It's the Pre-Season, Time for Another Mordekaiser Thread

Yeah, even the title acknowledges that Mordekaiser sees as much forum action nowadays as Yasuo (although he's a bit on the downrise), which is saying a lot.

The pre-season scare of impending Rylai's changes has passed for the moment, I think Riot by now realizes that making Rylais into an AP+CDR+Mana item isn't something wanted by anyone other than the mages who already (ab)use the item in their builds and would like it to better fit them.

But even still, we're stuck in a situation where Mordekaiser is still so intimately tied to an item that I would be surprised if it didn't become a song title in the next Pentakill CD (they're making another one if you weren't in the know-how).

Obviously we're probably going to wait to late 2017-sometime in 2018 until the metal man gets his rework.

Blegh.

In the meantime, maybe we can figure out what to do with him, both for an eventual long-term rework and for the moment changes that can benefit him, his team, and his opponents.

Mordekaiser has the same problem that all drain-tanks have to some degree: if they're ahead, they're oppressive and become essentially stat checks, if they're behind, they simply don't drain and tank enough to be relevant.

Feast and famine 101.

Part of the problem is that Mordekaiser is built around the idea that he is the juggernaut who is supposed to have the hardest time getting into range of his opponents, which Rylai's interferes with to some degree due to its useful interaction with Mordekaiser's E, Siphon of Destruction, a range aoe poke on a low cooldown. In theory, Mordekaiser could be allowed to exist as a stat check if the challenge is in getting Mordekaiser onto an enemy, considering he is built on an identity where he has no innate crowd control and conditional mobility in his W, Harvester of Sorrow, in fact that is why he is allowed to exist as he is.

Rylais causes problems because Mordekaiser's Siphon allows him to easily get onto targets if he can perform the Rylai's-Siphon lockdown. This isn't like Garen speeding himself up and synnergizing better with being tanky and faster to land his silence Garen is designed to have some limited mobility and answer to kiting. Mordekaiser is basically balanced and designed with the complete expectation that he will build Rylai's.

A slow on a single enemy champion has more potential than a speed boost on a single allied champion.

A speed boost allows for one ally champion to catch up to the enemy team, it can be advantageous but only in the right circumstances. A slow on an enemy champion allows your entire team to catch up to said enemy champion easier, which is much more advantageous by proxy, it's better almost all the time.

Morde can also apply the Rylai's slow with his ultimate, meaning a ten second LITERAL permaslow as long as that dot is ticking.

We're going to need to do something about Rylai's if we want to ever see Morde get something until his rework, like the base stat upgrades Mal has been banging on about.

I would recommend maybe giving Siphon of Destruction a delay after casting before it hits everything, which gives opponents an opening with which to react.

Depending on how long the delay is, we might even be able to see a boost to Mordekaiser's base speed on top of potential base hp and armor gains!

Any other ideas? You guys know better than me.