Hello, welcome to my first guide that I actually posted in the guides section. This guide is going to detail how I play solo top Mordekaiser.


Introduction:
Mordekaiser got hit very hard by his nerfs and the Gunblade nerf soon after. He's not nearly as strong as he used to be, but he can still prove his worth.


Masteries:
I go 9/0/21. In offense I make sure to pick up spell penetration. In utility I grab masteries for flash or ghost (whichever I'm using) and all of the other general caster masteries. You could also go 0/9/21 if you prefer to be more defensive.


Summoner Spells:
I take Flash/Ghost and Ignite in most cases. This will give you escape and a strong bonus nuke. Other viable options include Exhaust and Teleport.


Runes:
I like Magic Penetration reds, Armor yellows, Ability Power per level blues, and flat Ability Power quintessences. This provides Mordekaiser with a bit of bullying power early game and some defense toward other solo tops. If you decide to go 0/9/21 I recommend Dodge yellows over Armor because of the Swiftness mastery.


Skill Summary:

Passive - Iron Man
This is what Mordekaiser is known for. His spells give him shielding depending on the damage they do. I like to balance damage in health to maximize the effective health this passive generates. This provides half shielding from minions so remember that using skills on a wave of minions won't grant all that much shield.

Q - Mace of Spades
This is a strong damage spell that requires you to be in melee range. This is a good farming skill because it is cheap in health cost and it hits hard. The disadvantage is the range requirement. It also deals amplified damage if there is only a single target available. You can harass at a slight distance with it too if you hit a minion while your opponent is nearby.

W - Creeping Death
This skill is a useful defense amplification. This gives a lot of defense on a relatively long cooldown. It also deals decent supplemental damage, like a stronger sunfire cape. Put this on yourself when taking damage or on an ally who is taking damage.

E - Siphon of Destruction
This is Mordekaiser's core skill. It has good range and solid damage. It costs a lot of health though. Use this to farm minions at a distance, harass and zone your lane opponent, or just do damage in general.

R - Children of the Grave

This skill is beyond broken powerful. It is Mordekaiser's saving grace once he reaches level 6. This skill deals damage based on a percent of the target's maximum health. It deals half of the damage initially and half over 10 seconds. This damage heals Mordekaiser as well. The healing is not to be underestimated, it could easily heal you for 100 health in the early game initially. It will provide a massive advantage in a fight. If you kill the target affected by this spell you control their ghost for a short time.

The ghost deals the same damage the champion did and can be very powerful. Use it on a carry like Caitlyn or Tryndamere to get a super powerful juggernaut ghost. This ghost will give you shield when it auto attacks as well. Master the use and timing of this skill and you can become unstoppable.

Skill Order:
R > E > Q > W
This order ensures you can harass hard with your E and easily kill minions. Q is a good secondary damage source as well.


Build:

Starting Item: You have a choice here, based on your lane opponent. You want to make sure you can at least hold your lane. You always want to win.

I will generally choose one of the following:
Boots + 3 health potions - Safety choice, works against most opponents.
Use vs: Whoever, this is a safe pick overall.

Regrowth Pendant + 1 health potion - Good choice if you're against a farmer and you want to farm yourself. Provides good long-term sustain.
Use vs: Farmers. This will keep you harassing them and killing minions in a longer term lane. Someone like Nasus.

Cloth Armor + 5 health potions - Pick this if you are afraid of your physical opponent. This will ensure you last until level 6 in a hard lane.
Use vs: Hard physical damage. Garen and Talon come to mind here, they hit hard and like to start fights often. This will let you survive very well.

Amplifying Tome + 1 health potion - Pick this if you're very confident in your laning ability. I rarely get this because it is so hard to last without long term health regen and only one health potion. This will let you rush a very fast revolver.


Early game:

Boots - Don't even question this.

Hextech Revolver - I always rush this item. It will allow you to spam a very large amount of skills over time. Spell Vamp is infinitely useful on Mordekaiser.

Warden's Mail - If you're still having trouble with physical damage this item will help immensely. The health regen, attack speed slow, and health regen are all amazing. This item will make you last.

Negatron Cloak - If you happen to be taking a lot of magic damage or the enemy has a successful magic based ganker you will want one of these. It's cheap and effective for a long time.

Will of the Ancients - This is good once you're satisfied with your early game defense. It's cheap and helpful to you and your team.


Mid game:

Sorcerer's Shoes - Spell penetration is eternally useful. Pick up Merc Treads if you need CC reduction badly.

Revolver 2 - REVOLVERS DO NOT STACK! Get this only after Will of the Ancients and you're still satisfied with your defenses. This will provide you even more damage and sustain. Skip this if you don't want a Gunblade in addition to Will of the Ancients.

Hextech Gunblade - If you're okay with your defenses even still, pick up your Gunblade. This will provide you with plenty of offense combined with Will of the Ancients. You could also build Rabadon's Deathcap here instead due to their similar pricing. Deathcap provides Morde with more shielding and less health, but Gunblade provides more general utility and healing.

Additional Defenses - Look to the lategame items if you need more defense. Defensive item choices are listed.


Late game:

Force of Nature - My favorite choice for Negatron Cloak provides plenty of health regeneration to outlast the opposition, movement speed to keep up, and magic resist to survive burst.

Abyssal Scepter - I prefer this when I want more damage because of how much I'm dominating. This item is helpful to your whole team and is relatively cost effective.

Banshee's Veil - I don't like this item much, but it is still useful and it will shut down combo mages hard. It can block a CC, a devastating spell, and more. AP Sion will hate you for this.

Randuin's Omen - This is what Warden's Mail goes into. It's my favorite Armor item in the whole game. The active is awesome, it has very high effective health, and it has health regen to boot. It's just super awesome overall.

Zhonya's Hourglass - If you want more damage while still building Armor get this. It has a very useful active, plenty of damage, and a solid amount of armor.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter - The slow on this is very useful. It's one of my favorite AP items on Morde overall.

Rabadon's Death Cap - This is a real stomping item for Mordekaiser. If you're kicking ass and taking names feel free to pick this up to do awesome damage.

Lich Bane - My old core build item on Mordekaiser. With 500+ AP and this item your Q should be nuking anyone for an immense amount.


Sample Builds:

Standard:
Will of the Ancients
Sorcerer's Shoes
Hextech Gunblade
Randuin's Omen
Force of Nature
Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Stomping:
Will of the Ancients
Sorcerer's Shoes
Hextech Gunblade
Rabadon's Deathcap
Rylai's Crystal Scepter
Lich Bane

AD Heavy Opponents:
Will of the Ancients
Sorcerer's Shoes
Hextech Gunblade
Randuin's Omen
Zhonya's Hourglass
Rylai's Crystal Scepter

AP and CC Heavy Opponents:
Will of the Ancients
Mercury Treads
Hextech Gunblade
Force of Nature/Banshee's Veil
Abyssal Scepter
Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Heavy Tank Mode:
Will of the Ancients
Mercury Treads
Randuin's Omen
Force of Nature
Banshee's Veil
Zhonya's Hourglass


Laning Phase Sample:
Opponent: Garen.

Open the lane with cloth armor and 5 health potions. This will give you enough defense to hopefully survive Garen's strong early game damage. Focus on farming and deterring Garen's attacks by hitting him with your E skill. If he rushes at you with Decisive Strike, prepare to receive a lot of damage. If you think he will do too much damage back off before he gets close. If you think he won't do much begin to drink a health potion and fight back with your skills. Make sure that if you can hit minions AND Garen at the same time with a skill, do so. If you ever find that you can kill him (I find this is when he is about 40% HP) use your R, Ignite, and other skills to do the job.

Opponent: Cho'gath.

Start with either a regrowth pendant and a health potion or boots and 3 health potions. Make sure to dodge his Ruptures and keep a safe distance so he doesn't silence you. His combo can be pretty painful, but it will do similar damage to yours. Use your E to keep him away from the minions so that he has to back off. Survival is key here because Cho'gath has excellent sustain. After level 6 he has a huge nuke, so watch your health after that point. If you need to you can even harass him with your ultimate for free health regeneration.

Opponent: Nasus

Start with a regrowth pendant and a health potion or cloth armor and 5 health potions. Make sure you establish dominance over him early so he becomes scared to farm. The biggest rule when dealing with Nasus is that your survival is more important than stopping his farming. If you establish lane dominance early he will likely ask for ganks from his jungler to prevent you from dominating. Get an early ward or call for CV whenever possible. Remember not to push his lane so he doesn't get to farm under his tower. He can help his jungler kill you very easily as well, his wither will generally slow you down enough so that you get beat on for a long time. This is generally an easy lane if you have good map awareness and common sense.

Team Fighting:

In team fights your priority is to target the enemy carry and soak damage for your allies. Carries are characters like Ashe, Caitlyn, or Tryndamere. They have tons of physical damage items and are generally very fragile. Pick your target well and your could easily have a 4v6 temporarily.

Upon finding a fight you can lead in if you have enough defense. Pick out the most dangerous physical enemy you can find and begin doing damage. Use your Q and E skills as necessary and use your R and maybe Ignite once they are low HP. Use this ghost to kill the enemy team's mage and support. Once they are dead aim for any bruisers and tanks last.

Thanks for reading my massive guide. I'd love it if you'd rate my guide in the poll and post comments and/or concerns. Constructive criticism appreciated.

Second revolver is pointless now, spellvamp no longer stacks. Might as well get rageblade if you want both stats.

Second revolver following Will of the Ancients. Let me clarify that in the guide. A revolver will stack with a Will, a Gunblade will stack with a Will, and a Revolver will stack with a Gunblade.

honestly, You are waiting too long (in these guides) to get ryalis.
If your opponents are smart, you wont be 1v1 or even 1v2 top for long, as they will want to shut down your farm.

when this happens, you need to be ready to bring something to teamfights, and that slow from ryalis (or randuins is you were 2v1 against good AD champs) is way more useful to your team then a hextech or will of the ancients.

Yeah but getting a death cap instead of a revolver will give you more ap and more shield and more damage, so more spellvamp then a lousy 15more percent.

I find that Mordekaiser's problem is his early laning phase. I prefer to build sustain and defense to get past that because his kit is awesome for team fights. His ultimate is a huge damage contributor and the defense he can supply to an ally with his W can be surprisingly life saving. You're basically saying that Mordekaiser's kit is useless which is entirely untrue.


Revolver costs 1200g. Deathcap costs 3600g. One is to supplement his mid game, one is for massive damage. You're comparing apples to oranges here. I prefer Gunblade to Deathcap because it's my preference. You could build a Deathcap instead, but this guide is a guide for what works for me and is all from personal experience from a large number of games with personal success. Other things do work, and I did request constructive criticism, so I appreciate your concerns.

Nice guide, lots of information. Particularly enjoy seeing a situation lane example. That said, its almost -never- worth fighting a Garen before level 6. He will chunk you down and our CDs are to high to make the trade worth it, and harass is questionable because of his passive. Farming always seems better than fighting, with rare exceptions.

Its also nice to see another Mordekaiser who likes Q over W, that said, if you are losing the lane its almost always better off to level W. Also worth taking it against most melee enemies, at least in my experience. Runes, not sure on that one, how do you find an AP start like that? I've always had issues with survivability, so running with Armor yellows, Resist blues, Penetration reds and Regeneration quintessences - starting off with a Dorans Shield. How you can survive with only potions I'm not sure, always found myself burning right through them. Last, have you tried running CDR blues at all?

Last, not part of the guide. How do you actually do with him? Mained him for ages, but I've just stopped playing him because of how terrible it feels. Not even going to take him into Ranked at this rate... Lanes in normals are hard. Playing against people who have a clue is just intimidating enough for me to not want to try. Its a real shame : \

Besides that, a few questions for you. Ghost/Ignite is core, but how do you find Ghost/Exhaust?

It also amazes me you can do well at top, I have to go middle beause of how hard top can shut you down.

I'd also add Guardian Angel to the list of items, but thats just me. Got an opinion there?

Responses are bolded.