Mordekaiser Rework Goes Live in League of Legends Patch 9.12

The Mordekaiser rework goes live in League of Legends Patch 9.12, which hits live servers Wednesday.

Now that you might actually start seeing Mordekaiser in your games, we figured we'd go ahead and answer your biggest questions about the Iron Revenant: How should he be played? What are his strengths and weaknesses? Should you ban him in your ranked games? (You might want to.)

So what's his new deal?

Well, all of Mordekaiser's abilities have been remade from the ground up. He still has his old passive, but it's been moved into his W, Indestructible, which can be activated to consume his shield for a heal. Indestructible will be a core component of Mordekaiser's laning phase, as it will let him stay in lane longer and pressure opponents with favorable trades.

His new passive, Darkness Rise, is a classic three-hit-wonder that causes Mordekaiser to deal bonus AoE damage and gain movement speed for a short duration. You'll be looking to trigger this any time you're pursuing an enemy for a kill, as it's your only mobility option outside of Flash.

Obliterate is back and better than ever. It's now a targeted AoE near Mordekaiser that deals bonus damage if it hits just one enemy. While farming, you want to try to space the AoE so that it hits the enemy champion as well as the creep wave, but when you're hunting for kills you want to aim for single targets.

Mordekaiser's new E, Death Grasp, will act as his main initiating tool in lane, and it synergizes together with his ultimate top secure kills for long term stat gain.

Realm of Death has replaced Children of the Grave as Mordekaiser's ultimate. Now Mordekaiser can cast himself and one opponent into the shadow realm for a duel. While in this dimension, only Mordekaiser and his enemy can see or damage each other, and Mordekaiser steals some of his enemy's stats. You'll likely want to use this on enemy initiators to turn around engagements, or on enemy carries to have a shot at stealing their stats while diminishing their team's ability to fight in a 4-v-4.

So how do you beat him?

Dealing with a Mordekaiser on the opposing team is going to mean three things:

• Don't let him trigger Darkness Rise if you can avoid it. He doesn't have any other mobility options built into his toolkit, so if you can prevent him from gaining the movement speed from his passive, you can kite him effectively.
• Don't let him get near key players during teamfights. If he manages to use Realm of Death on your carry, you might be forced to disengage from a 4v4 fight until your carry returns. Remember that both Mordekaiser and his target will emerge from Realm of Death in a different location than where they entered from.
• Play champions with high burst damage. Mordekaiser has a lot of sustain from his shield and his healing, but he thrives in drawn-out fights. He doesn't really have much to deal with getting stunned and killed with high instances of damage.

With Patch 9.12 right around the corner, you'll be able to get your hands on Mordekaiser soon. Happy hunting.