Welcome, To Oblivion. This guide will teach you everything you need to know about the Lord of Death, Mordekaiser.

Hey there! I'm Shumair and I'm a Mordekaiser main on the EUW server. Across both my accounts I have a combined mastery of about 250k on reworked Mordekaiser. Some of you may be thinking "Why do I need a guide on such an easy stat stick champion?". Well, I hope to explain to you in this guide that there's more to the Lord of Death than you think. Personally, I prefer Mordekaiser in the mid lane but for the sake of the meta, this guide will explain how to play him as a top laner. Here are my Mordekaiser stats on my main account: I haven't had much direct help from anyone but I would like to thank a few people for inspiring me and helping me learn BBCode through their guides - without them I would be clueless. First, I'd like to thank Sleepinthegarden. Her "Embrace The Ethreal" guide was my biggest inspiration when creating this guide. It showed me how good guides can truly be and set the bar very high. Also, r/Khazixmains' sleek guide design helped me out. In terms of learning BBCode, jhoijhoi has the best guides out there and only through those guides was I able to get a grasp on BBCode. Additionally, I overcame many hurdles with the help of many fantastic guides from the likes of Astrolia, Katasandra and many more. I would also like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who has created any sort of BBCode guide (as I've most likely seen it). You've been a big help to me. PROS hhhhh+ Insane damage for a hhhhhh.juggernaut hhhhh+ Great mid game hhhhh+ 1 Item powerspike hhhhh+ Manaless champ hhhhh+ Many easy matchups hhhhh+ Low skill floor Mordekaiser is a very reliable champion to have in your arsenal. He's unlike most AP champs as he's tanky and has no mana costs. His damage is very high for a juggernaut and due to the fact that he builds AP items, his builds can be very versatile. Another great thing about Mordekaiser's item builds is the fact that he hits his first powerspike after just one item. This allows you to play more aggressive in lane, press your lead or secure objectives with ease. Also, Realm of Death allows you to shutdown snowballing enemies and calim the big bounties, turning the tides in your favor. For a champ with so many favoured matchups, it's really hard to believe just how easy he is to pick up. CONS hhhhh- Falls off late game hhhhh- Low turret damage hhhhh- Long CDs early game hhhhh- Lack of movement speed hhhhh- Low skill ceiling hhhhh- Ult can be cancelled Despite his raw power and dominance throughout the game, Mordekaiser is one of the easier champs in the game to outplay. His abilities are very linear and he has a low skill ceiling so he lacks counterplay in many matchups. Also, in a long lane like top lane, slow champs like Mordekaiser struggle when ganked unless in the postition to 1v2, which won't be the case for the early game due to his long cooldowns. Realm of Death is also able to be countered by things such as Quicksilver Sash or Ragnarok. Furthermore, even if Mordekaiser does ult someone, adcs can easily kite around with their high movement speed. Finally, contrary to popular belief, his scaling is really not the best unless he's ahead by a wide margin as other champs' dps becomes too high to resist unless you build tanky.

Conqueror Conqueror is by far the best rune for Mordekaiser. Mordekaiser's kit synergises perfectly with it. As a melee champ, his auto-attacks grant 2 stacks per hit. Also, Obliterate grants 2 stacks, Death's Grasp grants another 2 and the best part of all is that the initial proc of Darkness Rise also gives 2 stacks. That being said, you can fully stack conquerer easily from just level 2, making extended trades unmatchable, which also helps his weak early game. Conquerer also scales very well into the late game and the 15% lifesteal is a must have for Mordekaiser. It also allows you do do so much damage even if you decide to build tanky. Triumph This rune is pretty self explanatory. Extra health in the middle of teamfights is insane and 20 extra gold per takedown adds up. Also, Mordekaiser is a manaless champ so Presence of Mind is useless. Furthermore, with Overheal you won't get a chance to stack your shield too much before the fight as your lifesteal comes mainly from champs in the middle of fights. Legend: Tenacity This rune is a bit of a weird one. Many people prefer Legend: Alacrity as attack speed feels so nice to have on Mordekaiser, however, I feel like tenacity is so important and underrated, especially on immobile champs. Tenacity allows you to front line a bit more and also helps vs annoying ADCs with single target Crowd Control abilities. Last Stand This rune is the best choice for Mordekaiser most of the time. The 11% extra damage is better than the 8% as you'll be low on health a lot in teamfights and all-ins in lane. Due to Indestructible, however, Mordekaiser often survives for a long time even when on low health. Another thing I like to do is use Zhonya's Hourglass when low on health whilst Darkness Rise is up. If you do this in the middle of a teamfight, you should get a lot of damage off with your passive in combination with this rune and you may even survive the fight. Taste of Blood Taste of Blood is just such a strong rune for basically every champ in the game. In lane it allows you to sustain better, trade better and all-in better. Despite the healing not being as useful late-game, it can still heal a lot right when you need it. In a good 30 minute game as Mordekaiser, this rune can give you upwards of 1,000 health restored. I would take that over most other runes any day of the week on a champ like this. Ravenous Hunter This rune is absolutely essential for Mordekaiser in my opinion as the combined healing is just so good. This rune also provides great nice powerspikes scaling potential into the mid-game, which is Mordekaiser's strongest point in the game. The healing from this rune combined with Conqueror is just absolutely crazy. Despite Mordekaiser's abilities counting as AOE, the healing is still masssive at max stacks. Bone Plating Personally, I rarely take Resolve secondary, but when I do, Bone Plating is a must-have. It can stop more damage than any other rune, allowing you to sustain better in lane and take more favourable trades. I would only take this into tough match-ups as it's good for lane but doesn't scale. Revitalize Revitalise is an obvious choice for Mordekaiser if you're going Resolve. It's pretty straightforward- more shield at low health. This is nice as it synergises well with Last Stand. Skill Order 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Q E W Q Q R Q E Q E R E E W W R W W Passive: Darkness Rise This passive procs when you hit enemy champs/Epic monsters with 3 consecutive basic attacks/abilities. This passive is where most of your damage comes from as it deals % health damage and applies effects from items such as Liandry's Torment and Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Futhermore, Mordekaiser gains an extra 3% movement speed when his passive is up, allowing him to have an easier time chasing down enemies. Q: Obliterate This is Mordekaiser's most basic, yet most important ability. He slams his mace down dealing magic damage to enemies in the hit area. Another thing to note is that isolated enemies take more damage from this ability. This includes minions, so try to avoid hitting minions if you want to deal extra damage with Obliterate. W: Indestructible Mordekaiser stores a portion of the damage he takes and deals as a shield. He can cast Indestructible to consume that shield and re-cast it to gain 50% of the shield as health. Timing this ability in teamfights is the key to surviving and ultimately winning the fight; you should use it late enough to get a big shield but early enough so that it comes off CD sooner. This ability scales with health. E: Death's Grasp The hardest part about Mordekaiser's kit is probably both knowing when to use this ability and being able to hit it every time. Death's Grasp can make or break a fight. If you miss it, you can be kited out very easily. If you take too long to ensure it hits, it may be too late. Hitting this ability inside your Realm of Death can allow you to demolish a squishy carry and ultimately win your team the fight or even the game. R: Realm of Death Well, what can I say about this ability. My pride and joy. This ability is the reason I wake up every day; to banish people to the Death Realm. Realm of Death allows Mordekaiser to isolate an enemy champion in the Death Realm for 7 seconds, stealing 10% of their core stats. If he kills them in this realm, he keep those stats until the banished enemy respawns. This ultimate allows you to snowball, carry teamights and everything in between. You can use it on fed enemies to destroy them and claim their sweet bounty or you can use it to stop a jungler from smiting an objective. The posibilities are endless (As long as you don't use it near a turret or it doesn't get cancelled). FLASH: Flash is, as we all know, the best summoner spell in the game. However, some things you may not know is that Mordekaiser, despite being immobile and seemingly needing this summoner to escape fights, should use Flash aggressively 80% of the time. You can Flash-Q to hit Obliterate unexpectedly or even Flash-E or R. This champ is so much more fun when you throw this kind of mobility into the mix. TELEPORT:Teleporting down to bot-lane and securing a kill is made so easy for a champ like Mordekaiser post-6. As soon as the enemies over-commit to a fight, you teleport down there and send them to the Realm of Death. I would advise only teleporting if your wave is relatively stacked, your opponent has weak wave clear (e.g Camille pre-tiamat), or your jungler is top to hold/clear the wave. Otherwise, a champ like Garen will punish you hard for going bot lane with his fast wave-clear and high turret damage. IGNITE:This is personally my favourite summoner to take on Mordekaiser. The kill pressure and snowball potential you gain from Ignite is insane. The fact that Mordekaiser is a snowball champ and that his passive goes so well with Ignite just solidifies this as my favourite summoner spell. Also, with Liandry's Torment and Darkness Rise added into the mix, it allows you to deal, in the famous words of Phreak and Ayanleh, TONS OF DAMAGE ! GHOST:This summoner spell is extremely situational as you're very rarely in a match-up where running down your opponent is the best course of action. Most of the time, you would rather freeze the wave or ult to all-in. However, certain ranged match-ups like Quinn or Vayne are begging you to take Ghost. However, you should only take it if you're confident you can win lane and snowball. Even if you don't, movement speed is always good on such a slow champ such as Mordekaiser.

Tank-hybrid Build This item build is definitely my favourite. It allows you to play like a true bruiser so that you can zone off carries, beat down tanks and also take some hits whilst peeling for carries, all whilst having insanely high damage. You could,instead, opt to go full-tank but that's not nearly as impactful. Items such as Zhonya's Hourglass, Spirit Visage and sometimes even Wit's End are the core part of this build. Full-damage Build Probably the most popular and fun build on Mordekaiser. This build allows you to turn into an actual machine that just shreds everything in its path. Full CDR, high attack speed and tons of % health damage make this item build the best for all out team fights, without a doubt. You should go for this build if your team lacks damage. Items such as Liandry's Torment, Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Nashor's Tooth make this build what it is. Mercury's Treads- These boots, as you probably know, should be bought against teams with majority AP damage. However, I think that sometimes it's not necessary as the tenacity from the passive doesn't add much more when you already have Legend: Tenacity due to it stacking multiplicatively. Depending on the game, between both boots, the choice is yours. Ninja Tabi- In most cases, these boots will help with laning phase in the top lane. However, in teamfights I think Mercury's Treads would be more effective due to extra tenacity and MR, which you often have less of. However, the passive from these boots is too good to pass up on. Once again, depending on the game,between both boots, the choice is yours. Hextech Protobelt-01- This is my favourite item to buy on Mordekaiser. I rush it almost every game. It gives decent all around stats for a low price, which will provide a great early-game powerspike. Also, this item has a very useful active, which reduces one of Mordekaiser's biggest weaknesses- mobility. It's good for gap-closing, escaping or wave-clear. Zhonya's Hourglass- An underrated item on Mordekaiser, to say the least. It provides CDR, Armor, AP and debatabley the best active in the game. On top of this, the components of this item are unbelievably good on their own, specifically Seeker's Armguard. You can also use stasis whilst Darkness Rise is up. This has saved me countless times and it has the potential to change the course of a team fight entirely. Rylai's Crystal Scepter- This item is great for Mordekaiser due to its low price, great stats and insane passive. However, I feel as though people build this item on Mordekaiser too early into the game. You should, instead, build it third or fourth and only if you've already purchased Liandry's Torment. In my opinion, Rylai's Crystal Scepter is a non-essential item on Mordekaiser as the slow may not be needed depending on how much CC your team has and sometimes a tanky item may be needed. Liandry's Torment- Well, probably the most important item for Mordekaiser due to its perfect synergy with his passive. There's no reason to not build this item. Increased damage in long fights, percent health burn damage and Health+AP. What more could you possibly ask for. When paired with Rylai's Crystal Scepter, this item is unbelievably strong. The only problem is that it's expensive to complete, which is why I'm against building it first. Nashor's Tooth- This is a strange one. If you're looking for raw power, this is the best item you could ever build on Mordekaiser. The damage is unmatched due to its synergy with Mordekaiser's passive on-hit damage. It even gives 20% CDR, making it the perfect item to buy if you want the full 40% CDRkaiser experience. However, my one problem with Nashor's Tooth is that is just doesn't provide any tankiness at all. On an immobile bruiser/juggernaut like Mordekaiser, that's going to be a huge problem. Despite that, it's still a great item but for me personally, it doesn't suit my play style so I rarely build it, instead opting to go more tanky. Rabadon's Deathcap- Apparently this item is viable on Mordekaiser. I just don't ever see it working unless you're going for a troll-build. This item is only here so I can tell you to NEVER build this on Mordekaiser. You get enough damage from AP items like Liandry's Torment or hybrid items like Zhonya's Hourglass. Raw AP just isn't what you need on this champ. You get no defense from the item and Mordekaiser doesn't build pure AP due to Obliterate having a 40% AP ratio. Void Staff- Magic penetration. This stat is very important for Mordekaiser. As you may know, Death's Grasp has a passive that adds 15% magic penetration to your stats. This, combined with Void Staff, amounts to a total of 49% magic penetration. Now, this may help vs tanks that stack MR as percentage magic penetration will reduce more MR. However, you should probably be ulting the backline in a standard game situation, so, in this case, flat magic penetration from an item like Oblivion Orb is better and cheaper. Also, for the price of Void Staff, it gives you no defence stats so it's just not good all-round despite sounding good in theory. Morellonomicon- Grevious wounds should never cost this much when there are so many champs with insane healing. The flat magic penetration is really nice for deleting squishies from the Rift. Though due to the fact that you can just buy Oblivion Orb for the magic penetration only, I would strongly advise against completing this item unless the enemy team has at least 2 high-healing champs such as Vladimir, Aatrox, Illaoi, Soraka etc. You should, instead, buy something like Haunting Guise or Seeker's Armguard Wit's End- This item is very situational. If the enemy has 3+ AP champs then you should consider building this. Despite not having the CDR and AP of a Nashor's Tooth, you'll still do immense magic damage on-hit due to the passive working in tandem with your on-hit passive. Additionally, you get insane attack speed, a nice chunk of MR and unexpected healing at lower health. Furthermore, the movement speed is great for Mordekaiser chasing enemies down. I would say this is the scaling version of Nashor's Tooth and late game it'll be more useful. Dead Man's Plate- Armor is always welcome in Mordekaiser's kit. He utilises it very well as most of his match-ups in the top lane are AD and he likes ulting ADCs. The extra health is also great as Indestructible scales with health so you get a bigger shield. The movement speed at maximum stacks combined with Hextech Rocketbelt's active is a great way to dive the enemy backline head-on in order to ult their ADC. Another great thing about this item is that crushing blow counts as two procs for your passive. This means you can proc your passive with just one auto + ability, which is useful against mobile champs that can kite you out easily. Thornmail- If the enemy team has a lot of healing or you're laning vs a Fiora, Vladimir wtc then you should get Bramble Vest instead of saving up for the pointless Morellonomicon. In most situations, you should sit on this bramble vest and finish it last but if the enemy have a fed Yasuo and ADC, for example, then finishing Thornmail wouldn't be such a bad idea. Spirit Visage- One of the best items on Mordekaiser, in my opinion is Spirit Visage. As a champion that finds it hard to build MR without going full tank, this item is perfect. CDR, Health, MR, Regen- this item has it all. Naturally, the MR is the most important stat it provides and the health is nice for Indestructible. However, the main reason that I love this item is the 30% extra healing you recieve from its passive (the healing in terms of lifesteal is multiplicative, though, so don't be fooled by the high number, but even so, it's crazy good). Sunfire Cape- I wasn't going to include this item, as this guide isn't really about going full-tank, however I recently tried this out in a few situations and it worked wonders. I think you should build this item if you fall behind and you need to help your team carry. For example, if you're 0/2 in lane and 30 CS down (vs Darius, of course- broken champ) and the enemy team has a Kha'Zix, Rengar etc, you should build Sunfire Aegis and ult the AD assassins to take them out of the fight for your team. This item is so broken that sometimes you might kill them in the Death Realm even though you just want to keep them out of the fight really. •Mechanic #1 - You can cast Obliterate then Flash to catch your enemy off guard. Your Q will land in front of where you flash. Make sure you do it quickly though or it may not work! •Mechanic #2 - You can use Death's Grasp backwards by casting it right in front of you. This allows you to drag back enemies that are chasing you. It is useful for escaping ganks. •Mechanic #3 - You can use Death's Grasp to pull enemies through thin walls. This can also work if you use it backwards to push them away through a wall. •Mechanic #4 - Indestructible can cancel your auto attacks so that you can use it mid-combo (you can't use it whilst using Obliterate normally). •Mechanic #5 - By using Flash correctly, you can use Obliterate in two different directions at the same time, allowing you to hit two separate enemies at once. •Tip #1 - After roughly 1 item, you can E-Q a minion wave to clear the caster minions at the back quickly. You can then use Hextech Rocketbelt to quickly clear the melee minions too. •Tip #2 - You can use Zhonya's Hourglass whilst your passive is up. This allows you to deal damage whilst the enemy can't damage you. Especially useful vs Jax. •Tip #3 - Flash-Protobelt-R is a great combo to dive a carry in the backlines. You can use this to engage for your team. •Tip #4 - When fighting for objectives, you can use Realm of Death on the enemy jungler to deny him from smiting the objective so that your jungler can steal. •Tip #5 - In lane, try to hit the enemy laner with Q without hitting the minions so that you get extra damage from single-targets. Note: This section won't include champ specific matchups as those will be covered in the final version of the matchups section. (More interactions coming soon. Let me know which ones I missed in the comments please) • Targets with Spell Shields can't be ulted and will put Realm of Death on cooldown if you try. • Cleanse cannot remove Realm of Death. • Quicksilver Sash can cancel Realm of Death and put it on cooldown. • Using Realm of Death on a clone of any kind will cancel the ult and put it on cooldown. • Wards that are placed inside the Realm of Death stay there and don't appear in the overworld and vice versa. • Epic monsters such as Baron Nashor or Drakes won't appear in the Realm of Death but towers will. • If a champion manages to move out of the cast range whilst being ulted, Realm of Death will be cancelled. • Most sentries or terrain altering abilities won't travel to the Realm of Death.

Early game, Mordekaiser is quite unpredictable in nature. If you play the lane right, you can get a kill as early as level 3. If you let your oppenent pressure you, however, you will fall behind. As Mordekaiser, you should never let your opponent pressure/zone you away from CS (unless you're against one of the few hard matchups). You should be constantly looking to poke down melee opponents using Obliterate in most match-ups. However, in certain games where you may be prone to ganks pre-6 (e.g. enemy has a Lee Sin, Elise etc), you should use Obliterate to secure CS and avoid walking up too much to CS. Make sure you don't waste your Death's Grasp early as it has a very long CD. You should try to use the pressure from having the ability more than the actual ability itself. Once you get to level 6, you should be looking to trade a lot more as in most match-ups you'll NEVER lose at this stage. Sometimes, though, opponents can be too hard to engage at level 6 making the powerspike feel useless. You can, however, take advantage of your huge pressure at this point in the lane by using the MOST IMPORTANT wave management strategy you could ever learn: Here is a nice, even, untouched wave. An even wave in the middle of lane. Now, you might be thinking "Mmmm, tasty CS, I better go and secure it as fast as I can!" NO! Stop! Wait! You can freeze it and secure even more of that delicious CS and deny your opponent CS! Sounds like a big win to me. "Well how do I do this 'freeze' thing?" you may be asking. All it takes are a few simple steps: Step #1- Getting the wave to push towards you. A wave pushing towards Blue Side. In order to freeze a wave, it must be pushing towards you. This means, the opponent has more minions of their team in the lane at a given time. Due to your minions being outnumbered, they will die quicker and the enemy minions will walk further down the lane towards you. There are a few ways to get a wave to shove. The first way is by only last hitting minions whilst your opponent hard pushes the wave. This trick will always work in low elo as low elo players almost always hard push all the time. Another way that you can get the wave to push to you is by shoving your wave under the opponent's tower, it'll then push towards you. With this method, you need to make sure your opponent doesn't catch the wave you shoved before it reaches the tower, otherwise they may freeze. The key rule to remember is: as long as your opponent's wave is bigger than yours, it'll ALWAYS push towards you. Now that you know how to get the wave to push to you, you can now start freezing it. A wave being frozen by the Blue Side. This next step is the most important- the actual freezing of the wave. In order to freeze a wave, your opponent's wave needs to have at least 3 more minions than yours. You should wait until your minions are all dead, making sure to only last hit the enemy minions the whole time. After your wave is dead, draw minion aggro and take the few remaining enemy minions just outside of your tower range. After that keep their aggro on to you until your minion wave arrives. Once the enemy wave arrives, there should be, in total, a few more enemy minions than yours. Make sure to only last hit and just like that... the wave is now frozen! Below is an image of where the wave should be once frozen. Bear in mind that in this image, your minions would be lower health than the enemies'. A wave frozen near the Blue Side turret. Now you know how to freeze the wave. What next? Well, a frozen wave offers many, many advantages in lane. These advantages include: •You don't have to overextend to farm. Making you a lot less vunerable to ganks from the enemy jungler. •You can't be zoned off farm and xp from the enemy laner. •The enemy laner will have to overextend to farm, so that they're more vunerable to ganks. •The enemy laner can't trade with you effectively. •The enemies will have to dive you to kill you, giving you a huge advantage in all-ins (unless you're vs Garen. He'll ignore the turret, run you down and live with full HP). Freezing isn't, however, all sunshine and rainbows. You can't just freeze all game and never move. Sometimes, in lower elo, your team will take fights in the river for no reason. As much as I'd love to say just keep farming, it won't work. In low elo, you should see if you can roam and catch these fights in order to snowball and get your team ahead. This, obviously, will break your freeze though so be careful. You may also need to break your freeze when there's a major objective that you need to Teleport or walk to. Teleport is easily the most important summoner spell for a top laner. This is because being so isolated from everyone else makes it your only guaranteed way of exerting pressure on the rest of the map. Also, in Season 10 there's a huge emphasis on getting elemental drakes in order to get the elemental soul. Due to drakes being bot side, once again, Teleport is great for securing them. Using Teleport effectively is not as easy as it seems. Some players think that you should just teleport bot as soon as you see a fight that you can win. That's wrong. Even if you win the fight, your jungler may be bot side and the enemy top laner could be pushing their wave. This means you lose out on 1-2 waves of XP and CS as well as losing 2-3 turret plates, meaning your teleport was a waste as the enemy team got just as much, if not more, Gold and XP. To avoid situations like this, you should time your teleports correctly. For example, if you've just shoved a wave under tower, you should look for a TP play. Here are some criteria that should mostly be met for a Teleport to be good: • Enemy bot laners are overextended or fighting far from their turret (e.g. Dragon pit). • Bot lane has a deep ward in a bush to Teleport to. • Bot lane is outnumbered and/or losing the fight. • Your wave is pushing towwards the enemy top laner. • Your jungler is top to shove the wave out for you (provided they have decent wave clear). • The enemy jungler isn't top to help hard shove the wave or take Rift Herald . These criteria are just some simple ones off the top of my head. There are many more opportunuties for using Teleport properly. Bear in mind that not all these points have to be met to merit a Teleport. Sometimes it may be worth if only 2 of the points are true. It all depends on the game state really. Recalling is a significant part of the top lane, seeing as it impacts the laning phase so much, which is the bread & butter of the top lane. Recalling may be easy, however, doing it effectively isn't. An good recall early on in the game can win you the entire laning phase. So, after hearing that, who wouldn't want to learn how to time their recalls? As I mentioned before, recalls aren't as simple as they seem at face-value. There's a lot more to it than just pressing the B button. If you were to recall, for example, after solo killing a Teemo, you should check for a few things first: • Is my jungler top side to help me take a rift Herald ? • Is my health high enough to solo a Rift Herald ? • Is the enemy jungler top side? • Is the enemy jungler going to kill me if I stay to try to shove the wave? • Is my wave clear fast enough to shove out a wave (that may or may not have a cannon minion in it)? • Do I have enough gold to make recalling worth it? • Is there an opportunity to Teleport bot if I'm healthy enough? • Is my wave big enough to push the tower for some plates and will I die if I stay too long? Naturally, some players will want to recall straight after getting a solo kill. If you ask yourself questions like these first, I guarantee you that you'll have more overall impact on the game. Recalls can also be done more passively, in which you simply slow push or hard shove a wave under tower. In some cases you may get a cheater recall off after the third wave, allowing you to get a huge advantage over your laner. Also bear in mind that you should avoid recalling when your jungler is dead or the enemy jungler is top. Warding is a neccessity for every role in the game. As a top laner, your job is to ward your top side and work in tandem with your mid laner and jungler to keep the top river, your jungle and the enemy jungle warded at all times. That's a lot of wards. The reason you should be warding in the early game is mostly to see if the enemy jungler is preparing for a gank or sometimes even to see their pathing. Control Wards should be used near your lane or anywheere that's in your territory so that you can defend them and so that the enemy can't ward your area. Regualar wards should be used in areas where enemies will often walk by or in bushes where they may hide. They're just useful in general for keeping an eye on the opposition. Whilst I could talk about warding in the late game, it's something you adapt game-by-game rather than a set in stone method. I'll just say this- Keep objectives warded and keep your own jungle warded. Here are some common ward spots for the Early/Mid game: In the Mid game, your primary objectives are either roaming or splitpushing to secure a lead. Depending on the matchup and how you're faring in lane, you should play accordingly. Assuming you're even, against a strong roaming champ like Camille, Pantheon etc, you should focus on clearing the wave and pushing the turret. If you see them roam at a bad time or Teleport bot with a bad wave state, you should punish them even more by going for a rift herald solo. If you know that their jungler is bot too, you can look for an opportunity to counter jungle. Due to Mordekaiser being so slow and having such bad roaming in comparison, you're almost always better off securing a lead top side and freeing it up for the late game. When playing vs other slow moving bruisers/tanks or champions that are good in lane, such as Illaoi, Darius etc, you should use Realm of Death and the pressure from having it to roam and make plays around mid/sometimes drakes. They'll often stay in lane and splitpush in the mid-late game. To counter this you could force objectives and give up a tower or trade a tower top for a tower mid. However, if the enemy splitpusher has bad vision of your jungle, you and your jungler can walk through jungle, catch them off guard and eliminate them. If no enemies are present in your lane and you need to walk to an important objective or reset for one, you should slow push the wave so that an enemy must go top to clear the wave and you'll have a 5v4 or the they'll lose a turret. This also applies for late game. ULTIMATE USAGE When roaming, your use of your ultimate will oftentimes be the decider of your roam being impactful or useless. To nail the usage of Realm of Death a lot more often, here are some tips. Firstly, avoid using it where there are lots of walls (such as the jungle) as they can be flashed over by the target you're pursuing. Also, you should avoid using it near bushes (such as alcoves or the jungle) as you have a high chance of missing your abilities if you can't see your opponent. Lastly, try to use Realm of Death away from turrets becasue if an enemy runs to a turret, you can't really do much, unless you're really tanky. ITEMIZATION Having the right items in the mid game is crucial as it can decide when you hit your powerspike, who you can fight and when you can fight. I go Hextech Rocketbelt first item in 80% of my games as it allows for an earlier powerspike, thus better potential to create a lead in the mid game. However, if I was against a Jayce, I would 100% go Seeker's Armguard due to his lethality and potentially even complete Zhonya's Hourglass. In this example, I would play around this itemization by looking for more plays bot, due to the armor from Seeker's Armguard being useful vs ADCs and less useful vs mid lane mages. This, in my opinion, is the hardest part of the game for Mordekaiser although it's also the most rewarding if you get it right. Realm of Death is one of the biggest game changers at this point in the game. I would even go so far as to say sometimes, it may be the win condition. Without further ado, welcome to o̶b̶l̶i̶v̶i̶o̶n̶ the late game. In the late game as Mordekaiser, your positioning is crucial. Due to the immense impact of Realm of Death, you need to be there for your team. Other than that, you should focus on CSing a lot as many Mordekaiser players (myself included) don't CS enough due to his snowballing nature. Based on your team and how fed you are, you should either sidelane to soak up pressure before objectives or stay perma-mid and rotate to every objective first; I'd recommend the former if you took Teleport. One thing you should be careful of is facechecking. Everyone makes this mistake and on such a slow, CC-vunerable champ you can't afford to be walking around with your eyes closed. To avoid this, make sure to ALWAYS ward and when walking through fog-of-war, stick with your team to avoid your carries getting picked off. This brings me onto the next section: When you hear Mordekaiser and teamfight in the same sentence, you immediately think ofulting carries. There is, however, a lot more to teamfighting than just pressing R. You need to be as useful as possible before using Realm of Death; this could mean hitting a massive E-Q on multiple enemies for just zoning enemies away. Either way, there are a few main ways to execute teamfights. One style that I like to play is I dive into them head first (normally with Hextech Rocketbelt) and hit a single Death's Grasp followed by Obliterate to fully proc my passive. After that, they have to engage back or Darkness Rise will shred them, so I ult straight after dealing my initial burst of damage and before they can counter engage me. I normally ult the tank/engage (e.g. Leona, Nautilus, Ornn) so that they can't counter-engage my team and also there's no one to soak up damage as well as the fact that they can't kite well and if you kill them, you get a bunch of tank stats. You might be ready to ask "Why don't you ult the carry so they can't deal much damage to your team?" The problem with that is that sometimes the carry does so much damage and has so much mobility that late game, they can contest you in the Death Realm. Also, their stats aren't as useful if you kill them. However, if there are any fed carries, you should ult them for sure, purely because they're fed. Then there's also the boring Mordekaiser, the one that peels for his ADCs like a good boy. With this playstyle you should get your passive up as fast as possible and run around, following your carry. The moment anyone becomes a threat for them, you ult. This playstyle doesn't require too tanky of a build as you don't frontline much. You should also only play like this if your ADC is fed and lacks support/peel. In conclusion, you should really just adapt to the situation and, most importantly, play according to your item build. If you've gone full tank, don't sit in the back line and peel for one player. If you've built full damage, don't run head-first into the enemy team. Objective control is vital at all stages of the game but even more so in the late game. One objective can change the game. That being said, it's important to secure every objective you can to have the best chances of winning. There are two major late game objectives- Dragons and Baron Nashor . Taking them requires team coordination and macro management. It's also important to know what to do when you take the objectives in order to maximize their usefulness. DRAGONS: Killing the Dragons is something that you must normally do as a team. There are a few prime times to try to take a Dragon. For example, if your team has 5 players at the dragon pit and the enemy team has someone top lane with no Teleport, this would be a good time to take the Dragon as the enemy team are outnumbered if they try to fight you for it. If the enemy jungler's Smite is on cooldown, your jungler can try to Smite the dragon to steal it. Also, in the late game, if at any point you have more players alive and well than the other team then you should all take the Dragon together. Vision is also very important when taking objectives such as Dragons so make sure you have the area warded before the dragon spawns and have the enemy team's vision cleared out. A good way to get vision of the Dragon pit is by killing the Rift Scuttler . Five different types of dragons exist in the game: Ocean Dragon , Mountain Dragon , Cloud Dragon , Infernal Dragon and Elder Dragon . The first four are known as Elemental Dragons. The third elemental drake taken in a game will determine which Dragon Soul will be in that game and will change the terrain based on the element of the dragon. Here is what the four Dragon Souls do: Ocean SoulDealing damage to enemies restores 160 (+ 36% bonus AD) (+ 22.5% AP) (+ 9% bonus health) health and 80 (+ 3.5% maximum mana) mana over 4 seconds. Damage to minions and monsters regenerates with 30% effectiveness. Mountain SoulAfter not taking champion damage for 5 seconds, gain a shield for 200 (+ 18% bonus AD) (+ 13.5% AP) (+ 13.5% bonus health). Cloud SoulGrants 10% bonus movement speed, increased to 50% bonus movement speed for 6 seconds after casting your ultimate (30 second cooldown). Infernal SoulDamaging abilities and basic attacks create an explosion around the target, dealing 80 (+ 22.5% bonus AD) (+ 13.5% AP) (+ 2.75% bonus health) adaptive damage to the target and nearby enemies (3 second cooldown). The best Dragon Soul for Mordekaiser is the Ocean soul as it greatly benefits his healing/lifesteal, which synergises very well with the healing from Conqueror and Ravenous Hunter. The Mountain Soul is the next best soul for Mordekaiser as he's a bruiser/juggernaut so any defensive stats are always welcome. Cloud Soul is relatively good as it enables you to catch up to the fast carries you'll be sending to the Realm of Death. Infernal Soul is probably the least beneficial as Mordekaiser doesn't really stack AP but it's still good on him. Then there's the Elder Dragon . This dragon is the next dragon to spawn after a team aquires the soul for that game. It grants the team that slays it Aspect of the Dragon , which makes attacks apply a true damage burn and executes enemies below 20% health. The buff is lost when the holder is slain. BARON NASHOR: Baron Nashor is debatably the most important objective in the game. One kill of it can win the entire game. However, it's also the hardest objective to take down duw to its high health and various debuffs it inflicts on its attacker. When a team slays Baron Nashor , they're granted the Hand of Baron buff, which empowers nearby minions and grants extra AD/AP. Only those alive when the objective is slain are granted the buff and when slain, the holder loses the buff. Securing Baron Nashor is a task like no other. Most champions cannot solo kill it due to the Baron's gaze debuff, which makes the champion that Baron is attacking deal 50% less damage. Due to its difficulty to kill with few people and its importance in the game, a team would normally only take this objective if they outnumber their opponents or if they kill it quickly, catching their opponent unaware. Some other conditions for killing Baron Nashor might include: • The enemy jungler has no Smite to secure the objective. • The enemy jungler is dead. • Someone in the enemy team is on the other side of the map with no Teleport • If you have a lot of vision over the Baron Pit and the enemy team has none. When securing this objective, along with others, as mentioned in the last point, you should always make sure to clear enemy vision and get lots of vision yourself. This should be done preemptively, minutes before even taking the objective. In some cases, a team who is ahead might start Baron Nashor despite enemy vision being present so that enemies on the lower half of the map Teleport to the pit to contest the objective. The team who is on the objective will then leave it and let it reset, thus having wasted enemy time and Teleports. When this buff is obtained, the team who wields it should, based on their team comp, normally try to split push in order to empower as many minion waves as possible.

If you've made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read my guide (or skipping through it). If you liked it, an upvote would help more people see it. If you hated it, a downvote works fine too. All in all though, I hope you can now see Mordekaiser from a different angle. He may be a very straightforward champion but there are still many dimensions to him and he's a great addition to any top laners champ pool. Despite falling off in the upcoming metas, I still see him always being a dominant pick if not just a good counter pick.