Theorycrafting: Mordekaiser/Trundle Botlane

trash sion··2 votes·1,192 views

I've been looking into some drain tank botlane pairs with the introduction of Knight's Vow, and I think I've found my favorite pair yet.

Mordekaiser W grants Movement Speed when moving toward your linked target, which I assume stacks with the MS granted by Knight's Vow in the same scenario, which also grants Armor.

Mordekaiser W also steals HP from enemy champions, as well as dealing DoT when near your ally. This healing is amplified by Knight's Vow due to the damage dealt through the health steal and DoT, and the healing on Trundle will be amplified by Mordekaiser's Knight's Vow, as well as Trundle's W.

Lane sustain is going to be stupidly easy with Trundle Passive and Mordekaiser W on minions. Some of the damage dealt to Trundle as harass will be redirected onto Mordekaiser's shield, while direct harass to Mordekaiser can also be mitigated by the shield.

Throw in Relic Shields for both, and now they heal an insane amount off of minion executes too.

Don't even get me started on the Ultimates. At level 3, Trundle R steals 35% Max HP over time, before resists. This is stolen HP, not just damage dealt. Trundle will steal this HP, and the damage it deals will heal Morde for a small amount. He also removes a portion of the enemy resists, making Morde's Ultimate do even more damage, another 35% stolen HP for Morde which will heal Trundle a small amount as well. If Morde builds like an APC bot, he could eventually reach 50% max HP damage with a little under 400 AP.

If these ultimates were combined on, say, a 4.5k HP lategame tank, both champions could potentially heal for 1.5k+ HP, deal 60+% of a tank's HP just by pressing R, while also crippling his resists so he can be killed easily. Meanwhile, Trundle and Morde are both exchanging healing through their other abilities, and when the tank dies, Mordekaiser gains another 600+ HP and a massively tanky ghost, while Trundle will heal off the death with his passive and share that small heal with Morde.

Oh, and that kiting issue Mordekaiser has? Not much of an issue when he has 460 MS WITHOUT BOOTS just from his W and Knight's Vow. Throw in magic pen boots, and all of a sudden, Morde has frequent boosts of 400-500MS (with the reduction at 415, not too sure how to calculate) WITHOUT RYLAI'S. Grab a Rylai's, and no one is getting anywhere. Need to close that initial gap? Trundle E, W, Q. It's broken.

With all of this healing, both champions can afford to build way more damage than they normally would. A Knight's Vow would likely be the only tank item an APC Morde would need, but a Spirit Visage would be an awesome pickup for both. Trundle could afford to build a bit of Lifesteal like a Hydra or BotRK, while Morde could build a Gunblade into full AP for insane healing and damage.

Am I stupid, or does this sound broken as all hell? Anyone down to try this with me later today?

13 Comments

Meep Man2 votes

Mordekaiser Trundle : "You took our Top Lane, now we're taking your BOTTOM LANE!"

trash sion1 votes

To be fair, Rito kind of took Morde's everylane.

BeatzBoyFTW1 votes
DeathBurst1 votes

As a lane, it probably works great. Morde bot is still perfectly viable, whatever the meta-sheeps think, with a large number of traditional supports. If you put him with a specific support tailored just for him, he can dumpster the lane easily.

The problems arrive more after laning phase has ended. You still need some way to take out objectives, and so if you don't have one botlane, you need to tailor the rest of your team around that, and that is hard to do in unorganized Ranked. But if you got a Kindred Jungle or a decent AD carry mid/top such as Riven/Yasuo/etc., you can definitely go for it and it's wonderful.

trash sion1 votes

The assumption would be that an ADC Mid, Top, or Jungle could serve as ranged DPS and Sieging. A Vayne Top, Jhin/Varus/Ezreal/Corki/Lucian Mid, etc. Forgot to mention it, but I was thinking of this with the 3-ADC-per-team meta in mind.

DeathBurst1 votes

Oh yeah, I also mentioned Kindred Jungle for the same reason. I totally agree with that. I'm just saying, it's hard to build a cohesive team in DynQ unless you are a premade of at least 3 persons: Morde+Trundle+the guy playing an ADC in another lane. That being said, I'd be totally up for being the Morde in such a premade (except I'm on EUW).

trash sion1 votes

Trundle and Morde also aren't the most popular champions, so it would definitely be hard to find someone to agree to the strat if you aren't in a premade, and even harder to find someone good at either champ. The same drain-tank strat could work with other champs botlane, but with slightly less synergy. Options range from AD tanks like Olaf, Aatrox, and Warwick to AP ones like Swain, Vlad, Zac, and Maokai.

Regardless I don't think it's a viable strategy in your average solo game because it would take coordination.

BastionKross1 votes

I GOTCHU FAM UNIQUE Passive: If your Partner is nearby, heal for 12% of the damage your Partner deals to champions and redirect 12% of the damage your Partner takes from champions to you as true damage (healing and damage redirection are reduced by 50% if you are ranged). **(Champions can only be linked by one Knight’s Vow at a time.) **

The wording here is a little suspect. Does this mean Riot intended that one champion can't be targeted by more than one vow, or that once a pair of champions are in a vow neither one can be the target of another vow?

If it's the second, you can't have a double vow lane.

Meep Man1 votes

Yeah, I never checked to see how it worked so I guess we will have to see.

DeathBurst1 votes

I guess it's the second, but that's still largely good enough for Morde/Trundle to work.

KnightOfEloHell1 votes

Sure, I'm down. Add me.

trash sion1 votes

Be home in a few hours. I assume you're a Morde main, so I'll have to play a few norms to save up for Trundle since I don't own him yet.

KnightOfEloHell1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Azuk the Jungler,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=J4EAR5yE,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2016-11-09T16:46:29.661+0000)

Be home in a few hours. I assume you're a Morde main, so I'll have to play a few norms to save up for Trundle since I don't own him yet.

Olaf and Mord are a good bot lane, too. Btween Mord's w and Olaf's w, they can last a good while and deal some serious damage.

Still waiting for the friend request!

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