I'm sad and more mad they scraped his skin/vgu. His cheapest skin is his most effects/unique one now. I miss old King Morde. I also feel like his rework scraped his character design vs Akali/Voli/Cho/Udyr reworks/mini reworks. Rip old Swain too
The fact he doesn't say "You only need to click once, Fool." pulls the charm out of him for me. I loved the summoner mentions in older champion iterations.
I really miss the dragon spirit. Having a controllable minion that actually was *really* threatening is rare, and it being so independant even more so.
Funny thing was... I hated the first Rework. The first version of Morde lives in my heart as the best one. I used him mainly as a mid lane lane bully, working him up to higher levels than the enemy by taking side camps in between pushes to clear mid, then at level 6... busting out the Ghost Ignite Ult Creeping death combo, running down the enemy and then turning to crush their side lanes. By mid to end game you could basically make yourself into a chunk of walking doom counterable by CC... but too much of a monster to be simply stopped by it. Rylias and Sunfire made him a god. You felt like a RAID boss. But this needed the Original version of his Creeping Death AoE that is now the new version's passive. Because the whole you're a team player now!!! aspect of it was bloody dumb and nerfed his entire ability to be a lone bully, since you always had to keep it Overlapping with someone else in order to do the damage that you would have done by standing next to an enemy and being a hate sink originally. Second version had nice things like being able to take the Dragon, but ultimately was a massive nerf to him... especially with the change to his Creeping Death and Mace of Spades (Making it so that it had to apply it's damage over three attacks while chasing... and applying full damage was a matter of chasing targets... stretching out the killing time once you approached a target. I kinda like this new rework... I just don't love it. Gimme back the first Mord and maybe make Syphon of Destruction a root... and keep the new looks but the old move names.
I remember playing release morde back in high school and really enjoyed his early juggernaut playstyle. In general, I play a lot of immobile champs still to this day. There's just something about being this tanky slow-moving monster that just destroys anything that gets close. I also enjoy new mordekaiser, but I also still to this day suck at skillshots so I don't play him as much as old mord. I really only break him out when I am in the mood.
They said during the chronoshift "cease and desist" letter that they will make vanilla league named "Chronobreak". But it has been one year and no news. Definitely not gonna happen.
10:15 Mordekaiser's ability names STILL reference metal songs. Just different ones. His W "Indestructible" for example is named after the Disturbed song and album of the same name. He also directly quotes Ozzy Osbourne with his "Life is a bitter shame" voice line
It might still reference metal related stuff, but the new names are way, way too generic for that reference be recognized. Before, if you were a fan metal, the references were pretty obvious, especially when in context with all the other skills name. Now, even being a Disturbed fan, the "Indestructible" reference didn't even cross my mind for how generic it is.
My problem with new Mordekaiser is that his new kit and playstyle are so damn basic. Other reworks that make drastic changes to old champs at least add new fun tools that feel unique to them, like Urgot's shotgun knees or Poppy's anti dash area. Everything new Morde does feels like the bare minimum for a juggernaut and can be compared to other champs.
I miss old Morde. I used to run him in mid lane, his shields gave me enough sustain to outlast the enemy and his E was free damage since it had practically zero startup animation. He was great for punishing cocky midlaners, because he'd lose in poke but still crush them the second they tried to full commit.
This is by far my most hated rework. The reason the 2nd version, aka the best version of morde was cosidered weak, was because everyone other than one tricks played him wrong. When he was played in the same matter as Yorick, he was a beast. He could end games in 20mins when he took rift herald and dragon. Either send both of those bot/top while tp'ing to the other lane and pushing 2 lanes at once or hard push a full lane to the nexus. He could easily be a raid boss like reworked Aatrox was before nerfs and duel multiple enemies. There were so many different ultimate interactions to keep in mind when versing champions with auto attack enhancements. He had great laning when utilising his w correctly and he had a variety of fun builds. It's truly sad how they took a complex and interesting champ, removed everything unique from his kit and turned him into a 1 combo stat checker. He and his loyal pet dragon shall forever be missed.
@Ray Shultz actually his old version was fun this ap darius is boring as fk . The old version with the current items would be op or at least way stronger than this, with the old you could literally go any rune and any build still win , now its either conq+void maker or you lose . They literally removed his ult just so they can have viego be the one whos messing with other champs souls only to give him an ultimate that should have been a camile rework lol . And btw what do you mean with high elo ? Because anything up from gold is high elo or you one of those who think only master , gm , and chalanger are high ? Anyhow no matter which way you put it this aint no mordekaiser this is just darius with ap scaling with a worse E , worse R , worse W and a forward hitting Q instead of a circle.
@Ray Shultz Mordekaiser E bears a far closer resemblance to Darius E than any of the examples you brought up. Both of their E abilities are AoE pulls that passively grant % pen, with the only differences being that one has a longer range and cast time while doing some damage. Another point of resemblance is their passives, both of which have DoTs and empower their basic attacks. Morde's Q, while it's hitbox is different and not a sustain tool like Darius's, is still his main poke and waveclear tool, just Darius Q. Morde's W and R are all pretty different tho.
I love old Morde so fucking much. I used to main him, only playing mid and absolutely winning my lane most of the time, due to the enemy Underestimating his damage. My favorite thing to do is at level 3 i use Q, AA twice, Use 1st W on a minion, Flash E, AA (3rd AA dealing about 1/4th of the enemy health at early game for some stupid reason) and use 2nd W. I reached gold doing only that because people have no idea on how he works (I also have no idea how he worked and how he can have max HP heal with his W)
@@h1py Look up manute, he was main morde with 5 million mastery and got to challenger in EU server, i learned how to play it through him, he speaks spanish but if you look one of his videos you will see what the champ was capable of.
Really wish they kept his R. I heard an argument that they needed to get rid of it because its so buggy but then they go and release viego. Also if it was because it was so buggy why not just make it so when you kill someone with the ult it summons a premade ghost thats used for every champ so it would be like yoricks maiden.
I miss the old tin can...the old W was so much fun when you were playing with a friend who could engage with you and just put everything through the meat grinder before healing all the damage you took back, he also has a special spot in my heart because he was once the reason for a 50+ min ARAM I played which devolved into the old MK and a Veigar trying to kill each other while 8 other people died from collateral damage ALSO BACK THEN, PENTAKILL MORDEKAISERS MACE STILL LOOKED LIKE A GUITAR
Played old one alot, around 100k. Started onetricking him when he got reworked and around 350k rn. I wish both types of mord could exist, because adc mord was the funniest shit ever. Tried playing him mid, like the now dead youtuber midmordekaiser but it just never worked for me, enemies legit died to me only if they *wanted* to die and went melee range as a squishy assasin/mage. But the new one has alot more ways to be played mid, so been onetricking that since. Things i miss is the stupendous damage and tankiness you would get if you get the chance, because the new one does not have that, the amount of times adc are able to facetank me if they buy immortal shieldbow+bloodthirster is just sad... All in all, the rework traded flat damage/tankiness for dps shread and some utility. There were also messages about riot minireworking him, to make him less of a statstick, but that was said REALLY long time ago by a rioter that no longer works at riot. There was also a reply by rioter in twitch chat when someone asked about that recently, which they just said they are working on it. Rn iam on copium that they are trully working on the minirework, and i will get back my infinite shields, and my favourite dragon pet back, in some way or form.
There's nothing wrong with new morde. He's better in every way. Perfectly balanced, and doesn't need any changes. There are several champions that do need changes. Why bother with Morde? He needs to just be left alone. If they keep changing champions it's only going to piss off the playerbase that likes the champion as it is.
@@1trevor30 i said i likr both, but it could be *better* what iam saying. And true, remove the last 30 champion from the game honestly, absolute monstrosities with a few outliers like vex.
@@1trevor30 I think mordekaiser's problem is the same as the old aatrox, they removed him from the game and created another new champ instead of updating the concept and skills
@@sonicwave779 spice? He just ran at you and hit E and tried to melee. He was the most basic thing in the world. His old W did not add any actual complexity..
Amazing video and well detailed. Old Morde player here. I remember I used to spam it back in 2015 after his bot lane nerfs and play him more in top lane. I had the most creative plays and crazy comebacks while being 0/5/0 and turning their enemy to a killing machine and hard loss. I play Morde in every lane, theory crafting multiple and versatile utility killing monster with ideas that I think nobody but true old morde players used to do. For instance, I used to play with Old morde and Yuumi and it was funny to get 5 kills in the first 5-6 minutes of the game. I rushed Swifties into raptors cloak, then Dmg item like Liandry's or Rylia's, and later Shurelya's. Throw my W on Yuumi while she is attached on me, run it down, and BONK them pretty quick under their tower. It was the best times of Old Morde players. However, Morde was receiving no attention at all in updates. I believe the latest update was fixing the dragon AI ghost pretty much. Not everything was perfect for us, but we just love the imperfections of Old Morde and it grew on us with 140+ bugs (e.g Jhin's 4th bullet ghost). After the announcement of the rework, a lot of players were pretty pumped to see our pizza feet actually grow and be recognized, but it quickly got shifted to the wrong direction and became dull and less interactive the more games you play as Morde. See, the VGU was great in terms of character, but the satisfaction of playing HIM diminished like mist. No more pets, no more cool bonks, and the worst part was his ult being cleansed by an orange or others. It drove all of us nuts and impossible to play as. Many of us tried those famous theorycrafter builds from Old Morde, but it just doesn't feel right anymore due to his entire kit changed. I'm still in the hopes and having feedback to any rework it happens to Mordekaiser. Same as my community and others will think too. I still play him because is the only reason I enjoy to play League.
this remind me about the Karma rework. I still think they oversimplified her kit during those years removing even more parts of her abilities (removing her aa/cd passive was the last nail in the coffin). She had a clear identity and her name was perfect for her old kit. In her current state you "spam Q" to "spam more Q". Even if people didn t noticed, Karma is one of the most mini revorked champ in the game.
I like current Morde a lot, but he suffers greatly from Riot's rework hell. I love old Morde far more than new Morde, and I agree on your take regarding Aatrox's rework murder. As outdated as these champs were, Udyr's more recent boom proves that these champs can still function and do well in a modern setting. I'm a huge Shyvana lover and I'm gonna shed many tears when she falls to rework hell, along with Skarner when his execution date is decided by the community. All in all this video is a great highlight of Riot's awful reworks. Sure, they're adding a fresh new kit to play with, but its not worth deleting people's favourite champion for
comparing them to udyr is a bit unfair, that champ literally only has different flavours of auto attacks. pure numbers are all he needs to start doing well, or to fall off a cliff. aatrox and morde had more complicated mechanics that made them problems, either for being strong or weak
Ahh rework hell sound so nasty every one of the current rework are better version of the old exept for the old otp i love shyv and i play a lot of a shyv but a nice rework is welcome (i just hope i can still play her ad) the only reason every old aatrow main are mad is that they buffed him into a strong state before rework wich is rly weird voli feels more voli than ever mundo while being way to clean and groomed goes where he please fiddle is scary af morde is intimidating and i can go on
About your point of outdated and older champions still functioning and doing well these days: Yes, while Udyr was really popular for quite a while, he once again dropped down to one of the champions with the lowest popularity, while having a 48% winrate after he was nerfed because he simply was just buffed too much. So I would really much argue that older champions still "do well or function" in a modern setting, as they either are very strong or pretty bad, there rarely is an in-between with these older kits. Champions with a one-dimensional design that boils down to a single thing they need to do simply is just not healthy design for the game or the champion themselves. Sticking to the Udyr example... what is his job? Running you down and autoattacking you until you do, that is ALL his kit does. His stats last season made him able to do that very well, but now, after his nerfs, its way harder for him to do his job anymore, so he is bad again. And even at the point where udyr was able to do his job very well... I would still not argue that this is "doing well" because again, he either was able to get to you and deal with you by auto attacking you, OR was completely useless when the enemies knew how to counter that one thing he does, leaving him without any options. I hope it is clear what I mean, I am pretty shitty at explaining such things. But all I mean is that I think most of these "rework hell"-reworks just kinda need to be done because they are pretty unhealthy for the overall game otherwise. Either they are really good, or they are really bad.
Eh idk, shit like volibear and fiddle and pantheon and mundo were great reworks that didn't change much but added to them, we can hope it's like them there's no need to be pessimistic
The juggernaut rework morde was so much more fun than the modern morde. You'd max your W and evertime the enemy would try to fight you you'd use it on a minion and after a while you'd pop it and you'd get healed for like 1/4th of your hp bar and the enemy would just mald uncontrollably because they underestimated the power of a good morde player.
Yessss!! I liked doing that as well. You had to know when to use and bait the enemy to fight near the minions. With the current mord it's just "spam Q when in range while keeping control of the wave. E/R when you can get a kill". Imo, a braindead champ
@@E_D___ Old morde was trash and relied heavily on things out of his control. He was a champ that was never played. Why would anyone want that back? He would be destroyed in this meta now more than ever. His abilities are necessary to keep up with the speed of the game. A skillshot to bring enemies towards him is exactly what he needed. His Q is like his old E but with more counterplay since it has a longer wind-up, and his ult is actually useful. His old ult was barely even an ultimate. It did so little damage and the spirit form you got wasn't super useful aside from taking towers. There's far more depth and use in the new ult.
Here in the Hispanic Lol community we have a streamer called Manute, he used To be a Morde OTP before the rework, he even invented a strategy called "la Manutada" lol, Wich consisted on Morde Killing the Dragon, then using it to kill the Baron, yeah, a whole ass Kaiju fight on the Rift. After the rework he claimed Mordekaiser being "not as cool as before" and even tho he still plays the champion, he tends to reference old Morde every time he wants to point out a mechanic or ability that can make what may look like a bad champion into a unique fun character
I miss an old play style I used to do with my jungler, we called it "dragon tamer Mord" because we'd always hyper focus on dragon, get the soul pet, and run it mid for a kill or tower.
Really enjoyed the previous mordekaiser. Played so so so many games on him and really miss his unique kit. There was so many build paths to go depending on who you lane against in mid, top, or even jungle! So many people just called him bad without spending time to learn what to build, what runes, and what summoners to take. This updated mordekaiser is so one dimensional in comparison to his 2nd rework variant. I despise riot for what they did to my guy....
The way how the W worked with the passive was so satisfying. The fact that you could get movementspeed, deal small damage and heal with the W made for some good baits in the botlane. I would play old morde as apc / adc and would bait many players into underestimating my damage and tankiness.
Fun fact, the new ability names are ALSO referencing metal songs. I remember reading a post back when LOL Boards existed; a super dedicated Morde main was flown out to Riot HQ to beta test the rework, and suggested all the new names after different metal songs or bands, like grindcore band Obliterate.
It was pretty interesting history video! I would love to play old Morde today. Dunno, how awesome or not it would be, but still. I really loved the old gameplay. Thanks for the video, Cryo!
in his 2nd iteration, when they made W be able to target minions was the best moment for morde imo, really took the wave management practicing a lot easier since it was part of his kit then
I had mastery 7 on him and he was my second most played champion next to my 1 trick at the time Sona. When he got reworked I played about 5 games on him and could not stomach what they had done to him. Recently my Vi finally overtook Morde in Mastery points and it genuinely brought tears to my eyes.
Probably the most disappointing rework I ever experienced in a game, something fun and interesting that I genuinely loved was just replaced with something dull and unappealing. Pre rework as you said, you had to be creative, there were so many things that you could do or just be aware of playing him previously, but now, you just take conq, and that’s kinda your best option. Heck building tank and one or 2 ap items seems like the only way to play him in most cases, before you had abilities now he’s just a walking passive with a rubbish ult meant for fiora (it was an old concept they wanted on her, for some reason)
I mained juggernaut rework mordekaiser in the top lane, and I don't much care for new mordekaiser. The biggest loss imo was the heal on his old w which was massively increased on champions, and since it was so short range it really rewarded you for scrapping with people and punished them for getting up close with you. It made for some really clutch moments too. One thing rioters have thrown around as a possible change is swapping his W and passive in some way which imo would do a lot to bring him closer to old mordekaiser, but I don't think it will happen because current morde is getting enough play and there's not going to be a big push to change his kit in the foreseeable future. I do agree with riot that old Morde was unhealthy, but I still miss him...
I really loved baiting enemies with the old morde, everything in his kit was just baiting people even more because no one played him. His Q did A LOT of dmg on 3d hit, his passive shields and his W heals were the best things. They come 2v1 on me at top because the enemy toplaner has been crying for 5 minutes + i've been purposely keeping myself low and then they jump on me, i heal to full with W and kill them. I start pushing toplane and by 20 minute i am on the inhib tower 8/1 or something and they surrender. I didn't even use dragon kills as much had the most fun. When they reworked him, i was sad but his rework very cool, so i didn't cry about it. I stopped playing him altogether though. Played him recently with the moonstone build, it's a weaker version of the previous but it's still fun.
I just find his new version so boring like I don't feel like I'm tricking them or anything like it felt like in old version it just feels like I decided to kill them at some point and they can't do anything
Morde when he could cast his W on an ally and the both receive it was the best version of Morde. Some of my fondest memories of League are playing Morde mid and maxing my W. The enemy jungler would show up, and so I'd cast my W on a minion and stand next to it. I'd become incredibly tanky with the bonus armor and MR due to maxing W, I'd generate a ton of shield due to hitting two enemy champions AND an entire minion wave with 2 W's, and I'd be doing a ton of damage because I was hitting them with both W's. When they first reworked him I stopped playing ranked and would only play the occasional game, and then when they reworked Swain I quit the game completely.
I had mastery 7 on the previous morde. Him and wukong were my fav champs and rito turned them into completely different things so I kinda gave up on lol because of that. Old morde was super fun for me though. The jank was part of the appeal. He had so many absurd ways to pressure enemies in lane and could legit go bot if you felt like it, really there was no other champ in the game that played like him.
Really liked the old counter part as you can come up with ways to sneak around or chase enemies. It helped me a lot in improving my vision control and overall game sense. I still love every version, but it does feel sad to think I can't play Pokemon trainer again.
I remember playing hundreds of games on 2015 Mordekaiser back in the day, controlling the dragon to force a lane with my team, probably one of my favourite champions, fun times. New Morde is still pretty cool imo though. Great video as always.
My favorite strat was top Morde on the 2nd iteration. Play to secure Herald, then beeline it to drag. If you can get your team to cooperate you can 5 man it down mid and take inhib or even a nexus tower before 15 minutes. In high gold/low plat teams would just shatter at that point, and with Morde's XP bonus you always came ahead of your lane opponent once the shove was over
I got M7 with old Mordekaiser. He was the first champion I saw (this in season 3) and thought "I want to play with him". I played a lot of the Juggernaut Rework Morde, but this was after all the nerfs. He was really fun imo and the amount of builds you could do were insane. I remember locking him and my team decided to go full AP and began bitching and I just said "Don't worry, I'll do AD" and it worked perfectly. I love current Morde, specially because of his quotes but I would prefer to play with the old one without a single doubt
Mordekaiser was the first and still is the only main I ever had, the new one is so boring I just can't bring myself to play, just mastery is left, that and sadness
Old morde was one of the champions that i had most pentakills, it was kinda nice dude to play. I confess hes apearance in game was nothing with the splash art, since a MEGATRON JUGGERNAUT looked like a broken tuna can lol. The dragon was really satisfying to play with, but i can deny i pretty much love this guy we have now. This new Mordekaiser makes us really fell POWERFUL, specially when we kill someone in the deathrealm and the enemies just see that raid boss and think "oh shit". Anyway, thanks for the video, Cryo. Very nice series, specially for people who weren't there in League's old school days :)
i only learned on new morde and i do enjoy him fundamentally as a champion. he is still a huge, slow-moving monster that is indestructible. the only thing he lacks is the original set of abilities he once had, but you can see where they tried to incorporate some of it and keep some of it. his rework also changed who and what he was into something fundamentally scarier, and it's widely accepted across the community that mordekaiser alone could take pretty much any champion except possibly aurelion sol.
Mord: *Casts a powerful spell of dark magic, pulling his victim into a pocket dimension where no one can hear their screams as they are killed.* Gangplank: “Mmm. Yummy Orange 😊.”
"The skill of Mordekaiser was getting the shield" That just means hitting your abilities, you're just wording it differently. Old Morde was a 1 note champion, back when they made incredibly simple characters.
I can’t say anything about old Morde as I only started playing after his rework, but man do I love everything about New Morde. His design, his VA work, his lore, it’s all top notch. And I like simple yet powerful champs so he was a natural fit as a main. I understand what was lost, and I understand those who are sad about it, but like I said, I can’t miss what I never had.
I had enough fun with the first Morde, but I actually really enjoyed the Juggernaut rework Morde as someone who mostly plays ARAMs, even after the nerfs. Landing the third bonk was absolutely one of the -best- feelings in League of Legends even if it was kinda goofy. The combo of the CLANG noise with the huge number always felt great. He still had that "nobody actually knows what he does" feeling after the nerfs too so a lot of people would horribly underestimate him like any of the other Nemesis Draft usuals. The ghosts of some lategame champs were insanely powerful sometimes. I remember picking up a Leona ghost one game that effectively helped me 2v4 while the rest of the team respawned due to the sheer number of stats she had. I do like new morde too but he doesn't quite gel the same. I'm much more ready to reroll him when I get him rather than hold on to him despite my friends all telling me not to like the old ones. I don't mind the pull honestly since I do kinda feel like juggernauts need at least one kind of "You're not getting away from me" spell to be able to stick to some of the more slippery characters in modern league, and Brazil is a really fun ult. I get why the HP costs are gone but I kinda wish they'd put them back on him in exchange for maybe a bit more oomph to his tankiness or his burst. If reworked Aatrox didn't have it I'd even say make his Q a 3-hit combo again because honestly I really miss the feeling of the buildup and smash it had.
as a Reworked Mordekaiser main, since I started playing after the update was released, I did not expect original mordekaiser to have so many similarities So they mixed the original with the first rework... cool! Fantastic video!
The last version of Morde is what got me into League. He had such a good default splash art, had a lot of condescending and cool voice lines, and he was a far more expressive champion than he is now. I now main support because they took him out of the game. Thanks fucking Riot
New Morde lore, absolutely amazing, New Morde gameplay however is about as fun as watching a full game of golf, you just want to bang your head into the floor.
New Mordekaiser certainly feels more satisfying to play and overall feels more like a package of a kit, while his old kit was just 3 independant abilities co-existing, HOWEVER! Death Realm is probably the most boring ultimate in the entire game that he has no condition for using it sits very wrong with me. I understand that the ghost has caused isshues, but him adding the sould of an enemy to his army is just much more fun and fitting that whatever this ultimate is.
Very true, I think death realm just slows down the pace of his kit, especially by late game. It's just not good synergy, but hey, it's fun screwing the enemy adc over when you send them to die in brazil ):D
His whole kit is boring dude, his Q and E are boring and telegraphed skills, his W is literally a HUUGE downgrade from his old W same thing for his passive, his old ult was one of the most unique ults in the whole game, the amount of different interactions that it had was insane, not only the dragon but every champion with a passive on autos interaction now you press R to auto win things or you press R to see people running from you, pressing zhonyas, flashing walls and using qss or just beating you 1v1
His problems are literally the same, no mobility low cc or none, but old mordekaiser at least used to heal your team and could resolve his range problems with a adc or dragon ghost, new mordekaiser doesn't bring nothing to the table, only forcing you to buy qss
The death realm is just a copy of revenants ultimate from paragon. The only reason he has it is because somebody at riot saw it and thought it was cool. Now he’s stuck with an ultimate he shouldn’t even have instead of his dragon.
@@giovanni5954 of course they're telegraphed, telegraphed skills are actually fair and are allowed to do more than they would otherwise, it makes perfect sense for a juggernaut to have abilities that hit like a truck that also come out on the slow side, there's nothing inherently wrong with telegraphing
Hey, old morde main, had around 600k on the second version. I really miss playing the old one for the reasons you explained: new one is just too simple. Altough old morde's abilities were "basic" on surface, they had depth and it felt satisfying to have success with a champ that even riot wanted the playerbase to forget about. New morde has nearly no "tricks" to him besides using your E to pull enemies away from you when trying to live (which is the only good thing in his new version imo). As for the art, I think riot did a really good job with the new one, especially the VO.
I loved maining old Morde. Literally the best 2v1 champ top lane has ever and will ever see. You might not have had mobility, but that's because you dared the energy jingler to show up starting level 2.
if i remember correctly, riot asked the community what they wanted to keep from old morde. the old R won by a long shot and it obviously didn't matter. also, apparently his new R is supposed to be something they have planned for fiora... fantastic work from riot games. thanks for making this "perfectly fine if you master it" champion where you could build whatever you wanted if you knew what you were doing to a streamlined one-dimensional mess that gets hard countered by a 1300 gold item. this rework made me go from top 300 mordekaiser in LAS to never playing it again
Yes you were correct. And after the poll they promised to keep the ult. Maybe rework it somewhat but keep the part where you enslave them if you kill them under your curse . But riot said f**k you and didn't the opposite. Stating it was to buggy to keep in the game. And then they go ahead and release viego.... Nice work riot. At least we know they do it all for money and not the people behind the money
unpopular opinion: I like new morde more than old morde yeah ghosts were cool and all, but at the end of the day old morde was a mess both to balance and keep up, being the most bugged champ ever made it also felt like a "spoonfed to win or play 4v5" champ (also known as "AD Kog syndrome") with his extreme melee playstyle and his inherent snowball when taking kills or dragon the only things I don't like about new Morde is how poorly W and R are designed: W is just a pseudo Thick Skin that lives in denial, making you recast the ability for no good reason, and R feels so underwhelming that makes his own name a punchline, even if in practice is a better skill than most people give it credit for... I mean why the afterlife can be escaped with a fancy piece of cloth (or worse, an orange)? And why the ability goes on FULL CD when it happens? Why there are bushes in the D E A T H realm? Why Morde doesn't have true vision IN HIS FCKING REALM to begin with? W H Y ?
the only thing worse than this (in removing skill/ identity of champion) was the aatrox rework. New Aatrox uses w: if it hits you go in and use q on a slowed target with telegraphed movement, if it misses you continue spamming q into the wave. Old Aatrox had you actually manage ur bloodwell prior to a fight, decide which w binus u want during a trade. The addition of skillshots made him just an easier, mid range riven.
Was an OTP old Morde, even made a smurf to just play him in ranked anywhere possible. My favorite lane was bot with an engage-tanky support, you waited for lvl3 then stomped them, went to drake, destroy a tower mid or bot. His old R was so satisfying when you could get it on a fed ad champion, just looking at him killing all his teammates. Healed you like hell with his w and hextech gunblade. Man I miss him so much, it was so gratifying winning with him...
My fave thing about 2015 Morde is that he had a little auto counter whenever his Q was running. It gives the game away a little if you're charging on krugs and jumping out of a bush, but I can see why it's helpful for accessibility purposes
I wonder how old and older morde would play. I only played Graves back in the day, quit the game for a full 8 or more years and came back and enjoyed Morde... Great Video as always Cryo, keep it up!
Morde rework was the only one I was salty about at the time, I played him top, around 150 games and lost lane twice, both times against pre-rework-yorick. With DFG there was pretty much nothing that would stop me from bursting enemy laners to death. Good memories, I would like to play this version of him once more.
You forgot to mention what was for me the most significant part of Mordekaiser version 2: at release, his Q was the single highest burst ability in the game. At release, his Q3 didn't deal double damage, it dealt NINE TIMES the damage of the first one. At level 7, you could flash + Q3 some adc at botlane for 70% of their health without any items. That plus the fact that his W was one of the strongest heals in the game when hitting at least 2 people. I played the heck out of him until they nerfed his Q to turn him into a DPS champion instead of a burst one, so much so that he is still my most played champion to this day, even though I barely touch him nowadays. Those were the good times.
Cool vid, you missed some details about his post-Juggernaut update iteration though. The initial Q release had insane ratios at max rank, where it's base damage started as pitiful on the first Q, then tripled for the next, then tripled again for the third. It went from 20 + 20%AP + 30% AD to 180 + 180% AP + 270% AD scaling for the third hit. So once you got a few levels on Morde you basically used your first two Qs on the wave then threatened to Flash Q the enemy ADC and kill them in a single hit. This ability had a 4 second CD. This whole play pattern meant that Morde was nearly permabanned through S5 worlds, banned in 68/73 games, played in 4/73, and left alone in 1/73. GP was the only other champ like this, also reworked around the same time but in 5.14 instead of 5.16, he was banned in 69/73 games and picked in 4/73. The initial rework of Morde was locked in to bot lane, since the bonus exp scaling was insane, and your W only targeted allied champions, so going into a solo lane meant you lost a basic ability while laning. Given Morde was previously a top/mid lane champion, getting suddenly locked into bot upset his entire playerbase pretty much. This was eventually fixed in patch 6.1 when Morde W could target minions again, but basically resulted in a pretty degenerate top lane playstyle, since while W had a delay on reactivation to get the damage, it popped instantly when the target it was on died (giving the burst of damage and healing, even if you weren't in range to get the DoT portion of the skill activated), meaning you would cast it whenever a melee champion cs'd a minion with an AA and they wouldn't be able to retaliate or avoid it in anyway. Of course, this was when I got super into top Morde myself. God I miss old Morde top lane.
What is funny is that they use again some of old spells of all the champ that did get a rework. The W of Swain was kindly given to Yorick, the ghost made with the R of Morde was given to Lissandra's passive... There are some examples.
I miss old mordekaiser, both renditions. I used to play him as a burst mage with dfg then left him for a while, later I tried ADC mordekaiser and stuck to it till the rework. My friend and I managed to push through ranked really well with mord Rakan having the dumbest sustain imaginable. He would tell me when he's looking for a trade and made sure my W was up, when he got my W he would dash in and do a small trade before I pop the heal then he comes back, or he would stay, I would get the move speed buff from W, slow then with rylais and pop shuelia to catch up to them bonking them with q as the all in. I would try sit back and trade damage with them taking an auto and maybe a skill shot for my E hitting them and the entire minion wave meaning most of the damage went to my metal instead. My absolute favourite interaction was ghost tower dives though. Mordekaiser's ghost was coded in a weird way where they weren't classified as pets since they were champions meaning tower wouldn't target them immediately, but damage from the ghost was coded as damage from mordekaiser. This means if the ghost hits the enemy under tower while there are minions, the game will tell the turret to try target mord and if he's not in tower range it would continue targeting minions. This led to many players claiming that turret agro was broken
old mordekaiser was the reason i peak masters at 150 lp. It was very unusual for me as a mord main to see my champ being picked and banned in every game after the rework. This finally made me a productive member of society (I quit league after the rework).
When I first played lol, it was back on 2019 only and it's bc of how Mordekaiser's design caught my attention. It was really cool... for me and for some for sure.
I played the old Mordekaiser. Even though he was really bad and I rarely won with him, I loved playing him; mostly in the jungle, getting the dragon as early as possible. It's not that I don't like the new Mordekaiser, it's just that the only thing iconic about him is his ult, whereas the old Mordekaiser is iconic as a whole. I love that you mentioned his old ability names are references to metal bands. I was waiting for this from before I clicked the video. :D
I loved playing the 2nd mord midlane. His wave clear was insane and allowed me to roam to dragon to pick up a soul. Have the dragon solo push bot while I push mid or took hareld with the team. I also loved how you could use w on your own minions. It would be smaller tho, unless it was on a cannon. It would be fucking massive on the dragon as well. The heal on w would work on minions and I would use it to try and deny cannons as they would be burst healed for just a bit more than they could do damage. Hella nostalgia watching this
I greatly miss old Mord. His third Q was more satisfying because you had to build up to it, his W required at least *some* thought process and the healing felt rewarding because you had to use it correctly to make sure you hit a champion. I think what bothers me the most however is the removal of his old passive. Having what is essentially omnivamp but you gain shields instead of HP, and LOSING hp in order to gain the shield, meant that you were conceptually killing yourself for temporary power, much like a power-hungry tyrant of the Shadow Isles would. Additionally, shields have unique interactions in league that simple life steal does not (such as you recall won't be interrupted by damage if all damage taken is soaked by a shield). Now however, rather than directly converting damage into shield, you just have a shield button. That decays. It's so much more obvious about when to correctly press W that there's no longer any thought process to be had. Overall, we lost a unique - albeit clunky - champion and received yet another stat stick. P.S. Don't even get me started on the unique interactions of having a ghost that Sylas/Viego don't even come close to replicating
I never played old morde but I love current morde. There's something so satisfying about being the juggernaut that runs towards the enemy team and actively kills them jusr for standing near them
I started league a month before the mord rework and my friends warned me not to play him cuz they knew I'd like him, I did, then was disappointed immensely at his rework.
I wish you mentioned how busted pre 5.23 Morde’s Q was. It was triple damage for the third, and I remember the Gunblade Trinity Force Steraks and Nashors build being all you needed for a 3rd Q to one shot any squishy.
Morde rework was one of the best ones. From a chunky metal overpushed walking stick to a true Lord of Death. Voice lines, visuals, abilities, everything is right about him now.
I'll never forget playing League with my cousin not long after Morde was reworked. He just bough him and we were getting demolished by a fed Garen. Then one teamfight he just sent him to Brazil, killed him, took all his stats and a big shutdown and carried.
Old morde was so unique and gave a lot of variety of builds, I always use him as support and I didn't just help my team but kick ass soloing the enemy team with their adc as my adc
I will always miss him..
I feel you
I had a dream where I played him, then I was awake and sad.
Same
I'm sad and more mad they scraped his skin/vgu. His cheapest skin is his most effects/unique one now. I miss old King Morde. I also feel like his rework scraped his character design vs Akali/Voli/Cho/Udyr reworks/mini reworks. Rip old Swain too
You only need to miss him once, fool
The fact he doesn't say "You only need to click once, Fool." pulls the charm out of him for me. I loved the summoner mentions in older champion iterations.
Agreed and also the: “So be it… summoner.” line
Fool is to toxic for today's standards
Well the whole summoners thing was removed completely so I can see why they removed those voice lines
Riot only makes their champs super serious or extra corny now.
Misery loves company.
I really miss the dragon spirit. Having a controllable minion that actually was *really* threatening is rare, and it being so independant even more so.
You could have even elder drake fighting for mordekaiser
Dragon with rylais and liandryes, good times! Laughed my ass off w that, complete aids lol
It was busted as heck, though. No wonder Morde had almost 100% ban rate at that year's Worlds
Imagine if you could ult the Dr's and challenge them to a 1v1 in morde ult lmfaooo
Funny thing was... I hated the first Rework.
The first version of Morde lives in my heart as the best one. I used him mainly as a mid lane lane bully, working him up to higher levels than the enemy by taking side camps in between pushes to clear mid, then at level 6... busting out the Ghost Ignite Ult Creeping death combo, running down the enemy and then turning to crush their side lanes. By mid to end game you could basically make yourself into a chunk of walking doom counterable by CC... but too much of a monster to be simply stopped by it. Rylias and Sunfire made him a god.
You felt like a RAID boss.
But this needed the Original version of his Creeping Death AoE that is now the new version's passive. Because the whole you're a team player now!!! aspect of it was bloody dumb and nerfed his entire ability to be a lone bully, since you always had to keep it Overlapping with someone else in order to do the damage that you would have done by standing next to an enemy and being a hate sink originally.
Second version had nice things like being able to take the Dragon, but ultimately was a massive nerf to him... especially with the change to his Creeping Death and Mace of Spades (Making it so that it had to apply it's damage over three attacks while chasing... and applying full damage was a matter of chasing targets... stretching out the killing time once you approached a target.
I kinda like this new rework... I just don't love it. Gimme back the first Mord and maybe make Syphon of Destruction a root... and keep the new looks but the old move names.
I remember playing release morde back in high school and really enjoyed his early juggernaut playstyle. In general, I play a lot of immobile champs still to this day. There's just something about being this tanky slow-moving monster that just destroys anything that gets close. I also enjoy new mordekaiser, but I also still to this day suck at skillshots so I don't play him as much as old mord. I really only break him out when I am in the mood.
Riot should add a gamemode where some champions before the reworks are available, or a old patch to people play, would be so cool
They said during the chronoshift "cease and desist" letter that they will make vanilla league named "Chronobreak".
But it has been one year and no news. Definitely not gonna happen.
you want another 10+ gb?
@@Dolor_ no. Just another game.
I hope it's a separate game
@@max.racing not just "sue" but also demand their file and source codes.
dude they don't even bringing back the snowy map on christmas
10:15 Mordekaiser's ability names STILL reference metal songs. Just different ones. His W "Indestructible" for example is named after the Disturbed song and album of the same name.
He also directly quotes Ozzy Osbourne with his "Life is a bitter shame" voice line
It might still reference metal related stuff, but the new names are way, way too generic for that reference be recognized. Before, if you were a fan metal, the references were pretty obvious, especially when in context with all the other skills name. Now, even being a Disturbed fan, the "Indestructible" reference didn't even cross my mind for how generic it is.
I think his R might be a reference to Beyond the Realm of Death by Judas Priest
old refs are better imo
@@kazuhiramiller7491 :/
@@kazuhiramiller7491 Yes. Motorhead, metallica, megadeth and sabbath
My problem with new Mordekaiser is that his new kit and playstyle are so damn basic. Other reworks that make drastic changes to old champs at least add new fun tools that feel unique to them, like Urgot's shotgun knees or Poppy's anti dash area. Everything new Morde does feels like the bare minimum for a juggernaut and can be compared to other champs.
mordekaiser feels like a magic damage darius
Honestly the laziest champion and kit design.
Would be less forgiving if the pull marked/did the debuff instead of just passively.
yeah sure and then he would be called overtuned by other crybabies.
@@Nikolai0169 that's pretty much it, his E is a direct copy of Darius' E
so his death realm isnt 'fun and unique' then?
I miss old Morde. I used to run him in mid lane, his shields gave me enough sustain to outlast the enemy and his E was free damage since it had practically zero startup animation. He was great for punishing cocky midlaners, because he'd lose in poke but still crush them the second they tried to full commit.
This is by far my most hated rework. The reason the 2nd version, aka the best version of morde was cosidered weak, was because everyone other than one tricks played him wrong. When he was played in the same matter as Yorick, he was a beast. He could end games in 20mins when he took rift herald and dragon. Either send both of those bot/top while tp'ing to the other lane and pushing 2 lanes at once or hard push a full lane to the nexus. He could easily be a raid boss like reworked Aatrox was before nerfs and duel multiple enemies. There were so many different ultimate interactions to keep in mind when versing champions with auto attack enhancements. He had great laning when utilising his w correctly and he had a variety of fun builds. It's truly sad how they took a complex and interesting champ, removed everything unique from his kit and turned him into a 1 combo stat checker. He and his loyal pet dragon shall forever be missed.
My second least favorite is yorick.. bring back hold champs. I’d play league again if they brought back the better versions of the champs
He was also incredibly boring and would not be able to stand up to any actual champion, if he was still his old version.
@Ray Shultz actually his old version was fun this ap darius is boring as fk . The old version with the current items would be op or at least way stronger than this, with the old you could literally go any rune and any build still win , now its either conq+void maker or you lose . They literally removed his ult just so they can have viego be the one whos messing with other champs souls only to give him an ultimate that should have been a camile rework lol . And btw what do you mean with high elo ? Because anything up from gold is high elo or you one of those who think only master , gm , and chalanger are high ?
Anyhow no matter which way you put it this aint no mordekaiser this is just darius with ap scaling with a worse E , worse R , worse W and a forward hitting Q instead of a circle.
@Ray Shultz owww stop I'm going to catch secondhand stupidity
@Ray Shultz Mordekaiser E bears a far closer resemblance to Darius E than any of the examples you brought up. Both of their E abilities are AoE pulls that passively grant % pen, with the only differences being that one has a longer range and cast time while doing some damage.
Another point of resemblance is their passives, both of which have DoTs and empower their basic attacks.
Morde's Q, while it's hitbox is different and not a sustain tool like Darius's, is still his main poke and waveclear tool, just Darius Q.
Morde's W and R are all pretty different tho.
I love old Morde so fucking much.
I used to main him, only playing mid and absolutely winning my lane most of the time, due to the enemy Underestimating his damage. My favorite thing to do is at level 3 i use Q, AA twice, Use 1st W on a minion, Flash E, AA (3rd AA dealing about 1/4th of the enemy health at early game for some stupid reason) and use 2nd W.
I reached gold doing only that because people have no idea on how he works (I also have no idea how he worked and how he can have max HP heal with his W)
Gold is probably the peak of old Morde.
@@h1py Look up manute, he was main morde with 5 million mastery and got to challenger in EU server, i learned how to play it through him, he speaks spanish but if you look one of his videos you will see what the champ was capable of.
Fr :< when im damage i always W raptors to restore health, good times
Really wish they kept his R. I heard an argument that they needed to get rid of it because its so buggy but then they go and release viego. Also if it was because it was so buggy why not just make it so when you kill someone with the ult it summons a premade ghost thats used for every champ so it would be like yoricks maiden.
That could work call it a fallen legend maybe have one for mages, marksman and close range champs.
Riot: "We have to remove Morde ult it has too many bugs!"
Also Riot: *releases Viego*
I miss the old tin can...the old W was so much fun when you were playing with a friend who could engage with you and just put everything through the meat grinder before healing all the damage you took back, he also has a special spot in my heart because he was once the reason for a 50+ min ARAM I played which devolved into the old MK and a Veigar trying to kill each other while 8 other people died from collateral damage
ALSO BACK THEN, PENTAKILL MORDEKAISERS MACE STILL LOOKED LIKE A GUITAR
Played old one alot, around 100k. Started onetricking him when he got reworked and around 350k rn. I wish both types of mord could exist, because adc mord was the funniest shit ever. Tried playing him mid, like the now dead youtuber midmordekaiser but it just never worked for me, enemies legit died to me only if they *wanted* to die and went melee range as a squishy assasin/mage. But the new one has alot more ways to be played mid, so been onetricking that since. Things i miss is the stupendous damage and tankiness you would get if you get the chance, because the new one does not have that, the amount of times adc are able to facetank me if they buy immortal shieldbow+bloodthirster is just sad... All in all, the rework traded flat damage/tankiness for dps shread and some utility. There were also messages about riot minireworking him, to make him less of a statstick, but that was said REALLY long time ago by a rioter that no longer works at riot. There was also a reply by rioter in twitch chat when someone asked about that recently, which they just said they are working on it. Rn iam on copium that they are trully working on the minirework, and i will get back my infinite shields, and my favourite dragon pet back, in some way or form.
There's nothing wrong with new morde. He's better in every way. Perfectly balanced, and doesn't need any changes. There are several champions that do need changes. Why bother with Morde? He needs to just be left alone. If they keep changing champions it's only going to piss off the playerbase that likes the champion as it is.
@@1trevor30 i said i likr both, but it could be *better* what iam saying. And true, remove the last 30 champion from the game honestly, absolute monstrosities with a few outliers like vex.
@@1trevor30 I think mordekaiser's problem is the same as the old aatrox, they removed him from the game and created another new champ instead of updating the concept and skills
@@1trevor30 There's just no spice to him anymore, probably the dullest modern champion. Also those big pointy ears look stupid.
@@sonicwave779 spice? He just ran at you and hit E and tried to melee. He was the most basic thing in the world. His old W did not add any actual complexity..
I like how old League was basically just a bunch of references glued up together. Just like a lighthearted indie game.
Amazing video and well detailed. Old Morde player here. I remember I used to spam it back in 2015 after his bot lane nerfs and play him more in top lane. I had the most creative plays and crazy comebacks while being 0/5/0 and turning their enemy to a killing machine and hard loss. I play Morde in every lane, theory crafting multiple and versatile utility killing monster with ideas that I think nobody but true old morde players used to do. For instance, I used to play with Old morde and Yuumi and it was funny to get 5 kills in the first 5-6 minutes of the game. I rushed Swifties into raptors cloak, then Dmg item like Liandry's or Rylia's, and later Shurelya's. Throw my W on Yuumi while she is attached on me, run it down, and BONK them pretty quick under their tower. It was the best times of Old Morde players.
However, Morde was receiving no attention at all in updates. I believe the latest update was fixing the dragon AI ghost pretty much. Not everything was perfect for us, but we just love the imperfections of Old Morde and it grew on us with 140+ bugs (e.g Jhin's 4th bullet ghost). After the announcement of the rework, a lot of players were pretty pumped to see our pizza feet actually grow and be recognized, but it quickly got shifted to the wrong direction and became dull and less interactive the more games you play as Morde. See, the VGU was great in terms of character, but the satisfaction of playing HIM diminished like mist. No more pets, no more cool bonks, and the worst part was his ult being cleansed by an orange or others. It drove all of us nuts and impossible to play as. Many of us tried those famous theorycrafter builds from Old Morde, but it just doesn't feel right anymore due to his entire kit changed.
I'm still in the hopes and having feedback to any rework it happens to Mordekaiser. Same as my community and others will think too. I still play him because is the only reason I enjoy to play League.
perfect timing I just sat down on the toilet
this remind me about the Karma rework. I still think they oversimplified her kit during those years removing even more parts of her abilities (removing her aa/cd passive was the last nail in the coffin). She had a clear identity and her name was perfect for her old kit. In her current state you "spam Q" to "spam more Q". Even if people didn t noticed, Karma is one of the most mini revorked champ in the game.
I still have 'Traditional Karma' as a skin, but unfortunately never use it anymore, really not fond of how they changed her over the years.
Yooo! I was the Taric Staugroanoak, and my bro was the Morde PolarImmersion in the clip at 4:20!! Holy hell what a throwback!
I like current Morde a lot, but he suffers greatly from Riot's rework hell. I love old Morde far more than new Morde, and I agree on your take regarding Aatrox's rework murder. As outdated as these champs were, Udyr's more recent boom proves that these champs can still function and do well in a modern setting. I'm a huge Shyvana lover and I'm gonna shed many tears when she falls to rework hell, along with Skarner when his execution date is decided by the community.
All in all this video is a great highlight of Riot's awful reworks. Sure, they're adding a fresh new kit to play with, but its not worth deleting people's favourite champion for
comparing them to udyr is a bit unfair, that champ literally only has different flavours of auto attacks. pure numbers are all he needs to start doing well, or to fall off a cliff. aatrox and morde had more complicated mechanics that made them problems, either for being strong or weak
Ahh rework hell sound so nasty every one of the current rework are better version of the old exept for the old otp i love shyv and i play a lot of a shyv but a nice rework is welcome (i just hope i can still play her ad) the only reason every old aatrow main are mad is that they buffed him into a strong state before rework wich is rly weird voli feels more voli than ever mundo while being way to clean and groomed goes where he please fiddle is scary af morde is intimidating and i can go on
About your point of outdated and older champions still functioning and doing well these days:
Yes, while Udyr was really popular for quite a while, he once again dropped down to one of the champions with the lowest popularity, while having a 48% winrate after he was nerfed because he simply was just buffed too much. So I would really much argue that older champions still "do well or function" in a modern setting, as they either are very strong or pretty bad, there rarely is an in-between with these older kits. Champions with a one-dimensional design that boils down to a single thing they need to do simply is just not healthy design for the game or the champion themselves. Sticking to the Udyr example... what is his job? Running you down and autoattacking you until you do, that is ALL his kit does. His stats last season made him able to do that very well, but now, after his nerfs, its way harder for him to do his job anymore, so he is bad again.
And even at the point where udyr was able to do his job very well... I would still not argue that this is "doing well" because again, he either was able to get to you and deal with you by auto attacking you, OR was completely useless when the enemies knew how to counter that one thing he does, leaving him without any options.
I hope it is clear what I mean, I am pretty shitty at explaining such things.
But all I mean is that I think most of these "rework hell"-reworks just kinda need to be done because they are pretty unhealthy for the overall game otherwise. Either they are really good, or they are really bad.
Eh idk, shit like volibear and fiddle and pantheon and mundo were great reworks that didn't change much but added to them, we can hope it's like them there's no need to be pessimistic
@@lucasnadamas9317 Volibear changed a lot, it’s just the old Voli was so generic nobody remembered him
The juggernaut rework morde was so much more fun than the modern morde. You'd max your W and evertime the enemy would try to fight you you'd use it on a minion and after a while you'd pop it and you'd get healed for like 1/4th of your hp bar and the enemy would just mald uncontrollably because they underestimated the power of a good morde player.
Yessss!!
I liked doing that as well.
You had to know when to use and bait the enemy to fight near the minions.
With the current mord it's just "spam Q when in range while keeping control of the wave. E/R when you can get a kill".
Imo, a braindead champ
@@E_D___ Old morde was trash and relied heavily on things out of his control. He was a champ that was never played. Why would anyone want that back? He would be destroyed in this meta now more than ever. His abilities are necessary to keep up with the speed of the game. A skillshot to bring enemies towards him is exactly what he needed. His Q is like his old E but with more counterplay since it has a longer wind-up, and his ult is actually useful. His old ult was barely even an ultimate. It did so little damage and the spirit form you got wasn't super useful aside from taking towers. There's far more depth and use in the new ult.
@@1trevor30 no one said he didn't need changes, just that this one doesn't feel the same
@@1trevor30 no old mord ult have a lot of dame if he build full ap he one shot squishy enemy
@@E_D___ no shit it doesn't feel the same, its called a fucking rework for a reason
For those who never played, or played against, old Morde, check out the song "6v4" by Area of Defect. I still listen to it on occasion.
Here in the Hispanic Lol community we have a streamer called Manute, he used To be a Morde OTP before the rework, he even invented a strategy called "la Manutada" lol, Wich consisted on Morde Killing the Dragon, then using it to kill the Baron, yeah, a whole ass Kaiju fight on the Rift. After the rework he claimed Mordekaiser being "not as cool as before" and even tho he still plays the champion, he tends to reference old Morde every time he wants to point out a mechanic or ability that can make what may look like a bad champion into a unique fun character
I miss an old play style I used to do with my jungler, we called it "dragon tamer Mord" because we'd always hyper focus on dragon, get the soul pet, and run it mid for a kill or tower.
The escalating dread of getting hit by all three of a well fed 2nd Morde's Q. You can never replace that. That donk echoes.
Those panick flashes where hilarious
Really enjoyed the previous mordekaiser. Played so so so many games on him and really miss his unique kit. There was so many build paths to go depending on who you lane against in mid, top, or even jungle! So many people just called him bad without spending time to learn what to build, what runes, and what summoners to take. This updated mordekaiser is so one dimensional in comparison to his 2nd rework variant. I despise riot for what they did to my guy....
not many people have much IQ as old morde main and Riot know it. That why Morde is reworked.
The way how the W worked with the passive was so satisfying. The fact that you could get movementspeed, deal small damage and heal with the W made for some good baits in the botlane. I would play old morde as apc / adc and would bait many players into underestimating my damage and tankiness.
Les go my metal boy. Kinda prefer him right now, didn't played him much before.
So...Smite Ignite Mid Mord. Exp runes x3. Start E. @ old Wolves, Smite.
Walk into mid level 2 and push opponent off CS at wave 1.
Same.
Fun fact, the new ability names are ALSO referencing metal songs. I remember reading a post back when LOL Boards existed; a super dedicated Morde main was flown out to Riot HQ to beta test the rework, and suggested all the new names after different metal songs or bands, like grindcore band Obliterate.
season 5 was when I started playing and morde was my main all the way up until his most recent rework. I still miss it : (
It was pretty interesting history video!
I would love to play old Morde today. Dunno, how awesome or not it would be, but still. I really loved the old gameplay.
Thanks for the video, Cryo!
in his 2nd iteration, when they made W be able to target minions was the best moment for morde imo, really took the wave management practicing a lot easier since it was part of his kit then
I had mastery 7 on him and he was my second most played champion next to my 1 trick at the time Sona. When he got reworked I played about 5 games on him and could not stomach what they had done to him. Recently my Vi finally overtook Morde in Mastery points and it genuinely brought tears to my eyes.
Probably the most disappointing rework I ever experienced in a game, something fun and interesting that I genuinely loved was just replaced with something dull and unappealing. Pre rework as you said, you had to be creative, there were so many things that you could do or just be aware of playing him previously, but now, you just take conq, and that’s kinda your best option. Heck building tank and one or 2 ap items seems like the only way to play him in most cases, before you had abilities now he’s just a walking passive with a rubbish ult meant for fiora (it was an old concept they wanted on her, for some reason)
just his ult alone made morde require insane amounts of game knowledge, and then bam, "walk up, hit with stick, win."
I mained juggernaut rework mordekaiser in the top lane, and I don't much care for new mordekaiser. The biggest loss imo was the heal on his old w which was massively increased on champions, and since it was so short range it really rewarded you for scrapping with people and punished them for getting up close with you. It made for some really clutch moments too.
One thing rioters have thrown around as a possible change is swapping his W and passive in some way which imo would do a lot to bring him closer to old mordekaiser, but I don't think it will happen because current morde is getting enough play and there's not going to be a big push to change his kit in the foreseeable future.
I do agree with riot that old Morde was unhealthy, but I still miss him...
I really loved baiting enemies with the old morde, everything in his kit was just baiting people even more because no one played him.
His Q did A LOT of dmg on 3d hit, his passive shields and his W heals were the best things.
They come 2v1 on me at top because the enemy toplaner has been crying for 5 minutes + i've been purposely keeping myself low and then they jump on me, i heal to full with W and kill them.
I start pushing toplane and by 20 minute i am on the inhib tower 8/1 or something and they surrender. I didn't even use dragon kills as much had the most fun.
When they reworked him, i was sad but his rework very cool, so i didn't cry about it. I stopped playing him altogether though. Played him recently with the moonstone build, it's a weaker version of the previous but it's still fun.
Same man.
I just find his new version so boring
like I don't feel like I'm tricking them or anything like it felt like in old version
it just feels like I decided to kill them at some point and they can't do anything
Morde when he could cast his W on an ally and the both receive it was the best version of Morde. Some of my fondest memories of League are playing Morde mid and maxing my W. The enemy jungler would show up, and so I'd cast my W on a minion and stand next to it. I'd become incredibly tanky with the bonus armor and MR due to maxing W, I'd generate a ton of shield due to hitting two enemy champions AND an entire minion wave with 2 W's, and I'd be doing a ton of damage because I was hitting them with both W's. When they first reworked him I stopped playing ranked and would only play the occasional game, and then when they reworked Swain I quit the game completely.
I had mastery 7 on the previous morde. Him and wukong were my fav champs and rito turned them into completely different things so I kinda gave up on lol because of that.
Old morde was super fun for me though. The jank was part of the appeal. He had so many absurd ways to pressure enemies in lane and could legit go bot if you felt like it, really there was no other champ in the game that played like him.
Really liked the old counter part as you can come up with ways to sneak around or chase enemies. It helped me a lot in improving my vision control and overall game sense. I still love every version, but it does feel sad to think I can't play Pokemon trainer again.
I remember playing hundreds of games on 2015 Mordekaiser back in the day, controlling the dragon to force a lane with my team, probably one of my favourite champions, fun times. New Morde is still pretty cool imo though.
Great video as always.
I got into playing Mordekaiser in S8
Was beacuse of Mid Mordekaiser i found randomly on YT and i was enjoying he's content
(Now he quit league)
same
So many metal song refrences omg!
Old mord was a huge metalhead
My favorite strat was top Morde on the 2nd iteration. Play to secure Herald, then beeline it to drag. If you can get your team to cooperate you can 5 man it down mid and take inhib or even a nexus tower before 15 minutes. In high gold/low plat teams would just shatter at that point, and with Morde's XP bonus you always came ahead of your lane opponent once the shove was over
I got M7 with old Mordekaiser. He was the first champion I saw (this in season 3) and thought "I want to play with him". I played a lot of the Juggernaut Rework Morde, but this was after all the nerfs. He was really fun imo and the amount of builds you could do were insane. I remember locking him and my team decided to go full AP and began bitching and I just said "Don't worry, I'll do AD" and it worked perfectly. I love current Morde, specially because of his quotes but I would prefer to play with the old one without a single doubt
Mordekaiser was the first and still is the only main I ever had, the new one is so boring I just can't bring myself to play, just mastery is left, that and sadness
Old morde was one of the champions that i had most pentakills, it was kinda nice dude to play. I confess hes apearance in game was nothing with the splash art, since a MEGATRON JUGGERNAUT looked like a broken tuna can lol. The dragon was really satisfying to play with, but i can deny i pretty much love this guy we have now. This new Mordekaiser makes us really fell POWERFUL, specially when we kill someone in the deathrealm and the enemies just see that raid boss and think "oh shit". Anyway, thanks for the video, Cryo. Very nice series, specially for people who weren't there in League's old school days :)
i only learned on new morde and i do enjoy him fundamentally as a champion. he is still a huge, slow-moving monster that is indestructible. the only thing he lacks is the original set of abilities he once had, but you can see where they tried to incorporate some of it and keep some of it. his rework also changed who and what he was into something fundamentally scarier, and it's widely accepted across the community that mordekaiser alone could take pretty much any champion except possibly aurelion sol.
The "1!.... 2!!.... 3!!!" thing on the Q was so goofy, i loved it
Hey what a timing, I can watch that while I get carried in Risk of Rain because I die every stage KEKW
OwO
Risk of Rain is awesome
@@Vogelchen OwO
Mordekaiser: "I am the embodiment of heavy metal references"
Rell: "Was."
I agree with you mate I loved the old morde especially when you could just press r on the adc and watch them burn with summon aery
Mord: *Casts a powerful spell of dark magic, pulling his victim into a pocket dimension where no one can hear their screams as they are killed.*
Gangplank: “Mmm. Yummy Orange 😊.”
"The skill of Mordekaiser was getting the shield" That just means hitting your abilities, you're just wording it differently. Old Morde was a 1 note champion, back when they made incredibly simple characters.
He was unique and special, now he's just a ap Darius.
Mid Mordekaiser made some good points about Mordekaiser. They really should tweak the numbers again to allow him to build different items.
I can’t say anything about old Morde as I only started playing after his rework, but man do I love everything about New Morde. His design, his VA work, his lore, it’s all top notch. And I like simple yet powerful champs so he was a natural fit as a main. I understand what was lost, and I understand those who are sad about it, but like I said, I can’t miss what I never had.
I had enough fun with the first Morde, but I actually really enjoyed the Juggernaut rework Morde as someone who mostly plays ARAMs, even after the nerfs. Landing the third bonk was absolutely one of the -best- feelings in League of Legends even if it was kinda goofy. The combo of the CLANG noise with the huge number always felt great. He still had that "nobody actually knows what he does" feeling after the nerfs too so a lot of people would horribly underestimate him like any of the other Nemesis Draft usuals. The ghosts of some lategame champs were insanely powerful sometimes. I remember picking up a Leona ghost one game that effectively helped me 2v4 while the rest of the team respawned due to the sheer number of stats she had.
I do like new morde too but he doesn't quite gel the same. I'm much more ready to reroll him when I get him rather than hold on to him despite my friends all telling me not to like the old ones. I don't mind the pull honestly since I do kinda feel like juggernauts need at least one kind of "You're not getting away from me" spell to be able to stick to some of the more slippery characters in modern league, and Brazil is a really fun ult. I get why the HP costs are gone but I kinda wish they'd put them back on him in exchange for maybe a bit more oomph to his tankiness or his burst. If reworked Aatrox didn't have it I'd even say make his Q a 3-hit combo again because honestly I really miss the feeling of the buildup and smash it had.
Both of the old Mordekaisers had much more depth are were much more fun than the current.
as a Reworked Mordekaiser main, since I started playing after the update was released, I did not expect original mordekaiser to have so many similarities
So they mixed the original with the first rework... cool!
Fantastic video!
The last version of Morde is what got me into League. He had such a good default splash art, had a lot of condescending and cool voice lines, and he was a far more expressive champion than he is now. I now main support because they took him out of the game. Thanks fucking Riot
New Morde lore, absolutely amazing, New Morde gameplay however is about as fun as watching a full game of golf, you just want to bang your head into the floor.
New Mordekaiser certainly feels more satisfying to play and overall feels more like a package of a kit, while his old kit was just 3 independant abilities co-existing, HOWEVER! Death Realm is probably the most boring ultimate in the entire game that he has no condition for using it sits very wrong with me.
I understand that the ghost has caused isshues, but him adding the sould of an enemy to his army is just much more fun and fitting that whatever this ultimate is.
Very true, I think death realm just slows down the pace of his kit, especially by late game. It's just not good synergy, but hey, it's fun screwing the enemy adc over when you send them to die in brazil ):D
His whole kit is boring dude, his Q and E are boring and telegraphed skills, his W is literally a HUUGE downgrade from his old W same thing for his passive, his old ult was one of the most unique ults in the whole game, the amount of different interactions that it had was insane, not only the dragon but every champion with a passive on autos interaction now you press R to auto win things or you press R to see people running from you, pressing zhonyas, flashing walls and using qss or just beating you 1v1
His problems are literally the same, no mobility low cc or none, but old mordekaiser at least used to heal your team and could resolve his range problems with a adc or dragon ghost, new mordekaiser doesn't bring nothing to the table, only forcing you to buy qss
The death realm is just a copy of revenants ultimate from paragon. The only reason he has it is because somebody at riot saw it and thought it was cool. Now he’s stuck with an ultimate he shouldn’t even have instead of his dragon.
@@giovanni5954 of course they're telegraphed, telegraphed skills are actually fair and are allowed to do more than they would otherwise, it makes perfect sense for a juggernaut to have abilities that hit like a truck that also come out on the slow side, there's nothing inherently wrong with telegraphing
Ah The Doritos feet...Good days, good days...
Hey, old morde main, had around 600k on the second version. I really miss playing the old one for the reasons you explained: new one is just too simple. Altough old morde's abilities were "basic" on surface, they had depth and it felt satisfying to have success with a champ that even riot wanted the playerbase to forget about. New morde has nearly no "tricks" to him besides using your E to pull enemies away from you when trying to live (which is the only good thing in his new version imo). As for the art, I think riot did a really good job with the new one, especially the VO.
I loved maining old Morde. Literally the best 2v1 champ top lane has ever and will ever see. You might not have had mobility, but that's because you dared the energy jingler to show up starting level 2.
if i remember correctly, riot asked the community what they wanted to keep from old morde. the old R won by a long shot and it obviously didn't matter. also, apparently his new R is supposed to be something they have planned for fiora... fantastic work from riot games. thanks for making this "perfectly fine if you master it" champion where you could build whatever you wanted if you knew what you were doing to a streamlined one-dimensional mess that gets hard countered by a 1300 gold item. this rework made me go from top 300 mordekaiser in LAS to never playing it again
Yes you were correct. And after the poll they promised to keep the ult. Maybe rework it somewhat but keep the part where you enslave them if you kill them under your curse . But riot said f**k you and didn't the opposite. Stating it was to buggy to keep in the game. And then they go ahead and release viego.... Nice work riot. At least we know they do it all for money and not the people behind the money
"You only have to click once, FOOL"
unpopular opinion: I like new morde more than old morde
yeah ghosts were cool and all, but at the end of the day old morde was a mess both to balance and keep up, being the most bugged champ ever made
it also felt like a "spoonfed to win or play 4v5" champ (also known as "AD Kog syndrome") with his extreme melee playstyle and his inherent snowball when taking kills or dragon
the only things I don't like about new Morde is how poorly W and R are designed: W is just a pseudo Thick Skin that lives in denial, making you recast the ability for no good reason, and R feels so underwhelming that makes his own name a punchline, even if in practice is a better skill than most people give it credit for... I mean why the afterlife can be escaped with a fancy piece of cloth (or worse, an orange)? And why the ability goes on FULL CD when it happens? Why there are bushes in the D E A T H realm? Why Morde doesn't have true vision IN HIS FCKING REALM to begin with? W H Y ?
the only thing worse than this (in removing skill/ identity of champion) was the aatrox rework.
New Aatrox uses w: if it hits you go in and use q on a slowed target with telegraphed movement, if it misses you continue spamming q into the wave.
Old Aatrox had you actually manage ur bloodwell prior to a fight, decide which w binus u want during a trade. The addition of skillshots made him just an easier, mid range riven.
Was an OTP old Morde, even made a smurf to just play him in ranked anywhere possible. My favorite lane was bot with an engage-tanky support, you waited for lvl3 then stomped them, went to drake, destroy a tower mid or bot. His old R was so satisfying when you could get it on a fed ad champion, just looking at him killing all his teammates. Healed you like hell with his w and hextech gunblade. Man I miss him so much, it was so gratifying winning with him...
Bro I remember all of this like it was just last week.
Man time moves on so fast.
I gotta say that I love that all of the original abilties and passive are song title references
I used to play Mordekaiser 2 daily, it was the most fun I had with the game
My fave thing about 2015 Morde is that he had a little auto counter whenever his Q was running. It gives the game away a little if you're charging on krugs and jumping out of a bush, but I can see why it's helpful for accessibility purposes
I've been loving this series ! Keep it up ! I would love to see one on my old favourite boy , swain !
Ah.. I loved so much the old Mordekaiser, the first Mordekaiser. Thank you for the nostalgia!
Hue Hue Hue.
I wonder how old and older morde would play. I only played Graves back in the day, quit the game for a full 8 or more years and came back and enjoyed Morde...
Great Video as always Cryo, keep it up!
I hope the new melee bot lane carry champion coming out later this year reuses a lot of lost concepts from the juggernaut version of morde
well this didn’t age well…
Man i use to love old mord, got him to mastery 7, then the rework droped and i played him a dozen times since.
Rip in peace, sweet prince.
Morde rework was the only one I was salty about at the time, I played him top, around 150 games and lost lane twice, both times against pre-rework-yorick. With DFG there was pretty much nothing that would stop me from bursting enemy laners to death. Good memories, I would like to play this version of him once more.
You forgot to mention what was for me the most significant part of Mordekaiser version 2: at release, his Q was the single highest burst ability in the game. At release, his Q3 didn't deal double damage, it dealt NINE TIMES the damage of the first one. At level 7, you could flash + Q3 some adc at botlane for 70% of their health without any items. That plus the fact that his W was one of the strongest heals in the game when hitting at least 2 people.
I played the heck out of him until they nerfed his Q to turn him into a DPS champion instead of a burst one, so much so that he is still my most played champion to this day, even though I barely touch him nowadays. Those were the good times.
Middle Morde was one of my favorites. Getting that third-proc Q on full AP and just absolutely BOOPING a squishy into oblivion
Cool vid, you missed some details about his post-Juggernaut update iteration though.
The initial Q release had insane ratios at max rank, where it's base damage started as pitiful on the first Q, then tripled for the next, then tripled again for the third. It went from 20 + 20%AP + 30% AD to 180 + 180% AP + 270% AD scaling for the third hit. So once you got a few levels on Morde you basically used your first two Qs on the wave then threatened to Flash Q the enemy ADC and kill them in a single hit. This ability had a 4 second CD.
This whole play pattern meant that Morde was nearly permabanned through S5 worlds, banned in 68/73 games, played in 4/73, and left alone in 1/73. GP was the only other champ like this, also reworked around the same time but in 5.14 instead of 5.16, he was banned in 69/73 games and picked in 4/73.
The initial rework of Morde was locked in to bot lane, since the bonus exp scaling was insane, and your W only targeted allied champions, so going into a solo lane meant you lost a basic ability while laning. Given Morde was previously a top/mid lane champion, getting suddenly locked into bot upset his entire playerbase pretty much. This was eventually fixed in patch 6.1 when Morde W could target minions again, but basically resulted in a pretty degenerate top lane playstyle, since while W had a delay on reactivation to get the damage, it popped instantly when the target it was on died (giving the burst of damage and healing, even if you weren't in range to get the DoT portion of the skill activated), meaning you would cast it whenever a melee champion cs'd a minion with an AA and they wouldn't be able to retaliate or avoid it in anyway. Of course, this was when I got super into top Morde myself.
God I miss old Morde top lane.
What is funny is that they use again some of old spells of all the champ that did get a rework.
The W of Swain was kindly given to Yorick, the ghost made with the R of Morde was given to Lissandra's passive... There are some examples.
I miss old mordekaiser, both renditions. I used to play him as a burst mage with dfg then left him for a while, later I tried ADC mordekaiser and stuck to it till the rework. My friend and I managed to push through ranked really well with mord Rakan having the dumbest sustain imaginable. He would tell me when he's looking for a trade and made sure my W was up, when he got my W he would dash in and do a small trade before I pop the heal then he comes back, or he would stay, I would get the move speed buff from W, slow then with rylais and pop shuelia to catch up to them bonking them with q as the all in. I would try sit back and trade damage with them taking an auto and maybe a skill shot for my E hitting them and the entire minion wave meaning most of the damage went to my metal instead. My absolute favourite interaction was ghost tower dives though. Mordekaiser's ghost was coded in a weird way where they weren't classified as pets since they were champions meaning tower wouldn't target them immediately, but damage from the ghost was coded as damage from mordekaiser. This means if the ghost hits the enemy under tower while there are minions, the game will tell the turret to try target mord and if he's not in tower range it would continue targeting minions. This led to many players claiming that turret agro was broken
old mordekaiser was the reason i peak masters at 150 lp. It was very unusual for me as a mord main to see my champ being picked and banned in every game after the rework. This finally made me a productive member of society (I quit league after the rework).
I started playing league fairly recently and I fell in love with mordekaisers design but I'm still so sad that I will never experience old morde
When I first played lol, it was back on 2019 only and it's bc of how Mordekaiser's design caught my attention. It was really cool... for me and for some for sure.
Mace of spades… creeping death… this are al metal references and I’m all in for it
I played the old Mordekaiser. Even though he was really bad and I rarely won with him, I loved playing him; mostly in the jungle, getting the dragon as early as possible. It's not that I don't like the new Mordekaiser, it's just that the only thing iconic about him is his ult, whereas the old Mordekaiser is iconic as a whole.
I love that you mentioned his old ability names are references to metal bands. I was waiting for this from before I clicked the video. :D
I loved playing the 2nd mord midlane. His wave clear was insane and allowed me to roam to dragon to pick up a soul. Have the dragon solo push bot while I push mid or took hareld with the team. I also loved how you could use w on your own minions. It would be smaller tho, unless it was on a cannon. It would be fucking massive on the dragon as well. The heal on w would work on minions and I would use it to try and deny cannons as they would be burst healed for just a bit more than they could do damage. Hella nostalgia watching this
I greatly miss old Mord. His third Q was more satisfying because you had to build up to it, his W required at least *some* thought process and the healing felt rewarding because you had to use it correctly to make sure you hit a champion. I think what bothers me the most however is the removal of his old passive.
Having what is essentially omnivamp but you gain shields instead of HP, and LOSING hp in order to gain the shield, meant that you were conceptually killing yourself for temporary power, much like a power-hungry tyrant of the Shadow Isles would. Additionally, shields have unique interactions in league that simple life steal does not (such as you recall won't be interrupted by damage if all damage taken is soaked by a shield). Now however, rather than directly converting damage into shield, you just have a shield button. That decays.
It's so much more obvious about when to correctly press W that there's no longer any thought process to be had. Overall, we lost a unique - albeit clunky - champion and received yet another stat stick.
P.S. Don't even get me started on the unique interactions of having a ghost that Sylas/Viego don't even come close to replicating
I never played old morde but I love current morde. There's something so satisfying about being the juggernaut that runs towards the enemy team and actively kills them jusr for standing near them
this is actually a really cool series, would love to see one on irelia
The most interesting thing i saw during this video was OLD Sion. I miss you buddy
I started league a month before the mord rework and my friends warned me not to play him cuz they knew I'd like him, I did, then was disappointed immensely at his rework.
I wish you mentioned how busted pre 5.23 Morde’s Q was. It was triple damage for the third, and I remember the Gunblade Trinity Force Steraks and Nashors build being all you needed for a 3rd Q to one shot any squishy.
Morde rework was one of the best ones. From a chunky metal overpushed walking stick to a true Lord of Death. Voice lines, visuals, abilities, everything is right about him now.
Mordekaiser my sweet prince, my one and only beloved. Taken from me too soon.
I'll never forget playing League with my cousin not long after Morde was reworked. He just bough him and we were getting demolished by a fed Garen. Then one teamfight he just sent him to Brazil, killed him, took all his stats and a big shutdown and carried.
Old morde was so unique and gave a lot of variety of builds, I always use him as support and I didn't just help my team but kick ass soloing the enemy team with their adc as my adc