Bear in mind most of the time I use warmogs over frozen mallet. We will discuss the options later.

Alternate build: CC morde: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/cc-tank-morde-conditional-72999

Notice each pair after the first 2 overlap. Nonstop conquering. Call me low elo? Look me up. And either way, everyone knows match making will screw you after many wins. And yes, it did it to me too, i have losses, but i went super positive in those as well.

Runes:
We go 5 in health per level yellows because the lack of warmogs calls for more health, same reason we go health per level in quints.
We go 4 in armor per level yellows because 200 armor is optimal.
We go 9 in mag res blues because 200 magres is optimal.
and we go 9 in mag pen marks because pen>ap on morde (on balance, as in 1 to 1. ex. rab cap>sorc shoes)

Masteries:
without movespeed quints we want the movespeed utility.
going down this far also gives us 6% cdr = a caster's attack speed and presence of the master = quicker cdr of summoner spells.

in Offense you need that spell pen + the cdr above it.

Items:
Why abyssal?
- magres to make you tankier
- spell pen to make you do more damage
- ap to make you do more damage
- gives the spell pen aura so your allies hit harder
It rolls perfectly into beauty for you, there really is no substitute.

Why rab cap?
- most ap of any item
- makes the ap from other items more valuable
- makes you eat squishies
Why not Zhonya's? - you can try this if you would like. considerably less ap, but you get that armor you want, and b/c of this you can go 9 health per level yellows.
- why not rylai's? you could try this but you won't hit near as hard and this guide hopes to achieve a decent amount of ap (around 300).

Hextech gunblade is a viable switch here. If your team is putting out the dps and/or low on CC, this could be a good pick. If you find yourself getting super focused, it might also be a good switch.

Why frozen heart?
- gives you 20% cdr which is excellent for you
- gives a -20% attack speed debuff to enemies, helping your allies
- gives 99 armor...
There is no substitute for this item. Pretend it gives no mana, it still RAPES.

Why FoN?
- you need the movespeed to keep up
- you need the magres
- health regen synergizes with your shield.

Sorc pen boots
- cdr boots are good but you should be getting enough cdr with masteries + frozen + elixir
- it gives you pen! duh
- no other boots yield these benefits
- merc treads don't help b/c you are a cooldown champ. Say you blow all your moves, enemy stuns you, it's the same as if he didn't stun you. Just waitin for cooldowns.

The most controversial one:
Why frozen mallet?
- you need health
- you have no cc

Why not rylai's?
- not enough health, 2800 is already kinda low to be super tanky
- the full slow cannot be utilized by morde.

A viable solution:

Why to build it:
- to be truly tanky you must have 3000+ health, 200+ arm, 200+ magres.
This can easily be accomplished by removed frozen mallet and slapping in a warmogs. (super tanky)
- you can then go 9 arm per level seals, giving you over 200 arm. (tankier)
- you can go 1 ms quint and 2 magpen quints. (more damage)

Overall you get +400 health (raw health gain allows you to take 1 more nuke at least, scaling with armor/magres). The more health you have, the longer you live, the more shield you can build up, the longer you live. Tankiness synergizes with morde's shield, and is clearly the way to build morde most effectively (taking into account the need for pen and ap, although tankiness>ap). However, tankiness has diminishing returns, so ap is good at a certain point. You can't permaslow (without redbuff) but you can live longer. If you feel you need the ability to permaslow, go frozen mallet.

Also, you get +15 arm (from runes) +1.5% ms (from runes) and + 3.6 pen (from runes).

Frozen mallet = CC
Warmogs = more damage for reasons stated above and more tankiness (one of the only champions i advocate this on and only because the other items necessary to the build do not give health. the items that dual over for health and other utility don't yield as good stats as this build. Suck it up and try a warmogs.

Where to build it:
If you did this, you would build it right before the glacial shroud, after chain vest + force.

Take mid (almost no exceptions):
- you can ensure that their mid does not farm well. Unlike the ashe, etc. on your team that will just farm beside the enemy.
- you can super farm mid b/c you're morde.
- you can easily take the tower + kill the enemy and here's how:

function of your Q (when you get it at lvl 4 and why you get it at lvl 4)
- your moves cost health, better to have a stronger E and more health than a weaker E with another move that hurts you right off the bat.
- use your Q to build up shield, this the primary function of your Q in the lane.

function of your w
- throw it on minions that run to their tower, b/c you will push. Try to use it on the cannon minion.
- taking less damage if you anticipate a tower shot/enemy harass, building shield if your Q is on CD.

function of you E (the reason you will win the lane)
This will take practice
- while you are last hitting, monitor the health of your minions' health. When a minion gets low, the enemy will step forward to take the last hit. As this begins to occur, move forward at the enemy and E them when they get in range.

When i play, at any moment during the game my allies can hit Tab and see approx how many times i've E'd my opponent. The number of minion kills he has = the approx amount of times i've hit him with my E.

If you find that the enemy hits too hard, E the minions and build shield before you use the E on the enemy. (however, you should be able to E them and the minions with the harass method i've given.)

The concept is simple, punish him for killing your minions. This can cause 1 or both of 2 things:
1 - he gets less minions b/c of fear, but he lives.
2 - he keeps going for minions and you win up harassing him to the point where you can kill him easily at level 6.

When level 6 rolls around, your enemy should be killable:
- continue the E harass.
- when they get low (300 health or less, preferably less) pop ghost and charge at them, taking tower hits are okay if you have high enough life. Run at the enemy with your W on, and ignite them first (its range is the lowest) then E the enemy, and drop your ult on them. This should easily take their remaining health away. At this point, take the path of least resistance out of tower range.

When the enemy dies and you get their ghost, beat on their tower with it and morde.
Though, if you are too low health, you should just B.
When the enemy ganks, if you have enough health, you should easily win with the enemy carry' ghost + yourself.



What to do if the enemy ganks you.
Hopefully you've been harassing the enemy mid down to a modest amount of health.
Here's what you do:
1) if the gank is bad and you can easily escape, do that.
2) if the gank is good and your death/massive loss of health is imminent, do this:
- first off, even though your mid opponent has low health, he grows super balls when the ganker arrives. He will attempt to rush at you with the help of his ganker. At this point, slam all you go on him (Q, W, E, ignite + ult) and he will drop instantly.
- now you have the enemy carry, you can either face off the ganker, or run and use your ghost to attack him.

These methods WORK

After you have beaten your lane and taken the tower, switch lanes with someone so that you may continue taking enemy towers (take the lane that your team is having the most trouble with)

Even if you have no AP, you can be the team's hard carry by virtue of the fact that you can STEAL the enemy carry, effectively becoming your team's carry. It's that simple. This build synergizes with this concept because the longer you live, the more time you have to accomplish stealing the enemy carry.

First, let's go over what the ghost does for you:
- it hits enemies hard
- it replenishes your shield for 30% of its damage
- it can tank towers

You want a ghost that (for teamfights):
- has high attack speed
- is a ranged unit
- does good right click damage
in that order

When you enter the fight, your team should already have it decided that you will focus down that character (twitch, dps tf, tristana, ashe, etc. Sometimes melee dps carries like master yi) Your job is to be in ults range of this person, dealing as much damage to them as you can (basically). You want to save your ult as a last hit on the opponent.

WARNING: Only ult if you KNOW the enemy will die:
- no GA
- no zil revive
- no noc shield
- no banshees
- NO MEANS OF SURVIVAL

Slap down the ignite when they reach near half health, and then ult them when they have almost no health. Wasting your ult can lose you a game.

Once you have their carry, you are near invincible.

IF you went frozen mallet, your ghost has the permaslow ability.

Mordekaiser is not like other champions in (without spellvamp or lifesteal) the sense that his moves do 2 things -> increase survivability when they hit, and do damage.

Take this fight for example:
It's a 2v3 fight. You and olaf vs master yi, mumu, and kayle. There's a big minion wave rolling up (hopefully... it's probable b/c this isn't a 5v5, this sounds like a lane fight w/ yi or mumu ganking.)

Monitoring your shield could determine whether or not you win this fight

REMEMBER: most of the time, to win, all you need is their carry as your ghost (in this case you want that yi)

You and olaf better start focusing that Yi.

Now, watch your shield. Use your W for magres and damage, then pop everyone (hopefully minions too) with your E. This should instantly full shield you. This is the point where fine tuned skill usage can win it for you against the odds.

When your shield hits half, Q the Yi. Building up more shield. DO NOT USE THE Q IMMEDIATELY, unless you shield gets to half immediately. Otherwise, you would waste the full potential of your Q, sure damage faster, but die faster aswell. Health is very important in the 3v2. This method will make a bigger difference than using your Q one second earlier and getting no shield returns for it.

DO NOT USE YOUR E IMMEDIATELY WHEN IT COMES BACK UP EITHER (unless you have NO shield at all). Wait until your shield hits NOTHING, then use your E to hit everything and it will full shield you instantly. If you used it earlier, you did damage 1 second faster perhaps, but not full shield benefits.

You can, however, use the W whenever it is off cooldown.

If you do things this way, you have a MUCH greater chance of winning the fight. When you get the ghost, you will have much more health than if you didn't use this method.

This method:
- increases you chances of winning
- takes discipline
- goes AGAINST NATURAL INSTINCT because:
people run into a fight, they wanna use all their moves as fast as possible to do damage. This is not the way of maximum returns as mordekaiser.

(In a 5v5, however, you will likely need to use your moves as they come up b/c of the damage you take. although, you will still probably need to wait an extra second b4 you Q, considering E should always full shield you if you use it right, aka hit many people/minions with it.)