In most of the games I've seen gyro (and on occasion other carries), he picks up shadowblade after RoQ, Drums. But since gyro generally doesn't gank or teamfight until he has at least BKB and/or Manta i don't really see the use of a shadowblade. It doesn't help farming that much, and if the enemy team wanted to gank, they'd have dust/sentries so invisibility isn't a guaranteed escape. What am I missing here?

They get shadowblade when they want to go mid game oriented since the extra 125 damage combined with flak cannon aoe is pretty nasty. Most of the time it doesnt really end up working out, which is why id rather just spend that gold on something useful like raw garunteed damage or a eaglesong since eagle song is basically the same cost and it builds into a way better item imo. You can tell how early a gyro wants to be fighting if they get a. get drums and how early they do, and b. how early they get a bkb or if at all because people like korok skip it all together in favor of a faster manta. the only other thing i can really think of why shadowblade would be useful for gyro would to start your rocket barrage and then shadowblade crit in a gank but thats so expensive for just 125 physical damage once every 20 seconds ish and for a decent chunk of his mana pool too mind you! hope this kind of helps

Thanks that pretty much sums up everything I wanted to know =)

glad i could help