Thank you for taking the time to check out my guide! I am a masters/GM NA 1.3mil Darius main who also plays a lot of nasus, mundo, sett and mordekaiser: https://www.op.gg/summoners/na/BiliBiliBD-Alpha For the last two seasons/splits I have shifted pretty much completely from only playing darius to only playing mundo.

I initially fell in love with mundo because A) his business skin voice lines hype me up so much, something about him screaming TOO BIG TO FAIL and then tanking an entire team for 20 seconds is pretty funny, and B) similarly to darius, if you play laning phase well (although unlike darius where this means obliterating your opponent, with mundo it just means not losing lane) you will make bat**** insane plays that look blatantly overpowered. If you like a character with some depth that doesnt take itself too seriously (aatrox/kayn mains WILL have 20 e-girls on standby, if that's what you want mundo is not for you) with really strong stats instead of flashy plays and the potential to completely carry a game if played well, Mundo's a great choice. I am an 18 y/old in university, It's been an adjustment from highschool so I haven't had much time to stream for a while, but I'm starting to stream again, so if you could check that out and give me a follow if this all sounds interesting to you, I'd definitely appreciate it: https://www.twitch.tv/bilibilibd

I've also made a Darius guide on here and will probably make more in the future as they are a lot of fun so check that out if that sounds interesting.

Lastly, if anything seems wrong, you disagree or there's something I should improve upon, I'd love to hear about it! I'm still learning, and want to put out the best guide possible. If you could quickly rate it as well so I know just in general how the guides looking, it'd mean a lot to me.

FYI i permaban gwen but I could see any of the level 5 threats (besides lulu) being fine bans its generally preference

NOTE: You may be wondering how it is possible for mundo to have so many "good matchups" in the matchup section. This is because I am ranking non-top champions based on your ability to fight them once you actually encounter them in-game, which is usually after laning phase. Since mundo is a hyper-scaling champ, most champions arent much of a problem for him at that point. For example ahri is a level 1 threat on my matchup sheet as, assuming you lock mundo top into whoever and get out of lane ok an ahri mid will have a very hard time matching your split. But if you locked mundo mid into an ahri mid it'd probably be a level 4 or 5 threat (mostly because mundo mid is awful)

PROS + incredibly tanky + strongest split push in the game for a tank + kayle levels of scaling + really strong blind pick for a top laner + generally, mundo does well into most of the champions most juggernauts fail into (champions like jayce, kennen, vayne, teemo), so he's a great pocket pick for juggernaut mains who need a counter-last pick. + has unarguably the best skin in all of league Mundo is an incredible fighter tank that wants to hunker down in lane to scale to a godlike late game where you are arguably the hardest to kill champion in the game, while also having more AD than your adc. His teamfights late game are very strong, but his split push is also the strongest in his class. While his lane is definitely weak, if you play lanes very well you can still come out on top in most matchups. Definitely a great pick for tank/bruiser players looking for a split push champion that isnt just pure damage, and can actually somewhat deal with ranged champions. Also a great blind pick comparatively to other top champions as in most lanes you can just safely farm with cleaver.

CONS - arguably one of, if not the worst laning phase in top - if you fall behind you are useless - scaling, independent champion that isnt a hyper carry is awkward in higher elos where people are used to more traditional comps - in higher elo if you do poorly you will be relentlessly flamed for going mundo - no hard cc on a tank - has a few completely unplayable matchups when the meta shifts to tank killers Mundo's main two downfalls are the problems any stat stick falls into, and the fact he has zero hard cc while being a tank. Any stat stick will be very hard to play while behind, as your main way of winning fights isnt to outplay but just to stat check people. So if you have less stats you more or less just have to avoid fighting anyone. Mundo is different, however, in that, while most stat sticks understand this and thus have a very strong early game where you have to actively throw to become behind, Mundo STARTS THE GAME BEHIND, having one of the worst laning phases in top. His sustain early is actually worse than most top champs, and his cleavers cost a disgusting amount of base health in lane, severely punishing any misses. With that being said, in return if you manage to come out of laning phase on top or even just not too far behind, you start stat checking entire teams by yourself later on. He also has the obvious pitfall of being a tank with no hard cc which has zero place in any high-elo composition, although it's arguable if mundo is even a tank, or if he is just a juggernaut that happens to build tank items.

Goes Where He Pleases passive healing and CC denial. Your passive gives you bonus health regeneration at all times based on your max health, with the percent increasing per level. He can also periodically tank the next CC effect without getting immobilized, instead losing 4% current hp and dropping a canister nearby. Walking over the canister restores 4% max hp and reduces the cd of this part of the passive by 15 seconds, with the cooldown reducing based on level, starting at a weak 60 seconds going down all the way to 15 seconds at level 15 where picking up the canister resets the cd completely. Once you are level 15 you can go for much riskier canister grabs as it is difficult for enemies to pick you out when you can deny another cc ability walking away. Keep in mind both parts of Dr. Mundo passive are incredibly weak early due to the extreme scaling per level.
Infected Bonesaw Projectile slowing & damaging first enemy hit. Dr. Mundo throws a bonesaw in the target direction, dealing a portion of the targets current HP as magic damage and slowing by 40% for 2 seconds. Notably this ability costs flat health to cast instead of mana, which makes it very spammable late but an ability you should be careful with in lane. You will use this to safely last hit minions and poke in a lot of matchups, and later on becomes a good form of poke into frontliners in teamfights as well as a catch tool to chase with the slow + approach velocity. If the bonesaw hits a champion or large monster he heals for 100% of the cast cost, whilst if it hits anything else (like a minion) it heals 50% of the cast cost. While this is mundo's bread and butter iconic ability, it is matchup dependant on if you should max it first or max Blunt Force Trauma instead, as into certain matchups you will barely see a change in damage while the ability costs almost double the amount of health at rank 5 compared to rank 1.
Heart Zapper aoe damage over time and burst mitigation. Dr. Mundo starts dealing magic damage every 0.25 seconds to nearby enemies for up to 3 seconds. a portion of damage taken while this ability is active is stored as grey health. After 3 seconds or recasting the ability, all units around mundo take substantially more magic damage and mundo heals for 50% of his grey health stored. If the recast deals damage to an enemy champion or large monster he instead heals for 100%. Generally you want to start the ability when the enemy is about to use their main damage move/burst on you, as for the first 0.75 seconds of the ability mundo stores almost all damage taken as grey health, while for the remaining duration he only stores 25% of damage taken. This amazing first 0.75 seconds is generally wasted if you cast it at the very beginning of a fight. Ideally, It is used very similarly to Courage
Blunt Force Trauma Empowered auto attack and passively gain bonus AD based on max hp. On cast, the next auto attack will deal significantly more damage, increasing based on missing hp, and if this attack kills, will fling a medical bag outward dealing damage to everything it collides with. This ability also resets mundo's basic attack timer. The ability also passively gives mundo bonus attack damage based on his max hp, increasing with rank. Due to mundo having no ad scalings, he can get away with getting an atrocious amount of AD from this ability. Late game it is common to see him have more ad than his adc! The projectile part of the active is very strong and is the main thing you will use to poke into more experienced players, as people who know how to play against mundo will make it very hard to land cleavers. This is the main reason you will max this ability first in many matchups.
Maximum Dosage Mundo gains bonus HP, movement speed and health regen for 10 seconds. The bonus hp gained is based off his missing health, so it is optimal to wait until you are as low as possible to ult. His ult is very weak if activated at high health. I would generally wait until you are atleast 1/5 of your health to ult unless you are about to die to big burst. A common trick is keeping Heart Zapper turned on with a massive amount of grey health, ulting while low and then immediately reactivating w to survive any incoming burst. This gives you the maximum amount of bonus hp possible from ult without risking death from strong burst. At rank 3, the ultimates effectiveness is increased for every nearby enemy champion. The way this scaling works, the amount of hp he can gain is massively increased rank 3, making him almost 2x as powerful during teamfights. This is why most mundo playstyles main win con is reaching level 16. Note, at rank 1 the amount of health and regen it gives is negligible, and barely a powerspike beyond helping against tower dives. Rank 2 doubles the health regenerated, and is where you can generally start using it offensively.

by far Mundo's weakest part of the game is his laning phase. Mundo has one of, if not the weakest laning phase in top lane. You can win a lot of lanes if you play them perfectly and land every cleaver, but rarely is that possible. Just keep in mind you outscale almost every matchup, and dont be afraid to give up some farm as long as you are in xp range. When the enemy is slow pushing a wave, try to thin it a bit with cleavers and possible e'ing a minion into the wave, if a big wave crashes into your tower you are vulnerable to a tower dive with the enemy jungle. If you get 1f1'd in a tower dive but multiple waves are lost to your turret, its still very bad for you. Unlike most top champions with bad laning phases, at almost every opportunity you can, unless you want to set up your own freeze, shove the lane. It is nearly impossible to freeze into a Mundo, as to do so you won't have the cover of your minions to hide behind, so its free game for Mundo to poke you out with cleavers. If needed farm with q, but if possible try to just farm with autos as you still lose health (25 health at rank 1). There is no downside to throwing out cleavers if you hit an enemy champion as the full health is refunded, but if you even miss a rank 1 cleaver you lose 50 health. That's a third of a health potion! This is why, even though the cooldown is low, you want to be very smart about when to cleaver. Just look to scale, and if the enemy gets overconfident you can possible poke out of lane with cleavers. If the enemy has a poor back and you ever have access to enemy turret, go for demolish, autoing + e. You should be able to get 2 platings if this is past 5 minutes. Your 6 is worst than most champions, as rank 1 r is very weak, but its still a helpful power spike as it makes it significantly harder for the enemy to tower dive you. Keep in mind with your w, you want to activate it right before the enemy uses their main damage move. It stores more grey health in the first 0.25 seconds. You want to reactivate w on the enemy champ at almost any cost, as it restores double the health if you land it. It's like a healing version of garen w. NOTE: do not ult in lane purely for sustain! I see some people do it (and it was a viable thing to do pre-rework) but post-rework the ult cd is way too long to do that and a lot of the power budget is now in the max-health increase rather than the heal, so it barely heals you anyway. If you are that low just back or try to bait a tower dive where you then ult, but dont just ult out of combat to heal at most like 30% of your hp Quoted: malpractice make malperfect! - Dr. Mundo.

I would consider mid game to be when you reach heartsteel + full boots or level 11, whatever comes first. Heartsteel is a major powerspike as now you have enough health regeneration that you can start just spamming cleavers, and trade pattern of poking with cleavers at a range until heaertsteel is up to run in and proc it with e, rinse and repeat, is really strong especially considering your sustain. At level 11, your champion has officially scaled up, with your ult now being pretty much 2x as strong, and you can start playing aggressively and confidently into almost any matchup assuming you arent significantly behind. You can even 2v1 the enemy top and jungler most of the time assuming neither of them directly counter your kit. Look to split push to gather resources as quickly as possible such as turret gold and xp from waves and camps, as this is by far the most reliable way to get ahead on mundo. Your wave clear is disgusting, your tower damage is the highest out of any tank, and your e does so much bonus damage to monsters that you clear enemy camps pretty easily. This is to accelerate you to your god-like status of late game ASAP. Keep in mind you want to ult at as low as possible without being in kill range, as you gain bonus health for the duration based off missing health. A great way to capitalize on this without dieing to being so low is by activating w, waiting til near the end of w or if you are about to die, with abunch of grey health stored up, then ult while low and right after reactivate w to get the healing off. You are now immediately half health with the max amount of bonus health possible!

You now have 3+ items and are level 16. Your rank 3 r is one of the strongest ultimates in the game, and you are now at your strongest with spirit visage finally being done in tandom with the strong ultimate. If you split pushed well and have 9-10 cs per minute, assuming you are lvl 16 while everyone else but the enemy top laner is level 13-14, you can actually stat check entire teams by yourself, tanking everyones damage with ult while killing the adc and leisurely walking away. Past level 15, you want to pick up your canister every time, as the cooldown will fully reset, which lets you get away with building no tenacity on a tank.

Everyone but supports are now level 18 full build. Your scaling starts to slow down at this point unless you manage your heartsteel stacks really well, and you can no longer stat check entire teams by yourself, as the adc will now start to shred you if you arent careful. You are still incredibly strong, but you need to play with your team backing you up, or commit fully to split pushing, but not be as cocky as you could be at 3 items level 16 where you can ignore multiple enemies and just slaughter towers. Be patient and play smart even when very far ahead, this late in the game if your team gets wiped its likely gg regardless of how far behind the enemy team was.

NOTE: Dr. Mundo has ONE flaw late game. When your ult is up you can go absolutely god mode, but if it isn't up you aren't tanky enough to completely frontline and therefore can't really teamfight. This wouldn't be that big of an issue if mundo ult cd didn't remain at 120 seconds at every rank, which is worsened by the fact he barely builds ability haste. If you are going to ult late game, MAKE SURE ITS WORTH IT! At the very least, if you get caught in a split push or something and are going to die no matter what, don't copium ult just save it so that when you spawn you can make some impact.