Mordekaiser/Strategy

Skill Usage

 * Mordekaiser can make excellent use of his shield at all stages of the game. Provided that you have a way to damage an enemy, it can both absorb harassment and give powerful survivability during team fights, letting him stay in the field longer than most other champions. However, keep in mind that spamming skills will result in consistently low health without sufficient health regeneration or spell vamp.
 * When Mordekaiser uses a skill that would bring him below 1 health, he survives with 1 health. He cannot kill himself through his own abilities. Keep this in mind if you are confronted when at critical health, as you may still be able to survive by absorbing damage with your shield. This is especially true if your ultimate is available for an extra burst of healing.
 * While many champions suffer in early laning if they accidentally pick up minion aggro, Mordekaiser's shield can block much of the early damage, making it less risky to trade aggressively with the enemy laner even at early levels. His suite of area of effect spells makes it easy to quickly push a lane, denying the enemy farm as their turret kills your minions. His excellent range and shield allows you to poke them, even while they're under their turret, using your shield to absorb turret damage. However, this strategy is extremely risky, as lacks any form of escape mechanism and pushing the lane in order to charge your shield increases the risk of an opposing gank. Make sure you're warded, and keep an eye on the mini-map.
 * Mordekaiser's large array of damaging AoE abilities makes him a formidable teamfighter. His shield is a powerful asset, letting him remain in combat for extended periods as long as he makes constant use of his abilities.
 * should primarily be cast on strong autoattackers (particularly the opposing marksman) in order to maximize your damage output and maintain your shield, but do not be afraid to use it on lesser champions in order to secure a kill. Additionally, when at critical health, it can be cast on an enemy tank in order to steal more health.
 * Try to avoid casting on champion clones or champions with death-preventing abilities (ex. ), as the ability will only be wasted.
 * Mordekaiser's abilities offer different quirks depending on which is prioritized for leveling.
 * Leveling up gives heavy poke and is excellent for absorbing harassment due to building up his shield. Its health cost can become prohibitive at later ranks, however, leading to consistently low health if it is recklessly spammed. Purchasing Spell Vamp can help with the health cost, while a Luden's Echo significantly increases your damage potential.
 * Leveling up gives him exceptional damage if he finds himself regularly exchanging autoattacks with his opponent, as it resets his autoattack timer. This is especially so if the target is isolated. It offers practically nothing against strong ranged poke, however. This is also his ability whose cooldown benefits most from ranks.
 * Like most other secondary units, the soul you've stolen with can be controlled using Alt + Right Click. However, unlike most secondary units, your ghost acts as an allied champion, and will be affected by abilities that can only target champions, such as, , and.
 * The ghost from can also be used to block, the primary damage/effect of ,  , or other single target skillshots.
 * Try and wait until your target is fairly low health before casting, as most people will run when they see they have the debuff on them.
 * The combination of and  is deadly to almost any wounded enemy.
 * If you do choose to use, keep in mind that its range is much shorter than , and so you should try to use it first.
 * ghost will attract tower aggro first, but if it attacks a champion while you are in range, you will become the new target. If you cast on the ghost and it hurts an enemy champion, you will draw aggro instead of the ghost. Be wary of this when attempting to tower dive weakened enemies.
 * The same virtues that let teamfight effectively also lets him farm and push extremely quickly.
 * is very capable of taking a solo lane against two enemy champions while maintaining his farming income, as his kit lets him easily freeze the lane at an comfortable point while simultaneously harassing his opponents. With a sufficient level advantage, he can even fight a 2v1 and obtain a double kill with his ultimate.
 * Mordekaiser's strong pushing ability can be an asset during laning by letting him roam effectively - he can quickly push the lane to his opponent's tower, and then leave to either assist another lane or farm the jungle for additional gold.
 * Although his kit is better utilized in a teamfight, Mordekaiser can also act as a reasonable split pusher due to his sheer wave clearing speed. As always, it should be ensured that you do not run the risk of becoming a victim of a gank.
 * Take advantage of the fact that many people underestimate Mordekaiser's damage once he gets his ultimate. When combined with and his other abilities, he can burst down and enslave enemies who get in range of him deceptively easily.
 * In choosing your target for Children of the Grave, consider if you'd rather kill off an AP based champ and use that champion's stats to make yourself stronger or if you'd rather kill the enemy AD carry in order to kill the enemies that way, in both cases you gain a substantial stat boost that can make a difference in a big fight.

Item Usage

 * The recent rework made pure AP builds much less optimal. However, it also made a lot more viable to focus on AD and tankyness. With that said, it is better to focus on items that allow Mordekaiser to increase his damage while giving him more mobility and sticking power, as while Mordekaiser is powerful and durable, he can easily be kited.
 * For starting items, Mordekaiser has three good options:, , and.
 * is the recommended start when going on a duo lane. It allows Mordekaiser to start with 2 more s, and the passive allows his duo partner to benefit from the gold gains. Remember that Mordekaiser can easily proc the passive as a melee champion.
 * When going on a solo lane, it is better to start with . This is because Mordekaiser has very poor base health regeneration; so spamming his abilities can make it much easier for opponents to kill him. In a duo lane, this item is much less necessary as allows Mordekaiser to heal himself.
 * is also a potential starting item to allow Mordekaiser to last hit better and do more damage early game.
 * is recommended as the first item that should be building. With the exception of the mana, Mordekaiser benefits from all the stats given. The Spellblade passive increase his damage to insane amounts and Mordekaiser can easily proc it with . The main reason to use Trinity Force, however, is the movement speed and the Rage passive, both which allow Mordekaiser to have a little more mobility and allow him to be harder to kite.
 * There are a number of potential items that Mordekaiser can use, all which offer mobility or sticking potential.
 * allows Mordekaiser to sustain himself better, especially during situations where he can't use because he doesn't have a nearby ally. The active allows Mordekaiser to slow his opponents.
 * slow his opponents, so it is a very recommended item. This item also has massive amounts of AP and with its HP, 's effectiveness is increased.
 * increases Mordekaiser's AP, burst, and gives him more movement speed. However, it is lacking in tankyness, and is much better on AP focused builds.
 * can be used due to the active slow. However, besides that, the only other potential reasons to use this item are the passive and the lifesteal. The attack speed is wasted and this item does not offer enough AD. It is only recommended against very tanky teams.
 * is a potential item that Mordekaiser can use in conjunction with Trinity Force. It allows the Spellblade passive to do more damage and can protect Mordekaiser from potential burst damage, while giving him more tankyness (and a better shield).
 * is another potential item; as Mordekaiser's now scales with HP, Mordekaiser is likely to stack a lot of HP. Which in turn, increases the effectiveness from Titanic Hydra.
 * After the rework, not only benefits a lot more from building tanky, but this is actually recommended, as he has no mobility and CC, and as such, he needs a way to survive for long enough to deal damage.
 * is one of the best tanky items that Mordekaiser can build. It gives him a good amount of armor and HP, and allows him to survive better against enemy ADCs which will build critical strike items. Also, its active allows Mordekaiser to stick on his opponents better.
 * is also another good armor item, mainly due to the passive. When fully stacked, Mordekaiser gains a very high amount of movement speed. When combined with Trinity Force and, Mordekaiser is extremely difficult to kite. Be wary, however, that this movement speed is lost when Mordekaiser attacks.
 * increases Mordekaiser's sustain with and gives more cooldown reduction. Alternatively,  protects from dangerous enemy spells.
 * While may seem like a strange option on non-AP builds, this item's active allows Mordekaiser to survive better situations where he is focused. It is also recommended against champions such as  and.
 * Potential boot choices include, , , , and.
 * is the best choice overall. It increases Mordekaiser's mobility and makes him much less prone to kiting, especially thanks to the passive which decreases the effectiveness of slows.
 * 's main use is to protect Mordekaiser against teams that try to focus him with CC. However, it is not very effective if the enemy team has a lot of knockups.
 * allows Mordekaiser to survive better against enemy ADCs. It is also a good choice against melee ADCs such as.
 * increase the damage done by Mordekaiser's spells.
 * is one of the very few cooldown reduction items that have synergy with Mordekaiser.
 * As mentioned above, AP builds are much less optimal on now. While he can benefit from some AP items, it is better to refrain from building full AP. Not only such a build leaves Mordekaiser very squishy (even with his shield from ) but his base damages and scaling were nerfed, making Mordekaiser benefit a lot less from raw AP. The AP items mentioned above were recommended due to their utility, not due to their damage.

Jungling

 * Mordekaiser is able to Jungle with ease because of his high damage and sustain, he's able to survive the jungle early on and his gank are good if the laner have a CC, as Mordekaiser can deal high damage to the target and burst it down.

Countering

 * While has a great early game and is difficult to duel, his downfall is his lack of escapes. Better yet, Mordekaiser will be forced to push his lane if he wants to harass you and keep his shield up. Ask for ganks, and if you are the jungler, try to babysit the lane where Mordekaiser is going. This will give him a very hard time as he will have to choose between maintaining his shield and pushing or being ganked.
 * Keep in mind that if your jungler takes too much to gank, it is better to leave Mordekaiser alone and refrain from ganking him, as with enough items, Mordekaiser has a lot of potential to overcome ganks, either by killing his enemy laner anyway, or by killing both his enemy laner and the enemy jungler, thanks to his shield and dueling power.
 * Mordekaiser has no mobility or CC. This makes him very easy to kite.
 * Move away from the minion wave when facing Mordekaiser, as his shield generation from makes him a formidable opponent.
 * Be wary of dueling him, as his deals more damage against lone targets.
 * Stack magic resistance to mitigate all of Mordekaiser's damage.
 * It is also advised not to stack health when facing as it increases the damage, and the heal he will get from
 * Take note that Mordekaiser is one of the few champions who doesn't have any crowd control.
 * is extremely resilient to pokes because of his shield.
 * The pet that gets from  is considered a champion. It can not be affected by abilities that target only minions. That also means all abilities that target only champions will work on the pet as well.
 * While does not remove the  debuff, a  will. You can use the active part of the item to remove the debuff and denying  his pet and kill.
 * Mordekaiser's pet ghost benefits from the items the respective champion buys. Therefore, the respective champion should not buy anything while the pet ghost is alive.
 * If Mordekaiser buys items like, , or he is a lot more dependent on getting into melee range. Keeping up range between  and yourself will help a lot.
 * If Mordekaiser builds mostly heavy damage items such as or  he can easily be focused down. If he goes for purely defensive items such as  or  his damage will remain rather low, making it easy to ignore him with some magic resistance.
 * Be very careful when Mordekaiser hits level 6, as combined with his other abilities deals massive damage, and the health regeneration from  will give him a heavy advantage in prolonged fights.
 * You can counteract with health potions.
 * Commit to taking Mordekaiser down. can easily drain away, but will block quick pokes. Crowd control effects such as a silence or stun will also prevent him from growing his shield back for a short time.