If no other role picks a tank, how viable is it for the midlaner to pick a tank?

midlane ap bruiser is BACK!

depends if the team has waveclear since mid is mainly waveclear and controling. If you dont have waveclear you wont survive baron or beeing sieged.

A guardian is always prepared.

If you know how to play him, you pretty much won't ever lose your lane - at least in terms of dying or getting your opponent fed - unless you get camped really heavily.

You probably won't "win" your lane either - he's not usually the sort of champion who can solo kill an enemy laner, and his cooldowns and mana issues tend to mean he's not the best at getting all the cs (especially against an enemy where it's dangerous to go in for melee last-hits.)

Hint: max E first, not Q. Straight-line damage spells are the best for pushing/waveclear.

Late-game, he's a useful off-tank with decent AoE damage, and his ult can be a real game-changer. Don't forget your

There are a few tanks/tanky champions who can mid. They may or may not need ap, probably need waveclear, and will likely have to have some level of utility or cc (that thing tanks bring)

isn't a real tank. Vlad can get as durable as one at full build, but doesn't have any significant peel.

handle early poke decently with their shields and both are capable of wave clear after picking up one damage item. Sion can probably actually duel a few mids on his own once you get tanky, but nautilus will rely on his jungler to finish them off as he has more CC than damage.

Closest thing to both a mage and a tank. Waveclear, cc, and fat.

are some options to consider if you are mid and have no tanks. They are AP providing champs who get quite tanky. You just have to play cautiously early game.

http://i.imgur.com/LIbXo6r.png

Midlane tanks are pretty fucking underrated imo.

The Azir I laned against refused to believe I'm not a Sion onetrick pony :^)

galio is a mid laner and a tank

I am a galio main when not playing support. If I know I'm against ad I'll pick nautilus mid and think he is a pretty strong pick in mid. Just build RoA and then full tank and you can do good aoe damage as well as be super tanky.

Just pick or go tank so at least you have some ranged CC and damage.

As a Vladimir I don't recommend it, since you deal a lot less damage with this build, but here it goes:

Makes you have a lot of resistances and health while having some 'ok' CC from Rylai's, your E slow and your Pool Slow.

Another one, although I don't have much experience on him, is .

I guess maybe (just guessing though) a Tanky build on him would be something like

I seen this on youtube as a super waveclear and highest dmg on team full tank build mage mid. Tank Karthus :P very surprising to me. I watched at least two of his games. it looks like he has 4 of them. I'll link one I know that I watched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHeVqKskvMg

hmm wouldnt a ap karma mid be better

is the main mid-lane tank/mage, so unless you go something more off-meta than that, not very viable.

when you want to piss of the enemy mid, go for it.

Depends. Do you want a tank, an initiator, or both?

Because you can get a ton of initiators, a few tanky champs like Cho'Gath and Ryze, but I don't think mid has any viable initiation tanks.

it's hard to tell since in high elo anything but mages+corki isn't meta, but i guess you can pick and be a viable frontline