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How to beat Mordekaiser, a.k.a how to REALLY kill the metal

Malicious Metal··58 votes·46,516 views

With the recent changes to our all time favorite tin can Mordekaiser we've seen a resurgence in his play and win rate, some veteran Mordekaiser players seemingly becoming hellish instruments of destruction and wreaking havoc while grinding the opposition to dust. So, before some people go on and ramble about Mordekaiser being overpowered or even broken let me give you some insight in how to beat the Metal.

Why does Morde succeed? Why is Mordekaiser seeing a lot of success in this current Meta? Well, it's rather easy; He counters a lot of the popular champions. Mordekaiser is an anti-assassin, a Juggernaut, he thrives in skirmishes and drawn out brawl, he likes to duel and he's rather good at snowballing a lead. Hmm.... Ah yes, all things that are quite commonplace in the current state of League. Mordekaiser LOVES to play against early aggression champions seeing that his iron man passive helps him shrugg off these feeble attempts at his un-life. Among the champions he fairs well against are Zed Talon Rengar Poppy RivenMissFortune All champions that are commonplace in the current landscape of summoners rift.

Who counters Mordekaiser? Range Disengage CC Lockdown Mobility Poke Heavy sustained damage Tanky/mitigation

If your champion's got at least one of these things in their kit chances are they'll fare well against Mordekaiser. Some of his hardest counters top/mid include; Ahri Aatrox Anivia Azir Brand Chogath Fiora Garen Illaoi Lux Lulu Malzahar Renekton Teemo Ziggs But the list doesn't end there. These are only champions that by design have ways to deal with Morde but League's not a one vs one scenario so keep that in mind when facing Mordekaiser. Your Duo lane and jungler can provide the tools to make Morde suffer immensely. Especially disengage supports like Janna and Alistarn can make Morde's life miserable while hyper mobile adc's may even lead him to ragequit.

Items and Counterbuilding Mordekaiser. You know what I hate when playing Morde? Both my opponent and I back and when he returns there's this little f**** in his Inventory: item 3155 Yes, this item is Morde's BANE! It gives you offensive AND defensive stats as well as a shield to make his burst useless. I feel my blood boil at the sight of it so build this when facing a Mordekaiser!

item 3139 /item 3222 With the recent changes to Morde's ultimate there's a lot more time to react to it. The DoT's nasty yet it's easily cleansed with these items, making his only form of "utility" in form of making the game a 6v4 null and void.

item 3812 Mitigating burst, giving you time to chip away at Morde!

item 3022 /item 3116 Mordekaiser is easily kited but with these up your sleeve he'll be slower than a snail.

item 3026 Denies him his clone and makes it all the harder to kill you, a no-brainer

item 3102 Most of Morde's damage is magic-based. Get MR!

General strategy to beat Mordekaiser Camp him! He's got no CC, no mobility and when his flash's down he's practically free gold. His early game is rather weak and he'll push 24/7. Make him regret it! A Mordekaiser who's behind is a liability to his team due to him neither being tanky nor doing damage as well as having NO utility at all.

Play a ranged top laner or play defensively. Mordekaiser can't kill you if you don't fight him. Simple. If you go ham, expect to get bonked by his mace of spades but wearing him down from range or simply not bother fighting him is a great way to keep him down.

Protect your carries. Rengar can jump out of stealth and eradicate your ADC. Morde want to do the same but he doesn't have the means to get to your carries if their positioning doesn't suck and you actually peel for them, which brings me to my next point:

Peel/Kite him. He may get a rylais but most of the viable champs have either cc or mobility to deal with him. And if not there are always tanks to do it for you.

Last but not least; FOCUS HIM! Yes, Mordekaiser dies just as easily as everyone else if you focus him down. CC lock him, exhaust him, silence him. If he's cc'd he can't build up his shield and will fall rather easily.

There are a lot more ways to deal with him but these are just the ones I could name from the top of my head. Feel free to ask me about counters and other ways to turn the Iron man into Scrap metal man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-DnMGRSceI

67 Comments

WookieJesuz11 votes

My favorite master of metal is full metal Rammus ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Stars Shaper40 votes

http://wiki.magicalgirlnoir.com/images/7/70/That's_not_how_it_works_you_little_shit.png

Jason the other1 votes

SCREW YOU INCUBATOR

Jreyes4563 votes

XD Im sooo done with this post... you sir have just made my day.

Stars Shaper1 votes

Glad to know xD

Mistress Madoka1 votes

KYUBEY GO BACK TO THE HELL FROM WHENCE YOU CAME.

AND TAKE BRAND WITH YOU

sp4414 votes

Y'now, for somebody who mains the most stereotypically evil character in League of Legends, you're a pretty nice guy.

Saphixia3 votes

Stereotypically? HE HAS A CULT THAT MAKES SURE HE IS FOREVER ALIVE KILLING PEOPLE!

SociopathFriend1 votes

To be fair, more than half of the League currently is running around with almost no lore, it's entirely possible there are others more evil than Morde. I mean off the top of my head: Brand Lives to literally set the world on fire Fiddlesticks Is some sort of demon-scarecrow from hell Malzahar Appeared perfectly willing to sacrifice a girl to the void Nocturne The personification of shadows and nightmares Shaco Homicidal jester ^These are all valid entrants for the "Most evil" category.

Personally I think Malzahar Mordekaiser Kassadin are some of the more interesting League of Legends champions, unlike the majority of champions- they're not fighting for some country or ideal- they fight for the fate of the world in one way or the other.

TheGoomyGamer1 votes

There is some more lore behind brand. As far as I can remember, he is an ancient shuriman destruction spirit that, yes, lives to literally set the world on fire. Xerath released Brand from the tomb in which he was sealed and proceeded to fuck up the ascension ritual Azir was undertaking.

Alphadef2 votes

Poor Veigar

1011001110004 votes

Malicious is so pro at Morde, he'll tell you how to counter him, then beat you with him anyway.

Goodnight Nunu3 votes

Good guy Malicious Metal; Mains Mordekaiser and yet tells you in detail how to beat his main.

Khâmul4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hentaî Senpaî,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3QI6o1QF,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2016-01-18T18:57:36.508+0000)

Good guy Malicious Metal; Mains Mordekaiser and yet tells you in detail how to beat his main.

not really ,that's pervert. the enemy team will use all the cc on you ,so your own team can beat the hell out of them :D

SettDownShutUp1 votes

"Congradulations! You've gone an used 4 of the 5 ultimates on your team to kill the Master of Metal! Katarina, if you would be so kind."

item 3089 item 3157 Katarinaitem 3285item 3135 : "...'sup."

HadesBlades1 votes

T-T i wish kata was good

Ahristocats2 votes

item 3026 it isn't real counter, morde can just wait until you die one time and then ulti you

Koechophe2 votes

You left out a few important things imho:

  1. Don't get within melee range of him when his W is active: That sucker heals a crap ton if it hits a champion
  2. Mord lacks a strong AOE damage; most of his damage is frontloaded into his Q and Ult, while his W and E are more to heal and build shield.
  3. Mord is surprisingly susceptible to burst early on. Wait for him to use his E, then his shield to pop, then burst him down. He lacks any inherent sustain.
  4. For goodness sakes, kill the minion with the shield on it. It'll end the shield early, forcing mord to not reap the benefits.

Other than that, great post. As someone who's been playing mord top recently, I agree. Especially since he inherently pushes and is the easiest champ to gank in the entire game.

TigerMama Gemgem1 votes

killing the minion with the shield will deal damage to you, keep in mind.

Count Zubat2 votes

Mr Malicious Metal, I don't see how Renekton can possibly win with Morde. I've played against Renektons and straight up out damaged them, as well as outsustained in trades, because Morde's W heal is just stronger that Rene's Q heal. Again, maybe it's just that I am quite low elo (silver 2 isn't very high division...) and Renektons I face just don't have any idea how to play any other way than ham.

EDIT: I would also add Ryze to counter list. We all know really well played Ryze can pretty much perma snare somebody. What can be worse for non-mobile melee champion than a perma snare?

Malicious Metal5 votes

If Renekton goes all in at levels 1-3 he can shred morde due to his low base hp. Morde lanes are more of the enemy having to exploit Morde's shitty base stats, which most of them thankfully don't^^''

Ironclad Dragon2 votes

Yo, Malicious.

Here's something for you.

rG Thundrag2 votes

I've done the renekton vs morde match up a lot, even before the w buff renekton had a hard time vs morde. I just go e->w vs him so if he tries to do anything he gets harassed. You can even ranged CS with W from afar with just the activation and harass him slightly if things somehow turned bad but combined with minion aggro + w damage he can't really do much.

From my experience as a hard core garen player and moderate mordekaiser player is that early game morde just destroys garen until mid-late game then its a flip match based on how tanky you are.

The hardest match ups I've found really since his changes wereSwain Vladimir Viktor

Swain just burns you down with death fire touch and his large arsenal of CC and ranged harass, while being quite hard to kill. Vlad is a similar issue without CC and just hyper sustains while being to hard to all in to do meaningful damage since your e damage isn't good enough to put him down to all in levels.

DeathBurst1 votes

For the Garen match-up, the key is the level 2. Since Morde's HP/5 is so bad compared to Garen, if Garen manages to get Morde down in the first 2 or 3 levels (even by taking trade slightly in Morde's favor) he will then have a chance to dominate the lane, because he can rely on his passive. But if Garen waits too much, then Morde's shield prevent him to trade completely.

Tl;dr: as Garen, go all-in level 2-3, even if the trade is slightly unfavorable, it's still best in the long run.

rG Thundrag1 votes

{quoted}

For the Garen match-up, the key is the level 2. Since Morde's HP/5 is so bad compared to Garen, if Garen manages to get Morde down in the first 2 or 3 levels (even by taking trade slightly in Morde's favor) he will then have a chance to dominate the lane, because he can rely on his passive. But if Garen waits too much, then Morde's shield prevent him to trade completely.

Tl;dr: as Garen, go all-in level 2-3, even if the trade is slightly unfavorable, it's still best in the long run.

I've had this match up quite a bit in both sides the thing is Garen's lvl 2-3 isn't strong your spin is actually worse than just auto attacking pre-5 its not feasible to out pace Morde's shield gen from e and w at 2 let alone lvl 3 with q in the mix. He also heals most of the damage with W activation, Garen does well in a lvl 7 lvl all in with ignite however.

You also have to consider that Garen will most likely be fighting in your minion wave and getting aggro since he most likely initiated with q and Morde has time to activate all his spells before Garen is even on top of him.

Starfish H2 votes

Sometimes to be a dick Mordekaiser If he's going top or mid I pick Velkoz to just screw him over. TRY FARMING NOW YOU METAL SHIT

The Ecdysiast2 votes

This isn't really necessary. The nerf to his Q and buffs to ADC items made him irrelevant.

Count Zubat1 votes

What nerf to Q? You mean the transfer of some of the 3rd Q power into 1st Q? While his overall Q damage was nerfed, don't forget that his 3rd Q isn't reliable source of damage, especially on lane in trading with opponent. The Q change made his in-lane trades much better while only slightly decreasing his teamfight damage. Also, Mordekaiser isn't only about Q, his W also deals really significant amount of damage. Even his E isn't really bad, not as impactful as his other abilities, but still good.

DJ S0NA1 votes

Thanks for the guide. From my experience, i'm having a hard time beating strong tanks like Mundo, Gnar, Shen, etc.

What are your thoughs of how to lane against them?

Stars Shaper1 votes

Gnar is indeed a big nuisance and a good one won't give you chances, just try not to get cought by skillshots and stuns, poke him in between those so you can punish him when he doesn't stun you in mega form.

I've had no big problems with Mundo and Shen though and that's probably because I usually go for a more offensive mastery setting: I usually go for DFT on Morde rather than Undying since it goes well with the constant poke, the single target Q and Ultimate dot. This could be of help because you are not going to win with a regen war against Mundo, about Shen you might just need to avoid being taunted while low on shield.

rtbf2256182411 votes

Why does Morde succeed?

He....doesn't.

During the last 3 months i've seen one Mordekaiser...and he got fried.

Malicious Metal2 votes

Since patch 6.1 he has gotten a lot more usable in a solo scenario ^^

rtbf2256182412 votes

You should really make a tutorial video with your tips & tricks. Because i don't even know what a good Mordekaiser looks like in-game.

LocoPineapples1 votes

@Malicious Metal So, I used to play Morde a lot before his rework (Since I started playing in season four) , and while he's still my favorite champ, I honestly have no idea how to build him anymore. I assume it's still the same core concept with Hextech Gunblade and Rylai's, but beyond that I'm lost for a reliable build. Do you have any suggestions? I tend to take him mid now due to the proximity to the dragon and, as you mentioned, him being a natural counter to assassins.

Malicious Metal1 votes

My favorite build's a hybrid one; item 3116 item 3053 item 3146 item 3065 item 3157 But you can build almost anything as long as it either gives health, AP or AD.

Spicy Rice1 votes

As a Mordekaiser enthusiast myself, i would like to know if there is any particular order you prefer (to build the items in)

Malicious Metal1 votes

I rush Rylais 99.9% of the time.

My second item's usually Steraks to get tanky or if the enemy's ahead. The anti burst shield as well as increase in your AD makes it great for those early mid game fights.

Third item's usually Gunblade but when I'm really far ahead and want to stay there I get this second. It provides a LOT of sustain and damage as well as a long range slow nuke.

Fourth's usually SV since it makes my Gunblade even stronger.

Last but not least there's Zhonyas. The active is invaluable in the late game when you have to survive focus fire or wait for cooldowns.

Hope that helps.

Spicy Rice1 votes

Thanks!

Merxamers1 votes

Which keystone would you suggest? DFT seems only good for his ult, but taking Grasp seems like it'd hurt his offensive capabilities.

LocoPineapples1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Malicious Metal,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3QI6o1QF,comment-id=00150000,timestamp=2016-01-19T06:26:49.322+0000)

My favorite build's a hybrid one; item 3116 item 3053 item 3146 item 3065 item 3157 But you can build almost anything as long as it either gives health, AP or AD.

Okay, thank you. I ended up going against a Lee mid and this build worked rather well. <3

Malicious Metal1 votes

Glad I could help. I wish you best of luck with the Murder Emperor.

Over Innsmouth1 votes

That song is seriously good. (Recommend me some metal music?)

But yeah, Mordekaiser is far and away a Champion defined by his weaknesses rather than his strengths. Like Illaoi, you do have to play around him - but that puts Mordekaiser's ability to be a threat largely in his opponents hands.

I'm inclined to call Vladimir a strong anti-pick to Mordekaiser (personal bias aside) because he can match Mordekaiser's damage at range, kite him equally hard with item 3116 , outsustain him to the end of the universe, and naturally scales harder than...almost everyone.

I think a case for Fiddlesticks could also be made. Trying to kill a mid-lategame Fiddlesticks in a manner that does not involve bursting his hp all at once is a challenge thanks to Drain, and everything Mordekaiser can do is locked within the Harbingers Drain tether. Of course, there's nothing saying you can't get your ghost/teammates to help.

Skoonie2 votes

Considering we're talking about Morde, I recommend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLsQsirjmeo

Over Innsmouth1 votes

Thanks!

CorruptedScythe1 votes

Here let me fix this post. WOOPS I SPILLED MY ACID -> Dead Morde. Kk? Kk.

Mistress Madoka1 votes

I should note that it's really fun to Annihilate Yasuo as Mordekaiser.

Aeszarck1 votes

Hey Malicious Metal, this will be the first time I'm posting on your Mordekaiser threads. I wanted to let you know how much respect I have for you for your dedication to Mordekaiser, and I also wanted a bit of help. So right now, I'm making a document where I list most of the potential champions I'll face in a lane and then I list champions that I think will counter that champion. I'll refer to that document during champion select so that I don't forget I own Galio when I see a Teemo top or something like that. Anyways, I was checking guides on MobaFIRE to see what guide creators thought about Mordekaiser's different lane matchups top lane, but there was only one guide with a very incomplete matchup section so I basically had to go off my gut and choose top laners that could abuse an immobile melee juggernaut. So what I'm asking you is; which of my top lane champions counter Mordekaiser, or atleast do well in lane against him? If it wouldn't be too much to ask, I'll ask you about my mid and bottom laners too, but I understand you're probably pretty busy. Anyways, if you don't mind, here goes.

My Top Laners: Elise, Galio, Garen, Irelia, Jayce, Karthus, Lissandra, Quinn, Rumble, Shyvana, Urgot, Vi I put down these champions as counters, but I'm not quite sure why Garen is a counter. (I put him down because you listed him.) Lissandra, Garen, Jayce, Karthus, Quinn, Urgot Not sure if Galio would be a good choice, since Galio's ultimate will open him up to Mace of Spades, and Galio is melee.

My Middle Laners: Ahri, Elise, Galio, Jayce, Karthus, Katarina, Lissandra, Quinn, Sona, Syndra, Urgot, Xerath Haven't started working on the middle laner section yet, but I assume a decent amount of these will be good at fighting Mordekaiser mid. (I'm actually only done like half of the top laners.)

And bottom lane, if you still have time. My Bottom Laners: Jinx, Tristana, Quinn, Urgot, Sona, Leona, Alistar

(Also, I realize you already listed Ahri and Alistar as champions who counter Mordekaiser, so you don't need to say those.) If you answer this, I'll be extremely thankful, even if you only answer my top laner section. You're an awesome guy, Malicious Metal! Keep up the support for Mordekaiser!

Malicious Metal2 votes

Sorry if this reply may seem rushed, I'm currently busy but here we go;

Garen's one of Morde's biggest counters due to his silence, tankiness and damage A good Jayce/Quinn/Urgot will be able to bully Mordekaiser to hell and back if they abuse his low armor and base health. Karthus and lissandra suffer from being mid ranged mages who like to push and their burst/poke won't do much against Mordekaiser. A good alternative mage top would be swain.

Syndra,Xerath and Ahri all fare well against Morde due to their range, kiting and being able to wittle him down from great range.

Trist is a great counter to Morde bot due to her pushing, superior range, escape and self peel. Leona can lovk morde down and keep him from getting to her carries. Same with alistar.

Brand, fiora, caitlyn and janna are all great counters too you might want to try out

hope that helps.

Aeszarck1 votes

Thank you so much!

mple1 votes

I NEED TO BEAT MATCHUP

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