Mordekaiser: Playing an Anti-Jungler

Why is this guide different than any other Mordekaiser Guide?

This is why.

This guide will teach you how to do THAT.

Mordekaiser is one of the champions in the game that is capable of completely outleveling and farming everyone on the map.

In that game, i was mid versus galio, if you want to compare CS/kills whatever.

Runes: How to survive to your revolver.

Marks: We take magic pen marks in order to get close to 30 magic penetration with Sorcerer's Shoes.

When you buy Sorcerer's Shoes, AND Void Staff, you are efficiently penetrating any target with under 30, or above 80 Magic Resistance.

Seals: The main reason i take armor seals over health/level is the large amount of jungling you will actually be doing in this build.

As a note, Mordekaiser's weakness early game is sustained damage, and a malzahar or annie auto attacking you will actually get rid of your shield, and do quite a bit of damage to you early game.

Glyphs: Since you will be going middle, these will help you greatly against the mages that go middle.

Quintessences: I always use these, because they are simply too good for any AP mid. They add a lot of damage early game and give you a little bit more shield that makes the difference some times.

Overall, your rune choice should make your 1-6 laning phase as easy as possible, and i beleive that these runes, combined with 5 health potions, and cloth armor, make mordekaiser's 1-6 as painless as possible.

Alternate Rune Page: These are to maximize early game damage.

Masteries

Offense:

Mental Force: 4 AP, what's not to want here?

Sorcery: Mordekaiser scales very well with cooldown reduction, as it's his form of spell vamp and shield generation.

Arcane Knowledge: Magic Penetration is always awesome!

Why 2/3 Brute Force + 2/2 Butchery instead of 4/4 Mental Force.

I really feel that brute force, and butchery's help in last hitting are truly more valuable than 4 ap in both early and late game.

I try to maximize my damage per mastery point by taking 9 points in the offense tree in order to reach Arcane Knowledge, and at the same time, make farming easier with Brute Force and butchery.

Defense:

Summoner's Resolve: Heal + Summoner's Resolve, match made in heaven.

Resistance: Resistances will generally just help all around with your ability to lane properly. You want the magic resist to deal with the mages you find in middle lane.

Hardiness: This helps you that much more with the jungle creeps you are going to be fighting for most of the game.

Durability: Health has good synergy with the high base resists in this build.

Veteran's Scars: 30 health is a lot more than you would think at level 1.

Initiator: I feel that Mordekaiser actually benefits more from this mastery than most other champions would. He is very often at 70% health or more, and your shield is a very good buffer against going below 70% health.

Enlightenment: Mordekaiser's damage scales really well with cooldown reduction, but he can't effectively use it early game because of health costs. Per level works really well in his favor because of how fast you level with this strategy.

Honor Guard: While not an amazing mastery on it's own, i feel it is better for our purposes than other masteries in the defense tree.

Juggernaut: This mastery is very strong on mordekaiser, who gets 42% CC reduction with this mastery and Mercury's Treads, and has a lot of sustain through his abilities.

Overall, your masteries are built around being strong all game, with resists for early game, and AP for late game.

Alternate Mastery build:

These masteries along with the alternate runes will maximize your early game damage.

Items

Item Sequence:

There are two reasons i start with boots of speed on Mordekaiser.

1. You are able to start with 3 health potions, which takes away some of the sting of your ability costs, and harass in lane.

2. You are a melee champion. Not only do boots help you avoid skillshot harassment, they also allow you to maximize the amount of minions you can farm (simply because of the distance between minions.)

Alternative Item Start:
: With amp tome and the alternate runes/masteries, you start the game with 51 ap. This is kind of risky, but it allows you to trade very well.


Mordekaiser has pretty decent AP scaling, Gunblade was nerfed, and this item is too cheap to not buy. I feel that mordekaiser in his current state NEEDS spell vamp to be an effective, otherwise he just kills himself with health costs.

The Will of the Ancients, and even the Hextech Revolver really helps you just rule the map.


As explained in the runes section, Sorcerer's Shoes are the most effective form of damage for mordekaiser.


Sheen adds a lot of damage to morde's Q.


Deathcap is huge AP, and you have plenty of farm for it, no reason not to get it.


Void Staff is your most cost effective damage upgrade at this point in the game. Damage upgrades are also defensive upgrades because of Iron Man.


Lich Bane makes Q do BIG damage, very stronk. The MR and move speed make this item a really solid choice as well.

Last Item:


I mainly buy this item for it's health, and it's AP. The slow is fairly weak on mordekaiser, but it's better to have it than nothing. This is the "glass cannon" choice.


I like to build GA as my last item because while you are reviving, your spell vamp from Creeping Death heals you. This is the tanky choice, you should buy this every time if the game lasts a long long time.

Guardian Angel is nice, because your cooldowns are just long enough that you have most of them back when you revive, and you can do really good burst, and you should be doing enough damage that the revive is very dangerous.

Also, while reviving, you can micro your ghost to attack enemies if you have one.

Overview:

This is a fairly "glass cannon" build for Mordekaiser, but honestly, if you execute this strategy properly, you will be so far ahead that it won't matter.

I feel that Guardian Angel, Heal, and Will of the Ancients all have very strong synergy with each other.

Will of the Ancients, combined with another Will of the Ancients by a top lane kennen, or morgana or a similar AP champion can be extremely powerful with Mordekaiser.

Skill Sequence

Level 1: I take at level one because it is your only ranged spell, and when you cast it into the wave of minions, it gives you more shield than your other spells.

It is also on a shorter cooldown that Creeping Death or Mace of Spades

Level 2-18: I get all three of my skills as soon as possible, because you can't rely on Siphon of Destruction for shield.

I max Siphon of Destruction first, as it is your most reliable farming and shield generation tool.

I max Mace of Spades afterwards because it is a more effective farming tool than Creeping Death, and we only use W in order to tank wraiths more effectively.

I max Creeping Death last because we won't really be using this skill to farm or to defend against harass in lane.

Overall, this ability sequence enables you to ruin the other team's jungle, and

Summoner Spells

I take heal on Mordekaiser for several reasons.

1. Mordekaiser has a lot of defense in his kit that synergizes with heal.

2. Mordekaiser is deceptively strong at low health because of his shield, heal+shield is really strong bait.

3. The way i play Mordekaiser, i always use two defensive summoner spells, and heal in my opinion, is a better option than ghost, because

I take Flash on Mordekaiser mainly because of the ability to flash over walls.

I feel that flash is better for Mordekaiser than Ghost, because Mordekaiser is very susceptible to burst damage, and is very resistant to sustained damage.

Overall, these summoner choices make me strong against burst damage, and let me escape through walls, and make me very hard to kill.

Unique Skills

: Mordekaiser's ultimate ability, Children of the Grave is unique in that it gives you a large amount of life, does quite a bit of burst damage, and if you get a kill with it, you get to steal their team member and have them kill the enemy team.

When you kill someone with your ultimate, they keep their passive, so people like Graves, Caitlyn, Fiddlesticks, Soraka, Janna, and Corki are all very strong choices for ghosts.

AP Carries are also good choices for ultimates, because you gain a percentage of their AP.

You should try to avoid using your ultimate on a tank, but if there is a Cho'Gath standing there with a billion health and no Magic resist, tanks are a good target if you are low on health.

Creeping / Jungling

Okay, this will be the main focus of this guide i feel.

When you start the game, after doing whatever team stuff you need to do, you walk into lane and start vying for lane control.

From level 1-3 just harrass your enemy as much as possible, while attempting to get every last hit.

Once you hit level 4, and you have level 2 E, and QW at level 1, you can start to take the enemy, and your jungler's wraiths.

With the spawn rates the way they are, you can kill your wraiths, kill a wave of minions middle lane, kill the enemy wraiths, and kill a wave middle, and your wraiths will have respawned.

Doing this, you can get easily 100 CS up on the enemy laner with all the wraiths you kill, not to mention all the experience you deny the enemy jungler.

You will want to ward the enemy jungle in the first few levels, and then after about level 10, the jungler should be such a low level that it won't matter to you anymore.

Summary

In summary, this guide will help you to take force of your games as Mordekaiser, and become wildly ahead of your enemies.