Mordekaiser needs a full rework, not a band-aid fix.

Mordekaiser is a really, really old champion. He was released in 2010, which means he's over 4 years old. He came out during a time where not every single champion ever had dashes/blinks, cc, and utility up the ass. His role in fights is inconsistent with his appearance, theme, and lore. You would imagine that he would be a super tanky fighter who's difficult to stop, but he's been played as a burst mage for years because he does not offer anything to the team besides a fairly underwhelming shield and damage.

Fortunately Riot knows that there is a problem with his current state but I sincerely and truly hope that these changes on PBE are just "band-aid" fixes for an upcoming rework, because as it stands they are super lazy and do not meaningfully address the fundamental problems that Mordekaiser faces in the game as it is today.

Mordekaiser is one of the most kitable champions in the game. Being susceptible to kiting is one thing, but being completely crippled by it to a ridiculous degree is another one entirely. Let's take a look at some other examples of kitable champs and see how Morde fares in comparison.

Singed is extremely easy to kite because he has no gap closer. However, he has built in movement speed increase with his ultimate, a ranged AOE slow, and a position changer if he actually manages to get into melee range of champions.

Darius is extremely easy to kite, however his E allows to bring opponents to him within a certain margin and one of his abilities gives him a slow which makes it harder for champions to get away from him if he manages to pull them. the range of his pull is 550, which is the auto-attack range of a lot of AD carries.

Nasus is extremely easy to kite and has no gap closer. However, his Wither is an extremely powerful ranged slow and attack speed debuff that is so strong that getting to enemies in late game is usually not that much of a problem for him. At the very least, he is less succeptible to kiting than Morde.

All three of the aforementioned champions are susceptible to kiting and suffer in this current mobility meta, however they all have tools that allow them to mitigate this at least somewhat or offer some form of utility to their team.

Mordekaiser has his W, and his ghost, but the former is lackluster and doesn't feel satisfying to use, and the latter is situational at best. he provides absolutely no CC or utility besides that, and it is very easy to disengage from Morde if you do not want to fight him. He is also extremely prone to being ganked whether he is being played top or mid because he has no escape.

The PBE changes do two things:

1. Encourage Mordekaiser players to build health so his shield scales. This may encourage players to create builds where he has more survivability, but that does not change the fact that enemies are free to disengage from him as they feel like it.

2. His W now gives him SOME form of added mobility now that casting it on someone else gives you added movement speed. However, that's the catch: you have to cast it on someone else to gain movement speed. this means that it does absolutely nothing for you in lane. enemies can still disengage from you whenever and you honestly aren't any more useful to your team.

His kit as it stands is just boring, obselete, and is begging desperately for a rework. These changes do very little to remedy that.

The fact that there are not that many Morde players and as such, a rework for him is low priority would be something easier for me to swallow if Xerath, who was super underplayed, was reworked SO that he could see more play and fit Riot's thematic vision of what the champion should be. there is pretty much no excuse for him to remain the way he is. I have no absolutely no problems with Riot wanting to make him a sustained damage champion, in fact I think that is for the best, however these changes are not what Mordekaiser needs or deserves. There is no reason he shouldn't get a model update and a revamped kit, he deserves it just as much as Sivir, Soraka, Sion, and anyone else who Riot has spent time and effort on.