Tanky? Yes, please!
Why would I want to use just tank items, opposed to items like
Abyssal Scepter that give ability power as well? To put it Simply,
Mordekaiser really doesn't need it.
Mordekaiser can put out massive amounts of damage even without AP items. The tankiness he gets with this build will make you so hard to kill, you can destroy WHOLE TEAMS that are in your way.
Runes
The health quints help a lot when laning early game because his shield is substantially weaker than it used to be.
The cooldown runes help a lot with how frequent he can cast his ult on everybody you need to, as capturing a dps champion to use as a pet is quite essential to grab a pentakill all by yourself.
Magic pen instead of AP marks? Why?
Well, again, Mordekaiser simply doesn't NEED AP. He does so much damage without it already that magic pen just seems like a far better choice.
Items
First off, open with a
Regrowth Pendant, it's a must because all your spells drain your health, you need something you make up for that. Grab another
Regrowth Pendant when you can afford it, and then some
Boots of Speed. Work your way towards toward
Force of Nature as the health regen is really nice to have, especially once you get tons of health at the end of your build with
Warmog's Armor. Now grab some
Sorcerer's Shoes and depending on whether they have lots of attack damage grab some
Thornmail, otherwise get
Sunfire Cape first, as up to this point you don't have very much health. Next off get a
Guardian Angel for the sake of resurrection, by this point you should be pretty unstoppable. To close off your build, grab a
Warmog's Armor to have an insane amount of health.
If they have a significant amount of magic damage it may be in your best interest to replace
Thornmail with an
Abyssal Scepter, or even another
Force of Nature
Skills, and how to use them.
Max
Siphon of Destruction first, this is very important because it's you bread and butter, you get the most shield out of this as well as it being a excellent harassing tool.
Now, at first glance you may wonder why you would want to max your
Creeping Death before maxing your
Mace of Spades. Well when you use your
Creeping Death, you have a constant income of shield until the spell runs out.
One point in
Mace of Spades is perfectly fine until you max you
Siphon of Destruction, and
Creeping Death because I find that it is more effective during team fights more than anything.
And of course taking
Children of the Grave at 6, 11, and 15, because it is easily your most powerful skill.
Your main goal in fights and laning is to do as much damage as you can while keeping your shield up as much as possible. When entering any fight, open up with a
Siphon of Destruction immediately following with a
Creeping Death, then cast a
Mace of Spades as you run in to close any distance. Keep on spamming your spells as much as possible to deal mega damage.
Using
Children of the Grave correctly is what makes
Mordekaiser the beastiest of the beasts.
Using this skill correctly is essential to getting triple-kills, quadra-kills, and even penta-kills. When your laning it is simply finding a champion low enough to cast it on, usually combined with
Ignite for max damage, as well as stopping any healing that would destroy your perfect plan.
Team fights are a completely different matter however. When your using
Children of the Grave in a teamfight, you must find a dps ranged champion to cast this on, they're usually very squishy so get in there do some damage and cast it combined with an
Ignite. If the champion you captured does a lot of damage this is perfect as having them as a pet increases their stats even further. Control your pet using alt + right click and make sure that you target the biggest threats first. This will take them down faster than any other champion EVER.
[Note] It is best to target a ranged dps champion with your
Children of the Grave because it's a lot harder to get damage off with a melee champion. The pets are really finicky to control so your best bet is a ranged champion like
Ashe,
Graves, or somebody else with high auto attack damage.
General Tips
Guardian Angel is amazing. Why is
Guardian Angel so amazing? Well because while your waiting for it to revive you in the midst of a fight, you are still able to control a ghost that you have captured. I've wiped whole teams just because of this.
Summary
Many times I've been able to take out all of the enemy team through just bursting a dps ranged champion then using him to take out his whole team. The tank items make your pretty impossible to kill, and with
Mordekaiser's natural damage he can take out all who oppose him.
If you follow this build to a tee, and put in the effort required Mordekaiser should be an unstoppable monster, ranging with a probable 9-20 kills by the end of a game.