This build is designed to dominate any lane opponent that you come up against by pushing them out of lane early game and denying farm while farming your lane and the neutral monster camps such as wraiths to get your creep score as high as possible.

I have been playing League of Legends for a couple of months only. In my time playing, I picked up Janna and played her as my main for a while. I even got invited into a Canadian ranked team (I am Australian). I started to realise that support was fun but you almost never find a laning partner that is decent enough to be worth the trouble. Most games I would end up playing AP Janna just because the AD carry fed and gave up. I started looking into other fun characters to play outside of support. I ended up buying Mordekaiser just because I had been dominated by a Mordekaiser in a previous match and had an idea for a build which suited him quite well. So far, after picking him up, I have not lost a game while playing Mordekaiser. I use the above build in every match (of course altering items for the situation) and it has never let me down. I like to choose Mordekaiser when the enemy team selects a champion such as Nidalee or champions that have a low burst and rely on poking your hp down before going in for the kill. I also choose mordekaiser][ against farm reliant champions such as [[cassiopeia and Veigar as Mordekaiser's main role is to deny enemy farm in lane.

Pros: +Great farming capabilities +Dominates lane if played correctly +Can escape difficult situations (just like Vladimir +Can turn games around with his Children of the Grave +Hard to poke with his Iron Man +Uses health instead of mana for his abilities

Cons: -Melee auto attack range -Has no crowd control abilities -Has no escape mechanism -Can be shut down by crowd control

This build's weak spot is the early lane phase. As Mordekaiser's abilities cost health, the only sustain you will have early game will be your 3 Health Potions. This means that you can not spam your abilities until you get your Hextech Revolver. This makes it quite easy to shut Mordekaiser down as he will most likely not have his Iron Man charged at any time during this phase. Just play defensively until you can last hit enough to get your Hextech Revolver and then start dominating your lane from then on.

Runes are tricky on Morde, he can be built with numerous rune sets such as flat AP and magic pen or a more tanky rune page however I personally prefer to use this set-up:

• Greater Quintessence of Spell Vamp: 6% spell vamp on Mordekaiser isn't enough to cover the cost of using abilities however it is enough to allow you to spam them without worrying about killing yourself in the process from the cost. You can possible switch this for Greater Quintessence of Health or Greater Quintessence of Ability Power for the flat health early on or the extra damage to keep up your shield.
• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: The magic penetration increases the damage that you abilities will do. As your Creeping Death and Children of the Grave abilities are both low damage over time, they are greatly affected by magic resist. By incorporating the magic penetration, you are more likely to secure that ghost as your enemy runs back to their tower with your Children of the Grave floating above their head.
• Greater Seal of Armor: The extra armor is useful early game on Mordekaiser as it allows you to stay in the middle of minion group with your Creeping Death up and take as much minion fire as you want because they will never get past your Iron Man shield. You can also take auto attack harass from the enemy AP carry much easier as the armor will affect the damage that your shield will take.
• Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction: Cool down reduction allows you to spam Siphon of Destruction all through a fight. Combined with your Sorcery mastery you reach a 9.8% cool down reduction making the cooldown on your Siphon of Destruction drop from 6 seconds to 5 seconds. If you combine this further with the crest of the ancient golem you get 29% cool down reduction making the cool down on your Siphon of Destruction 4 seconds. You could possibly swap this for Greater Glyph of Magic Resist for the extra magic resistance to help you out against the enemy AP carry mid lane however I do not find this essential as Mordekaiser will often poke his opponent out of lane before they have the chance to cause any real damage to Mordekaiser.

Alternatives:

• Cleanse: This is a possible alternative to ignite if you are comfortable being able to assure a kill when your Children of the Grave is on the enemy. Mordekaiser can be easily focused with crowd controls and hence Cleanse will remove these crowd control effects and allow him to burst down the enemy without interruption.
• Ghost: This is an alternative escape mechanism instead of Flash. It can be useful to catch up to enemies but when it comes to getting out of situations such as Veigar's Event Horizon you are really dead in the water.
• Exhaust: Only really useful early game before you get your Rylai's Crystal Scepter to keep enemies in range of your abilities.

NEVER, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, NOT ON YOUR LIFE:

• Clarity: It may seem stupid but I see this way too often, there is no point taking this on Mordekaiser, he doesnt use mana.
• Heal: This may seem viable but it is only really useful for the first five minutes and only if you don't know how to play him properly. After you get your Hextech Revolver you will never have to use it again as your shield should be taking most of the damage and you will just heal up all the damage that you take from your health.

• Iron Man: 35% of the damage dealt from abilities is converted into a temporary shield, absorbing incoming damage. Shield generation is only half as effective against minions. Maximum shield strength is 90 + (30 x level). The shield decays by 3% per second.
  
  This in my opinion is one of the best passive abilities in the game. It allows you to increase your survivability while increasing your damage output much like life steal on an AD carry. With this passive you can run up and poke the enemy with on of you abilities and then run back while they waste their counter poke on your shield.
  
  Due to the passive not functioning the same as spell vamp, it is not reduced if the damage is AOE and hence, activating your Creeping Death and standing in the middle of a minion wave will almost always fully charge your shield. Use this when you want to push the enemy out of lane, you activate your Creeping Death, stand in the minion wave and poke at them with your Siphon of Destruction. They can't do any damage to you because they will just be burning down your shield so all they can do is run away or take the damage. This is great for denying your enemy farm.
  
• Mace of Spades: On next hit, Mordekaiser swings his mace with such force that it echoes out, striking up to 3 additional nearby targets, dealing 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+1 per bonus attack damage) (+40% of ability power) magic damage. If the target is alone, the ability deals 132 / 181.5 / 231 / 280.5 / 330 (+1.65 per bonus attack damage) (+66% of ability power).
  
  If you can get an enemy alone in the jungle close enough to you to use this, it will nuke down their health so fast they wont even know what happened. I will usually max this after Siphon of Destruction for two reasons, it allows you to clear minion waves with two abilities and push to your minion wave to the turret and if you use Siphon of Destruction then an auto attack and then Mace of Spades you can nuke enemies low enough to finish them off with your Children of the Grave and Ignite almost instantly. If you are getting poked out of lane by an enemy such as Ahri that has high damage on a low cool down, you should prioritize your Creeping Death before your Mace of Spades. Here is an example of just how hard your Mace of Spades can hit on a single target: Play Video
  
  
• Creeping Death: Unleashes a protective cloud of metal shards to surround an ally or himself, increasing their armor and magic resistance by 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 and dealing 24 / 38 / 52 / 66 / 80 (+20% of ability power) damage per second to enemies in the cloud for 6 seconds.
  
  This is the only ability that Mordekaiser has that can be used at range. I recommend maxing this last as the damage is not as high as Mace of Spades or Siphon of Destruction however if you are getting poked out of lane and being denied farm, you should max it before you max Mace of Spades. You can just put your Creeping Death on the second melee minion in a wave (wont be focused first by the enemy minion wave but will still be close enough to deal damage) and let the AOE damage from it farm the minions while you are safely at your tower.
  
  In a team fight, put this on your friendly tank, this way you wont have to be in the fight to get the most damage output from it. The extra defensive stats also help the tank greatly when taking damage from the enemy team. Be very careful when using your shield while your team is chasing down an enemy on low health. It has happened a phew times where the AD carry focused down a enemy and chased them down, I simply put Creeping Death on them to increase their defence however the damage it causes will often steal the kill and they will get very mad at you.
  
• Siphon of Destruction: Mordekaiser damages enemies in a cone in front of him, dealing 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+60% of ability power) magic damage.
  
  This is Mordekaiser's bread and butter, no matter what on an AP Mordekaiser, you always pick it up first and you always max it as early as possible. It is a low cool down, AOE nuke that you can use spam infinatelly once you get your Hextech Revolver to both farm a whole minion wave at once and poke at the enemy. In the early lane phase, try not to use this to farm minions, instead rely on your last hits and poke with your Siphon of Destruction when the enemy champion comes within range.
  
  When you get it to about level 3, you can start to farm more with it as the damage should be large enough to drop whole minion waves and push your minions to the enemy tower and you should have your Hextech Revolver so you can spam it as much as you like. To use this ability to its full potential, use it on the whole minion wave (and the enemy champion if they are in range) and then back it up with your Mace of Spades and your Creeping Death to clear out the minion wave almost instantly. By doing this you will be forcing your minion wave onto the enemy tower causing them to lose last hits to the tower and also damaging the tower in the process. After you push the minion wave to the tower, you have enough time to invade the enemy wraiths camp and return to lane before the next minion wave has arrived. Just use the same combo and push the minion wave again and farm your wraiths camp this time. Repeat this correctly for the whole laning phase and your creep score will be the highest in the game, I assure you.
  
• Children of the Grave: Mordekaiser deals an initial 12 / 14.5 / 17 (+2% of ability power) % magic damage equal to that percentage of the target's maximum health and curses it for 10 seconds. During these 10 seconds, 1.2 / 1.45 / 1.7 (+2% of ability power) % magic damage equal to that percentage of the target's maximum health per second is dealt. If the target dies while under the effect of the curse, their soul is enslaved and will follow Mordekaiser for 30 seconds. During this time, Mordekaiser gains 20% of their ability power, and attack damage. The spirit gains 75% of Mordekaiser's adjusted damage, ability power, and health totals.
  
  This is the most amazing ultimate in the game in my opinion. Not only is it an instant nuke, a damage over time ability that is based on max health percentage and a massive heal, it also gives you an ghost of your slain enemy if they die under the effects of your ultimate. This ghost has enhanced stats based on your stats and you gain a large percentage of their stats onto your own as well. If you can get a ghost in a team fight, you are almost assured to win. Not only does the ghost do crazy damage on top of the damage you cause by yourself, it also recharges your Iron Man shield with the damage that it does and activates your spell vamp. This means that while your ghost is damaging the enemy, you are nearly invincible.
  
  When selecting your target for you ultimate in a team fight, always go for the one that you know will die from your ultimate. Most Mordekaisers will say to focus an AD carry but if you focus the enemy Ashe and the enemy Singed that was on 20 health flings you away before you kill her, you just lost a ghost and possibly a team fight instead of getting an easy ghost that although dealing less damage will still deal a large amount to the enemy team. The only exception to this is if there is an enemy Twisted Fate or Jax on the enemy team. It is worth the risk to acquire one of these ghosts. Both of them have a passive ability that is activate on their auto attacks that nukes the enemy every couple of hits ( Stacked Deck for Twisted Fate and Master-At-Arms for Jax.
  
  Both these abilities scale off of AP. Although both of them may be building AD and hence their passive would not deal as much damage, they gain 75% percent of your AP. This means that their passive abilities hit as hard as they did when the enemy champion was alive plus 75% of your ability power on top of that making them the single most powerful being in the match for thirty seconds. I have gotten a fed Jax ghost in one 1v5 team fight and ended up with a penta (unofficial
  ) while I sat there with my Zhonya's Hourglass active up. Another important note about your ultimate is that on top of healing you for the damage done originally, it is also effected by the spell vamp on your Will of the Ancients and your Hextech Gunblade meaning that it heals for 140% of the damage done.

When building Mordekaiser, you should always max your Siphon of Destruction first. This is your most spamable and damaging move and allows you to push your lane incredibly easily. After maxing your Siphon of Destruction you can either choose to max your Mace of Spades for more burst damage or your Creeping Death for more survivability and poke in lane. If I am winning my lane, I will usually up my Mace of Spades first however if I am being poked out, I will max Creeping Death. This allows you to put your Creeping Death on a minion and still farm from a distance and also damage the enemy champion while the shielded minion is alive.

Core items:

• Sorcerer's Shoes: The most recommended boots for Mordekaiser. As his ultimate is a damage over time ability as well as an initial burst, the enemies magic resistance will effect each tick of damage from the ultimate therefore greatly reducing the damage that it does overall. With sorcerers shoes, you are bypassing 20 points of magic resistance every second that your ultimate is damaging them overall causing your ultimate to cause a much larger damage output over the course of your ultimate. Other viable choices are Ionian Boots of Lucidity if you are going for more spamable moves, Ninja Tabi if the enemy is AD heavy as they will reduce the damage that is taken away from your shield allowing it to last longer or mercury treads for a cc heavy team. All of these choices are viable however I would recommend the Sorcerer's Shoes in most situations.
• Will of the Ancients: Essential on every AP Mordekaiser. The spell vamp will allow you to infinatelly spam your moves in lane to achieve insane CS and to push your enemy out of lane every chance you get. You should always rush your Hextech Revolver straight after your basic boots. This is when you will start to dominate your lane. The only possible substitute for the Will of the Ancients is to get the Hextech Gunblade early if you are fed. The gunblade will give you more damage along with a nice active however it is often too expensive to rush first. I suggest you get Will of the Ancients first and then get your Hextech Gunblade after your Lich Bane as the life steal wont be very useful until after you start procing your Lich Bane on your Mace of Spades.
• Rylai's Crystal Scepter: Due to Mordekaiser's lack of CC and his sustain problems early game, I suggest rushing Rylai's Crystal Scepter straight after your Hextech Gunblade. After picking up your Hextech Revolver you will be able to spam your moves non stop as soon as they come off cool down. By adding the Rylai's Crystal Scepter early, you will gain a large boost to your damage and be able to keep enemy champions in range of your Siphon of Destruction and constantly keep your Iron Man fully charged. This prevents your opponent from taking advantage of your lack of range and poking you from afar.
• Rabadon's Deathcap: You biggest boost to damage, if you can get this early, you will almost certainly dominate the game. After you get your Rabadon's Deathcap, your Siphon of Destruction and your Mace of Spades will be melting them down like they are nothing. Your Children of the Grave will be able to nuke enemies down from about 35% health. You can get this before your Rylai's Crystal Scepter if you are getting fed however I do not recommend it as you will be CC'd and focused down before you can charge up your shield. There is really no alternative to this item, it should always be in every AP Mordekaiser build. Not only does it give you a massive 140 AP but it also increases the AP from all your other items, runes and masteries by 40%.

Secondary items:

• Lich Bane: My personal favourite item on Mordekaiser. After you get your Lich Bane, your Mace of Spades on a single target will be nuking them down more than anything in the game. If you are at full build, it is not difficult to one shot champions with this proc. It will be adding 100% of your AP to 66% of your AP and the base magic damage already on your Mace of Spades. If you pick up Hextech Gunblade your Mace of Spades on a single target will be healing you for 100% of your AP (the Lich Bane proc is affected by life steal) and 35% of the damage from your Mace of Spades will go directly into recharging your Iron Man. This means the enemy team will surround you trying to focus you down and suddenly you will be back on full health with a full shield and you will have a ghost version of their own fed AD carry melting down their HP.
• Hextech Gunblade: Only ever get this if you have already got Lich Bane. It is what I call your GG item. After you have these two items, you will hit like a truck and heal like a Soraka on steroids. Almost every hit of your Siphon of Destruction and your Mace of Spades will both fully heal you and recharge your Iron Man to full as well as nuking down a whole enemy team at once. It may be hard to get with the high cost of both these items however with your extreme farming ability set, it is not unachievable. The Hextech Gunblade gives you more spell vamp on top of your Will of the Ancients, life steal that will proc on your Lich Bane extra damage and a nice active slow with a decent range to compensate for you lack of CC.
• Abyssal Mask: This item is useful when there is a fed AP carry on the enemy team that is shutting you down before you can get off your combo. The extra magic resistance will work on your Iron Man shield causing it to last longer and when combined with your circling death you can get your magic resistance quite high. I would get this item if you are not fed and you are constantly getting focused down in team fights. You can still combine this with your Lich Bane, Zhonya's Hourglass or Void Staff however you should never combine it with a Hextech Gunblade. You will be wasting your gold on life steal when it does nothing to compliment your build. It offers a decent amount of AP (70) and a nice unique aura that decreases the enemies magic resistance as well as buffing yours making it overall a very nice pick for Mordekaiser.
• Zhonya's Hourglass: A very useful item to build on Mordekaiser, I recommend building it when then enemy team is AD heavy or in combination with Abyssal Mask as I will talk about in a minute. This item gives you a large boost to AP (100) and also a large boost to your armor (50) which also works to reduce the damage that your Iron Man shield will take.
  
  It also gives you one of the most amazing active abilities in the game. It will put you into stasis for 2 seconds rendering you immune to damage and incapable of taking action. Using this active you can turn a bad situation into a turn around Ace. I have been in numerous situations where the enemy team was waiting in a bush for me and when I enter alone I would instantly start to get focused down. You should immeadiatelly activate your ultimate on either the enemy tank or the enemy AD carry if they are low and then activate your Zhonya's Hourglass. If you put your Children of the Grave on the tank, you will heal all the damage that they just did to you back up over the two seconds and fully charge your Iron Man in the process.
  
  If you can kill the enemy AD carry with your ultimate... then do it. The ghost will proceed to take down the entire enemy team while they hopelessly beat down on your invincible body. When you leave stasis, you will be fully healed from your spell vamp on the ghost and have a fully charged Iron Man shield. The enemy team will almost never be expecting you to get a 1v5 pentakill with you awesome clutch moves and extreme damage.
  
  If the enemy team has a fed AP carry you can combine this item with Abyssal Mask to shut down the enemy carry. Although Zhonya's Hourglass increases armor, not magic resistance, the active can still be useful to waste the enemy carries burst on your invincible body and then all they will have left is their spamable, low damage ability such as Veigar's Baleful Strike which will be weakened by you Abyssal Mask's magic resistance allowing you to nuke them down without much trouble. This is particularly effective on LeBlanc and Veigar as they are single target burst champions that rely on their full combo in a short period to beat the enemy. They will waste their burst on your Zhonya's Hourglass active and then have nothing left to burst you down once you come out of your stasis.
• Void Staff: I do not personally recommend this item unless the enemy is very tanky and building magic resist to counter you. I consider it overkill if only one enemy has magic resist and you are nuking anyone else on their team from full to 0 in one combo. I only ever pick this up if they have a magic resist heavy team and I can't get many kills as s result. I prefer to use my Lich Bane proc to burst down enemies that build up a large amount of magic resist as it is not effected by it.

Obviously, the item build is not set in stone, if you are getting fed and want to dominate the game, I recommend the build above however if you are getting pushed a little too hard, it is viable to replace the Lich Bane with an Abyssal Mask and replace the Hextech Gunblade with a Zhonya's Hourglass. The item build is always situational.

In my opinion, tank Mordekaiser is no longer viable due to nerfs and his lack of cc however it is possible to build him on a tanky damage hybrid. By building him this way, you can stack up his Iron Man with your damage and have it last longer as magic resist and armor do effect your shield values. With some tank items built in, it is even possible to 1v5 with Mordekaiser, I have experienced it a phew times where I was caught out of position by the enemy team however by putting your ultimate on the ad carry and focusing them down fast you can have a powerful ghost that procs the spell vamp on you Will of the Ancients and recharges your Iron Man shield with the damage that it does allowing you to have an infinatelly sustainable shield (assuming enemy ad carry is built right and dealing decent damage) which in turn allows you to stay in the fight and spam your moves. I have seen many 1v5 pentakills with this. Here is an example of how invincible you are once your ghost starts doing damage: Play Video
Note:This video is not mine, take note of how low Mordekaiser gets. When his ghost starts to attack, his shield never goes down and he stays at less than 10% health for the whole fight being focused down by the enemy team.

I recommend if your team isn't backing you up that you go with a tankier build in order to carry your team without being focused down immediately however if you are extremely fed, I recommend the build I posted above as you will be healing a great deal off of your spells with the massive spell vamp and when you proc the Lich Bane on your Mace of Spades you can almost heal half of your hp with one swing (life steal from Hextech Gunblade will effect Lich Bane damage and spell vamp will effect extra magic damage giving you double healing from one swing. When you max out your spell vamp, you can put your Children of the Grave on the enemy tank such as Cho'Gath are heal yourself to full almost immediately with the inbuilt spell vamp on Children of the Grave and the spell vamp from your items such as Will of the Ancients and Hextech Gunblade.

Farming your lane with Mordekaiser is extremely easy, you simply last hit normally until you hit level 4 and once you hit level 4 and get your Hextech Revolver, you push the lane with your Siphon of Destruction, Mace of Spades and Creeping Death combines so that your enemy loses last hits on the tower and then you go and pick up the enemy wraiths , make sure you have Flash available when you do this as it is very risky. You then return to your lane with a fully charged Iron Man and push your lane again and then go to your wraiths and farm that then repeat for the whole lane phase. This method will get your creep score higher than anyone else in the match and deny your enemy mid lane farm while you are at it making you snowball your lane and hence the game.

- If you get engaged upon in a bad situation, it is ok to burn your Children of the Grave on the enemy tank to heal yourself up and run away. The cool down is not that high and it is better to be alive without your ultimate than dead with it. Here is an example of how to do this effectively: Play Video /league-of-legends/ability/siphon-of-destruction-232 Common Mistakes:
When starting out as Mordekaiser, it is quite easy to fall into a false sense of security and get overly confident with your survivability. You may feel invincible with your Iron Man and your Children of the Grave however at the end of the day you are not a tank and you can still be focused down before you get a chance to do any damage.

Never initiate a fight as Mordekaiser. Let your friendly tank such as Singed or Malphite and put your Creeping Death on the tank to build up your Iron Man before stepping into the fight, once the enemy is focused on the tank, you can step in and burst down the enemy with all your abilities.

If you start to get focused, run away and turn around only to land one more Siphon of Destruction to charge up your shield and help you get away or to land your Children of the Grave on a low health enemy to gain a ghost. Once you have a ghost actively damaging the enemy team, you can stay in the fight as long as you want, you will be nearly invincible with your ghost up. Just make sure you have over half health to begin before you try to tank their whole team down, they may burst down your shield and your health with one blow before you can heal it up with your spell vamp and charge up your shield with spells such as Veigar's primodial blast.

How to counter:
To counter Mordekaiser, you always want to choose any champion that has a spam-able burst with a low cool down such as Ahri or cassiopia. This allows you to burst down his Iron Man shield without wasting your full burst and being helpless afterwards. A common mistake when laning against Mordekaiser is trying to burst him down while his shield is active, you want to wait until either the shield decays or to poke at him until it is down and then go in with your full burst. Also, never tower dive a Mordekaiser no matter how low he is, especially after level 6. He will just Mace of Spades you to the face and then activate Creeping Death and keep his shield up while you get taken down by the tower and he sits there laughing at you.

Mordekaiser is also very susceptible to good crowd control. If you can get him disabled or silenced, he can't get his Iron Man charged and will be unable to stay in lane. Despite this, Kassadin is not a very good counter pick to Mordekaiser despite his silence. Kassadin relies on being fairly close for most of hist abilities and hence will take damage from Mordekaiser's creeping death and will feel the full brunt of his Mace of Spades after the silence wears off.

LeBlanc works particularly well against Mordekaiser as she can silence him for a long period with her sigil of silence, then use Mimic to burst him down and put the sigil on him again then burst in with Distortion use etheral chains and distort back out. If he isn't dead already, he will be stunned by the chain and or die from the magic damage it causes. If you are playing against a Mordekaiser as LeBlanc do not start your burst while his Iron Man is up, he will survive and then burst you down while your cool downs refresh.

Despite what people say, AD Mordekaiser is actually ok with a decent team to back you up. Your ghost from Children of the Grave will be the most overpowered champion on the whole field due to its massive bonus to AD from you.