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Recommended Items
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order
Darkness Rise (PASSIVE)
Mordekaiser Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Azir
His poke and zone is very strong, while you are relatively short ranged to consistently get close enough to him and stay on him. Out-maneuvering him is hard because he will just move his soldiers. Start boots and rush Spirit Visage and/or Abyssal Scepter after Hextech Revolver. I also recommend to frequently use your spells to resist his poke with the shield you get - this helps you to stay in lane. Since you lack engage, ask someone else to jump on him and then burst him down.
Introduction
Mordekaiser is relatively short ranged, has low mobility and no crowd-control, so building him more or less tanky is unavoidable, in my opinion. Although this guide suggests a variety of damage items, a fully offensive build would leave him too vulnerable against all-ins. Also, most top lane champions are melee and short ranged, too, against which Mordekaiser is a really good pick with his lane bullying potential. Currently, he is most picked in the bot lane, so picking Mordekaiser first and letting the enemies think you are going bot lane, can be outplayed in the pick and ban phase by swapping him top with last picking the ADC.
Pros
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+ high AOE base damage + one-shot potential + tanky + lane bully + 6 vs. 4 + fast pusher |
Mordekaisers strength with this build lies in dealing fair amounts of AOE damage while still being rather tanky. He can be a lane bully against many top laners due to constant harassment and his passive shield favoring him in most trades. In skirmishes and teamfights he also provides a good resistance buff and can turn the tides in terms of your team size with his ultimate. His AOE abilities also let him be a great lane pusher. |
Cons
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- low mobility - no CC - no engage / disengage - short-ranged / kiteable |
Mordekaisers main disadvantages are both his lack of mobility and his lack of crowd-control. He is also fairly short-ranged. Due to these drawbacks he has neither engage nor disengage capacities and can often be kited. These drawbacks should be considered during pick and ban phase and can be almost neutralized with a good team composition (see below). |





Due to his weeknesses, namely the lack of mobility and hard crowd-control, Mordekaiser lacks the capability to start fights. You somehow need to bring him to the fight or the fight to him because he just can not start one by himself. There are two ways to consider this during the pick and ban phase:
- Your team has the capability to initiate fights. This can mean both hard engage crowd-control like
Annie,
Jarvan IV,
Vi and pick potential like
Ahri,
Blitzcrank,
Thresh.
- The enemy team composition is built on initiation. Whenever an enemy dives in (and his mates are slow to follow up), put
Children of the Grave on him and focus him down with your team, resulting in superior numbers for your team. With this advantage you can then either steamroll the remaining enemies (if they continue to fight) or take objectives (if they run and hide).
I do not recommend Mordekaiser against a poke, heal and kite back composition. On his own, he can't do anything against that. If you want to play Mordekaiser against such a composition (or have to if you first-picked), your team needs to have some serious form of initiation.
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Mordekaiser is immobile, so ![]() |
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The passive ![]() |
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![]() Aside from the damage, this ability is great to create a champion advantage for your team, i.e. if you and your team focus correctly in team fights and burst someone down, you have just created a 6 vs. 4 fight. It is also a great tool to survive ganks and dives against two opposing team members and turn it around. You will deal a lot of damage, heal yourself, heal yourself more if you already have spell vamp and generate shield. If you get the first kill off of it, you have also a good chance to get the second enemy. ![]()
Keep track of the abovementioned timers or use Children of the Grave on someone else - it is better to get a ghost off of a lower priority target and win the fight than none at all and lose it. It is also viable to target a high health tank, but only if you get focused hard and have no active ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The cherry on top: you can also enslave the dragon and use his ghost. Great sieging tool. |
Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: These quintessences boost early game damage and increase the lane bullying potential.
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: These marks are simply put the best choice for Mordekaiser. They allow his high base damage to pierce through the resistances.
Greater Seal of Scaling Health: These are generally the best seals for Mordekaiser. They provide the best scaling defensive stats against mixed damage, especially when combined with the overall defensive masteries we are picking. Note that these seals out-scale
Greater Seal of Health at level 7 and I would pick flat health seals only if I don't own the scaling ones. Other viable alternatives are
Greater Seal of Armor or
Greater Seal of Scaling Armor if you go against a hard physical damage lane or against a heavy physical damage team, respectively.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction: You do not build much cooldown reduction on items and your abilities cost (only) health. These runes allow you to spam your abilities more in the mid and late game. More ability spamming means more damage, hence more shield and
Children of the Grave will be available more often. Viable alternatives are
Greater Glyph of Ability Power if you want to accentuate your early game harass.
Note: We are picking up mostly offensive runes because we fill in the tankyness with defensive masteries.
Starting Items
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Core Items
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Mordekaisers abilities cost health and the effective spell vamp of ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Boot Choices
Generally speaking, boots are not gold-efficient, i.e. comparing their gold value with the value of the stats they provide. On low-mobility champions like Mordekaiser, however, the added movement speed is worth comparatively more than on champions with built-in mobility, be it to get out of sticky situations or to follow up a fight or chase someone down. For this reason, you should upgrade your boots with Mordekaiser comparatively early to counter his lack of mobility.
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Boot Enchantment
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Situational Items
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Easy Matchups
The strength of Mordekaiser in the early game lies in his ability to harass and being a lane bully. Easy matchups are the ones where you can harass, zone and deny farm fairly easily and without getting traded back much. While harassing, try not to push too hard to freeze the lane, especially against champions that farm well under tower. Also, freezing and zoning, in contrast to hard shoving, prevents you from overextending. Heavily harassed and denied laners will call for help. Ward when you don't know where the opposing champions are and keep an eye on the minimap. Don't hesitate, though, to push fast when you know where the enemies are. This way, you can force them out of lane or even kill them and take their tower. In these easy matchups you should be able to out-farm your lane opponent and deny them from getting their core items, e.g. it is very good to deny an opposing


Medium to Hard Matchups
These are the matchups in which Mordekaiser suffers from either his lack of mobility, his comparatively short range or his lack of engage. You may be the one who is harassed and bullied around and rarely can trade back efficiently. Here, I am listing tips which may help against specific matchups and may also be of use in skirmishes and teamfights (the brackets at the end of each point contain against which matchups the tip may be useful):
- High-range poke is usually a skill-shot. Start with
Boots and upgrade them early to dodge these skill-shots more easily. (against high-range poke)
- If the opposing champion goes in to trade you will often have to hit as many enemies around you as possible with your abilities to get a sufficiently high enough shield to mitigate the damage dealt. (generally if the enemy trades better, e.g.
Gnar)
- If your opposing laner has high range poke but is squishy and immobile, you can try to out-maneuver the poke and get close to him for a
Siphon of Destruction and
Mace of Spades combo that will chunk his health. (e.g.
Lux,
Varus)
- Bait out an all-in engage, where you can turn the tides (Warning: high risk!). Let yourself get hit by poke to bait out that the enemy goes all-in. Once the enemy engaged, you use your full skill rotation, including
Ignite if you have it (I would pick it in these matchups). The risk lies in your estimation of how much damage you and your opponent can do and thus how low you can be for the bait to not die in the all-in. Also, keep an eye out for gankers. This move is obviously harder to pull off if you don't know if an enemy ganker lurks about and considerably easier if you have support. (e.g.
Nidalee)
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