Mordekaiser’s New Abilities Are Completely Different Than the Old—Here’s How

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Goodbye, pizza feet

The details of the Mordekaiser visual and gameplay update have finally surfaced after its original announcement early this year.

Before the old Morde (huehue) we know and love is sent to the graveyard, let’s take a look at how he compares to the newest iteration of the champion. He’s been completely rebuilt from the ground up. In fact, the only similarities to his former self he shares are that he’s a big dude in armor and his abilities are still named after heavy metal songs. Other than that, he’s brand-spankin’ new.

Over the years, Mordekaiser has found himself in an awkward spot thematically. He had too many necromancer-like qualities in his Children of the Grave (R) and Harvesters of Sorrow (W) abilities, but not enough in his kit lent credence to the whole “gigantic warlord with an equally gigantic metal mace” schtick.

His laning phase was even clunkier. He wins half his lanes simply because the enemy player doesn’t know what his kit does, and that’s not necessarily a healthy strategy for any other champion in the game. He offered little to no counterplay in most melee matchups, but when he’s not in-meta, he’s almost entirely useless.

It’s for these many reasons that Riot decided to scrap the Master of Metal’s dated and wonky playstyle. In addition to removing his cartoon-like features (looking at you, pizza-feet), the new VGU aimed to make Mordekaiser feel more like an unyielding presence on the battlefield and somebody you’d never want to fight alone. His kit was updated with some crowd control, more mace stuff, and an ultimate that’s as fun as it is useful.

Old dog, new tricks

Here’s a comparison between his new and old abilities, starting with his old passive.

Passive

• (Old) “Iron Man”: Gain a temporary shield based off of a percentage of ability damage dealt
• (New) “Darkness Rise”: Deal bonus magic damage with basic attacks. Every three abilities/attacks deal damage to surrounding enemies and gain an in-combat movement speed buff.

Q

• (Old) “Mace of Spades”: Next three attacks deal magic damage that grows higher with each hit. The third and final hit deals twice as much as the first two.
• (New) “Obliterate”: Smash the area in front of you with your mace and deal AOE magic damage or bonus damage to a single target.

W

• (Old) “Harvesters of Sorrow”: Shroud targeted ally with metal, granting bonus movement speed when moving towards one another. The shield damages nearby enemies and grants bonus experience for nearby enemies killed near with it by Morde
• (New) “Indestructible”: Soak up a quarter of damage taken and dealt to convert into a shield on-cast. Reactivating will absorb half of the shield and turn it into health.

E

• (Old) “Siphon of Destruction”: Deal damage to enemies in front of Morde and grow your shield based off of the amount of enemies hit.
• (New) “Death’s Grasp”: Passively gain 25-percent magic penetration. Upon activation, damage enemies by raking them towards you.

R

• (Old) “Children of the Grave”: Inflict a curse upon enemy champion on activation or Dragon passively by damaging it with any spell. If the target dies while cursed, they follow Mordekaiser and deal damage as a ghost.
• (New) “Realm of Death”: Steal a percentage of a single enemy’s core stats and send them to the “Death Realm” for a 1v1 that lasts seven seconds. If you come out on top, you keep their stats until they respawn.

Mordekaiser’s new abilities have clearer uses than his old ones. The tools he has from his basic abilities grant him plenty of opportunities to oppress lane opponents in both long and short trades.

His ultimate is much less situational and allows for him to have a straightforward objective in lane, teamfights, split-pushing scenarios as the game progresses. Don’t worry, you can still run enemies down with Rylai’s Crystal Scepter and bop them until they disappear. But now you’ll have plenty of other options as well.

Thanks for reading! We hope you enjoyed this guest post. Let us know what you think of the new Mordekaiser in the comments below.