The Illusion of Assasins.

Ask anybody who mains mid which champs they hate to lane against, and you will get a variety of responses, but 90% of the time it will be a melee assassin.

Oftentimes we ban these champs, but when one slips through the cracks, we midlaners often prepare ourselves for a loss.

This is what the assassin wants. They know they have a crappy early game compared to you, and they know they have to hit lvl 6 as soon as possible to become a threat.

But we mid liners often times feel that they are gods all the time.

Take this scenario.

Brand lanes against Zed.

Brand knows what Zed can do, he fears getting deleted. He stays far away from Zed and farms with his abilities, and generally leaves Zed alone.

Zed farms up no problem, rushes hexdrinker and Yomuus, and when he hits 6 deletes Brand.

From here on Brand feels there is nothing he could have done and proceeds to be tilted for the rest of the match, and vows to permaban this broken champ.

But what of instead Brand took the offensive? What if he harrased Zed every chance he got, even with autos. What if he bullied Zed away from CS and forced him to farm under tower?

Zed gets put behind. Brand can buy some good items. His team is happy because Zed is able to be dealt with now that he is underfed killwise.

Melee assassins depend a lot on our fears of them to have a peaceful leaning phase, so dont give them one my fellow mage players.

Make their laning phase heck, force them to farm under tower. (Ward properly of course to avoid ganks.)

Put them as far behind as you can and then carry your team through midgame to victory before they can catch up.

Respect their damage once they get their mobility spell, which for most of then is their ult. Disrespecting their damage will get you killed, and help them catch up again.