Jungle Morde: The Master of ..........MEDICINE!?!

I main Mordekaiser. I've always enjoyed theorycrafting him.

In fact 12 patches before Riot made Morde bot a thing- I was already promoting that meta. ( http://gyazo.com/e56d3237727974ca02a3364a6fdd4b59 )

With all of the nerfs to Morde lately and with the fact that Riot still refuses to rebirth his legendary solo lane- I've turned away from the bot lane, (where I as a Morde main am forced to rely on my support's limited knowledge of my kit- let's face it haha, all most people know about Morde is WTF Q OP and WTF DRG GHOST- and there's a lot more that matters for Morde)

So with that being said I have decided to theorycraft Jungle Morde.

Are his ganks really that good?

What can he do that other Jungler's can't do? In fact is there anything at all he can do better?

These are questions that I have to justify.

INVADES

In any game as pretty much any jungler there is always a real possibility of being early or late invaded by the enemy team or just the enemy jungler. Being a weak CC'less jungler like Morde emphasizes this. So I first off suggest informing your teammates or what to expect; ie- if the enemy team has like a LeeSin- ask for late wards around your first buff (around 1:45) so that if and when their jungler comes to cheese you- you have enough time to ping the SOS and your teammates have enough time to come help. Against early invades- like Ali/Blitz support- get into clumped position early so you can turn those aside or even bait them into bad position before swarming them.

Mordekaiser's level one is surprisingly strong but only if you have a teammate beside you fighting in melee range. This takes advantage of the 4 second AOE your W deals as well as the 55-110 drain heal it provides afterward to both you and your teammate depending on the number of enemy champs drained (max 2 targets)

CLEAR TIMES:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyfr_GVepZQ

Morde is really powerful in the Jungle after he hits level 3 (3rd camp)

Skill order imo is Q<W<W<E<W or Q < R. W not only allows you to sustain- but it also can be used strategically. This is the best part and I hope you guys will stick around long enough for it. It's pretty savage.

BUILD PATH

Since you no longer get rewarded in terms of gold income for upgrading your machete jungler item into it's next level; (+30 gold per camp) there's no real reward for leaving the jungle to go buy that item unless the stats it will grant you are particularly good on your champ- Like warrior on Vi, or Ward Jumping on Lee, or Devourer in Warwick etc etc.

Sometimes depending on how aggressive their bot/mid lane roaming is and how aggressive their pre 6 jungler is I will leave jungle early to buy ward jungler item to help my team out.

If you're in a passive game where your enemy jungler prefers to farm it out first- you can safely wait till you've got 1250-2250 gold- you will likely be rushing ryalis/boots as Morde always.

Never finish your jungle item unless it's seriously all you have left to buy. It's a noob trap on Morde. None of the jungling items give Morde enough of what he needs EARLY to do what needs to be done. People often use his passive as an excuse to build glass cannon- but if you get CC'd as Morde -you're not casting any spells and will likely die if you do not have some meat on that body. So buff up, get beefy.

EDIT RUNES/masteries: I apologize but it's been really crazy preparing for my 24 hour stream so I forgot this section. For runes you should try to run: x9 Atk DMG red x9 Flat Armor OR Atk Speed Yellow x9 Flat Ap OR Atk Speed Blue x3 AP Quints OR Movement Speed For masteries I favor 12/0/18 https://gyazo.com/5ae5caff0c3e78c95c2e701cddeb2677

SO WHY PLAY MORDE JUNGLE?

A)- Master of Medicine

Why is soraka banned? Because she keeps her teammates alive. All the freaking time. Morde can do the same thing. Don't beleive me? Watch what happens in a game where your teammates have either been educated on how his W works or already know:

Ahri had just been ganked by a roaming Rumble and Malzahar AOE + ignite. She was at less than 100 life. In 40 seconds I have her up to full health and even gave her a blue buff to boot. Call me Dr. Morde.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ybtlJbb3VU

Now they say that Soraka- being the best healer in the game- averages about 29k healing in any given game; please take a look at these two screenshots from Jungle Morde:

https://gyazo.com/ffdf1d42446ef1c36d11fa1981ec3b05

https://gyazo.com/60590a26c41a366c61ac246c90f07f4e

(You'll notice that one of my viewers named Jaewonlol mentions how bad losing a minute of exp can be- but I think it's important to realize that not having to leave lane with heals saves about 15 seconds- so we agree to disagree. I'd love to hear your opinion)

B) Master of Objectives

1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVyO3Edp1jc

2- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g03ipEiME0k

Morde has always been the best champ in the game at making his team an objective taking force. Because getting his Ghost always led to winning a teamfight provided Morde could stay alive. Since Riot increased the ghost duration- snagging a ghost leads to dragon which leads to bron herald which leads to a tower. All it takes is a proper team comp and pink wards. Both of which I stress and plead for each and every game as a Morde main haha.

DRAWBACKS:

Morde has always relied on his teammates for CC/ENGAGE.

If your teammates pick champs like katarina, olaf, yorrik, etc etc Morde will not be very effective in fights. Morde is not supposed to go in first. If your teammates can support you in champ select like they would for a Yasuo comp- if they can hold your hand in every team fight- and TRUST you to heal them instead of flashing out of W drain range- you will succeed at becoming a force to be reckoned with.

I hope you have enjoyed this thread. If you choose to visit my stream today- we'll be giving out skins and RP prizes all day.

-TheKing 11/30/2015

PS- if you got through this entire thing- I'd like to reward you with a laugh- this next video is loosely related to League- but it's guaranteed to make you guffaw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uWPwm5x6KY