It hasn’t been an easy week for the Champ of the Week. I’ve tried looking up some guides, watching a couple Mordekaiser streams, and even cranked a little In Flames up to 11 but nothing seems to help my Mordekaiser game. I really don’t like playing that has no crowd control, and I like even less how dependent he is on positioning to make sure that he doesn’t take a lot of damage in the early game. That said, I’ve had a couple good games, but they really had nothing to do with my own playing. They had everything to do with my opponents.

From what I can tell, most of playing Mordekaiser is trying to bait your opponent into getting close enough for a Siphon of Destruction to land. The spell has a pretty high base, especially against the softer toons in the game, and generates quite a bit of shield. Unfortunately, players can walk out of it, and the smartest players just let you push them and wait for a jungler to come gank. If your team has a great counter jungler and your opponent can’t clear creeps very well, push and push hard. Unfortunately that situation is pretty rare, so you can either push your creeps to keep shield up in lane or you can struggle to stay alive without the shield. I had particular trouble against a Ryze the other day, though he also had Amumu coming out of the jungle regularly to keep me down. It was rough.

As I think more on Mordekaiser’s lane style, he seems relatively balanced, so long as the opponent is someone with decent lane presence. There are quite a few champions without very good early presence who require a big farm to be relevant late in the, and those champions fare very poorly against Mordekaiser. Mordekaiser also snowballs terribly in lane. If he can get an early kill, he’s off to the races. That extra level/level-and-a-half puts him at a huge advantage with ult/ignite combo. His shield also gives him the early ability to tower dive with impunity, which is never fun for anyone.

To be honest, I almost had fun in a game with him today, but it was because the Ashe I was laning against fed me two early kills and I was able to get Sorc Boots and a Sunfire before anyone on their team had completed a solid mid-game item. It’s hard not to enjoy crushing strong champions like Ashe and Warwick, but that situation has been a rarity for me so far.

Check back later in the week for more impressions.

I’ve had a hard time deciding who this week’s champ of the week would be. I was hoping I would get some inspiration last night, and though we did have some excellent games for Fearless Gamer LoL Mondays, but no one really intrigued me. I was thinking of playing Veigar, but I want to save him – he’s so much fun that I don’t want to use him just yet.

Then it hit me. Play someone that I hate playing.

Of all the champions in League of Legends, I think I can honestly say there is only one champion I both hate to play and hate to play against: Mordekaiser. Everything about him bothers me. He’s loud. He farms like a beast and gains a shield from that farm. He deals great damage, even when he only has defensive items. And then there’s his ult. That ult. It has turned the tide in more games than I care to count. For all of that, you’d think he would be fun to play. He must be for some, but I’m just not one of those people. That’s right, I said ‘those people.’ I dislike Mordekaiser so much that on some fundamental level I also dislike the people that like him (my apologies if that includes you).

Regardless, I’m going to play him. I’m going to try to find a way to make him work for me. I know he can be an asset to a team – he hasn’t excellent laning power and his ult really can change the outcome of a game. I’ll be focusing on the team comps that work best for him, when he can afford to get a Gunblade, and how to lane with him without completely pushing up to a turret.

It’s going to be an interesting week.