Hello, i would like to start off saying this is a General Build for 3v3,5v5, and dominion and this main build is of a AP off-tank. I have been playing Mordekaiser since Beta, and have since been perfecting my build in normal games (note: i have not played ranked games yet, even though i have been level 30 quite a while, so im not guaranteeing this build for ranked games) but as i said, i have been perfecting this build a long time and feel it is a good enough build to create a MobaFire account and post it! :D Thanks in advance for positive comments and i hope you find my build useful!!!

Note: i will try my best to make this as FULL of a build as possible.

Note: considering changes needed to compensate to certain enemies of course. i am not closed minded, there are play styles that work with more aggressive, OR more tanky type builds with morde, i just prefer this play style, and any good morde build is within a certain measurement of tankyness/damage. this should farther explain the reasoning for my title.

Note: If you thought "why is this build called The only way to play Mordekaiser, yet theres 3 builds listed..." because each of the 3 builds are the exact same, except for 1 item difference for reasons listed at the end of the "Items" Paragraph.

Just Before we get started, i'd like to discuss some pro's and cons that will be described in this build (we will discus how to use our pro's to our advantage, and how to help our con's throughout the build)

Pro's:

*Beast mid-to late game, provided a kill or two.
*A passive shield that soaks up damage like no other...
*A deadly combo using your ultimate and ignite simultaneously
*Siphon of Destruction........... BEAST
*Off-tank that deal Uber damage = Carry (even though he isn't listed as one TRUST ME, he is.)

Con's:

*Hard to survive early game (this build will point out ways that it makes early game better)
*Beyond late-game "drop-off" (will be described during build description)
*Basically no escape abilities (My builds CC, Flash, and your ultimate helps this)
*No CC (until your follow my build to rylai's crystal scepter, at which point no one escapes.
*Way Underplayed after his huge shield nerf (this build still works amazing after it though.)

Lets start off with the item build itself. Start off with Regrowth Pendant, and a Health Potion every time, this combo keeps you in lane the longest, which is most important. after surviving your lane a period of time, your first time going back should grant you enough money to buy

* Sorcerer's Shoes most beneficial boots in the game for morde, gives good early game power. (Possible boots other than sorcerers shoes include: Mercury's Treads if opposing team has a lot of slow/stuns/etc...)

At this point you may decide to buy Hextech Revolver for some spell vamp if you prefer it early game and wait till last to make it Hextech Gunblade like the usual build

* Force of Nature, this is your first tanky item, and because mordekaiser is weak early game, this again grants him more lane survivability.

(Possible Item other than FoN include: Thornmail, because if the enemy team has an Attack Damage DPS, you will want to ditch FoN, and buy Thornmail instead. this is a situational item that should only be used if a major AD DPS carry is on the opposing team, Tryndamere for example)

* Rylai's Crystal Scepter. is your most core item when building as a carry. at this point in the game you will most likely have less health than everyone else, so you should buy giant belt first, then build into Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

(Possible items other than rylais crystal scepter include: Frozen Mallet, if your building tank, instead of AP off-tank, then frozen mallet will give better benefits.)

At this point you should be mass farming with your Siphon of Destruction, picking up a kill here or there and raking in the gold for all these expensive items.

* Warmog's Armor the best item for morde at this point in the game, some will say MR items are better, but with FoN already, poeple will ALREADY be saying "morde, so much MR!!! (it has happened to me many times) so your MR is set good. and i found Warmog's Armor gives much better survivability than spell vamp items, with the massive health boost, and HP regen. Buy giant belt first, for the up-front health boost. you ARE an off-tank of coarse... with the rylais/Warmogs combo, you are tanky, but do good damage, and most importantly, champions cannot escape your onslaught of siphons ;D (hense Rylai's Crystal Scepter uses your Siphon of Destruction to slow them down to a crawl)

(possible items other than Warmog's Armor include: Sunfire Aegis, if its your personal preference, ive seen people like it more than Warmog's Armor.

* Randuin's Omen, you have your boots, and core Power, MR, and health items bought, only core thing left is armour. buy wardens mail first, for the CC (at this point you can easily see how this builds CC is helping you WIN) then grab Heart of Gold for more health, also now you only need 900 gold to finish off into your Randuin's Omen which, you guessed it... MORE CC!!! in case enemies are actually getting away from your CC already, go ahead and pop your Randuin's Omen in a team-fight so assure no one gets away.

* Hextech Gunblade to finish off your build with some more overall power to lessen your "drop-off" if your game goes into very late game.

Possible items other than Hextech Gunblade include: Guardian Angel for a tank build.

(if you don't know what i meant by "drop-off", then here it is: Mordekieser hits level 18 very fast if you play him right, in which mid-to-late game your completely killing everyone in an onslaught of bodies, anyways, if your game proceeds into late-game and beyond, you start to "drop-off" and start getting a lot weaker as other champions progress to level 18 and catch up to you, if you play Mordekaiser right, you learn to stop being cocky, and back it off a bit so the enemy team doesn't come back and win, (trust me, it has happened SO many times to me...)



Build 1: Original Build (AP Off-Tank)
Build 2: Against AD carry (Switches Force of Nature for Thornmail)
Build 3: Tank build. Rylais Crystal Scepter is switched for Frozen Mallet, and Hextech Gunblade is switched for Guardian Angel,

Mark: insight

These are not only practical, but they are NECESSARY, there are no other choices for Marks period.

Seal: Vitality (because dodge is taken out of game)

Vitality Seals: seals of evasion use to be my favorite seals for morde, until the news came that riot was taking dodge out of the game completely. now, i use seals of vitality, they tack on over 100 health to you once you hit level 18. pretty straight forward. these are just my preference and could easily be replaced by armour seals.

Glyph: Potency

These help out your early game weakness, and give you a boost, i find these the most helpful on Mordekaiser, and are pretty important, but if you find a serious need for a different glyph, it isn't the end of the world. these could easily be replaced with focus glyphs for more late game spam.

Quintessences: 1 Swiftness, 1 Fortitude, 1 Potency

You might ask yourself: WHY? when you see my quintessence line-up, and yes using any three quintessences in a full set for Mordekaiser would be beneficial, but i found having one of all 3 to work the best...
Fortitude: helps even out your early game weakness.
Swiftness: helps the fact that Mordekaiser doesn't have ANY get away abilities (other than a LAST DITCH effort of your ult to regain some health...)
Potency: tacks onto your potency glyphs to add more early game power.

I don't have much to say about masteries other than, this setup works best for me. the ability power in the attack category is a MUST. and all of the defense category help you early-game, and to bolder your "off-tank" title that makes you so powerful. i STRONGLY suggest going 9/21/0 masteries... however going 21/9/0 spec'd into AP works good too for extra damage, which you might want if going mid.

Start with Siphon of destruction, this will be your EVERYTHING. your game as Mordekaiser is based off this skill, literally, use it as your harass, farm ability, main damage dealer, CC after rylais crystal scepter, everything...

Creeping Death will be your second most important, granting you bonus Armour, AND Magic Resist, along with sustained damage to nearby enemies. use this ability when: Farming, extra protection in getaways, rushing, pushing etc... also use this on friendly champions in need.

Mace of Spades, this mainly comes in late-game for extra power when pushing, and killing champions, other than that, use this ability early game at level 3 when you unlock it on a minion that is nearby an enemy champion, its a free hit on an enemy champion without even touching them... (you should understand what i meant by that if you know how that ability works).

Lastly of coarse, his mighty ultimate...
CHILDREN OF THE GRAVE! This one is tricky, because it has a might high cool-down, so remember not to waste it. first off id like to say that this is a tricky ultimate to master, and the most important part (which might be surprising) is TIMING!!! The game to play as Mordekaiser is called "Bait-And-Beat", meaning, when you get into a 1v1, most of the time, you will start to loose, this lets the enemy champion think cocky, and most of the time they will get committed, when you deem the enemy is committed to the fight, make sure to keep spamming all your abilities, and then use your ultimate, then ignite, as fast as you can, to do maximum damage, keep spamming siphon, if the enemy champion is starting to run, he should die from your ult if your timing was good enough to get them to that low of health. the trick is, they think they are going to kill you, ALL THE TIME, this is how you win, because your ult can take a max of 33% of your enemies health!!!!!!!!!! and it gives most of that to you, therefore 1v1 where your loosing, instantly goes to your enemy loosing a LOT of health, and you GAINING health, with turns the tables every-time. especially if you remember to use your ignite along with your ult for maximum damage.

Note: there are 2 other necessary ways to use your ult other than what i described above, and killing everyone in a 3v1 by turning it into a 2v2 with your ult (and at the same time gain some health) and these extra methods are: a last ditch effort at a getaway, image, your running for your life because your poor map awareness didn't alert you of an incoming gank (it happens to everyone sometimes) and your almost back to your turret safely, but down have enough health to make it, in this case, pop you ult on the person closest to you, (if your lucky it will scare them off of you) and if it doesn't scare them away, it is a fair shot that it just boosted your health just enough to make it safely. the second necessary use of your ultimate: (Another scenario) your in a lane, with your ult on CD, your enemy is turret hugging, and laning phase is still in affect fully, you need extra gold for an item, but you have to low of health to stay in lane safely, in this case, pop your ult on your turret hugging enemy, gain some health, and keep on laning for your precious gold.

This one will be short, every game i go into, i grab flash and ignite, period.

Flash:

Even after the nerf on flash, it still to me is more useful to Mordekaiser than ghost is... for quickly poping out of an incoming gank, for getting the quick last hit (siphon) on an enemy. just overall, a better choice.

Ignite:

This one is VERY important, you wont see any normal Mordekaiser build that doesn't include ignite, it is the UBER Combo with your ultimate. use your ultimate on someone, and immediately use ignite AFTER... VERY important combo.

I have described how to use most of this build for how to play Mordekaiser, but i have not said some key things about Mordekaiser in-all that i will point out right now.

First, i use this build in 3v3 and 5v5, and it works generally the same in both (GREAT)
but i must point out, when playing 3v3 almost always take solo lane (don't, when there is a specific enemy champion that you do bad agenst) but in 5v5, it is not as important to take solo, but you can if you want, solo, top, or bot, it doesn't matter.

when soloing 3v3, Or in any lane 5v5, if your minions have pushed to an enemy turret, but there are some Mia's, and you don't want to overextend your lane, JUNGLEdon't jungle for a long time, but Mordekaiser if actually very efficient at jungling, being his shield, and skills that all do well jungling. so waiting for enemy minions to push back? pop in the jungle, get some gold and XP, pop back out ready to fight...

Most main topics were covered in previous parts of this guide, however i felt those points were necessary to point out.

Well, this about raps it up, Ive said everything i can think of without making a 10 page booklet... (which i could) use this info to your advantage and go play Mordekaiser the ONLY WAY HE WORKS. when you master this build and how Mordekaiser works, any normal game will be a breeze, have your whole team on your back, do whatever it takes... ( i have won multiple games with horrible match-made teammates (2v3's, and teammates that went something like 0/15/1 score-wise) because with this build, you can take down a 3v1 gank in the twisted treeline, let them re-spawn and do it all over again, with a fed enemy team while your Teammates are dead. (i have done this multiple times)

But enough of me bragging, go out there AND DO IT FOR YOURSELF

Also remember to vote this guide up if you found it helpful, and leave a comment.
Thanks everyone!!!

Note: this is my first and a brand new guide, so if it doesn't look the best (pictures, etc...) i hope to update it sometime soon.

Hello all, this section is to explain testing progress of suggested builds. also to explain reason for turning down, and bringing in change suggestions for my build. lastly is a list for all major changes made to my build. thanks for commenting... this is the result:

UPDATE: 11/23/11

Ok everyone, i tested MANY different builds for morde after i brought in suggestions from commentors (thanks BTW), that were simular and differant to my curent build. i tested a few builds with WotA (will of ancients) in the beginning for spellvamp, but i decided not to put it in for reasons: it didnt help with health regen enough to compensate for the postponement of FoN. Also, trading frozen mallet for WotA was not worth it, because the ability power in WotA didnt help as much as the 700HP in Frozen mallet. in the end, the best solution to my build, and the way i play morde, is: keep it exactly the same, except trade frozen mallet for warmogs... its a WIN-WIN scenario... because lets be honest, i only liked frozen mallet for its health, and by trading it for warmogs you WIN in many ways, such as: Warmogs is cheaper than frozen mallet. Also, Warmogs gives over 200 more health than frozen mallet (which is all i liked about it in the first place) the first games i played with warmogs i had over 3.5k health!!!!! for an off-tank that does good damage, that impressed me.

also i will post a picture of my scoring of my first 3 games with warmogs later!!!

Update: ok, i got a croping software to crop my first 3 games with morde with my build that replaced frozen mallet, with warmogs.

Ignore the twitch AI game, also the very top morde game, i got a penta kill in...!!!

Update: 11/25/11

made item list and explanation easier to understand and more informative.

Update: 12/9/11

Switched seals of evasion for seals of vitality because dodge is getting taken out of the game. also fixed misc. typo's/errors

Update: 1/15/12

Added extra "possible items" in items list, and clarified this build as an AP Off-Tank build in various places.

Update: 3/24/12

Completed Coding icons of "items" section for better appearance. i will do codeing of other sections at a later date.

Update: 4/19/12

Changes build title to The Morde(The AP Off-Tank) because saying that AP off-tank is the "only way to play morde" was incorrect, and a closed-minded title. this is just MY way to play morde, my play-style, my build.