I would just like to say that when I began playing Mordekaiser, I began using this guide. It may be archived, but the level of dedication that the author showed in making and updating this guide is a level that I hope to achieve. Thank you for reading this guide. Please comment and leave suggestions on how to improve this guide if you have something to say.

+Lots of damage.
+Very durable in most situations.
+Getting a ghost can win your lane/team fight.
+Great farmer.
+http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YreQiDWySQ

-Needs to keep his shield up to maintain tankiness/sustainability.
-Very susceptible to ganks due to his low complete lack of CC and low movement speed.
-If you can't deal damage, you can't generate a shield which tanks away most of your tankiness.
-Annoyingly slow.(Not as slow as Ashe though)

Viable Spells

Great for escaping and gap-closing.



Stick this on your next victim with Children of the Grave to get massive damage over time. Useful for securing kills.



Similar to flash. Use it to chase people down, or run like a small child if that's what floats your boat.

Other Good Spells

Great for split pushing. Or returning to lane if (somehow) your opponent is shoving you our of lane(unlikely after reading this guide).

Not-so Good Spells

Mordekaiser doesn't need the help pushing or killing creeps. You might. He doesn't.

Those other spells... Not so great on Mordekaiser.

Iron Man

One of the best passives in the game. Gives Mordekaiser a lot of survivablity and tankiness without buildy tank items. The best part of this ability: you get defensiveness from KILLING YOUR OPPONENTS. This passive is half of what makes Mordekaiser such a unique character. Managing and maintaining your shield is the key to being a good Mordekaiser. Mordekaiser has a hard time maintaing this shield at low levels, but after that it should always be up if you don't want to die.

Mace of Spades

An enhanced auto-attack that deals AoE damage, or enhanced damage if in a 1v1. Press Q immediately after your normal auto-attack to activate this ability again. Since this attack resets the auto-attack animation, doing this gives you a bit more damage. Activate as late as possible before initiating so that you don't accidentally waste the health cost by not using it. If this does happen, then hit something close to you(ex.: minions, jungle creeps, useless teammates...) to not waste the spell completely.

Creeping Death

A shield. It blocks damage and puts the hurt on everything standing around the target. Put it on whatever's surrounded by the most enemies to deal the most damage, or keep it on yourself to block some more damage.

Siphon of Destruction

Mordekaiser's basic harass/shield generation ability. Try to hit your lane opponent/minions at the same time to get the most damage and shield generation out of it. If you can't hit at least three targets with this spell, you should reposition so that you can.

Children of the Grave

The skill that makes Mordekaiser win lanes as hard as he does. If you see someone who looks mildly killable, hurl all your abilites on him/her/shaco. If they're almost dead, toss this on them with ignite and any item actives you have. If they're not low after that, then find another target or get your team to help you kill them. Since this ability has such a high cooldown, you need to make sure that you or your team can secure the kill before you use this ability.

Getting a ghost is important to winning team fights with Mordekaiser. Don't be afraid to steal a kill or two with this ability in order to make sure you get a ghost.

Whose Ghost Should I Steal?

Whoever the first person to die is. Whoever's ghost you get will work fine, all ghosts serve the same basic purposes anyway.

How to use a Ghost

Tap R to direct your Ghost towards your mouse. Ghosts will not automatically attack whatever is close to them, so you need to make sure that you clicked correctly in order to get your ghost to attack stuff.

Ghosts augment your own abilites based on the stats of who they were when they were alive. Ghosts maintain the same defensive capabilites as they did in life and they can auto-attack as they did in life as well, but they can't use abilities. This means that the best ghosts have strong auto-attacking abilities or a lot of tankiness.

Mordekaiser has a lot of item flexibility. Once you have upgraded boots, mix and match items to counter your opponent's team. As a general rule, it will work on Mordekaiser if it has ability power.

Core Items

Sorcerer's Shoes should be your second or third item. They help you damage and escape ganks more easily. Ninja Tabi and Mercurial Treads are also acceptable if you are looking for a tankier build.

Starting Items

Boots provide a good early start for Morde. He needs the early game speed to harass, dodge skillshots, escape ganks and chase more easily. The potions help Morde recover from harass and recover health after using his spells too much.



Regrowth pendant is another good start to the game. This starting item is good if you want to be able to spam your spells with reckless abandon. If you take this, then getting a few ranks in Mace of Spades earlier on might be a good idea since the increased health regeneration will negate the health cost of using more of your spells.



This item is cheap and offers a lot of stats that let Morde stay in lane longer and get some early game tankiness. However, it does not build into anything, and is more of a solo top item that a solo mid.

Early Game Items

Early shoes are mandatory on Mordekaiser for three reasons. First, he has no built-in crowd control so he is a poor chaser, so he needs the early movement speed to help him out. The second is that being slow means getting anywhere takes too long, which lessens Mordekaiser's impact when he needs to be somewhere but can't get there in time. The third reason is that he has no escapes(aside from flash), so he needs boots so he can run away like a little girl.

Offensive Items

Mordekaiser NEEDS ability power to deal damage and to keep his shield up. This item helps him get that ability power he needs to maintain a presence in lane or team fights. You can't really go wrong buying this item on Mordekaiser since ability power is such a necessity for him.



This item is great for chasing people down, staying in lane and 1v1s against melee champions. However, it is incredibly expensive, and other items are better on Mordekaiser. This doesn't mean that it isn't viable, it just means that you should only get it if you need offensive might and you have gold to spare.

Offensive/Defensive Items

Trouble chasing down n00bs? Running out of health too fast? This item fixes those problems. The slow is great for chasing people down, especially because Mordekaiser has no natural cc. Mordekaiser needs the health too in order to survive team fights, and the extra ability power never hurts. All-around a good item for Mordekaiser.



This item makes you much deadlier in melee combat. The downside is that you have to leave time in between your spells and attacks in order to use the active effectively. The extra movement speed is also useful since Mordekaiser is so naturally slow. However, the mana is wasted(not so bad, only 400 gold worth). The main downside is that it is really expensive, and the items that make it up aren't too useful until you combine them.



Gives you more of a presence in team fights because of the aura. Mainly useful for not getting killed by AP champs. Not sure why the aura is pink/purplish though.



This item is for countering AD champions. Use the active if people are ganging up on you too much.

Defensive Items

There are no pure defensive items for Mordekaiser. This is because Mordekaiser's primary defense mechanic( Iron Man) comes from dealing damage with abilities. If you focus on defense too much, then you stop getting the full use out of his passive. Creeping Death augments his defensiveness as well. Between Creeping Death and Iron Man, Mordekaiser should not need pure defensive items.

Mordekaiser is a damage-dealer, he is not a tank and works best built as a death-dealing AP carry.

For those of you who don't want to read the whole guide:

Don't run from fights.
Play aggressively.
Get ghosts even if it means kill-stealing(your teammates don't deserve the kills anyway).