Screw winrates. The Mordekaiser rework is bad design.

Daily Mordekaiser rant incoming.

Yes, Mordekaiser is very strong. I suppose Worlds will tell us whether he's truly broken or merely a pubstomp. (And for what it's worth, my personal opinion is that the 5.18 changes are unlikely to meaningfully nerf ADC Morde.) But that's not what I want to talk about. Instead, I'd just like to point out a few aspects of this rework that, in my view, violate basic principles of good champion design. I trust Riot to eventually get Mordekaiser to a reasonable power level. But I still think he's terrible for League of Legends, and here's why:

1. Too much damage on a low-cooldown ability. Yes, I'm talking about that third hit of max-rank Q. The damage on that thing is 260 + 390% AD + 260% AP. For comparison, a full-channel Warwick ult deals 590 + 200% AD. We can debate what's better; the point is that the third hit of max-rank Mordekaiser Q is fully competitive with many high-damage ultimates in terms of damage, it's on a low cooldown, and it's not even his ultimate! Sure, it's actually possible to balance the ability because it can be difficult to land the third hit. But that just makes Mordekaiser an irritating win-hard/lose-hard champion who rises and falls on whether he can instagib someone with Q. Also, unlike ultimate abilities, the cooldown is sufficiently short that there's not a meaningful window where the opposing team can say, "Morde ult down; let's go!" It also makes him smash particularly hard in lower-level play.

2. Very stilted power profile due to W passive. From the best information I could gather, sharing experience causes champions to get 65% of the experience they normally would. Thus, Mordekaiser's W passive, which allows him to gain 100% instead, basically gives him 50% bonus EXP in this situation. Compare to old Zilean ult (which Riot didn't like and finally removed), which granted 8% bonus EXP globally. Shunting all that extra EXP onto one champion shifts a lot of power to that champion's early game, where gaining levels doesn't require as much EXP. In particular, giving Mordekaiser that much experience early gives him insane windows to exploit his power spikes at levels 2/3, 6, and 9. Balancing such a champion requires them to have a comparatively weak late-game; indeed, the W passive itself is meaningless once everyone else starts to hit max level. The result is that Mordekaiser's winrate goes from 57% in 20-minute games to 50% at 37 minutes and 47% at 50 minutes. Once he's balanced, the late game will probably be even worse. I find this sort of play unrewarding because once again it is win-hard/lose-hard: Either Mordekaiser stomps the early game and your opponents don't get to play League of Legends, or he gets kited to death in the late game.

3. Awkward design choices on ghost Dragon. Why does that thing not have a leash range??? I also find it a little silly that you don't actually have to use the ult to get access to such a powerful effect. That said, I'm not as concerned about this one as the other two.

A final thought: I personally am of the opinion that every ability of every champion doesn't have to feel unique; indeed, every ability shouldn't. For example, I like Ekko becuase he has one ability that is super-unique and really defines him as a champion (the ult) and a remaining kit that synergizes well and offers interesting repackagings of things we've seen before. I think there is just too much "unique" on Mordekaiser. Why does he get a 9x multiplier and a bizzaro Zilean passive and all the ghosts? Sure, dreaming up this rework was probably a ton of fun, but at the end of the day, I'd rather we put away the hookah and put out a champion that's actually fun to play with.

Rant ended. Hopefully I cool down about this eventually. If not, see you tomorrow.