Doran's Shield
Sorcerer's Boots or Ionian Boots. Depends on the opponents
Heart of Gold -> Randuin's.
Kage's Pick -> Deathfire Grasp.
Abyssal Scepter
Rylai's Scepter
-situational item-

I use Gold/10 items since his late game is pretty poor, just a way to mitigate imo.

Items you can insert for more mid-game advantage and/or replace with Deathfire Grasp include:
Aegis or Haunting Guise. Elixirs are nice too.

Situational item includes either Zhonya counterparts, Force of Nature, Will of the Ancients, Thornmail, Void Staff, Quick Silver Sash (pretty recommended for mid-game almost endgame since you never run Cleanse-Ignite huh?), and Guardian Angel.

The only way to play morde now is a rate-based hero, and you need AP for that. You can't just go in and slam down a E/W and have so much shield that you are invincible. Instead, you need that shield to be constently generating. To do that you need full CDR and high AP with good amounts of armor/MR to compliment.

CDR boots are great on him
Hourglass is great (Armor/AP)
Abyssal Scepter is great (MR/AP)
Deathcap is great (30% AP, more shield "rate")
Banshee's Veil (MR/spell negate/AP)
Guardian Angel if you are being focussed first.

His problem is that CC just absolutely demolishifies him. You NEED your shield to be constantly generating, and if you are CC'd you are not generating shield.

I think Rylai's is horrible on him now, because his job isn't to chase/snare dominate. His job is to initiate, generate massive shield, die in a glorious fashion while your real DPSers finish the fight. The more AP you generate per unit time, the more dmg you can soak up before you die.


Why you shouldn't pick him? Because he kinda sucks early to be honest. It's a huge hamper to your team and by picking him, you are asking your team to carry you a bit at first.

Why you should pick him? Because his rank 3 ultimate on a fully farmed carry can still single handedly win the game. Get your team to focus the carry first, ressurect him and smash with him 6v4.

His R is still OP at level 18. Getting there is the problem.

Btw, he can still farm/push like a pro, so midgame, you can try stall-out tactics like have 4v5 defensive base-turret defends while you ward up the map and push top/bot while your team defends 4v5. Then once you are all 18 and fully farmed, you all push, you R their carry, and win. That's how every game should go. Getting your team to 4v5 defend under your turret is the hard part though.

I feel that any build that lacks Randuins is not viable, and in my opinion Force of Nature, to a lesser extent. You can get away with only building an Abyssal but if you just look at the Magical Damage taken it massively outweighs physical damage and I do not feel Banshee's is superior to Force of Nature. You are cutting your MR by 33%, and 375 HP is nothing compared to the amount of regeneration you gain. The spell shield is largely worthless as well considering your in the thick of things and unlike ranged carries the enemies main nukes should not be headed in your direction where the spell shield would be useful. You would mostly block a small AoE attack and then its done for 30 sec.

To my knowledge Mordekaiser does not gain MR per level either so if you do skip Force of Nature use this alternative setup:

Randuins
Sorcerers/Lucidity
Spirit Visage
Rylai's
Abyssal
Rabadon

Runes: Instead of CDR Glyphs, use MR per level Glyphs.

I feel the above builds are terrible, this is what I use

Red: Magic Pen
Yellow Health Regen / LVL
Blue: Magic Pen
Quints: Magic Pen

1st - Boots + 3 x Pots
2nd - Revolver
3rd - Sorc Shoes (or Boots of Speed)
4th - Upgrade Revolver to Hextech Gunblade
5th - Sheen
6th - Abysmal Spectre (If need MR or used boots of speed) / Otherwise Rabedons Deathcap
7th - Upgrade Sheen -> Lichblade
8th - Chainmail
9th - Absymal Spectre / Rabedons Deathcap (which ever you didn't do)
10th - Randulins Omen

So Final Items Are:

Sorcerer Shoes / Boots of speed
Hextech Gunbade
Lichblade
Deathcap
Abysmal Spectre
Randulins Omen