Play Video I've been a League of Legends player ever since the 6th Season, with me maining and learning the game through Darius. Right now I am a Darius Onetrick with Mordekaiser being my reliable second pick. My main is usually somewhere in Master/Grandmaster on the EUW server. I have peaked high Master before the end of Season 9 after which point I could no longer play properly due to my PC being broken. Season 10 I played well for a bit more than the first month and peaked Top 400 (almost Challenger). At the moment, I constantly swap between accounts but I will be making the run for high elo again. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me through the Discussions section of this guide, through private messages on MobaFire, through my stream or through any of my socials which I will link below.

Here are my op.gg links(the ones that aren't banned):
https://euw.op.gg/summoner/userName=Rh%CF%8Cku
http://euw.op.gg/summoner/userName=Rhoku

I do not wish to claim that I am some amazing high elo god by putting my opgg and all these plays here. I simply want to provide SOME credibility to this guide. Know that you are receiving advice from a person with enough game knowledge to give you good advice. Though I am more so known for my Darius, Mordekaiser has been my secondary pick ever since he was reworked and I am able to play him at a high level due to how similar the two champions are. I've seen cases where someone picks Mordekaiser, thinking he is an easy champ to play, only for them to fail miserably as they don't know a thing about the character. Mordekaiser is not the most difficult champion ever but you do need extensive knowledge of the matchups and whatnot in order to play him effectively. Learning Mordekaiser gives you a very powerful pick for Toplane.

If you wish to add me ingame, here are my usernames:
Rhόku(EUW)
Rhoku(EUW)
King Rhoku(NA)
very creative aren't they

For now, I exclusively play on the EUW server. I have an NA smurf but I am not actively playing on it at the moment. I apologise if I am rude to you. I am sometimes just tilted. However, do not let that discourage you from asking any question that you might have. I really enjoy teaching newer Darius players. You are also free to add me if you want to download some of my games. I will be playing more seriously once the season starts.

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgFs4nq79tvdbFtAkthvSQ

Here is my Youtube Channel. I don't have a regular schedule at all, as I only put videos on there when I can be bothered to make them. I'll mostly be uploading plays, guides and memes. Right now I only have Darius videos up but I’ll try to make a Mordekaiser guide soon. Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Twitch

https://www.twitch.tv/rhokutv

Here is my Twitch account. I stream there every now and again and I have linked it to this guide so you will know whenever I am live. At that point, feel free to come on and ask me questions live at any point in time. I stream mostly around midnight GMT.

Twitter

https://twitter.com/rhokutv

A while ago I was talked into opening a Twitter account so here it is. I mostly just post low quality Darius memes, make unfunny/rude jokes and screw around with my friends. If this method is convenient for you, then feel free to DM me on there.
_{If you are sensitive to certain topics/dislike edgy humour, then I suggest not visiting my Twitter.}

Discord

https://discord.gg/QYZqT3b

Here is the Discord Channel for my stream where all of my content will be announced. I will always be on there all the time so you may contact me through there as well. I'd like to see you come and be a part of the community I am trying to build.
These are all the socials that I check regularly. I'd link more but honestly, some are just a waste of time as I am almost never on. Enough about me then. Let us begin.

Primary Tree

Precision

Precision offers you power in many areas that other trees simply cannot compare against. It is so good that by taking anything else, you are losing out. For Keystones, Conqueror allows you to scale much better and be a lot stronger in all fights. It also is vital a lot of the time early game to the point where if you are fighting someone with Conqueror when you yourself don’t have Conqueror, you are at a disadvantage. It, when combined with other healing runes, will give you a considerable amount of spell vamp which, on top of your shield, makes you very tough to kill.

There is no debate or question over which one is the best here. The other runes don’t work and Triumph is honestly the most powerful rune in the game if you don’t count keystones.

For the most part, you want to go for Tenacity. You do not need attack speed or lifesteal. And as an immobile juggernaut, CC will be your worst enemy.

Take Last Stand as it is MUCH better. It increases your damage so much more than Coup de Grace. I’ve had points where I’ve had thousands of more damage given to me by this rune. And all that extra damage translates into more shields, more lifesteal and etc.

Secondary Tree

Domination

Taste of Blood is very good for Mordekaiser. The long range of his Q lets him use it for sustain within lane. The amount of HP gained scales with AP as well which means it scales to a degree. It is mostly important in lane though.

Ravenous Hunter, combined with Conqueror, makes you a healing monster that lets you heal up quite a bit in fights. It also lets you heal off of minion waves while clearing them which is very useful. Though your abilities being aoe makes it not heal so much, it does ramp up once you get it stacked off of a single teamfight to the point where your healing becomes insane. Domination is definitely the way to go if you are playing aggressively.

Resolve

You mostly want Bone Plating here. It does well into the champions Mordekaiser does badly against. Second Wind is an option but Bone Plating is definitely the way to go. Try not to get poked and have it be easily dealt with though.

Revitalize is the go to here. It buffs your shields and your healing which gives you much more sustain. And into combat lanes, the 15% boost in shield will comein handy when low HP.

Sorcery

Nimbus Cloak is very fun for Mordekaiser. This basically lets you just run up to people with the movespeed it provides and it lets you basically catch people in your Rylai slows, even if you miss E. Definitely a great combo with Ghost and Ignite as they have lower cooldowns.

Overall, you mostly want to go for Celerity out of these three if you want to have all of your movespeed amplified. Mordekaiser can benefit quite a bit from this rune if you are running Ghost. With no mobility spells, you will mostly be relying on superior movespeed to catch up to people.

Stats

You mostly want to go this setup as the Armor will also be helping you against the a lot of the bruisers and fighters Toplane. You can change it to MR if you need to fight AP opponents.

STARTING ITEMS

FIRST BACK

EARLY RUSH

ITEM CORE

AP ITEM POOL

TANK ITEM POOL

As an early game lane bully, this period of the game is going to be the most important one. Mordekaiser spikes very hard during early-midgame fights where nobody has the damage to burst him down. Gathering a lead in lane will allow for you to be the main carry of your team up until the very end of the lategame. The most important thing you need to know going into the laning phase is the matchup. How does it play out? Are you up against a Sion who you can endlessly bully? Or are you against a Vayne who will be harder to deal with. Take a look at the matchups in order for adjustments to your playstyle. As Mordekaiser, if a melee enemy mispositions in the first level, you can very easily cheese an amazing trade of them as most people underestimate Morde early. But this is only against bad players though. In general, you want to be playing very carefully, as some champions who are supposed to be easy to beat, are actually difficult to play around during the first 2 levels. One tip that I can give you is to utilise Honeyfruit. It is the green plant that spawns in the river, which will drop 5 fruits that you can collect for HP and Mana. In our case only health. Once you push a wave onto the enemy turret, you have a bit of time on your hands which you should use to ward up your brushes. You can also use this time to look for a Honeyfruit if you took a bad trade in lane, want to sustain up but don't want to use your Health Potion. Their spawning is somewhat RNG but generally, the first Honeyfruit spawns between 6:00 and 6:30 somewhere near the Baron Pit.

Jungle Pressure

Although shoving the wave is great for getting lane priority, you have to keep in mind that junglers LOVE ganking Mordekaiser, especially before level 6. And as a toplaner, you have to accept that you are on your own, as good junglers in soloque are rare to come by. Fighting a 2v1 is very difficult as it requires you to have knowledge about both your enemy laner AND how powerful the enemy jungler is (a Kayn will be free food compared to an Olaf). Your ultimate makes fighting off jungle ganks easier but once you get fed enough, you can win 2v1s very easily regardless. Before getting ahead, fighting off ganks is just risky and I’d just recommend trying to avoid ganks. Do not shove your lane in too hard. It is even better if you let the enemy push to you. Try to keep your bushes warded. I have a very basic image in the warding section where I have the warding positions but I will release a warding guide video out sometime. Generally speaking, once you get level 2, keep in mind that the enemy junglers might be wanting to gank you so adjust your playstyle to be more passive if you think that the jungler is on your side of the map.. Some junglers like Twitch, Jarvan IV and etc, like to gank you IMMEDIATELY after doing their red buff so keep an eye out for those.


The first 10 minutes of the video cover how to track enemy Junglers. The rest of the video has many more tips on other topics. Play Video

Tough Matchups

Some matchups are just tough and impossible to beat sometimes. That is okay. Remember that Mordekaiser still spikes midgame, and is super useful in teamfights regardless of whether you are fed or not. Just try to play safe. IT IS OKAY TO GIVE UP CS FOR HP. A lot of players glorify the usefulness of CS and while it is true that simply farming better can win you more games, what ISN’T true is that you should be tunnel visioning on CS. Is getting that cannon minion really worth having half of your HP being chunked out? Because most of the time, it isn’t. The general rule of thumb that I use is that if you take less than around 80-100(a single autoattack) damage for every CS, it was worth it. If you take ANY more damage, then it wasn’t worth it. So do not put yourself in a position where you just eat an entire combo and have the enemy laner chase you down with their ranged Autoattacks. Farm up to get your items ( Ninja Tabi]) and once you get your hands on them, try to see whether you can kill them or not. Even if you can’t kill them, you should still be looking to farm safely so that you have the strength to contribute to mid game teamfights. If you are in a favourable matchup though, just try to keep a good amount of CS. (7-8 CS per minute is okay)

Mid Game Playstyle

The midgame is arguably the most important part of the game and most of the time, it is when the game is on its way to finish as overall game length has been very low lately. The length of a game gets lower the higher up the ranks you go, as people tend to be better at closing games out and knowing what to do with leads. The midgame is when Mordekaiser spikes the hardest. As long as you haven’t died more than 5 times in lane, you should be one of the key players for your team so keep focus. And even if you did feed, getting multiple kills in a single teamfight can get you back into the game so you should always keep your eyes open.

Mid game is all about snowballing the lead you accumulated through the laning phase into a win. Your biggest priority should be taking down your opponent’s first turret but that alone isn’t enough to win you games. The tricky part of this stage is balancing how much time you spend pressuring you are going to do toplane together with how much time you spend getting kills and/or objectives around the map. I myself play primarily around Top and Midlane, as I tend to regularly go back up top to farm, pressure my opposing laner AND to protect my own turret. This is simply my playstyle though. Sometimes, conceding your toplane t1 turret is worth it for a triple kill, a turret and a drake botlane. For example, if the enemy bot looks like they are pushing up, it might be a good idea to go back and then use TP to gank botlane. Speaking of which, USE YOUR TELEPORT TO MAKE PLAYS AND SUPPORT YOUR TEAM AROUND THE MAP. You almost always have to be there for the elemental dragons as they are another win condition on top of Baron now so it is always a good thing to keep the bottom side of the map in mind. If you use more than 1 teleport to get back into your own lane, you are wasting it. Don’t be too hesitant to use the summoner though. Rift Herald is also a powerful objective so if you get ahead early, take it with your jungler or even alone if you aren’t afraid of the enemy 2v1ing you. If a fight at dragon breaks out and you are too far away to impact it, you can continue to push down the enemy T2 with the Herald. But you mostly want to use Herald in order to take down the mid turret.

Work with your Mid and your Jungler to 3 man the enemy midlaner and knock the turret down. The rest of it just comes naturally. But you HAVE to make sure to go back toplane to take the CS that your opposing toplaner has inevitably pushed to your turret. If they are taking your turret, then go kill them. The examples I’ve explained here vary greatly from moment to moment. Sometimes, the enemy laner is so strong that you won’t have the lane pressure to take the enemy turret down. In situations like these, it might be better to continue pushing or to go help your team if you think that your laner will be able to destroy your team without you. It is all about the specific situation and it is up to you and your knowledge of Macro to pick the correct decision.

Mid game is when teamfights occur most often and it is also when you could start splitpushing. Before we get into these concepts, there are a few more things that you should know. One of these things is the importance of your summoner spells. You might’ve noticed that after playing a bunch of Mordekaiser, WITHOUT your Flash, you can’t really do much to the enemy backline. This is why it is better to save your flashes for big teamfights instead of solo kills. Sometimes, devastating a backline is worth more than killing the same guy the 5th time. Know when to keep your Flash as you WILL need it. It is up to you to decide really. Just be aware of your limits as a Mordekaiser who has no summoner spells as overstepping into your own death. Another key tip is to NOT DIE. Seriously. Dying throws away such a massive gold and XP lead. If you just focus on not dying and you keep farming properly, you will eventually build up a 3-4 level advantage over the entire enemy team, especially in low elo. This is how some toplane smurfs win games in lower elos without revealing themselves by crushing the game with 20 kills. That is not to say that it is ALWAYS bad to die. But it is just bad MOST of the time. With how bounties work recently, if you have a lead, then the game is going to slap a bounty on you which will make death even more punishing.


Here is a Coaching video from me which explains a lot of concepts at once. Play Video

Teamfighting

Teamfights in most elos are a chaotic mess where nobody really knows what’s going on. And that includes you at times. To keep focus in teamfights and not do stupid things, you have to, first off, clear your head when a teamfight is coming up. Concentration is key. The next thing is to establish what your goals for a teamfight are. What is your role for this current game? Are you acting as a peeler where you will be sticking to your carry, stopping everyone from getting to them, melting assassins and divers who step forward? Are you a tank frontliner who will be the one engaging and facing the enemy tanks, taking the brunt of the focus from the enemy? Or are you a squishy yet dangerous threat to the enemy backline who can use his summoner spell or careful flanks to decimate the enemy backline? Whatever your goals are, keep them in mind but do not adhere to them too much. It is a dynamic game and sometimes, unpredictable things can happen. Do not tunnel vision too much. Know when to switch targets and know who is the biggest threat on the enemy team that you must take out. Keep a general overview of how the fight is going. And if it looks like you guys are all gonna die, it might be better to fall back and mitigate the losses.

Splitpushing

Splitpushing is one of the most powerful tactics that you can utilise as a strong dueling champion. A lot of bruisers, including Mordekaiser, fall into this category which means that it is something you can do too. It is quite difficult to do properly due to Mordekaiser having low mobility and it is done improperly by most people in general. Splitpushing teaches you a LOT about Macro and how the game works. Mastering this skill is going to essentially give you a free ticket to high Diamond/Master if you combine it with other skills.

What is Splitpushing?

Splitpushing is basically when you move to a side lane(preferrably one that is on the opposite side of the map when compared to the major objective that’s available, e.g. botlane when Baron, toplane when Elder Dragon.) and then start clearing waves in order to create pressure. This puts the enemy team into an awkward position as they are forced to deal with both you and your team. Although you might have fantasies of pulling off a crazy 1v3 and taking a turret and an inhibitor by yourself, most of the time, splitpushing is just going to be used to waste the enemy team’s time and resources so do not be too sad if you do not get anything when splitting. Just make sure that you do not die. I mentioned this already but dying is not great for you at all, so if the choice is to die but take 2 people down with you OR to retreat but waste people’s time, go for the safer option. Splitpushing is dangerous because it is a very risky strategy. It essentially gives you control of the game. This also means that if you lose the game, then it was probably because you ****ed up and didn’t rotate to your team for a teamfight.

When should you Splitpush?

Knowing when it's a good time to splitpush and when its a good time to group up with your team is purely based on your specific game. Splitpushing might be worse against a team with a hard engage but it might also be the only way to win against a team with a crazy amount of waveclear with champions like Anivia. There are just general conditions that, when checked, will most likely lead to split pushing being a good idea. The biggest thing when it comes to splitpushing is to make sure that your teammates can handle a 4v4 or not get crushed in a 4v5. If you know that your team will get slaughtered if you leave them alone, then do not splitpush. As Mordekaiser, you should be looking to stomp and carry teamfights in the Mid Game, with you taking objectives afterwards. Splitpushing should mainly be a consideration for Lategame where your teamfighting is weaker but your 1v1 is still strong. Just make sure that your team can at the very least waveclear and SURVIVE in a 4v5. You should also only be splitpushing if you have the damage to easily clear the wave. Splitpushing is also MUCH easier to do when you have Teleport. With Ghost or Ignite, although you can be very dangerous against anybody who comes to stop you, you won’t be there for your team if they get caught out without Teleport. This part is pretty self explanatory but please make sure that you can reliably beat anybody on the enemy team before splitpushing. You do not want to be a free kill. It also helps to take a few wards with you and upgrade your ward to the blue trinket in order to keep sight of the enemy and leave before they collapse on you. Sorry to repeat this but it SUCKS to DIE. DON’T DIE. One more thing to keep in mind is to communicate what you are trying to do to your team. Let them know that you are going to split push and tell them to not pick fights when you aren’t there, but also tell them to force things when the enemy team is starting to rotate to you. You ideally don’t have to explain all this if they know what splitpushing is. But it IS soloq afterall...

There are multiple things you can do while splitpushing. As I mentioned before, you want to be wasting your enemies’ time as your own team gets objectives/a better position on the map. You basically want to draw people to you and then quickly run away before they can get to you in order to waste their time. It is simple, it doesn’t require you to be too fed and is what you should be doing if the enemy that is protecting the turret against you is not someone you can dive. Be careful when doing this against champions like Camille who can EASILY trap you. My personal favourite thing to do is to use splitpushing in order to split up the enemy team, and then flank the rest of the enemy team to get a very easy and a favorable teamfight OR have your team catch someone off on a rotation as the enemy team will be disorganised from having to move around the map. If you are fed enough to dive and kill whomever is sent to defend against you then do so by all means and then take the turret. This is the last time I’ll repeat this but seriously. DON’T DIE.


Apologies for not being able to use my own video. NEACE is great at explaining this concept and if the above text is not doing the job, then watch the video below. A splitpushing guide is not really on my to do list atm unfortunately. Play Video

If you haven’t carried the game to a victory by now, know that it is no longer up to you to win the game. Mordekaiser is by no means a weak lategame champion but most carries and mages will have the damage to just oneshot you so you don’t even have the time to kill them, regardless of whether you use your ultimate or not. Although a more tanky build will allow you to do more than a build with more damage, you will get shredded to bits either way by the enemy backline. You have to work with your teammates and if your teammates are feeding, then the game is essentially lost. If you are planning on splitpushing, do so with caution. Always be sure to rotate to your team before teamfights break out so that you can peel your carries. Your ultimate is your only use lategame. That is essentially all you can do to have impact. Teamfighting lategame is very difficult as one misstep results in your immediate death. If you do not have Flash, then you will not be able to do any killing in a teamfight if the enemy carries know how to kite properly. You can melt tanks fairly quickly yourself though. I'll write this again but remember, don't tunnel vision on attacking the enemy.
PROTECT YOUR BACKLINE.

I’ve mentioned wave control and things like “freezing” and “shoving” many times throughout this guide, especially in certain matchups where doing so is vital. You might be thinking that spamming Q to damage the enemy might not be a great idea. You’d be right. Your opponent, if they have but a shred of intelligence, will want the wave to push into their side of the lane which leaves you in a very gankable position. Thinking about things like where the minions are, the amount of damage the minions do and how to manipulate the minions so that they work FOR you instead of against you is a massive part of toplane. And with how much pressure Mordekaiser has in the lane, mastering lane pressure on him is important to exploiting easy to beat lanes and VITAL to surviving more difficult lanes.

Why learn Wave Control?

If you are throwing a Q, it would be better if you make sure that you hit as little minions as possible. But sometimes your level 2 is just too important. If you are playing against a laner like Renekton where playing around powerspikes is important, then you should try your best to kill minions as fast as possible and then use your additional ability to take a good trade. What I am basically describing here is how the way you should interact with the minions changes from game to game. A great yet simple tip is shoving the lane after you kill your lane opponent. You have to make sure that the minions crash at the enemy turret and are NOT frozen just outside the turret range(this is suicide just make sure that at least most of them are under the turret range). That way, the wave will slowly bounce back to you, with you being in a spot that allows you to escape ganks. This is just the beginning though. There are many more subtle things you can do and if you master your interactions with minions, you will be dictating how the lane plays out. Add split pushing and mid game into the mix and knowledge of minions is essentially going to allow you to control where your opponents will be.

The Basics

Before you can learn how to run, you must first learn how to crawl. Let us start with the very basics. There are 4 types of minions in the game: Melee Minions, Ranged Minions, Cannon Minions and Super Minions. A small side note but the word “Creep” is just another way of referring to a minion. CS just stands for “Creep Score”. Minions give more and more gold as time goes on, especially Cannon minions. All minions are counted as equal in terms of CS. But some minions are more important than others. Cannon minions for instance, are very important as they give much more gold than any other minion. This means that you should make sure to get the last hit on them. Whereas last hits on Ranged Minions, though still good, are not as important. To summarise, Cannon>Melee>Ranged in terms of what you should be prioritising. Keep in mind that if you are up against a difficult matchup, sometimes it might just be better to not go for a cannon minion if you are going to eat an entire combo for it.


In terms of DPS, the Cannon minion obviously does the most damage followed by the Ranged minion and then the Melee minion. This is why if you are going to freeze a wave, it is better to keep Melee minions alive as dragging them is going to cost less of your HP.(when you have to freeze your lane, instead of letting the minions hit your turret, you sometimes take aggro and drag them away from your turret and let them crash with your minion in order to keep them frozen outside your turret range)
In order to know how to effectively farm minions under your turret, you need to know how many turret shots it takes to kill each of them. Keep in mind that damage from your own minions and damage from yourself will change this so try to make sure to use your abilities to get all the minions. Until you get some additional AD through items, a melee minion is gonna die to 2 turret shots and 1 auto attack. A ranged minion will die to 1 turret shot and 2 auto attacks(Try to use your Q and, in cases where it won’t be useful in the next 25 seconds, E to last hit properly). A cannon minion will take 7 turret shots and then an auto attack to kill. If you aren’t fighting your opponent and won’t be fighting them, you can use your W to mitigate some of the damage you take from minions when freezing

Minion Aggro

Minion Aggro is a very important thing to understand as well. If you auto attack an enemy champion or hit them with a point and click spell, the minions will aggro on to you and start attacking you. This is why fighting inside an enemy minion wave is a bad idea, especially in the early game where their damage will make a huge difference. This is also why ranged champions are so oppressive in top lane. Their range allows for them to poke you and then walk away to avoid minion damage whereas a melee champion would never be given such luxury. Mordekaiser Q is great though. It is AOE meaning that if you hit the enemy with it, you do not attract minion aggro. Turret and Minion aggro are far more complex but this basic understanding is good enough.

Though it is not very high up on my to do list, I might get a CSing guide video out at some point where I can better explain some of these concepts. But what I have explained here is enough.

Manipulating the Wave

Although in many videos and guides, even this one, manipulation of the wave is going to be split up into a few categories but in my opinion, this isn’t strictly speaking the truth. It is simply a guideline to make it easier to grasp minion control. Wave control is very difficult to understand and is honestly more like a spectrum. How much damage you deal to the minions, which minions you deal the damage to and etc. all contribute to this. I will try to give you an easy introduction to minions in a digestible format which you can use to get a beginner’s understanding of this concept. Know that more often than not, a “beginner’s understanding” is more than good enough for a majority of ranks. I’ve faced high Diamond toplaners who have had very bad wave control.

Basically speaking, wave control is all about how and when the minions are going to get reinforcements. If you look at your map, you see the next minion wave(the minion waves are mirrored. If you wave is at your T2 turret, the enemy wave is also at his T2 turret) and where in the lane both minion waves have crashed is going to change which side is going to get the next wave of minions first.



This image is a basic guideline as to how many MORE minions a wave needs in order to continue overcoming and pushing against the enemy. You simply have to keep a basic count of how many minions there are in your head. This imagine is going to be very important to explain our first concept, Freezing.

Freezing

Freezing is very difficult to pull off but also very rewarding when done right. Freezing is BASICALLY when you last hit the minions when they are about to die(at the very LAST second. Easier with high attackspeed) and also match the damage that the enemy does to your minions in order to make sure that the minions stand in a certain position in the lane(if the enemy does damage to your minions, then they will die faster so you need to do around the same damage to his minions). The position in which you should be freezing the wave, ideally, should be right outside of your own turret. In the image above, it would be the area between the yellow and the blue zone. Freezing the lane puts you in a very difficult to gank position, you can get every single CS whereas the enemy champion will struggle to do so, the enemy laner is in an easy to gank position and in higher elos, a perfectly executed freeze shuts lanes down. In lower elos, you can starve your opponent out very effectively with a good freeze. You mostly want to be freezing against lanes where you are massively ahead and/or the enemy champion misstepping would result in their death. Unless their IQ can be displayed using a single digit, they will most likely back off and try not to fight you. If that is the case, executing a freeze is an amazing way to slowly put together a massive gold lead as you can zone them off of all minions(do NOT let the enemy CS. make sure they get destroyed every time they try). Freezing against ranged toplaners is much more difficult as they have ranged abilities that they can use to thin out the wave. You can try to simply replicate their damage onto the minion wave to keep it even. Another great thing about freezing in a position like this is that the enemy champion is far away from their turret, landing your E will almost always equal a kill.

Shoving/Hard Push

Shoving the lane is basically when you want to be doing as much damage to the enemy minions as possible with both your abilities and autoattacks. Learn how Mordekaiser’s abilities work and try to practice taking down entire waves. If you want the wave to push quickly on its own(Fast Push), you can kill all minions except the ranged ones as this will lead to the lane pushing on its own (this is good for when you want to roam as it will lead to a larger wave that you enemy laner has to deal with which gives you a lot of time to roam and participate in skirmishes outside your lane). But most of the time when shoving, you do not have time to do that. After killing your opponent, you need your minions to crash at the enemy turret ASAP. And during the midgame, you need to shove sidelanes very quickly so that you can participate in teamfights. More on this specific point in the Mid Game section.
Shoving the lane during a normal laning phase when both of you are in lane is not the best idea as it leaves you in a very vulnerable position.UNLESS, you are planning on killing the enemy with a dive. And even then, a slower push is better as it lets you have more minions. Otherwise it's bad because it gives the enemy the opportunity to freeze the wave against you which, as we discussed before, can be very difficult to overcome. You should probably only be pushing when you are ahead and can handle a 2v1. Shoving the lane to the enemy does have its advantages though. If the lane crashes at the enemy turret, it will eventually bounce back to you. If you thin the wave properly on its way back, then you will be able to execute a freeze. Shoving minions also keeps your opponent in lane which gives you time to roam and help in river fights that are about to break out. Overall, you should not be permashoving the lane as it is a very easy way to just get destroyed by ganks. Shoving is a useful too to utilize though. What you should be doing more while laning is Slow Pushing.

Slow Pushing

Slow Pushing refers to two things. The more complex thing is basically when you kill all the minions in a wave except for the melee minions. This will lead to your minion wave pushing slowly but it will do so in a way where it builds up a massive friendly minion wave that HAS to be dealt with. This is a great midgame tactic to employ if a teamfight at an objective is about to happen. Leaving a side lane to do this a minute or so before a teamfight will lead to the enemy team having to deal with the pressure created from the massive minion wave AND the pressure created from your team having to contest the lane. It is basically a version of Splitpushing where the minions are the ones splitting. Be careful though as you should ONLY do this if your team is going to take a major objective. Otherwise, you will be feeding a ton of farm to the enemy for nothing.

The other definition of a Slow Push, the more popular one, is when your minion wave is slowly pushing towards the enemy and all you do is last hit the minions. This type of pushing works great as it means that the enemy will not be able to trade into you due to you having more minions. This is what you want to be doing most of the time in lane so get used to last hitting. It crashes large minion waves at the enemy turret that are difficult to deal with and is excellent for setting up dives. Remember how minions aggro onto the enemy laner if they auto attack you? It also applies to dives. If you have a massive minion wave crashed at the enemy turret and the enemy champion auto attacks you, then your minions will start attacking him, leading to the dive being even easier to pull off.


Here is a great video to explain Wave Control. Make sure to pay attention to the video and listen to what it covers. Play Video

Proxying

Proxying is not really something you will be doing too often but it is good to know about the concept anyway. Proxying is when you go behind the enemy turrets and kill the minion wave by yourself before they can reach your own minion wave. You might be seeing Singed players do this a lot. This tactic is VERY risky as it puts you in a very gankable position AND killing the minions without your own minions will mean that you will be left at lower HP as you will have to tank the minions. But this tactic is the ultimate way of applying pressure on the map as the enemy team will HAVE to deal with you. I’d only recommend you do this if you are strong enough to 2v1 or even 3v1, as the enemy midlaner will be on their way to get you as well as the jungler. I overall wouldn’t recommend you use this tactic as a beginner.

Warding

It is very important to utilise your wards in order to avoid ganks. By proper wave management and vision control, you should be impossible to be beaten in a gank. And learning to do all that properly will allow for you to be a very powerful soloq player. Mordekaiser being an immobile champion only makes this skill all the more important. You mostly want to ward around 2:30-3:00 as that is the time period where most junglers will have finished their level 3 clear and be looking to gank top. However, there are some junglers like Twitch or Jarvan IV that are able to gank at level 2 which is why it might be a better idea to play carefully early on in lane when you face such junglers. Predicting these level 2 ganks and more mostly comes down to knowledge on different jungle champions and their clear speeds.


The image itself is drawn from the perspective of you being on the bottom half of the map but the places where you should be warding remain the same essentially. Generally speaking, the places marked in red are where you want to be warding most of the time, with the others coming in handy in different situations. Tribrush is a very important bush that you want to be warding most of the time, with a control ward or a stealth ward depending on which side of the lane you are on (place the control ward closer to yourself so that you are able to protect it). The bush on the other side is also a great choice and it needs to be warded in most cases. I personally would ward further down the river(closer to the yellow point) to also cover both the ward entrance and get more vision of scuttle crab as this helps both you, your jungler and it gives you more time to react if you see the enemy coming your way. Do this vs champions that cannot cross walls though. Because if you are caught doing this vs a Zac, then you will be screwed as he can simply jump over the wall from where the blast cone is. If you ever push up, it might be a good idea to go into the enemy jungler and take both the vision plant and the blast cone while setting up vision(if you are on the top side of the map).


Play Video

Macro

Macro is what sets most players apart. The most mechanically talented player in the game will only get to low Diamond with no macro. Game sense is very important, especially in League. Whichever player thinks more and has more knowledge on what the limits of every champion are and where everyone is, is going to be the one to come out on top most of the time. What should you be doing at any given point in time? Is it better to farm in lane or go help with an early skirmish(its almost always better to help your team out if a fight is happening near the lane btw. Don’t go if its a lost fight though. Like when there are more enemy champions and your jungler just got caught) Though it is good to be active around the lane to pick up kills and snowball, with Mordekaiser, you do not want to be roaming all that much. Staying in your lane and drawing pressure is how you use your champion optimally. Drawing pressure from the enemy jungler to you and allowing your team to 3v4 the rest of the map while you 2v1 up top. The bad thing about macro play is that there is not much you can do to immediately improve it. It is the hardest skill to improve as it requires you to have experience, read a lot about the game, watch a lot of instructional videos, and watch your own demos to question your deaths and take note of how the enemy jungler rotates around the map and etc. You can make it a habit to look at the map and register where the enemy jungler is and so on but this skill just takes time to learn. Do not be impatient. Just try to play the game and STAY OFF AUTOPILOT. Think consciously about the things you are doing. Do not go in after a teammate if they are stepping into certain death. You too will die. Do not get tilted and if you do find yourself frustrated after a game, stop yourself from playing another game. I personally always take a break after a frustrating loss.

Play Video

A tip I can give you is to watch videos of high elo players as they explain things. TFBlade does an okay job giving you a general idea of how to play toplane but in my opinion, they are not really the best ways to learn the game out there. The way I myself improved my Macro was watching the videos from NEACE and some analysis videos from LS. NEACE is probably one of my favourite instructional League videos as I enjoy his “no bs” style of explaining things. He has many guides for you to go through and he has a splitpushing guide. Both LS and NEACE has a few good coaching videos that you can view where they break down a LOT of the mistakes the players in those matches make. I suggest finding a video of them coaching a player at your rank and just looking through the gameplay as they explain concepts. You want to keep your eye out for the same mistakes you make and keeping your mind open for the players with the better macro to tell you how to get better. I myself coach Darius players live on stream and I will be uploading my coaching sessions to Youtube. Though it is a different champion, a lot of the macro things I discuss will carry over. Overall, any toplane coaching video WILL help you if you pay attention. Here is the most recent one. Special thanks to Sir_Obliterator! He makes a lot of great Darius Content on his Youtube and he streams sometimes. A wide range of topics were covered in this video which makes it a great all purpose video to study.

Play Video /league-of-legends/champion/mordekaiser-46

The most important part about climbing is attitude and mentality. How you view your games and whatnot is the defining factor of whether you are going to play 10 games a day and be hardstuck or if you are going to be slowly but steadily climb over a month or so. You have to be patient, consistent and positive. Though I am not exactly positive, below I have written a list of rules for myself that forms a somewhat good attitude.

Thanks a lot for reading my guide. It took me a while to get this out. I hope that it was of some use to you and it helped you improve in some way. If it didn't then I hope that it was an entertaining read at the very least. I tried to contain everything you need to know in this guide. If you do have any specific questions or need something explained in more detail, then simply contact me and I will try my best to help out as quickly as possible.

My profile picture for Twitter account was drawn by my good friend. If you are a fan of the style and want to commission her/bother her, you can do so on her twitter at @Jrabanito.

Many thanks to Jovy for the Headers! Makes my guide look much better :>

Be sure to check out my Darius Guide as well!