League of Legends Mordekaiser In Depth Guide

by Zeffy8

To describe why Mordekaiser wins lane against lower elo players, all you need is one word: Surprise. Mordekaiser’s passive is Iron Man, which allows Mordekaiser to shield himself for 25% of all his abilities that hit a enemy, including minions and champions. This shield decays after a while. Doesn’t seem that broken, until you look at the synergy with the rest of his kit AND the items that he builds. His Q gives him three empowered auto attacks, with his first and second auto attack dealing 10 base damage, scaling by ten every level up to a total of 50 base damage, AD scaling being 50% to 90% of his AD, and a 60% AP scaling ratio. This doesn’t sound that bad either, but the third attack deals double the damage as the two before. Basically this means if you did 10 damage with your first attack, and 10 damage with the second, he would do 20 damage with his last auto. With a good AP ratio, plus a good AD ratio that he can make use of because of his base AD, this is a ability that is very strong if a champion comes up on you for melee.

Why is this good for low elo? Like I said before, Surprise. Players will think they can all in you, before you get your third auto attack and get a huge shield off of the insane damage his Q does. Now onto his W, which is made for him going bottom lane, as he was originally introduced as a AP Bruiser that went bottom lane to shake up the meta there, but he was quickly sent top. Mordekaiser can cast it on a allied champion or allied minion, and an aura will appear around them on his first cast, when moving towards one another, Mordekaiser and the target get movement speed and when their auras connect, the aura deals magic damage to nearby enemies, that does 35-75 magic damage per second with 22.5% AP scaling. Not that OP, but as Mordekaiser does, he surprises you.

The next part of Mordekaiser’s W is the second cast, which breaks the aura of him and the ally he targeted, doing burst damage, and healing both of the targets for the same amount. The scaling for this is pivotal for his fights, so if you’re smart you never go near him when minions are near, but this is low elo we’re talking about. He does 50-190 damage with a 30% AP Ratio, and also gets 50-190 HP based on how many enemies he hits, minions granting 25% of what a champion gives, with a 30% AP Ratio for healing, and the heal off minions is a measly 7.5% AP Ratio. Maybe this doesn’t seem like the most op thing in the world, but if a Mordekaiser is at 25% health, and an enemy is at 75% health, they might risk the melee range, especially if they aren’t experienced, I really wanna stop mentioning low elo, but most low elo players will be greedy and risk it, he will do a ton of damage, heal for a good amount, and get a shield on 25% of all the damage he did in the burst, giving him an extra 10 health bars. Now onto his E and his R.

Mordekaiser’s E deals damage in a cone from 35-155 with 60% AP and AD scaling, which isn’t too bad, but even at rank 1 the cooldown is 6 seconds, and it grants BONUS PERCENTAGE SHIELD for his passive, from 15% to 25%, so instead of getting 25% of the damage added as a bonus shield, it’s at a bare minimum 40%, with really good scaling. More shields. Surprise, I have all my health back, you’re dead, a true noob trap. Mordekaiser’s ult of course has a passive that can curse the dragon and have him as a pet, but that isn’t the op part at all. When Mordekaiser first casts his ult on an enemy, he does 6.25% to 8.75% of their MAXIMUM HEALTH, scaling with 1% more maximum HP per 100 AP, and curses them for the next ten seconds. Every second during the curse, the enemy takes 1.88 to 2.63% of the enemies maximum health, scaling off 0.3% more Maximum HP per 100 AP. Time for some numbers and how to carry as Mordekaiser.

Off his ult alone at level 6, he does a ridiculous 25% of the enemies Max HP over 10 seconds, with Summon Aery triggering at least twice, which is his primary keystone. Let’s say the enemy is a tank and at level 10 they have about 2000 hp. He deals 500 damage, plus an extra 40 or so Summon Aery damage, so he gets a shield of about… 215, off of his ult alone against a 2000 HP enemy before his level 11 ult, not counting pre mitigation. Doing the other math is hard because people have different MR scaling and can build other things, but like I said, this kit is extremely powerful in laning phase, and now let’s do a mini guide for carrying as Mordekaiser in low elo. Small Edit: Recently a Mordekaiser main told me that I was hyping up the damage of his ult, but like I said this is a lower elo guide so I will not put my reasoning, if you don’t wanna hear this skip to the next period:

“The thing is most low elo players like to sustain for quite a bit for core items like boot enchantments or phage or tiamat etc. so you should be able to get ult before their first back if you don’t scare them, and if they are a tank and are running teleport, you still have kill pressure because of your strong shields and early game, and because of that they can never out damage you, or if it’s a cautious player with TP you bully lane with your ignite + Ult kill, deny gold for not too many mr items, you get my jist hopefully. So what i’m saying is if you get a kill with your ult before maybe they back or when they only have a null magic mantle or something else before level 6, your fine and can snowball off of that, this is a guide for how to stomp in low elo so of course i’m assuming the fact that you will be able to snowball, which is why 25% and good scaling is insane to me and should be to everyone else because you can buy sorcerers shoes, Liandry’s, etc to have enough pen to basically negate everything pretty easily except the Hexdrinker proc.” .

Edit: Now back to the regular guide.

The first thing you have to know about Mordekaiser is synergy. There are some overpowered runes and items for him, and I will go through them. 1: Summon Aery. It gives damage every time you cast a spell and the cool down is literally the travel time it takes between you and the opponent. ,and like I said, his Ult will get at least 2 triggers, plus all the other poking it gives, with the cooldown being the travel time of Aery and you. The second rune that has synergy with Mordekaiser, well obviously things like Nimbus Cloak and Celerity are good, since he is a slow champion, but for good synergy, not much gets past scorch. Your goal in lane is to get the opponent to about half HP in laning phase so you can simply ult + Ignite and maybe an E early game which not many can survive, and Scorch is perfect for that purpose, plus it adds even more burst damage for your Ult. Shield Bash, is well… Made to bring him into the meta, and it did just that. Every time he gets a shield, Shield Bash let’s your next auto deal 5-30 plus 8.5% of your shield amount, and + 1.5% of your bonus HP, not to mention the extra defensive stats you get when under a shield, which is a good amount of the time to say the least.

The last is Revitalize which gives 5% more healing and shields given to you or cast on you, increasing to 10% when you’re under 40% hp. This is a long post, definitely, so I will skim through the items. Your first item most of the time will be Rylai’s, as it gives a really good amount of HP and surprisingly 90 AP, and gives a passive that slows the enemy by 20% for a second when they get damaged by an ability or spell. That’s 10 seconds of slow that you have, plus your nimbus cloak makes it so you can stick onto the enemy for a good amount of time and basically guarantee a flash in low elo every time you have your ult. Next is Liandry’s Torment, which gives MORE HP and AP, gives burn damage that does % Max HP which helps your ult, and gives up to 10% Bonus damage for… Everything when you are in combat with a champ for 5 seconds, and combat does count as damage, so yeah… Your last 5 seconds of your ult will do an extra 10%. Finally is Zhonyas, so if you are low you can spam your shields, and then Zhonya’s to hopefully get more cooldowns to get bigger shields, wait for Aery to come back, or just escape damage of course, and it adds some armor.

Ok I’ll try to wrap this up, this is how to dominate as Mordekaiser in low elo. Use your surprise shields and insane max hp % damage to win lane and stomp, and get tanky off of items that give you AP and HP like the ones mentioned in the last wall of text. If you have an engager that is 0 and 40, you can 2v5 if you are fed, by maximizing your W and E shields and healing, and using your Q on the person that does the most damage, and you can ult ignite the ADC or something else. Of course I don’t recommend this but it is surprisingly possible, my favorite way to play Morde when fed is tell my team to go put pressure top and mid or vice-versa, and I will split push the opposite way. Because I have minions I can W them and get really good heals and a huge shield if I get both of the second part of my W’s damage to hit 2 people or so. I use my E pretty much instantly to get some shield and have the CD come back when I need it. When you are fed, it is pretty easy to 3v1 but 4 or 5 is very hard, and if 4 people do come, that’s where your team comes in, hopefully they listen to you haha. They can get 2 turrets at LEAST, and can keep pushing for a good amount because usually if 4 or 5 people come to a fed Mordekaiser, unless someone on the enemy team is SUPER fed he can get 2-3 kills, which is a good death timer, and then the remaining enemies have to rotate, blah blah.