A Post MYMU Mordekaiser Discussion

First, I'd like to strictly preface this thread with the fact that this is not a discussion about balance. This is purely a discussion about Mordekaiser's abilities and playstyle in a vacuum, and was not made in any sort of response to him being under or over powered, unfair or imbalanced. It's a discussion about an AP champion or mage in the context of the mid year mage update. In the wake of the mid year mage update and post update tuning, I wanted to talk about Mordekaiser, who- though he has received proxy buffs with new itemization- has received no direct changes unlike almost every AP champ in the game during these last three patches. I can't help but wonder if Mordekaiser was left out of the update specifically because people do not want players building or playing him like a mage even though it's his most effective build.

Mordekaiser was always the centerpiece of many jokes and criticisms regarding the fact he was a squishy hard AP scaling burst mage despite being a walking suit of armour with a giant mace. During the Juggernaut update Mordekaiser received a rework that temporarily saw him going bottom lane in place of a traditional ADC, building ADC items despite still having all of his AP ratios. For a few months he was incredibly strong, the most relevant he's ever been, only to of course be nerfed to acceptable levels of power. Mordekaiser's rework was jamming a round peg in a square hole, with massive numbers being the driving force that made it fit. He had none of the qualities that an ADC has that allows them to function in the bottom lane and larger meta like ranged auto attacks and almost entirely AD scaling abilities, no AD or AS steroids, so his kit received many additions utterly unique to the game to incentivize playing him there. A passive that prevented losing XP when allies are near, a skill that only functioned when cast on an ally champion, and of course the ghost dragon and the fact that the enemy ADC is the single most beneficial enemy teammate to turn into a ghost now that it receives 100% of Mordekaiser's bonus AD.

Now, despite his kit remaining largely the same, Mordekaiser has returned to a solo top lane where he builds HP + AP items and blasts people down with massive magic damage and hidden durability that isn't immediately apparent, causing enemies to overcommit to fights that were already lost. However he still has all of these bells and whistles attached to his kit that originally existed purely to incentivize taking a champion who doesn't work in the bottom lane to the button lane. The punchline being that none of this changed the fact he's a walking visual/gameplay idiosyncracy.

I wanted to clarify that I don't hate the new Mordekaiser, I'm not demanding his older genuinely less interesting kit back, nor do I think him being a mage is as massive a problem as others think. But currently he's massively conflicted because his redesign was an ultimately unsuccessful experiment in non-marksman ADC botlaners, and now he's left with vestigial kit elements that no longer fit his role which could be better optimized without compromising his playstyle or affecting his power budget. Most mages have elements in their kit deliberately meant to improve the functionality of their abilities and their role. For instance Ahri's Q gives her bonus move speed, which is doubly important because it allows her to reposition for the sake of her sphere's return trajectory while also making her better at kiting which fits her status as a maneuverable mid to long range mage. Diana has both a shield and a dash because of her necessity to dive into opponents with no way to dive back out save for winning the fight and leaving. Likewise, we're seeing similar additional design elements that do not benefit a champion's core gameplay being removed this 6.11 patch, like Azir's bonus damage casting W on towers and bonus movespeed to allies passing through Emperor's Divide.

Most of Mordekaiser's changes since his rework have all been taking steps to partially reign in the parts of his kit that explicitly made him a duo bot laner, his bonus XP was cut and his W can now be cast in isolation and on minions. However they're all still there, and they're eating up hefty amounts of a champion's power budget that could instead be used on more cohesive and internally consistent abilities.

Finally as a talking point, what do those of you who have played Mordekaiser extensively feel about his rework and his new abilities, especially Dragon Force which has been played up as sort of the new centerpiece of his kit and the reason you pick him? How do you play Mordekaiser, and what are your experiences with him? What do you feel is the most central aspect of his identity from a gameplay standpoint? Personally I love Mordekaiser because his damage and tankiness are absolutely astounding especially in lane, and neither are immediately noticeable. Enemy laners will all in me during a gank while I'm at roughly 40% maximum health, and I can comfortably and consistently leave with a double kill provided my E and W hit both champions. Despite still building like a mage, he plays like a juggernaut, just one with different items.