I tried Mord top for the first time today (Wall of Text)

I wasn't a Mord Main before the rework, but he was one of my go-to champions. I primarily played him mid, passive farmed all day long, picked up spare wraiths and wolves, and ended up getting a huge CS advantage. When he was reworked, that playstyle was deleted, and I haven't found another champ that can really do that. I tried him a few times bot and mid (and even jungler) but just was unimpressed, and counted myself among the people that were salty about the mord changes,

I've been reading a lot about how mord is still viable top lane, and I thought, "Eh, why not give it a try?". It took almost 20 minutes to actually get into a game in teambuilder (people kept leaving because I was mord) until I finally ended up playing. I was top V.S. the single worst champion I could think of; Vladimir. Knowing that he could pretty easily push me out of lane, I tried to focus on sustain, and started rejuv bead + 5 pots.

In lane, I was somewhat surprised at how smoothly things went. I found I could mitigate a lot of harass by timing my E just right and getting a big enough shield to forgo Vlad's q. To my utter shock and amazement, I used Q to bait an early pool, then flashed + 3rd Q + E for a first blood. With that, I went back to lane and immediately built as much MR as I could.

I wish I could say the lane was a stomp, but it wasn't. My opponent wasn't the best Vlad, but our jungler neglected top lane entirely, and he had me pushed up to the tower through sheer virtue of his superior sustain. I stayed neck and neck with him on C.S., and even got a few assists elsewhere on the map, but the game was going exceedingly badly. By fifteen minutes, our adc and support were 0/5 and 0/5, respectively, and our mid was 1/6, with jungler being 2/1. I was 2/0/1, not fantastic, but things were going a lot better than I'd thought they would for me.

After laning (I knocked down top tower pretty early) we started into the teamfight stage. By this point, the other team had a huge advantage, but they were cocky, and ignoring the fact that I was winning top lane pretty well, and that Vlad was determined to split pushed. They started engaging in skirmishes, and through sheer virtue of them underestimating me, I stomped about four fights in a row by grabbing ghosts and then doing crazy things like 1v3ing them or just plain tanking. And it was super fun.

Of course, these efforts weren't enough. Eventually, because we had started penetrating the enemy base, they decided not to throw, and they started engaging 5 on 5. They had a TF and Anivia and Reksai, so they would chain cc me and burst me down with stunlocks, then proceed to demolish the rest of our team. I could usually take out a few priority targets, but our bot lane was Teemo/ashe, our jungler was Kindred and our mid was Yasuo, so we had no tank and no frontline besides me. Once I died, our team crumbled. We managed to hold out until about 42 minutes (far longer than I thought we would) and then the enemy TF backdoored our nexus. I wound up something like 10/7/10, having done more damage than anyone else, and having the second highest gold generation.

This game was pretty much the epitome of everything that could've gone wrong. I got shoved against my worst nightmare in top laners, I didn't get any ganks, every other role lost, they had insane global presence (TF had teleport, as did Anivia support) and there was virtually no hope of winning for most of the game. And yet, I didn't feel helpless. I contributed a lot to the team, and came away having enjoyed the match. No one complained that Mord was toxic, not even the Vlad who lost his lane. I was amazed and impressed at how well the match went for me.

In contrast, every time I played Mord bot, it was a slaughter, either me or the enemy. I felt cheap and bored while I was playing, because my whole playstyle consisted of "pray I can hit my third Q and snowball". When I won, it felt like it was because I had an unfair stats advantage over the enemy through superior exp, or because my support managed to land some form of hard CC on a squishy target at the right time. When I lost, it felt like I couldn't do anything, because if I got even remotely close to the minions, I'd die. Playing as or against Mord bot has never been any fun for me whatsoever.

So here's my takeaway; Riot has wanted so desperately to put Mord in bot lane because they want to create more dynamic playstyles for him. But I found that in much higher quantity when I played him top. I had the opportunity to predict and use my E shield to counter, whereas before I was outranged too heavily to do that. I wasn't completely reliant on my support (which is never a fun experience) and I could legit outplay the enemy by using my ult as a burst of healing when it isn't expected, and by baiting them into thinking they could win the fight when I actually had the upper hand. It was much easier to farm under the tower without the threat of high-powered autos, and the bigger lane supported my playstyle more. Playing mord top, even though W is barely even a skill, felt much, much, MUCH better than playing him bot ever has.

TL;DR I played Mord top today, and despite horrible circumstances, I actually did pretty well, and had fun with it. Mord top is, in my opinion, much more fair, healthy and fun than Mord bot, and as much as Riot wants to shove him in bot lane, I just can't agree with that sentiment.

Hope you enjoyed reading.