Mordekaiser Elder Dragon Ghost Is Hilariously OP
4000 HP? No Problem!
It hasn’t taken long for things to get out of hand with the first draft of Mid-Season changes hitting the PBE. Players have been racing to find the most imbalanced changes to exploit in a long list of seriously delirious patch notes. The update has only been on the PBE for a day, but already players with access to the early test server are forming loud, shouty opinions. New AP items? Pretty strong. The Mage rework? “Ban Brand Cass Zyra OP!” Malzahar running around immune to CC and clearing the jungle fast enough to break the sound barrier? What even.
However, the most absurdly imbalanced change isn’t even part of a champion or item rework. An update to the jungle and in-game objectives revolves largely around the introduction of four different elemental dragons. After 35 minutes, these elemental drakes are replaced by their big daddy the Elder Dragon. The Elder Dragon grants a powerful True Damage burn buff to its slayer, and increases the bonuses bestowed by its elemental spawn. But that isn’t the best buff Elder Dragon has to give, as can be seen in this video uploaded by Brandon Mullins:
Yuuuup. As a reminder for how this works, Mordekaiser’s ultimate ability allows him to “curse” the Dragon, granting him a ghost of the beast upon slaying it. The Dragon Ghost gains some of Morde’s bonus AD, and gives him 25% of its own max HP. Since the Elder Dragon in this video is sitting somewhere around 9k health, that translates to a ghost that grants Mordekaiser… more than 2000 HP.
Mordekaiser hasn’t been a major culprit in the recent “league of tanks” meta-game malaise, but good luck killing him when he’s walking around gaining shields on top of 4000 hit points. This sounds terrifying even without the giant Elder Dragon ghost running around chained to Morde’s will, who looks pretty good at blasting down champions and objectives in the video above. I’d like to say, “I bet this doesn’t make it to live,” but given some of the crazy balance changes made in this patch I’m not risking it. Hey, perma-banned Morde would be a nice, nostalgic flashback to worlds!