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Hey Corruptsoul here with a guide of the Anti-carry battle-mage, Mordekaiser. This year they have made a number of changes to Mordekaiser and his item sequence (I'm referring to Will of the Ancients) which have made it a little harder to play Mordekaiser. After deciding that I really like his style and abilities, I decided to buy him and try him out. Been playing him a lot and am in love with him. After trying to find a decent guide to base my initial setup off of, I realized that there wasn't a very in depth guide. So this is my interpretation on what works best and the alternatives that are viable and work well with the current meta. I hope you enjoy.

Also, I have been tweeking this guide for about a month and there is still a lot of content I'd like to add. So if there is something missing, please let me know so I can add it! Thank you!


Credits tojhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.

Mordekaiser is like every champion. He has weaknesses and flaws and he has his strengths. Mordekaiser is excellent at filling in the role of tanky AP carry due to his unique shield and his multiple target abilities.

P R O S

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+ A viable pick for either top or middle lane of Summoner's Rift to fulfill the role of AP carry. + Mace of Spades, Creeping Death, and Siphon of Destruction offer multiple target damage, making him excellent in team fights while still giving the ease of being able to focus a single champion. + High damage output + Naturally tanky due to + Long range finisher that is great for retreating enemies and focusing champions in team fights. + Excellent farmer using and while still allowing you to attack enemy lane. + Build in buffer to your health. + Mordekaiser is often severely underestimated, leading to commitments in a fight that you will win. In order to maximize the benefits of this, try to keep your shield up constantly, especially early game.

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P R O S

C O N S

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- Shield is very weak early game, especially before and are leveled up. Regrowth Pendant can counteract this as well as smart early game. - Difficult to master his play style since he is a mixture of different types of champions. - Movement Speed can make it hard to focus AD Carry in fight. - is very critical to success. Until it is built, health is very slow to regenerate and you risk being burst down. - No built in escapes or hard CC at all. - Might be accused of playing an "OP" champion. - Your team might not understand how to best work with you. Lack of team cooperation can lead to not activating, leaving you at a disadvantage.

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C O N S

OFFENSE

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Mental Force For the extra damage early game. This mastery will allow you to last hit easier and give you more damage for your early game, especially if you start with Boots instead of a Doran's Shield Sorcery This mastery helps counter your slightly high cooldowns but is mostly so we can grab the mastery directly branching off it. Arcane Knowledge Is a great mastery, especially for one point. The 10% Mag Pen is wonderful. Just helps to hit home the damage especially after the enemy starts building magic resist. Havoc Scales with your AP to increase your damage output. Blast As Mordekaiser is primarily a AP caster champion, every bit of AP helps. This just means that as the game progresses, you add even more AP to your arsenal. Archmage Again, builds your AP. This really helps at the beginning of a match, making your first Siphon of Destruction hurt that much more. Executioner Great with Mordekaiser, synergizes well with his ultimate, Children of the Grave, to help finish the kill.

DEFENSE

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Summoner's Resolve For the upgraded Heal Resistance For use in middle lane especially, this just gives us a touch of early game magic resist to help you take some hits from their abilities early game. Hardiness Great top lane for early survivability. These plus our Greater Seal of Armor help shut down the enemy AD. Vigor For lane sustain mostly - I prefer to regen my health, as opposed to Veteran Scars , but it is up to your personal preference.

UTILITY

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Summoner's Insight Just for the upgraded Flash Good Hands Just to keep you in the game more. Useful and necessary if going with 21 points in utility. Improved Recall Same as before, just trying to keep you in the field more. Swiftness Mordekaiser is dreadfully slow when trying to get your abilities to hit a ranged caster in lane. This helps negate that and keep you from taking too much damage early game and still lets you be mobile late game. Transmutation Great if you go 21 in utility, that spell vamp helps you maintain your health bar without buying potions. Rune Affinity Not as useful on Mordekaiser but can be useful to keep you buffed whenever you do get the buffs.

Offensive Masteries for Damage Output

>> This page is the one you will want to use if you know how to charge your shield and avoid major damage. This compliments the offensive runes well and is the build of choice for me. The Utility specs on this page are mainly for Swiftness to keep you from dying as much since you have no CC to help you. I choose Improved Recall just because it helps get you back to the lane earlier but it could be replaced with Summoner's Insight to get your Flash up sooner.

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Defensive Masteries for Survivability

>> You really want to avoid using all defensive masteries because of the mechanism of his Iron Man passive. You actually increase your defense by using a more offensive set-up. The only time you would really want this is if you use a very AP and Magic Pen heavy rune page. I chose Vigor over Veteran's Scars just because of the uselessness of it late game. Even early game it doesn't do that much. I chose Honor Guard over Mercenary just because I never have noticed any advantage to it. Summoner's Resolve could be useful for Cleanse if you have a very CC heavy team and want to avoid it. Juggernaut just helps you with a little boost in health and reduces CC by 10%, which is useful if you are going tanky to work with your team.

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Utilitarian Runes for Support

>> I am currently looking into support Mordekaiser, but it doesn't seem to be a good choice unless you have a great teammate. He lacks the CC or healing properties of a support to keep the carry in the lane. Greed and Awareness I picked up so that you can help the support more by harassing the enemy without needing minion kills. Transmutation is for regening your health by hitting the minion waves and enemies and to keep you in the lane. Intelligence is just to help you spam your spells to harass. Mastermind seems pretty worthless to me. As a more offensive player, I don't use it often but I suppose its useful in this build.

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Q U I N T S

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Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration: These runes let you build without worrying about magic resist reducing items unless they build rather tanky. Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: These are great especially with Mordekaiser to help focus AD carrys in teamfights and to land your abilities in lane. Greater Quintessence of Vigor: Awesome if you are playing mid lane against another Caster. Mordekaiser has short range attacks, so you are prone to a lot of harassment. Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: For the early game boost to help get you started. Mordekaiser benefits a lot from these because he already has pretty decent starting AP and these just hammer home that advantage.

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Q U I N T S

M A R K S

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Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: Again, these runes let you build without worrying about magic resist reducing items unless they build rather tanky. Greater Mark of Ability Power: Only other major choice. These again just help get that early game boost to your AP to dominate the lane.

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M A R K S

S E A L S

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Greater Seal of Regeneration: As discussed before, Mordekaiser has a short range than most of the ranged champions you are pitted against. These runes help bolster your health above the regen you already have to keep you in lane longer against other opponents early game. The great thing about these runes is how much they stack late game. Greater Seal of Armor: These are great top lane when you are playing against an AD character to just give that little edge you need to get an early kill. Greater Seal of Health: While I think these could benefit Mordekaiser, I think using the regen seals is a better choice, especially for the experienced player.

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S E A L S

G L Y P H S

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Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction: Mordekaiser loves cooldown reduction because it lets you fire your Siphon of Destruction and Mace of Spades more often and keeps your shield up, making you that much harder to kill. Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: Magic resist is useful especially if you are playing mid lane. If you are playing against a mid lane caster like Veigar or Annie, it might be a good idea to invest in flat magic resist glyphs instead, but I think both work very well as long as you play smart.

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G L Y P H S

Survivability


Damage Output


My Personal Favorite

• New Mordekaiser: Ghost + Heal
• Intermediate Mordekaiser: Flash + Ignite
• Expert Mordekaiser: Flash + Cleanse

Summoner spells are in my opinion more useful when they follow your personal preference, but I have found that these spells are the most useful when used with Mordekaiser.

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Ghost: Ghost is the ultimate in movement boosts. I use ghost to either land the killing Siphon of Destruction or Children of the Grave to finish the carry on the enemy team or to escape after losing most of your health. Ghost is basically interchangeable with Flash for that little bit of mobility.

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Flash: Just like Ghost, Flash is for that movement for the final blow or escaping. I prefer Flash just because of the ability to jump walls with it. Mordekaiser has no escape mechanism and sometimes that boost of speed just doesn't cut it for me.

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Ignite: Mordekaiser's best friend. One of the easiest ways to get a kill on someone as Morde is to harass and push them under the tower, then close in and use Children of the Grave and Ignite and just sit back. No amount of healing can stop an experienced combo. If you plan on doing this, I suggest you practice on bots first since getting the timing and correct health level is tricky.

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Cleanse: This is one of the spells that very high end players can use to wonderful effect, but the inexperienced player will basically be left with only one summoner spell while Cleanse takes the others spot. Only use it if you are able to spam it precisely when you need it if not, move to the next one.

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Heal: As a player who relies on his passive to keep alive in fights, any kind of stun or burst damage can decimate him. I take heal if I am playing against characters like Renekton or Veigar since they have the ability to stun then burst my health before I can move.

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Teleport: Teleport is great for mid lane and top lane to keep you in your lane after recalling. It is wonderful for ganks as well, since you can teleport to wards for the ultimate surprise party.

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Exhaust: This is one of those spells that can be useful, but isn't the best for this character. I love exhaust for a lot of champions but Mordekaiser is very unique and if you can't kill enemies by your burst damage, you either finish them with your ultimate and Ignite or the fight is over. I find this to be more useful on carrys or on your support while you use your spells to deal damage and more movement.

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Iron Man: One of the most unique abilities in the game, this passive is Mordekaiser's main defense. You should always try to charge your shield before major team fights and remember to charge it to prevent harassment. It also is a great surprise in a 1v1 when suddenly Mordekaiser has practically double the health he had just a second ago.

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• Use your abilities on minions to charge your shield as you approach the enemy.
• A 1v1 fight around a minion wave will allow you to charge your shield while hitting the enemy as well.
• Your shield works off of magic resist and armor, so the more of both, the longer your shield will hold against attacks

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Mace of Spades: This ability is basically a charged up hit that can spread to enemies behind your target. This works well against minion waves and can also hit enemies trying to hide behind them. Upon hitting the initial target, up to 3 additional targets can be hit, maximizing the amount of shield and damage you gain.

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• If your enemy is hiding behind the minion wave, try using Mace of Spades on the minions to make the branching part hit them.
• If there is only one target around, Mace of Spades deals more damage. This can be used to surprise the enemy with your initial hit.

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Creeping Death: Creeping Death is your defensive ability but also deals quite a bit of damage over time. This is great to use on minions while farming and while in the jungle. It also gives you a slight armor and magic resist boost. It's a great compliment to your shield. I always try to keep it on a minion close to the champions just to add a little harassment to the lane.

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• Remember that it gives armor and magic resist, so casting it on your tank can help keep the focus away from your squishy characters.
• If you are pushing your lane well, you can cast Creeping Death on the minions to help get a couple more hits on the turret.
• Remember that Creeping Death charges your shield as well, so casting it while in a fight will grant a long boost to your shield.

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Siphon of Destruction: Your bread and butter ability. This ability has a decent range and can hit multiple targets equally. The damage output from Siphon of Destruction is amazing and it charges your shield the best. Use this ability to harass, farm minions, and force the enemy to retreat.

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• After a few hits with Siphon of Destruction the enemy will back off significantly. Use this to your advantage to push to their tower and force them to lose gold.
• Use this in co-operation with your Mace of Spades to farm quickly.
• If you are retreating, you can use it to charge your shield just enough to make it away.

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Children of the Grave: An amazing blend of offensive and defensive ability. You can turn a team fight by ulting on a carry, giving you health, and finally, using their ghost to finish the team off. It also works as a long range ignite to finish fleeing opponents off. It is probably one of the most versatile ultimates of the game.

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• Items such as Banshee's Veil can ruin an attempt to get a ghost.
• Some characters abilities can stop his ult from going off. These include Zilean's Chronoshift and Tryndamere's Undying Rage. Avoid using it until you are sure that it will result in a ghost.
• His ult has a relatively short cooldown, meaning you can spam it throughout the game to give you a better chance of a ghost.
• Using your ghost to tank a tower or Baron Nashor after a team fight is a great way to take advantage of your it while no one can stop you.

There really isn't a better skill order to follow. Siphon of Destruction is the ability that Morde is really built around so it should be leveled first. One note about this order: I put 2 points into Siphon of Destruction before I put a point in Creeping Death. I do this mainly because at this early stage of the game Creeping Death doesn't have much chance to be used to its full potential. This is more due to personal preference than necessity but it seems to work better with that exception to our order. If you use Creeping Death more often, then build it earlier.

Boots of Swiftness Mordekaiser is often the center of attention and is focused often. He also is not particularly fast. If you can't move the way you need to around the map, it might be a good idea to get these.

Mercury's Treads Crowd control can make it impossible to charge your shield and land your ultimate. If the enemy is locking you down with stuns, Mercury's Treads are a necessity. I take these whenever I need to escape those stuns more often.

Sorcerer's Shoes I love these boots. These give you the same movement speed as other level 2 boots but the magic pen is killer. I take these about 90% of the time because they are so useful.

There are 4 things that Mordekaiser needs to remain viable: Survivability Ability Power Movement Speed Spell Vamp If you can keep these four aspects in mind when playing, any build you create, as long as they use a combination of all four, should work with him well.

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Beginner Mordekaiser Experienced Mordekaiser

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Maximized Burst Mordekaiser Maximum Damage Mordekaiser