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Characters / League of Legends: Mordekaiser

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Mordekaiser, the Iron Revenant

Real Name: Sahn-Uzal

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mordekaiserloadscreenmordevgu.jpg
"Destiny. Domination. Deceit."

Voiced by:
Fred Tatasciore (English)
Félix Alcolea (European Spanish)
Luis Leonardo Suárez (Mexican Spanish)
Takaya Kuroda (Japanese)
Dláigelles Riba (Brazilian Portuguese)
Yeong-Chan Kim (Korean)
Denis Bespaly (Russian)
Appears in: Legends of Runeterra

"In the world beyond, blackened ichor filled a crumbling sky, as souls withered to nothing. But I refused to fade."

Twice slain and thrice born, Mordekaiser is a brutal warlord from a foregone epoch, who uses his necromantic sorcery to bind souls into an eternity of servitude. Few now remain who remember his earlier conquests, or know the true extent of his powers — but there are some ancient souls that do, and they fear the day when he may return to claim dominion over both the living and the dead.
Mordekaiser is a Juggernaut champion who offsets his lacking range and mobility by controlling the field to force his enemies to fight him on his own terms. He does not use mana or any other resources, with his abilities only being limited by cooldowns.
  • His passive, Darkness Rise, causes Mordekaiser's basic attacks to deal bonus magic damage. Hitting an enemy champion with three attacks or abilities in quick succession surrounds Mordekaiser with a vortex of darkness for a few seconds, increasing his movement speed and continuously damaging nearby enemies based on their max health.
  • With his first ability, Obliterate, Mordekaiser slams down his mace in a target direction, dealing magic damage to enemies it hits. If the attack hits a single enemy, it deals increased damage.
  • His second ability, Indestructible, passively stores a percentage of damage dealt to or by Mordekaiser. When activated, Mordekaiser consumes all stored damage to gain a decaying shield. He can then reactivate the ability a second time to consume the shield, healing himself by a percentage of its current strength.
  • His third ability, Death's Grasp, passively increases Mordekaiser's magic penetration. When activated, he sends out a ghastly claw in a target direction, dealing magic damage and pulling enemies it hits in the direction of where it was cast.
  • With his ultimate, Realm of Death, Mordekaiser transports himself and the chosen enemy champion into the Death Realm for a few seconds, during which they are completely isolated from either of their teammates, for a one-on-one duel. During this duel, Mordekaiser steals a percentage of the target's stats, and if he manages to kill the target before they return to the Rift, he'll keep the stolen stats until his victim respawns.

Mordekaiser's alternate skins include Dragon Knight Mordekaiser, Infernal Mordekaiser, Pentakill Mordekaiser, Lord Mordekaiser, King of Clubs Mordekaiser, Dark Star Mordekaiser, PROJECT: Mordekaiser, Pentakill III: Lost Chapter Mordekaiser, High Noon Mordekaiser, Ashen Graveknight Mordekaiser, and Old God Mordekaiser.

In season 1 of Teamfight Tactics, Mordekaiser is a Tier 1 Phantom Knight. With his ability, Obliterate, he slams his mace forward, dealing damage to up to two foes in a line. He was removed in season 2. He returns in season 3 using his Dark Star Mordekaiser skin as a 2 cost Dark Star Vanguard. With his Indestructible ability, he gains a shield that absorbs damage. While the shield persists, he deals magic damage per second to all nearby enemies. He was removed in season 4. He returns in season 5 using his Infernal Mordekaiser skin as a Tier 4 Dragonslayer Legionnaire. His ability was changed to Infernal Rise, which shields Mordekaiser based on his maximum health, increases his attack range by 1 hex, and causes his basic attacks to deal bonus magic damage for a few seconds. He was removed along with the Dragonslayer origin in the Dawn of Heroes mid-set update, returning in season 8 using his PROJECT: Mordekaiser skin as a Tier 5 LaserCorps Ace. With his Skylines ability, Mordekaiser transports all units on the board to his realm for a few seconds, where all enemies suffer a percent magic resistance shred for the duration. He then slams a building down on the field, dealing magic damage to all enemies in a large area. He was initially removed in season 9, but returns using his base skin in the Horizonbound mid-set update as a Tier 4 Noxus Slayer. His God of Death ability is similar to his season 5 spell, though in this iteration the bonus magic damage component is a passive effect that is increased while his ability is active, and whenever Mordekaiser kills an enemy while empowered, he steals a percentage of their max health, attack damage, ability power, armor, and magic resistance for the rest of the round. In season 10, he uses his Pentakill Mordekaiser skin and is a Tier 3 Pentakill Sentinel. His Face-Melter ability grants him a shield and deals magic damage to adjacent enemies over a few seconds, dealing another burst of damage once the duration expires and granting Mordekaiser a stacking boost to attack damage, ability power, armor, and magic resist for the rest of combat each time an enemy is killed by the spell.

In Legends of Runeterra, Mordekaiser is a dual Noxus and Shadow Isles 7-mana 5/8 Champion with Challenger that kills up to two allies when played, and anytime you slay your own allies, you revive them. Once 15 allies have died (any ally with 5+ attack will count twice), Mordekaiser levels up, gaining +1/+1, and each time he attacks, you gain the ability to Drain 1 life point from the enemy Nexus every time you kill a unit. His Champion Spell is Mordekaiser's Realm of Death (10-mana Shadow Isles Slow spell that causes an ally to start a free attack Challenging the strongest enemy, and kills all other units).

Mordekaiser has two main incarnations that have existed, his original version from 2010, and his Visual-Gameplay Update from 2019. Both versions will have respective folders with tropes specific to them.

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    General 
  • Adaptational Species Change:
    • Dragon Knight turns him in a Draconic Humanoid.
    • Pentakill Morde has a visibly humanoid body rather than being a spectre in armor.
    • Dark Star turns him into an Eldritch Abomination.
    • PROJECT is an evil AI in a robotic shell.
  • Balance Buff:
    • Mordekaiser had an infamously overspecialized design when he was first introduced in 2010, where he ostensibly functioned as an AP juggernaut but had zero crowd control or gapclosers whatsoever, featuring an awkward defensive passive that required him to constantly deal damage in order to protect himself, and was overall played like an "Instant Death" Radius that was ironically too slow, fragile and unreliable to really enact death with if his stats weren't as objectively better than the enemy's (and that's if he could even get close to them). His 2019 VGU completely rebuilt his kit, with new abilities that merely evoke his previous arsenal and have far more practical application (the aforementioned damage-shielding conversion passive was compacted into Indestructible, a much more controllable active shield), and giving him proper lockdown capability expected from a juggernaut with Death's Grasp and Realm of Death.
    • Before his VGU, there was also a significant, but failed attempt to rework him during the 2015 midseason Juggernaut updates, which attempted to make him into a duo lane juggernaut to stand in lieu of a regular marksman pick. Much of this was rooted in his duo lane-focused Harvester of Sorrow abilitynote , a passive which straightup gave him increased Experience Points than the competition, and a passive to allow him to control dragons if he helped kill them (nudging him to stick to bot lane instead of top lane as he usually did). This rework turned out to be an almost complete and total disaster and was nearly impossible to balance, so he was mostly reverted back to his old solo-laner self just so he wasn't either a total game-breaker or even more useless than he already was.
  • Carry a Big Stick: Emphasis on big. He carries a mace to pulverize enemies with, and it's almost as huge as he is, which is saying something given his own enormous size. In his Dragon Knight Mordekaiser and Old God Mordekaiser skins, he's more inclined to wield a hammer instead.
  • Evil Laugh: Every laugh of his sounds incredibly threatening. Hell, post-rework, he occasionally gives one even as he dies, knowing that he'll be back eventually.
  • Evil Overlord: He used to be a brutal warlord-king named Sahn-Uzal who crushed all who opposed him, forging an empire on blood and death even before he died and was reanimated by necromancers. His second conquest as the iron revenant Mordekaiser just gave him more knowledge to work with.
    I carved my kingdom beyond, from the ashes of nothing. No mortals, not even gods will stop me from claiming what is mine!
  • Evil Sounds Deep: His deep, booming baritone adds an extra layer of menace and gravitas to every word he speaks. Nowadays there's an added metallic filter for even more oomph.
  • Extra-ore-dinary: Originally, Mordekaiser was designed with a greater emphasis on metal-based powers, subtitled as "The Master of Metal" and with abilities like shielding himself and allies in swarms of metal shrapnel and summoning maces from the ground to bust up enemies. This was mostly phased out in favor of his power to manipulate souls, but it's partially still around, mainly with how his armor and giant mace are constructed out of a soul-based metal. A few of his voice lines give the impression that in life, he placed a high value on the durability of iron.
    Iron stands eternal!
  • The Faceless: In his Pentakill getup, he even keeps his helmet on despite leaving his chest bare for rocking out.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Glowing a spectral green (originally red), just to reinforce the fact that Mordekaiser is a monstrously powerful undead.
  • Heavy Metal:
  • I Call It "Vera": His mace is called Nightfall. In his Pentakill skin, his axe/guitar hybrid is named Numero Uno.
  • Metallic Motifs: He has a very prevalent motif with Iron; he's called the "Iron Revenant", is characterized by his durability, and heavily values the power and longevity of the metal.
    Once I suffered a mortal body, now I am iron incarnate.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His title is German for "Death Emperor."
  • Our Liches Are Different: He currently remains as an undying being driven by pure, anger-fueled will who returned to the land of the living after his soul was bound into a suit of armor. It should be noted that while he's largely recognized with this armored appearance even as a spirit, he otherwise as no mortal form. He was also severed from his physical body and cannot self-resurrect, instead requiring an outsider ritual to restore him, something which he intends to work around by creating his own living dead to do so.
  • Reforged into a Minion: What he inflicts on his victims. Wanting to spread his empire of death into the material realm, he forcibly binds all those he had slain to serve as his undead army in the Afterworld.
    • This was the basis of his old ultimate; whoever he kills is transformed into a fully controllable minion that fights at his side. Unfortunately, the balance issues this caused for a Juggernaut like him caused the devs to remove it from his reworked version.
    • This was also attempted on him in both his Pre-VGU and Post-VGU storylines as the basis as to how he got his original armored vessel, however he exploited this unbeknownst to his resurrectors to his advantage to bring about his own return for his own plans instead. The only difference between his two versions is what he does after disposing of the sorcerers trying to bound him.
  • Retcon: Mordekaiser has had a few varying backstories throughout his lifetime in the game:
    • His very first characterization had him be a spook from the Shadow Isles with indeterminate history, with his eligibility within the Institute of War as a champion being hotly contested, and many left wondering of what his true motivations for joining in were, which were never revealed prior to the reboot. His focus was much more rooted on metal-based powers, and he was also partially a Plague Master who was drawn to conflict and disease (the latter was not part of his gameplay).
    • A post-Institute of War lore update turned him into more of a Boogeyman-type horror, perceived to be one of the first undead of the Shadow Isles, one who fuels himself on death and anguish, bringing the two wherever he should be seen.
    • A second post-Institute backstory was later developed which finally gave Mordekaiser concrete background: A warlord king from a time before Demacia and Noxus, Mordekaiser died in battle but was reanimated into an iron revenant by a cadre of necromancers using his skeleton as a phylactery, kickstarting his second campaign until he was slain again, with his skull taken to the Blessed Isles. When an unrelated magic catastrophe turned them into the Shadow Isles, Mordekaiser was once again reborn, turning a part of the isles into his new empire, with which he began to plot another takeover.
    • His 2019 VGU rewrote several elements of this backstory, such as turning the name "Mordekaiser" into a self-formed title (his original mortal name being "Sahn-Uzal"), removing any major connection to the Blessed/Shadow Isles (he sees its champions potentially useful and the Black Mist is still associated with him through being an undead, but the Isles are no longer the empire he wishes to expand anymore — that role now belongs to the entire Afterworld, which is effectively of his own craft), basically turning him into the founder of Noxus, and forgoing his lich order to resurrect him every time he died, leaving him still dead and technically not an active character in canon at the moment.
  • Reverse Shrapnel: When fully stacked, his passive (and originally his second ability) causes him to generate a swirling vortex of what appears to be metallic fragments which makes enemies take damage just by being near him.
  • Tin Tyrant: Fully covered in armor, looking incredibly imposing and serving as his tether to the material realm.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Meta-wise, Mordekaiser has escalated in multiple levels of badass, starting off as a cool-looking, but slightly campy lich knight with lots of silly Heavy Metal references (which admittedly fit the less serious early days of the game), evolving into a genuinely intimidating undead warlord with an impressive history of conquest following the game's lore reset. Come his full visual/gameplay update, he finally received the appropriately dark, weighty, and badass depiction that the lore made him out to be.
    • In terms of gameplay, his VGU turned him from being one of the most significant "artifact" champions of the game — a sluggish, close-range mage-fighter with no crowd control or mobility, an awkwardly offense-based defense mechanic infested with an incalculable amounts of bugs — into a truly mighty force who could carry his weight as "The Iron Revenant". Of note was Riot's decision to sacrifice his "enslaving enemies to fight for him" mechanic (although he retains a variant of it), done in order to refocus Mordekaiser's power budget into himself, making him truly capable of devastating enemies entirely on his own.
  • Your Soul Is Mine!: Stealing souls from his fallen foes has long been a staple of his lore.
    • If he kills an enemy in the Death Realm, he'll consume their soul and keep the partial stat buffs he stole until his victim respawns. In lore, he's also an expert at enslaving the souls of anyone he kills.

    Modern Mordekaiser (Post-VGU) 
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: PROJECT Mordekaiser in a nutshell, obsessed with controlling humanity for what he sees as their inability to govern themselves.
  • Art Evolution: The original Mordekaiser was a more cut-and-dry take on an armored Evil Overlord; he lacked a lot of indicators of his undead nature, despite originally coming from the Shadow Isles. Morde's VGU in 2019 drastically modernized his design. While the base elements of his old look are there, being a hulking suit of armor with a mace, his aesthetic leans much more into his undead nature. He has a ghostly green aura across his design and VFX, and his armor has more skeletal accents like a rib cage.
  • Atop a Mountain of Corpses: His Dying Moment of Awesome in his previous lore.
    After a long and bloody day of battle, Mordekaiser met his fate standing atop a mountain of corpses, surrounded by his foes. He laughed even as he died, pierced by arrows, swords and spears, promising his killers that he would come back for them.
    "The Iron Revenant"
  • Bad Boss: Fittingly enough for an Evil Overlord, Mordekaiser's core strategy in Legends of Runeterra involves getting your allies killed, (and indeed, he levels up when 15 of your own allies die, with each ally having 5+ power counting as two). Luckily, most of the allies associated with Mordekaiser tend to have the Deathless keyword, which makes things a tad easier to do as you recycle your own defeated allies, and Mordekaiser himself revives any ally you personally kill while he's on the board.
    Mordekaiser: (upon being seeing an allied Lord Mallat summoned) Do not fail me, Mallat!
    Lord Mallat: Are your rewards and punishments so different?
  • Badass Boast: No undead Evil Overlord would be complete without at least a few, and he has quite a repertoire:
    Naive men pray to gods. They will learn to pray to me.
    I carve my kingdom beyond, from the ashes of nothing, no mortals, not even gods, will stop me from claiming what is mine.
    The din of the living world... the silence of the hereafter... I rule it all.
    Some fear me, others worship at my feet. ALL will serve.

    Lord Mallat: (upon seeing an allied Mordekiaser summoned) Beware my lord, Nilah comes for your armor!
    Mordekaiser: Do I look concerned, Mallat?!
  • Black Speech: During his initial visit to the afterlife, Mordekaiser deciphered the maddening whispers of the souls as a language unspoken in the mortal world dubbed Ochnun, which he used to transcend realms and tempt the still-living into bringing him back to life. "Mordekaiser" is Sahn-Uzal's spirit name in the language.
  • Break the Believer: During his original reign as the mortal Sahn-Uzal, he believed his violent and warlike conquest was glorious enough to earn an eternal seat at the gods' table known as the Hall of Bones. Unfortunately for him when he died, the only afterlife his soul found was an endless purgatory devoid of glory, and the resulting Unstoppable Rage only made him more dangerous once necromancers brought him back to the mortal realm.
  • Bring It: His interaction when fighting Darius:
    You claim strength, Darius. Prove it.
  • The Chessmaster: Mordekaiser may have been killed twice over, but even in death, he plots to eventually return by merging the material realm with his self-made empire of death through his original fortress of the Immortal Bastion. He's also apparently aware of The Ruination, but is not making any moves, allowing Viego to do what he likes so that he can take over what remains in the aftermath.
  • Carry a Big Stick: His mace, "Nightfall", that he forged in his campaign to conquer the realm of the living.
  • Cool Crown: If he kills someone using Realm of Death, the stat boost he gains is represented by a spectral crown spawning over his head.
  • Darker and Edgier: Not that he wasn't already dark and edgy prior, but the sheer extant of his depravity is further explored in his revised lore; the fact that he, a human, was responsible for so much carnage and destruction, all to fuel a depraved fantasy of the afterlife for himself, shows a level of irredeemability that many champs in the series don't possess. It's reached a point where his eventual return is considered to be downright apocalyptic.
  • Deflector Shields: His Indestructible lets him store a part of the damage he deals/takes, then gives him a shield equal to that amount when activated. While it decays quickly, a portion of it can be consumed for health.
  • The Determinator: He simply refused to fade into The Nothing After Death, instead learning how to bend it to his will and force his Warrior Heaven onto it.
  • The Dreaded: While his story has largely faded from modern memory, those who do remember it continue to whisper his name in fear, dreading the day he figures out how to return to the living realm once more.
    It is something they pray will not come to pass, for they know of no way to stop him.
    "The Iron Revenant"
  • Duel to the Death: His ultimate temporarily banishes a target of choice to the Death Realm, where nothing from the normal battlefield save for towers can interact with them. For the next seven seconds, it's Mordekaiser against his victim, dueling it out one-on-one.note 
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Mordekaiser's 2019 visual/gameplay update was very quietly teased through 2019 Split 2 rewards, with an emote and an icon unveiling part of his updated design.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: Sahn-Uzal was already a brutal and terrifying warrior, responsible for the deaths of hundreds in his life. Mordekaiser turns him in an unholy combination of metal and necromantic evil, an "Iron Revenant".
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: He was first reanimated by a coven of sorcerers who intended to use his consciousness as a weapon for their own "trivial wars". Mordekaiser had none of that and instantly slaughtered all of them, kick-starting his second campaign in the mortal realm.
    These power-hungry sorcerers had hoped to use him as a weapon in their trivial wars. Instead, he slew them where they stood, their weapons and magic useless against him.
    "The Iron Revenant"
  • Foil: To Viego, both were once rulers who defied the cycle of life and death for their own selfish reasons and became undead rulers commanding enslaved undead. Despite this basic premise, personality-wise they are completely different.
    • Mordekaiser was always a monster, who cared for no one else but himself and desires world domination and godhood. Viego was a flawed but not always evil King, and while selfish does at least care about his wife and does not want world domination but only wanting her back.
    • Mordekaiser is a big AP armored juggernaut who lacks Mobility and is calm and collected while talking. Viego is a smaller, AD fighter who has tons of Mobility and who shows anger more while talking.
  • Foreshadowing: Before Mordekaiser was officially reintroduced with his 2019 relaunch, he was alluded to in the Ezreal-focused short story "The Curator's Gambit", where he was sent to recover an Elixir of Uloa rumored to grant immortality, not knowing that his client was intending to use it to resurrect "the dread lord". It also introduced a bell lined with Ochnun, which Ezreal managed to steal along with the real elixir after outwitting the backstabbing client.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: His in-game appearance really takes advantage of the game's lack of canonicity as technically, Mordekaiser is out of commission in the present day, having his soul severed from his suit of armor and lacking presence in the material realm, although he is plotting in the afterlife which he plans to return from.
  • Genius Bruiser: A terrifying mixture of brains and brawn, Mordekaiser has a masterminding streak in his plans of posthumous conquest and is fully capable of clobbering his enemies to death to serve him in the afterlife.
  • Giant Hands of Doom: Death's Grasp creates a massive clawed hand to drag foes towards him.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Despite being Out of Focus in the main plotline due to being indisposed in the physical plane and most don't even know he exists in the present, Mordekaiser is one of the most influential forces on Runeterra for creating Noxus and nearly conquering the entirety of the world in a bloody conquest before he was stopped and a lot of secret factions (especially the Black Rose, who have multiple contingencies in place like Rell) who are still aware of his existence are intent on keeping him in the realm beyond out of fear that they won't be able to stop him a second time around.
  • I Reject Your Reality: A monstrous version is his motivation. The main reason his soul continues to exist in undeath is because he utterly refused to accept the cycle of life and death he found himself in, and is now seeking to carve himself his own afterlife through sheer willpower, dark magics, and slaughter.
  • Inadequate Inheritor: He has lines for when he meets pretty much every Noxian champion (Noxus's capital was once his fortress). He's not really impressed.
    (To any Noxian) Noxians claim strength, pathetic.
    • He's especially displeased with Swain.
    (Upon first encountering Swain) Clutch your borrowed power, 'Grand General.' Your soul is already mine.
    (Upon killing Swain): Clearly, your ambition outpaced your ability.
    • The only Noxian champion he has lines for who he doesn't immediately insult and dismiss is Darius, and even then, he seems only mildly amused that the Hand would claim to represent the strength of Noxus, daring him to prove his worth.
    (Upon first encountering Darius) You claim strength Darius...prove it.
  • It's All About Me: His goal in life was to destroy as many lives as possible to earn himself a seat as one of the greatest beings in the afterlife. When the afterlife proved to have nothing for him after death, he settled for nothing less than to continue murdering so that he could build an eternal empire in his image with all the souls he collected.
  • The Juggernaut: A fed Mordekaiser is still pretty slow and has to get close to deal damage, but good luck stopping him once he's on his way.
  • Kick the Dog:
    • Among the countless victims he claimed in his various mortal conquests, one he broke especially hard was Veigar. Upon encountering him in-game, Mordekaiser remembers the torture he inflicted on him as a fond memory.
    • A less cruel example comes from his joke emote, where a ghostly poro jumps out of his armor and onto his mace. He simply flicks it up and backhands it away.
  • Magic Knight: While Mordekaiser wears heavy armor and wields a gigantic mace with ease, he also knows enough dark magic to not have to solely rely on his physical strength. In game, he also serves as this: a tanky, close-ranged fighter who uses both spells and sheer brute force to kill his enemies, and unlike most other juggernauts, his scaling and passive heavily encourage him to fight with straight-up ability power over attack damage or a hybrid of the two.
  • Mighty Glacier: Slow and lumbering, with no natural mobility options bar a rather pathetic 3% speed boost on his passive, but have fun stopping or surviving his onslaught if he gets close to you.
  • Mutual Disadvantage: An important thing to remember about Realm of Death is that while it pits Mordekaiser's enemy into a 1v1 duel without outside interference, it also puts Mordekaiser himself in that scenario. Should players use the ultimate with the intent to kill, they should be absolutely sure they can do it alone. Care must also be taken as to where to use it, as Turrets can also enter the Realm of Death with Mordekaiser and his opponent.
  • Not the Intended Use:
    • Mordekaiser is envisioned as an Attack! Attack! Attack! champion with poor mobility and a kit that encourages nothing but fighting. However, his Death's Grasp ability, normally meant to invoke You Will Not Evade Me, can be reverse cast with some dexterity to send foes away from Mordekaiser instead.
    • While mostly intended for the top lane, Mordekaiser's kit works quite well in the jungle, wherein his tankiness and self-healing, and the amount of AoE damage he can put out will allow him to make short work of creep camps, and Death's Grasp and Realm of Death allow him to punish mistakes from enemy junglers. With the right build, and under optimal circumstances, Mordekaiser should have very little trouble soloing Baron Nashor.
  • The Nothing After Death: Rather than a glorious Valhalla awaiting him, Sahn-Uzal found nothing but an empty landscape of wandering souls, all drifting in an enternal oblivion. This did not sit well with him.
    He found no halls or glory awaiting him. Instead, Sahn-Uzal stood in an empty, gray wasteland, shrouded by ethereal fog and plagued by discordant whispers. Occasionally, other lost souls drifted nearby—little more than ghostly shapes, wandering their own personal oblivion.
    "The Iron Revenant"
  • Odd Name Out: Both before and after his 2019 VGU, Mordekaiser has a tradition of having abilities named after Heavy Metal songs or bands, either as unaltered name drops or slight rewording, such as his old Q being called "(M)Ace of Spades" or his current ultimate called "Realm of Death", based on Judas Priest's "Beyond the Realms of Death". The only ability that doesn't currently fit the scheme is "Death's Grasp"; other alternate titles were considered like "Master of Puppets" or "Creeping Death", but none were deemed proper enough fits for the ability to warrant sticking to the theme.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: So long as he has souls to fuel his eternal empire, nothing else matters, so he'll kill as many as it takes to achieve this dream.
    To his foes, it seemed he cared only for massacre and destruction. Entire generations perished under his relentless campaigns.
    • That said—unlike other omnicidal maniacs like Aatrox and (most) Void-based champions who wish the complete obliteration of everything for varying reasons—Mordekaiser is uninterested in destroying reality so much as maintaining his eternal empire in the afterlife with innumerable souls, so this is Downplayed to a point.
  • Percent Damage Attack: In addition to scaling off of level and his ability power, the damage per second from his passive also deals a percent of an enemy's max HP on top of that. While the damage doesn't seem like a lot at first, get into a sustained duel with him and the damage will rack up terrifyingly quickly.
  • The Power of Hate: Mordekaiser/Sahn-Uzal's sheer rage against the afterlife is so immense that aside from undead necromancy, it's his will that keeps his soul from snuffing out, a feat no other mortal in Runeterra has replicated.
  • Power Parasite: When banishing an enemy to the Death Realm, Mordekaiser reduces a number of his target's core statsnote  by 10%, while temporarily gaining those stats for himself - giving him an edge over his target right off the bat. If he kills the target during their duel, he gets to keep the stolen stats until they respawn.
  • Reduced to Dust: When he dies, Mordekaiser collapses to the ground, with his armor soon crumbling into dark ashes.
  • The Rival:
    • Implied with Viego; while it's not clear if they ever interacted in the past, Maokai does mention in one taunt that Mordekaiser was one to Viego, although the Ruined King had been dead for hundreds of years by the time Mordekaiser was first born. It has been confirmed in an interview that while Mordekaiser and Viego's powers work differently, if the two were to directly fight, Mordekaiser would very likely win the encounter.
    Maokai: (taunting an enemy Mordekaiser) "Rival to the Ruined King - in ruin."note 
    • Also has one with Karthus on the subject of meaning and purpose in death.
    Mordekaiser: (First Encounter with Karthus) "Death has no meaning, Karthus, all that matters is one's purpose beyond it."
    Karthus: (Taunting an enemy Mordekaiser) "You give the dead purpose, Mordekaiser. I give them meaning."
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Morde's soul was severed from his armor by LeBlanc and her allies, then his armor was locked away in the depths of the Immortal Bastion, all with the hope that this will delay his dreaded return.
  • Sealed Evil in a Duel: This is one of the main uses of his Ultimate, pulling dangerous enemy champions into a one-on-one fight with him, where they can't hurt his team, especially those reliant on area attacks or bursting down squishy champions, forcing them out of their element and into his.
  • Sickly Green Glow: Like with most undead in the game, Mordekaiser's design is highlighted with a spectral Faux Flame, though his looks more green than the teals and blues of Shadow Isles champions, as his powers come from a separate source.
  • Simple, yet Awesome: Like most juggernauts, Mordekaiser has a fairly approachable kit focused on smashing enemies to pieces up close, with mechanically straightforward defense and crowd control to make things easier for him.
  • Soul Jar: Lacking any flesh and bone, his soul was bound to his enormous suit of armor for his second life, though the connection was severed after his second defeat.
  • Shirtless Scene: His Pentakill lacks a shirt and shows an actual torso. He still has the helmet on.
  • Spikes of Villainy: As quoted from his preview:
    If you have ever felt that your champion's aesthetic could be vastly improved by the addition of plate armor covered in metal spikes, [Mordekaiser] should definitely scratch that itch.
  • Time Abyss: Mordekaiser is incredibly ancient, having had two entire lives worth of conquest to his name before Noxus even came to be. The current timeline places him at around 2,000 years old, having lived a few centuries before the Ruination.
  • The Underworld: Mordekaiser corrupted and rules over a portion of The Afterworld, forging his own kingdom of death which he calls Mitna Rachnun, seeking to expand its borders into Runeterra. According to his lore writer, the Afterworld is actually the same thing as the Ionian Spirit Realm, most associated with Shen.
  • Villain Respect: Implied with one of his death quotes towards his opponents which, while still sounding like a threat given his abilities, indicates he's more intruigued than outright furious.
    You... have earned my attention...
  • Warrior Heaven: He seeks to transform the afterlife into a kingdom for the bloodiest and strongest warriors, with himself as its king.
  • We Will Meet Again: Uniquely has this kind of reaction on being killed on the rift. After all, he's already dead and can come back at anytime, so there's no need to fret over being shut down by an enemy.
    A fleeting delay of the inevitable...
    I refuse to fade...
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Realm of Death can really ruin an enemy's day if used properly, but it also has the misfortune of being classified as a type of crowd control. This means that anybody with a cleanse can just pop it and instantly dispel the Death Realm, and anyone with any form of crowd-control immunity (like Olaf with Ragnarok active) can outright shrug off the initial casting of the ability. This can even lead to the egregious situation of Gangplank escaping the Death Realm by eating an orange.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: PROJECT Mordekaiser sees humans as too destructive and illogical to properly self-govern, and so has taken it upon himself to infect the machines of city to subjugate the humans within, believing this will set them on the right path.
    Enslavement is the only logical outcome.
    The Program is not your enemy.
    Security is my mission.
  • You Shall Not Evade Me: His Death's Grasp ability in a nutshell, bringing fleeing targets closer to him for a beating. This carries over in his Legends of Runeterra card, wherein he gains Challenger.

    Old Mordekaiser (Pre-VGU) 

Mordekaiser, the Master of Metal

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mordekaiser_0_old.png
"I shall bring great suffering."

Voiced by:
Adam Harrington (English)
Félix Alcolea (European Spanish)
Humberto Solorzano (Mexican Spanish)
Takaya Kuroda (Japanese)
José Santa Cruz (Brazilian Portuguese)

"All things must die... and yet I live on."

The baleful revenant Mordekaiser is among the most terrifying and hateful spirits haunting the Shadow Isles. He has existed for countless centuries, shielded from true death by necromantic sorcery and the force of his own dark will. Those who dare face Mordekaiser in battle risk a horrific curse curse: he enslaves his victims' souls to become instruments of destruction.
  • His passive, Iron Man, shields him for a percentage of the damage dealt by his own abilities.
  • His first ability, Mace of Spades, grants his next three attacks bonus magic damage, with the third hit dealing double that bonus.
  • His second ability, Harvester of Sorrow, passively grants him bonus experience when killing a minion near allies, equal to half the experience lost with the ally nearby. On his first cast, Mordekaiser targets an ally, granting them bonus movement speed while moving towards each other. For the next few seconds, he can reactivate to deal magic damage to all enemies around him and the ally, healing both of them for the same amount.
  • His third ability, Siphon of Destruction, deals magic damage in a targeted cone.
  • His ultimate, Children of the Grave, passively curse any dragons in the area. When activated, Mordekaiser curses a targeted enemy champion, dealing damage and healing himself for the same amount. And if his team scores a takedown on the cursed enemy, Mordekaiser enslaves their soul, turning them into a controllable ghost; this works on both champions and dragons.

    Mordekaiser's alternate skins include Dragon Knight Mordekaiser, Infernal Mordekaiser, Pentakill Mordekaiser, Lord Mordekaiser, and King of Clubs Mordekaiser.
  • Ambiguously Human: His very first biography played with the idea that he may or may not have an actual human body under that suit.
    Some allege that he is a man, though none have actually seen what lies within the plates that encompass him.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: A lot of Morde's damage comes from the empowered auto attack from Mace of Spade, requiring that he get up close and rely on basic attacks to clobber his foes to death.
  • Cast from Hit Points: How his abilities functioned, under the premise that he could regain by landing his abilities.
  • Dracolich: The dragon he can summon is partly skeletal and glowing with a green aura.
  • Dragon Tamer: Children of the Grave lets him bring an undead dragon into battle, bringing all of the destructive potential this entails.
  • Plaguemaster: He could originally spread death where ever he went just through touch alone.
    As if his fearful visage doesn't disturb enough, his touch bears a sinister plague. Those unfortunate enough to be caught within his grasp fall victim to incurable maladies. In fact, Mordekaiser seems mystically connected to sickness, as if it feeds and comprises part of his chilling essence. He has been seen stalking the slums of Noxus, drawn to the plague-ridden and diseased.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Mordekaiser infamously became this for a brief period around the mid-2015 Juggernaut update, with a rework changing several elements of his kit to make him be played as an AP-based melee botlaner intending him to be played in the place of traditional AD marksmen and shake up the metanote . This experiment didn't work out, and after balancing for it proved to be impossible, he was reverted to be a solo laner once again.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: A sign that you shouldn't mess with his Tin Tyrant (well, if this version still existed that is).
  • The Spook: Before Runeterra's slew of Retcons to establish its modern lore and factions, Morde's weight on the world relied his unknowable destructive power; nobody knew what he was or where he came from, just that he shouldn't be crossed.
    Some see the distinguishing characteristics of a general. While many have learned to accept this unsettling possibility, a lingering question keeps them uneasily awake at the witching hour: if Mordekaiser is a general, what nightmarish army lurks at his command?

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