[Playing with the mastery page I use for hybrids] wasn't really a good fit for TF
Why do you play tf as hybrid
I lol'd
"(winning strategies often catch on years after they became possible)" - this is doesnt really go for lol because new strategies are made after recent buffs/nerfs or other gameplay changes like when masteries were revamped.
This is demonstrably false. The creation and destruction of possible strategies does not have a bearing on the potential delay between a strategy becoming possible and becoming popular. The only way it wouldn't apply is if you re-created the game from scratch every year to make absolutely certain that nothing that may still be undiscovered from the previous version still existed. Exploit bugs are particularly visible examples of this: they are sometimes discovered on characters that have had no noted patches for months and months that could possibly have enabled the bug; it just wasn't discovered yet.
re: tank shaco
The thing about Shaco's utilities is that he doesn't need to be in melee range to use any of them, nor does he need to blow his stealth/blink to get them off; he can save it for escapes. With his awesome escape powers he really doesn't need much tanking at all.
Here's how I play shaco and it works really well if you really get his head games down pat; the cooldown cap and virtually unlimited mana supply let him apply a slow, steady pressure to mid lane virtually indefinitely if he so chooses, rarely ever being killed or forced back because of health or mana, and continuing to slow enemy pushes even when outnumbered thanks to the safety of boxing and reliable getaways.
Particularly relevant to the question of tank Shaco are the IE and the whisper in my build, which I usually get 5th and 6th, respectively; I tried adding other items, and in particular I did try tanking, but I just wasn't getting much out of it, and Shaco's base stats just can't really threaten the enemy at the end of the game (moreso now that his shiv-throw scales with bonus AD instead of total AD). Ultimately, tossing on damage helped me keep up so that people would still actually
want to kill me, which is pretty important when you're trying to bait and misdirect. It also helps a lot with backdooring which is a fairly available task at the CD cap, since you can spam boxes to watch out for incoming as you approach, and then use your hallucination to help tank and kill the turret and it will likely be up again anyway by the time you get in your next teamfight.
