer at low HP keeping Last Stand's damage multiplier active without us dying, letting us do more damage, lifesteal more, and amplify our healing by 15% to stay alive even better? Couldn't be.... And all that's online after 1 item plus boots?? Surely Collector's still better, right? (lmfao)
Again, the bonus to healing over the course of a game depends on how fights play out, but I've found it to almost always be higher than the total shielding of Shieldbow over a game, sometimes multiplicatively higher (so the boots alone give you more survivability than Shieldbow!).

"Why 75% crit?"
I'm not married to the idea of 75% crit to be honest, but I find that in the vast majority of situations you are much better off buying a situational defensive item afterwards, or even BT for insane healing, than you are trying to force one of the remaining low-value crit items (I haven't tested Hexoptics though, that one might be the exception here). I already top the damage charts almost every game, and I don't feel a lack of damage (except maybe against extremely tanky teams). Survivability is so much more important when you don't have a support following you around and you actively want to take 1v1s and 1v2s in the side lane.

Final Thoughts

By starting your build off with Shieldbow + Gluttonous Greaves and then building the highest damage crit items, you get damage that's likely higher than the standard botlane build *and* you heal much better at low HP, letting you keep pumping out damage (and potentially turn fights around).

I didn't play Samira back when the Shieldbow mythic was a thing, but based on what I've seen from that era, this build is the closest you will ever get to that experience again in modern league. And on top of that, it's not just a novelty "for-fun" thing, but something I genuinely think is one of (if not *the*) most optimal ways to play Samira in midlane.

It's also a very different experience to Samira botlane, so any mains feeling burnt out on that might have something to gain from trying it out. Be warned, however, Samira in mid is quite different to Samira in bot. Matchup knowledge is really important, and so is macro (knowing when you can sidelane, what 1v1s you can win, when you should group, etc), so I don't recommend trying it in ranked before you've had some practice.