Mordekaiser, Master of Metal... or better dominance? Slavery?

The Main focus for Mordekaiser is, to chase the enemy carrys down to the ground. You are not a real Tank! You are that one that makes the opponent carrys cry deeply!

This build uses more magic resistance and armor than health points. On lvl 18 your shield has 630 additional "health points" so you really dont need to stack HP's. if you mitigate the damage of the enemy you will stand longer because the shield lasts longer and the shield will be easily regenerated. You can see your shield as a HP puffer that can be permanently refreshed. Less dmg you take results in longer surviabilty.(logic, right? :) )




The Team 1 Mordekaiser is a bit harder to play, Team 2 Mordekaiser is sustained. He is way more tanky early game + you have good HP regen to dominate lane!

18/11/2010: Build release
24/11/2010: Changed 2. maxed skill.
01/02/2011: Changed Glyphs to Magic Resist
04/02/2011: Changed Seals to Dodge
27/02/2011: Changed Summoner Spell Ignite to Teleport

21/03/2011: Testing some new Item Sequence... Sorc Shoes, HoG, FoN, HoG, HoG, Abyssal Scepter, Randiuns, GA, Rylais
06/04/2011: Changed Item-Sequence
11/04/2011: Changed Item-Sequence again, since they nerf HoG.
11/05/2011: Added Team 2 Mordekaiser
26/05/2010: Deleted Team 2 Mordekaiser again, and changed build and runes.

1.0.0.118 : Hextech Revolver has got now 20% Spell Vamp
1.0.0.112 : Mordekaiser
* Mace of Spades ability power ratio increased to 0.4 from 0.2
1.0.0.110 : Mordekaiser
* Fixed a bug with Iron Man where the tooltip said it had 5% decay but was actually 3%
* Shield generation increased to 25/27.5/30% from 20/25/30%
1.0.0.109 : Mordekaiser
* Shield decay reduced to 3% from 5%
1.0.0.107 : Mordekaiser
* Mace of Spades now resets the attack timer when used
* Iron Man shield generation reduced to 20/25/30% from 30%
* Iron Man shield decay increased to 5% from 3%
1.0.0.105 : Added a 0,2 ability-power ratio on Mace of Spades
1.0.0.104 :
* Mace of Spades
o Base damage increased to 80/110/140/170/200 from 20/40/60/80/100
o Now scales off of only bonus damage rather than all damage
o Now deals 75% bonus damage if Mace of Spades only hits 1 target
o Health cost reduced to 20/25/30/35/40 from 30/35/40/45/50
o The main target of Mace of Spades now generates shield for Mordekaiser
* Creeping Death
o Base damage increased to 24/38/52/66/80 from 16/32/48/64/80
o Ability power ratio increased to 0.2 from 0.15
o Increased missile travel speed when casting Creeping Death on an ally
* Siphon of Destruction
o Damage reduced to 65/105/145/185/225 from 85/110/155/200/245
o Ability power ratio increased to 0.6 from 0.4
o Base shield generation reduced to 1/2/3/4/5 from 6/9/12/15/18
* Children of the Grave
o Now steals 24/29/34% of the target's maximum health over the duration up from 24/28/32%
o Now deals half damage to the target initially and half damage over time
o Duration increased to 10 seconds from 8
o Total ability power ratio over the duration increased to 0.04 from 0.016
o Fixed a bug where Children of the Grave was improperly blocked by Black Shield
o Mordekaiser now gains 20% of the pet's Ability Power, reduced from 25%
o Mordekaiser now gains 20% of the pet's Attack Damage, reduced from 25%
* Children of the Grave Pet
o The pet now gains 75% of Mordekaiser's ability power and damage at all 3 ranks and the ratio itself no longer increases with Mordekaiser's total ability power
o Pet health bonus reduced to 15% from 50%
o Fixed a bug where the pet was not generating shield for Mordekaiser when hitting inhibitors
* Iron Man
o Shield generation increased to 30% from 25%
o Fixed a tooltip bug
* General
o Fixed bugs where several components of some spells generated shield equal to 20% of the damage dealt instead of 25%
o Fixed bugs where several tooltips did not properly reflect cooldown values with cooldown reduction factored in
o Fixed a bug where occasionally Mordekaiser could generate shield multiple times from a single source of damage (causing a huge spike)
o Reworded/simplified several tooltips

Why i picked the skill-ups as mentioned above.
I play morde mostly solo, so ive got to farm and harass much. Mace of Spades is a great spell, but it doesnt have a long range, you have to be in melee range to creeps to make it work. Siphon of Destruction has more range and its better to farm gold.

Second maxed skill would be Creeping Death, because it can be offensive and defensive. If you cant get far from your tower (i.e: vs. Ashe) because you get harassed much, you can put your shield on your "tank"-creeps and keep farming.
Or if you can be aggressive you can put your creeping death to the frontline on your creeps and ge behind their wave to block/harass the opponent.
Another good situation for Creeping Death is, when your opponent attacks you, you got a bit more armor and magic resistance (obvious, isnt it? :) ).

Why i get the runes mentioned above:
Magic Penetration: All your skills deal magic damage... any doubts?
Flat Health: Morde starts with low health, i compensate that with runes. (i dont like dorans shield, which would compensate that too, but the health regen on dorans shield is too low, that results in you dropping step by step while using your skills.)
Health regen /lvl: I use them instead of flat health regen because on lvl 4 they are equal to the flat regen runes. I dont start beeing aggressive too early.
Edit: I use either Flat Armor or dodge-runes atm, i feel tankier with it... as soon as i hit lvl 6 i heal myself per Ult if needed and Spell Vamp from Hextech Revolver.
CDR/lvl: I use them because i like to have short cooldowns later. A full shield is a good shield.
Newer Days, i use Flat or per lvl MagicResist runes to be a bit more tankier in early game.

(later)


As Summoner Spell, ignite is worth it, but as far as you solo top lane, you need some Mobility (especially in ranked play), so you choose Teleport!
If you dont take Teleport put 1 point out of Imp. Teleport and add it to reduced death-time.

Get:
Core:
Hextech Revolver
Randuin's Omen
Sorcerer's Shoes
Force of Nature
Additional:
Abyssal Mask / Rabadon's Deathcap / Will of the Ancients
Guardian Angel
Rylai's Crystal Scepter


About getting Rylais: The explanation is simple, deal dmg and make easier kills for you and your team because of the slow. :)

The Reason why i dont take Sunfire-Cape is: its less useful. With Sunfire Cape you've got ~200 more flat HP. With Randiuns Omen you've got ~200 less flat health, BUT ~700 more effective armor-health! + the defensive attack slow proc. Not to mention the active ability, which is awesome in teamfights and to compensate your lack of CC!


Calculations:
Armor % = Armor / (100 + Armor) in our case: 236 / 336 = 70,24 %
Effective Armor-Health: 1/(1-0,7024) * Health =8596,1 (Randiuns Omen)

Sunfire has +150 Health and -45 armor.
Armor % = 191/291 = 65,64%
Effective Armor-Health: 1/(1-0,6564) * (2558,2+150) = 7881,84

in Addition: Randiuns Omen slows the attack speed of enemie AD carries.


Which items not to get:

Warmogs Armor, this is absolutely no-go, its makes you more vulnerable vs. Madreds. It does not help you much because it has no armor and Magic resistance (as mentioned above, your shield needs that) so it makes "Iron Man" useless because it will be easily "killed".

Sunfire Cape, you see my calculation above. Dont get it. Your damage is high enough you dont need that 42 AoE-DPS...



Always keep in mind, you have to counter the enemy team. If you are faceing a heavy physical dmg team, build your randuins early. If you have your Corebuild ( Sorc Shoes, Heart of Gold and Force of Nature) you can choose what is needed.

Get ready to be flamed to the ground... " OLOLOLO NOOB MORDE, USELESS PICk"

I love to play Mordekaiser...
My current stats for Morde are:
Win: 59
Loss: 18

Ratio 76,6%

Avg K/D/a = 6,8/3,4/7,5
61 double kills
13 tripple kills
1 quadra
1 penta

dont try to lane Morde on a duo lane, in 90% of all cases that will fail imo.
You need a solo lane to outlevel them. (Solo Lane + Awareness is always good )
Play safe early levels, you are weak as fu** earlygame.


I will write more on Morde later.
More Good votes result in a bigger guide :)