I've found the fundamental flaw in Morde's new title

For Carthage·Oct 15, 2015·7 votes·718 views

From the Kindred spotlight: "Kindred is death embodied on the rift."

Morde's new title: "Lord of Death".

Are you saying that Morde has dominion over Kindred?

15 Comments

Lord BoltrixOct 15, 20157 votes

Mordekaiser Go, do it.

Kindred {Lamb} This is absurd. {Wolf} Who are you to command us?

Mordekaiser ...your lord.

Kindred {Lamb and Wolf} ...sigh. (dances for Mordekaiser)

Malicious MetalOct 15, 20151 votes

Sure, as if it would stop at dancing :^)

NarasimhaOct 15, 20151 votes

Slight but important distinction. Kindred is Death, as in the act. Notice how she only comes RIGHT when someone dies, to give them the end of their choosing. After that, her role is over. She doesn't mess around with anyone's soul or anything Mordekaiser is the Lord of Death, where death is the more general term, the opposite of life. He kills people, then toys with their souls. That is the death that he rules over.

For CarthageOct 15, 20151 votes

Then that's not being a master of death. That's a puppeteer of souls.

He doesn't perform the final act of choosing if somebody's about to die. He uses their soul, which isn't connected to whether a person's body has died or not.

That'd be like saying Talon's a master of death because he's an assassin. Just because he does some killing doesn't give him dominion.

GreenLoreOct 15, 20151 votes

Mordekaiser however has dominion over the dead,as he can enslave their souls.

For CarthageOct 15, 20152 votes

Yes, but you're mis-thinking it. While he has dominion over the dead, he has no dominion over death itself - he can't deny people death nor can he act as a reaper in this case. That's a title solely to Kindred in this universe. That's why they're referred to as literally being death - because that is what hey are in essence and in practice.

While Morde can control souls, he has no actual power over whether death happens - in fact, if Kindred wanted to, they could just deny him his thralls since Morde relies on a cursed victim to die rather than dragging up past souls. He honestly doesn't even have any dominion over the dead at all, but rather only among those that are specifically his own victims. He's not a lord of the dead, and he's not a lord of death - he is, in all practice, a soul subjugator.

GreenLoreOct 15, 20151 votes

By that logic Master of metal would also be a stupid title,because even though Mordekaiser has some control over metal,its not like he has absolute power over metal.

Seriously titles don't have to be taken literally to the extreme. I mean hecarim is the shadow of war,does that mean he is the personification of the shadow of the personification of war? No of course not,its just a title.

Also Kindred is a "they"

For CarthageOct 15, 20152 votes

I put they in the second paragraph originally. I don't think I was thinking about it much in the first.

But it's not about the title in a literal sense, it's that role of death incarnate is already filled - having somebody else be claimed as basically death incarnate is contradictory, not to mention amateurish in terms of storytelling regardless. Again, why is Mordekaiser the Lord of Death? Yorick literally summons the dead back from the grave, Thresh literally collects souls in a lantern and uses them to his own ends, hell, if you really wanna get nitpicky, Azir brings back his fallen soldiers from goddamn sand - what makes Morde any more of a lord than the rest of them? Because he's in a carry role? I mean, Azir gets to be emperor, so I guess that's reason enough not to take a step down to being a lord, but the other two do Morde's shtick far more often.

The point is, the reason why "Master of Metal" wasn't an issue was because that was Morde's thing - solely Morde's thing. Nobody else had any claim to it, it was all Morde and only Morde. But having reign over death - he's contested by so many other people who are closer to that spot to begin with that it's not even right to call him that. Hell, it's not even unique to call him that. I guess if you wanted to get into dramatic irony, you certainly could argue to keep this title because it's a perfect name for what he's become - a stitched together, hack-jobbed champ with almost no actual gameplay identity besides "he gets a dragon ghost huzzah". He's a bunch of champs bastardized into one upsettingly grotesque monstrosity of gameplay and through all of it none of it feels right or coherent or even really that good - he feels hollow and empty and neglected and ran through a wringer until every ounce of what he was and what he could be was squeezed out into "botlane bruiser", and that's the extent of his identity - he is nothing more than an archetype. He's a four-legged chair with a back - the most bland and basic thing to make a new standard for a new role. And that's what the new title is - bland and basic, following a set archetype filled hundreds of times before and you know that this won't even be the last time.

So if you want to know why everyone's making a massive fuss over this:

Call him the Damned King, Lord of the Damned, the Soul Slaver, Puppeteer of Souls, Angry Beaver, Nine Inch Nails, Jack and the Beanstalk, whatever you want to call him that gives him even the slightest unique spark to his character - but while most have already accepted that Morde's gameplay is doomed to rot under the nerf hammer, allowing Morde to receive such a pathetically ill-thought and stagnant title like "Lord of the Dead" is to basically accept that he as a character and champ is simply, by all standards, dead.

It's a name chosen by a committee of people with no actual connection to the champ trying to reach a general audience, not somebody who actually cared about the story or the gameplay. It's a soulless, manufactured title, and it flat doesn't fit in this game, a game that thrives on having a variety of unique and intriguing characters for you to play as.

But here, so you can understand why we care so much about this, go play Heroes of the Storm - it's a fun game for a while. I liked it for a bit. But I'm willing to be at a certain point, you get a feeling - it feels manufactured and dead. It doesn't feel like any passion's in it, it just feels like it's a product for you to purchase and utilize. It doesn't feel like the creators cared much about the game itself - and if the creators really didn't give a shit about the game, then why the hell should we care any more than they did?

GreenLoreOct 15, 20151 votes

Honestly calm down a bit. I myself am upset about the change of name here,but do i go to the boards raging about it?No.

If you want to defend his old title then do it in a constructive way.

Personally I think master of metal wasn't that fitting,because he never was all about metal.His ult,the most iconic ability in his whole kit had nothing to do with it.And after they updated his ability icons he lost most of his metal moves too. I mean if Janna,who is like THE wind mage of the game,used a rock spell as her ultimate,would she still be iconic for her air magic? However I also think that removing his metal magic was wrong,because like you said,it did gave him more of a unique identity.

All in all I think a mix of both themes with the title of "paladin of pain" would be perfect. Pain can be easily associated with death,but also with metal(because many torture devices are metallic),thus allowing a good mix of both.

For CarthageOct 16, 20151 votes

I'm perfectly calm. Nothing would be coherent if I wasn't.

So first of all, I'm clearly not raging. I have told nobody "fuck you what the fuck you suck ass oh my lord how could you all be so stupid". I pointed out a fundamental and glaring flaw with his new title that is objectively - not subjectively - wrong.

Second of all, this is very much a constructive way on the boards to talk about our grievances. Again, have I cursed anyone out about it? No. We're voicing our clear discontent. If by "constructive" you meant "stay silent", that's neither constructive nor a defense. Although I doubt you're dense enough to mean it like that, so maybe you mean shooting Riot a ticket or an e-mail. Well, firstly, chances of them even seeing an e-mail are slim to none (they hardly bother to check the lexicon of info on the boards, and while it can be a mess sometimes, it's not so impossible to navigate that I couldn't skim it in a couple minutes and gather a collective opinion from that). Secondly, there's no support ticket for that. Or, well, I don't think there is. Let me check.

There's a "question about League" ticket. At most, I could try sending that to their support team. The team that probably has absolutely no actual connection with who we're trying to talk to. Hurray.

Thirdly, you're just flat out wrong and have proven your ignorance of Mordekaiser's origin. All his spell names were from heavy metal songs - Iron Man, Mace of Spades (Ace of Spades), Harvester of Sorrow, Siphon of Destruction (Symphony of Destruction), Child of the Grave (Children of the Grave). While no, not all of his damage revolved around spinning shards of metal or smashing things in the face with a mace, all of his emotes, his background, and identity was in metal. That's who he was. If anything, I would have rather Riot focused more on that aspect than making him some soul-enslaving overlord - because hell, originally he was a rebel against the ruler of the Shadow Isles. Now he doesn't even have that. He's just "a malevolent spirit". Wooooo. Spoopy.

And finally, sure. That's fine. I don't mind that name. At this point, they're set in their choice of direction with Morde and as much as anybody who ever played Morde hates the change, they're just keeping it. I just want them to at the very least do him the service of not making his damn lore and character as bland as they've made his gameplay.

GreenLoreOct 16, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=For Carthage,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=mT79OUy5,comment-id=00010000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-10-16T01:06:08.317+0000)

I'm perfectly calm. Nothing would be coherent if I wasn't.

So first of all, I'm clearly not raging. I have told nobody "fuck you what the fuck you suck ass oh my lord how could you all be so stupid". I pointed out a fundamental and glaring flaw with his new title that is objectively - not subjectively - wrong.

You might not curse,but the fact that you write such a long text over me pointing out the flaw in your arguement shows that you are emotionally quite invested in this.Also you don't throw around insults to me,but you do call the people who made this decision a "committee of people with no actual connection to the champ trying to reach a general audience, not somebody who actually cared about the story or the gameplay." which is an insult to the people who made this decision.

Second of all, this is very much a constructive way on the boards to talk about our grievances. Again, have I cursed anyone out about it? No. We're voicing our clear discontent. If by "constructive" you meant "stay silent", that's neither constructive nor a defense. Although I doubt you're dense enough to mean it like that, so maybe you mean shooting Riot a ticket or an e-mail. Well, firstly, chances of them even seeing an e-mail are slim to none (they hardly bother to check the lexicon of info on the boards, and while it can be a mess sometimes, it's not so impossible to navigate that I couldn't skim it in a couple minutes and gather a collective opinion from that). Secondly, there's no support ticket for that. Or, well, I don't think there is. Let me check.

What I meant is that your arguements came off as nitpicking on the new title. I mean saying "oh is mordekaiser now the lord of kindred?" makes as much sense as saying that "oh does karthus suddenly sing songs about kindred?" Later on your arguements basically boilt down to "this title is bad,it kills mordekaiser"

Thirdly, you're just flat out wrong and have proven your ignorance of Mordekaiser's origin. All his spell names were from heavy metal songs - Iron Man, Mace of Spades (Ace of Spades), Harvester of Sorrow, Siphon of Destruction (Symphony of Destruction), Child of the Grave (Children of the Grave). While no, not all of his damage revolved around spinning shards of metal or smashing things in the face with a mace, all of his emotes, his background, and identity was in metal. That's who he was. If anything, I would have rather Riot focused more on that aspect than making him some soul-enslaving overlord - because hell, originally he was a rebel against the ruler of the Shadow Isles. Now he doesn't even have that. He's just "a malevolent spirit". Wooooo. Spoopy.

I am very aware of all of his spells being named after metal songs,but thats pretty much just a joke about his abilities. What they actuallly do is the important thing. And Mordekaisers ult simply had never anything to do with metal(except for the name,which is kind of a moot point,because we are speaking about metal music here)

I dunno how he was a rebel against the shadow isles,it never said anything about that and judging by the quotes from the altars,he actually works for them.

Overall you sound like you are more concerned about the metal-music reference of his old title,than anything else.

For CarthageOct 17, 20151 votes

On your first part, not at all. I made the argument that Morde couldn't be the lord of the concept of death considering that so many others are far more connected to that idea and have a far more reaching ability in that region. The master of death being in relation to Kindred is the flip side of being a master of literal death, which, again, Kindred fulfills that role and is master to none. It's not nitpicky, it's a clear and present flaw in the name - it doesn't reflect his nature at all and doesn't reflect his actions. Not only that, but they're right in saying "Mordekaiser the Mordekaiser" - "Morde" means "death" and "kaiser" means "ruler". It is literally a redundancy in such an idiotic fashion that it's almost amateur. It's as if they literally could come up with nothing and so sat staring at his name until they were like, "Bingo."

On the second part, the metal's the interesting bit, not the death - his champion release was literally to have a "juggernaut in massive armor covered in metal spikes carrying a gigantic weapon". That was his pitch to the playerbase, and that's what we were getting. Despite his ult, if anything I myself would have had that changed to fit what he was promised to be - heavy and metal. Anybody playing against Morde is going to remember his ult - anybody playing as him is going to remember Morde first, not his ult, and Riot should have changed him to fit who he was first and not what people saw first.

He's theorized and usually widely accepted as the rebellion general of the Shadow Isles - his lore has him uncovering secrets of his own curse which ties back to the leader of the Isles, only known as the king. In fact, you find proof of Mordekaiser's rebellion in Hecarim capturing the western altar in Twisted Treeline - it proclaims "Mordekaiser is not to be trusted", and as Hecarim only serves to further the blight of the Isles, it's safe to say that Morde doesn't work for the king but rather his own reasons. The western altar also asks Morde if he is "also a prisoner", meaning that he is not willingly bound to the Isles. The eastern altar even becomes excited when Morde captures it and says "Free me my lord so I may aid you!" It's in stark contrast to the western altar, which says that it only serves him because it must, not to mention it plays back to the western altar's question of Morde being prisoner - it's mentioning this because it knows the eastern altar is also a prisoner.

... So seriously, do you actually bother to take a look at what's said, or just jump to your conclusions? Because you seem to be doing the latter right now. You don't show any evidence of having even played Mordekaiser and even less evidence of knowing a single bit about Mordekaiser's lore. Would you mind going and running a bit of research on your own before trying to have an argument? Because this has been anything but productive at this point.

GreenLoreOct 17, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=For Carthage,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=mT79OUy5,comment-id=0001000000000000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-10-17T03:15:39.063+0000)

On your first part, not at all. I made the argument that Morde couldn't be the lord of the concept of death considering that so many others are far more connected to that idea and have a far more reaching ability in that region. The master of death being in relation to Kindred is the flip side of being a master of literal death, which, again, Kindred fulfills that role and is master to none. It's not nitpicky, it's a clear and present flaw in the name - it doesn't reflect his nature at all and doesn't reflect his actions. Not only that, but they're right in saying "Mordekaiser the Mordekaiser" - "Morde" means "death" and "kaiser" means "ruler". It is literally a redundancy in such an idiotic fashion that it's almost amateur. It's as if they literally could come up with nothing and so sat staring at his name until they were like, "Bingo."

But can kindred enslave the dead?That is a point where Mordekaisers abilities over death actually surpass kindreds. Mordekaiser has now death magic for his abilities and can control the dead.Both abilities that aren't shared with kindred.

also mord(not morde,that isn't a word in german) means murder,not death,pls do your research.

Also the title most likely exists in the lore as well and it would be pretty fitting for mordekaiser to have such a title in the lore(either because people saw him ripping out the souls of his victims,because of his high ranking status in the shadow isles or something that he would call himself out of cockyness)

On the second part, the metal's the interesting bit, not the death - his champion release was literally to have a "juggernaut in massive armor covered in metal spikes carrying a gigantic weapon". That was his pitch to the playerbase, and that's what we were getting. Despite his ult, if anything I myself would have had that changed to fit what he was promised to be - heavy and metal. Anybody playing against Morde is going to remember his ult - anybody playing as him is going to remember Morde first, not his ult, and Riot should have changed him to fit who he was first and not what people saw first.

He's pretty much the evil overlord of the game,he looks like a bigger version of Sauron and that itself isn't something you'd easily associate with metal,that concept is far closer to death than metal(not to mention that morde is undead as well) And he still has his big armor and a big weapon,that didn't change at all. Also Mordes ult is pretty much the most iconic ability.If you play morde,then one of the most important parts of your play pattern is getting your ult right,while the enemies try to avoid getting their souls enslaved. The other abilities are by comparison pretty much unimportant and are easy overlooked.

But like I said,I myself wish they had kept the metal abilities since it was less generic.

He's theorized and usually widely accepted as the rebellion general of the Shadow Isles - his lore has him uncovering secrets of his own curse which ties back to the leader of the Isles, only known as the king. In fact, you find proof of Mordekaiser's rebellion in Hecarim capturing the western altar in Twisted Treeline - it proclaims "Mordekaiser is not to be trusted", and as Hecarim only serves to further the blight of the Isles, it's safe to say that Morde doesn't work for the king but rather his own reasons. The western altar also asks Morde if he is "also a prisoner", meaning that he is not willingly bound to the Isles. The eastern altar even becomes excited when Morde captures it and says "Free me my lord so I may aid you!" It's in stark contrast to the western altar, which says that it only serves him because it must, not to mention it plays back to the western altar's question of Morde being prisoner - it's mentioning this because it knows the eastern altar is also a prisoner.

The thing is that you said he lost that,despite the fact that this didn't change at all.

Yes the altars made it pretty clear that morde probably has his own agenda going on,but it was also pretty clear that morde still works for the shadow isles,otherwise there'd be no reason for hecarim to trust morde in the first place(or for morde to be listed as friends of the guys who do work for the shadow isles) sure he does it out of his own interest,but that doesn't change the fact that he does it and that didn't change with this update.

... So seriously, do you actually bother to take a look at what's said, or just jump to your conclusions? Because you seem to be doing the latter right now. You don't show any evidence of having even played Mordekaiser and even less evidence of knowing a single bit about Mordekaiser's lore. Would you mind going and running a bit of research on your own before trying to have an argument? Because this has been anything but productive at this point.

Well I can say the same about you. You argue that Morde is all about metal,simply because his abilities reference metal music,you say he lost his identity as a rebel against the shadow isles champs,despite the fact that his lore wasn't really changed,you act like his ult was less iconic than his metal abilities,etc....

For CarthageOct 17, 20151 votes

Kaiser as a German word is directly pulled from Roman "Caesar", which originally, in Latin text, would have a hard "k" sound for the C, which is where the roots of mors and mortem - if we're playing the "roots" game, might as well go back to its true origin. The spelling only changes based on languages, and more than just German have the root word of Mord and Morder. From its origin, it's death. That's what it is.

Again, you haven't even bothered to read his lore, and I can tell quite simply. He acts independently of the Shadow Isles despite being linked to it - he doesn't do the king's bidding. Why would the king request for him to go ashore and enslave a soul to reveal secrets about Morde to Morde? Are you legitimately that dense? Again, he is widely accepted as the Isle's rebel leader because not only does he not want to be there, but he is shown acting solely of his own accord throughout. But now he no longer has his original purpose - his own liberation and salvation. Now he's just destruction for the sake of destruction. This lore retconn is painting him as a mindless bludgeoner.

On this part, you're pretty dense when it comes to what a rework can do - for the love of god, take a look at your own Sion. Do you know what his ult did before? No? Neither do most people, but most people also didn't know what the hell his E even was or where his cryptic gaze and shield were on the keyboard - but ask an old Sion player. They could tell you how to play him, the best options, what to do with what, and basically every single thing you needed to know.

But... wait, where's his ult now? Gone. I mean, for everything he was, I could at least tell you his ult gave him stupid bonuses on his attacks and that trying to face-tank him would be stupid.

For anybody else playing against old Morde the only clue they had was that the symbol above their head meant don't goddamn die. Few knew how much damage it did and less knew that it gave Morde stats from his ghost. It just did things - it wasn't very upfront about it besides a spoopy ghost.

In all honesty, they could have just Sion'd Morde - give him a whole new set of moves reflecting what he was in-game: a goddamn metal juggernaut who bent steel to his will to rend his opponents. Smash, bash, steel-plated juggernaut. People like the ghost - but people liked Morde himself way more.

And what's left of what Sion's lore had been? Actually, quite a lot - he was reckless, charged in on his own, had no concern for his own safety, then was killed, recovered, brought back to Noxus, and brought back to life as a dangerous juggernaut.

Except that his gameplay had zero to do with that. Despite being the "Undead Juggernaut", he usually built AP. So they revamped him into - hold your breath - an undead juggernaut reflecting his title, identity, and lore. Holy heeeeeeeeelllllllllll. It's like they actually paid attention to what they were doing.

So... what'd they do with Morde? Well, the lore's pretty retconned. He has no sign of his previous identity, he's portrayed as nothing more than a death-dealer/necromancer, his title's gone, his abilities are shadows of their former selves, and they focused in on his ult - instead of, honestly, what they should have, which was his goddamn passive, a mage juggling his own health against a sustained shield to fight off his enemies because he is a mage managing his own pain to create suffering for others. Instead he's so centered around dat curry ghoul now more than ever that it's obnoxious as hell - and all his damage isn't even built into that. It's in his fucking Q. So it's his R for his thorough sustain, Q for all his damage, E for immediate burst of sustain, W for... soooooomething... something? Nothing. W for basically nothing other than a first level spell to gain bonus experience for reasons. Because it makes so much sense thematically to gain levels at a normal rate.

It used to be for destroying enemies by stacking the damage atop each other when they first released it. Now it does next to nothing - it's a joke. The entire rework is a farce against what Morde was. The metal was honestly just what we wanted for his character - we wanted him metal. We didn't want another Karthus but in armor, we wanted a big Magneto motherfucker who used his cursed metal armor as a conduit for his power because it's made so much a point that he's fused to this armor that you'd think it'd have more importance.

Why not have him bend metal? Why not have the armor be his source of life? As he uses skills, it deteriorates - that's why it's metal he uses, that's why it drains his life force. Why not? It would have been goddamn brilliance, a great rework. Would he have kept his ghost? Eh, maybe not - or maybe he could through binding them via parts of his own armor. An ult that, on a ghost, would sacrifice a part of his health to gain a shield from his fallen enemy and force them to serve them - bind them to the same fate he's bound to, inside a fucking metal suit.

Why not? There's plenty of ways to make it work and keep Morde intact as the metal man for his lore - they just fucking didn't. They gave him an already taken identity with absolutely abysmal gameplay that, while "unique" (in that they tried so desperately to set him apart from his comrades that it shows in the stitch job they did of it all), is horribly boring, they took away his personality in his lore, and while it's not a full, official backstory yet (just the summary paragraph they give beforehand), would you really put it past Riot to fuck it up even more than they have now? Honestly?

Ebonmaw DragonOct 15, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=For Carthage,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=mT79OUy5,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-10-15T03:46:21.847+0000)

Then that's not being a master of death. That's a puppeteer of souls.

Here is a new tittle based on that: Mordekaiser, the Master of Puppets.

Riot plz