The LoL version makes it look like Mordekaiser is actually contained in a fortress of Iron. The LoR design looks like he is seeping out from all of the holes.
the league mordekaiser looks like a brik wall, with everything sealed off inside him, not a single bit of soul may escape his grasp, while the new one just leaks the soul? it doesnt look like an iron hard efficient emperor, but like someone who just shows off power. its too similar to xerath
League Mordekaiser looks like a pure evil being created from nightmare fuel. The redesign made me think it was a generic mob undead enemy in a World of Warcraft dungeon when i first saw it.
Mordekaiser sitting on his throne makes no sense when considering that in his color story he literally refuses to sit down and smashes his throne because he sees it as a sign of exhaustion that comes with a body made of flesh, which he conquered by becoming immortal. It was one of the coolest parts of his lore that made him more than just a generic bad guy.
@@shyboievris834 he never sat on a throne because it showed the weakness of exhaustion, but because he no longer suffers a mortal body, so he can’t get exhausted meaning his view wouldn’t make sense
You know, looking at it... It's not that the Blue Morde is particularly bad. It's just that the League one looks infinitely more terrifying and impressive. Dunno the bright blue does reek of 'Saturday morning cartoon villain' (even if the minions border on awesome body horror). Dare I say Blue Morde... looks like a raid boss from Classic WoW, not even one of the final bosses too.
The new design looks a lot like xerath and I really don't like it. He is not supposed to be leaking his soul he is meant to be bound by the armor which is what he looks like in the original splash art. He looks massive and menacing but through tiny holes in the armor you can see that he doesn't have a body its literally just massive chunks of iron and thats so cool to me. The original color was also cool in my opinion.
It's impossible to not like League of Legends Mordekaiser's version. Whenever I see something related to it, I feel a sudden hurge to play him. So powerful. So intimidating. An absolute unit.
exactly the design is fucking perfect. why change it. and i will die on the hill that green plays a major role. we got champions like yasuo,garen,gwen, and xerath, asol, lissandra. none of those i think intimidating absolute units. maybe sejuani but she isnt unsettling as a character she just has a cold personality. warwick and thresh would not the same without it.
The Original mordekaiser that has way less glowy stuff fits the whole "soul bound to armor" thing way more imo. Like alphonse from fullmetal alchemist. the lowkeyness really sells. New morde looks like the soul is "controlling" the armor, instead of being bound by it.
I think they purposely changed morde's color for him not to be tied into the shadow isles. I would have liked it if it was whitish green or bluish green. the original dark green would be much preferable of course
But Morde literally has a voice line where he says ''The same magic that chains you to this realm, frees me to walk between.'' when encountering Shadow Isles champions...
it would make more sense for him to stay green, as riot has started a motif of green = freakish death entities. Viegos whole deal is that he cheated death using the life giving water from the Blessed Isles whilst simultaneously dying, Mord also cheated death in the sense that he blatantly refused to die. it would be cool if the green hue was runeterras universal signal for “oh fuck this guy is supposed to be dead why is he alive”
As other people have pointed out. Why does he have a throne? It was explicitly stated that he doesn't need one because he is no longer a mortal who needs to sit and rest
I think one of the resons they re-designed him is because this is a new second set of armor. With the current LOR cards the only regions that had not received a new champion were the shadow isles, targon, demacia, and bandle city. We also saw at the end of Volibears teaser Nilah had sailed to the shadow isles. So Mordekaiser is likely the new SI champion and lore wise his cult is trying to resurrect him on the shadow isles. They could be resurrecting him there because its away from Leblanc and her spies on the populated regions of the world, the shadow isles is already full on undead energy so they could be trying to harness it, the isles are close to the dead so the barrier between it and mords realm is thinner, there's a lot of options they can use to explain why they are their. Since his original armor is still held by Leblanc his cultists had to make due so they created him a new set or armor that tried to emulate his original armor. So to signal that this isnt his real armor they redesigned him to show this isnt the armor held by Leblanc. Thats my take on it i could be completely wrong but i think it would make sense.
I get where you are going. But if that was the case, they wouldn't go as hard on the design. It would be more down to earth, a little more "slapped together", just to receive Morde. I also doubt that the Shadow Isle would be a great place to go to. The ghosts there are not followers of Morde, and the cultists would be under constant attacks.
@@Movieplayer112 you totally wouldn't skimp or give a warlord a set of armor that's "slapped together." And sure Morde's followers might be attacked but Morde also would have tons of souls in SI to use to shape into the monstrosities that are his followers.
@@kashtrey The idea is that, it is just a physical form to receive him, and he would soon after construct a better fitting armor, and probably out of the cultists who summoned him. It would be a footnote, but not the finished thing.
@@Movieplayer112 I get what you’re saying but the last cultist that resurrected him ended up getting used to form his mace; giving him an unfinished set of armor is literally just asking to be turned into his codpiece.
@@kashtrey I basically said that my self: "he would soon after construct a better fitting armor, and probably out of the cultists who summoned him." I don't think Morde would really give a shit.
To me, by redesigning Mordekaiser already while Cho`Gath looks the same is one of many examples why they are not able to pull off the `united universe` thing or `updating every champion` thing.
They didn't redesigned Morde because they HAD to, but because they had the oportunity to (not necessary tho I agree). But you can be sure that if Cho'Gath is in LoR he will get a redesign, probably a bigger one too since they would try to make it look more like the other Void units and champions.
We will hopefully get an explanation for this whole thing. Maybe this form is his incomplete form, while the one we have in league is his actual form, with the armor finally sealing all the holes. Either way, I don't think we should consider this an update for his design, seeing the feedback Riot will most likely keep the previous form, even if they wanted to make this one his canon form. His main look is still most likely the one in league, and we will find out why he looks different, the same way they did with Udyr.
my theory for the Lore is: Nilah went around Runeterra to gather blessings from different "gods", to then stop the preemptive rise of Mordekaiser. She won't actually fight Mord, but fight some cultists and maybe some early followers. With Voli to gain his blessing she needed to fight him. This fight ended when Voli acknowledged her (similar to the little fight in Song of Nunu, but bigger)
Its a pretty cool idea... sad that its being wasted on Nilah. There's such a big buildup for everything thats related to Mordekaiser, making Nilah casually going from world-ending threat to world-ending threat collecting blessings like they are trinkets REALLY undermines that whole sense of danger. Specially considering she will certainly leave the Mordekaiser fight alive. Of course, thats much more a fault on Riot for not doing anything with Nilah's character except making her extremely powerful. If there was any buildup or event with her that would be way better, but as it stands, she's just a superpowered rando who goes around making fun of favorite characters.
@@felipecouto1102thats part of her story tho, no one knows who she is, she doesnt even remembers who she was before ashlesh, thtas why she goes around beating fucking gods so she can be remembered again
@@cooperburtonburger1827 We know who she is tho. And we also know how important those gods and deities are. Making her beat up on them just makes THEIR hype lessen, considering there's no event happening, she's just doing it for shits and giggles. What she's doing is like a mythology hero going around beating everybody, an Hercules or Gilgamesh... except that there's not actually any content besides us knowing she is beating them. There's no actual lore on it.
I was hyped to see the Morde reveal but was really disappointed by his redesign, his league version is definitely superior, no idea why they felt the need to change it...
The only guess I could make, is that Riot wants 2 versions of Mordekaiser for the MMO, one weaker version, that we see here. Only being temporarily conjured by his cultists. That's why his armor has so many gaps, they could fully fit his soul. Maybe he comes from just a simple quest or Event. And then the second, proper armor, but that would be his raid boss appearance. Where you have to fight through hordes of his souls first to get to that massive titan! Especially considering that his armor is locked underneath the Immortal Bastion, it would make sense to change up his Design a bit, if it's not the "real" Mordekaiser.
I would like to think that LoR is a place where riot can experience ideas of design to see how far they can go and what is people's reaction before suddenly committing to change a character's design
I hope that’s how they’re treating it and that the splash art in LoR is just something they’re trying and MIGHT use as final designs, rather than everything in LoR being absolute canonical fact.
Everything they did is. Song of Nunu, environment design. Project L, combat design. League and Lor concept and universe design. Even Valorant's like some dungeon combat design in whatever mmo games. They would never make the same concept of the game twice because the next time it'll be mmo
It feels like when Xerath stripped all the power he did, it's like his body has trouble containing itself. Kind of showing how it wasn't meant to be that way. Morde's design looked purposeful, like a suit was strongly bound to him in an almost natural way. I don't think the new design looks bad, I just don't think it shows how much control Morde had over his own soul. Xerath feels sporadic and unhinged, Morde feels controlled and concentrated. Two similar ideas conveyed in two different ways. I don't hate it now, just don't support it.
I saw people on the subreddit saying that when he was banished to his realm, he didnt keep his armor, so it makes sense for him to have a different one when making an appearance. It makes sense that his new armor is worse than the old one, since he probably hastily forged it with souls for his comeback. Being high on copium, I hope they have a story of him getting his old armor back tho, since it would make so much more sense for the iron revenant to be, well, covered in iron.
Im just a little bit concerned about the entire lore thing + how LoR is changing a lot of champion appearances. I mean I know they want to bring everything in line, but I feel like Riot can't keep up on each other. They won't update the visiuals in League since they work with different priorities + what will be the actual design that we will find in the MMO or future Riot Forge games? It feels a little bit disconnected and yeah... The original Mordekaiser design was so much better and looks more badass than the new one
they specifically said that all things going forward from LoR would be the new canon.. and that arcane is also canon... so whatever LoR does is what it will be like in the MMO.
You said something about the elder dragon becoming another new, unique champion? 1:00 It'd be strange for Riot to release multiple dragon type champions in a row, especially since they're releasing an egg. Could it be safe to assume that this champion could possibly evolve over the course of the game and at lvl 16, like Kayle become an Elder Dragon.
I still think that Blue Morde is just his sight in his realm. His true set of armor - a League one is in Immortal Bastion. And when he returnes, he will look like League one. At least I hope so
I always saw the hue of the shadow isles as being more of a teal, the combination of green and blue, or life and death. A state of being trapped in-between
It's weird seeing his armour so wide open, I always saw it as his armour containing his immense power and being sealed shut kind of similar to Deathwing, of course there are a few wholes but it was still being held firmly together as a whole.
You pointed it out in the video, but thats not Mordekaiser's original armor; thats being guarded and watched by LeBlonc. So it makes sense as to why Mordekaiser looks slightly different, he had to make some new armor. As for Nightfall, I dont think that is Nightfall, as thay is also very likely hidden away by her.
The herald being LeBlanc would be such a good twist. Needing a reason to bring him back, but maintaining a leash on him to make sure you keep control. It seems unlikely she wouldn't know what's going on in the one place that could potentially usurp the entirety of the Noxian continent, nevermind wrestling control from her. That's also dismissing Swain as another surveyor, since he has eyes in a lot of places. It's either outside of the Immortal Bastion, or LeBlanc already knows about it. Especially when the worshippers probably aren't the most quiet, what with their clanky armor adornments.
A reason for why Kallista is blue, might be her Spirit of Vengeance thing, considering no other spirit from the Shadow Isles could travel without the black mist (looking at you Thresh), Kallista could be summoned anywhere on Runeterra, if the pledge of Vengeance (seen in her cinematic and short story) was invoked, offering your soul to Kallista in return for vengeance upon those who'm have wronged you. In short, I think she is considered a spirit in her own right, and not a shadow isle undead.
As a Mordekaiser simp, I am not really liking the Legends of Runeterra look. Looks more like a cartoon villain now, which is kinda dumb. And that’s coming from someone who thought his OG look was metal.
We have never see souls in the afterlife! so Morde being blue in HIS domain makes sense as he is not ripping souls from the spirit realm to animate. His new design is seemingly evocative of the likes of the immortal bastion, I think it works.
the new nightfall looks a bit like a gaslamp to me. Also it feels like, if you bash that into the ground realy hard, it would break, because it's texture looks more like stone than metal (I know it isn't but orewise, but we are talking about looks here.) I don't think that the helmet is that bad, I mean i isn't as good as the original, but I think it isn't that goofy.
The LoL version looks like an unstoppable and indestructible tank that will walk through entire armies alone. The LoR version looks like a tough Dark Souls enemy with a gimmick that if you hit him with a heavy attack from a heavy weapon he will fall apart, then slowly reconstruct himself (like the skeletons you can break apart with heavy weapons) giving you a lot of time to deal damage to him.
I love both versions and I would really like them to not be exclusive, like league mordekaiser would be his terrenal form and so it has way more structure and makes sense while the LoR one has more free space because its meant for the death realm were he isn't bound by the logic of the living world, sure the helm is a little bit off but a side from that he looks cool honestly
IMO, LoL Mordekaiser looks more like a Juggernaut and LoR Mordekaiser looks more like a Warlord. Both are pretty cool designs. I do think there could be some visual confusion between the power that animates Mordekaiser and the power that animates Xerath, but I trust the texture artists to demonstrate enough of a distinction
i really like the design i just think they should close the holes up a bit to make him look more menacing but i think due to him being blue now he looks like a bulky version of the lich king
I have personal headcanon of this version of Mordekaiser being a different set of armor, with the League's version being chained over the well of souls in Immortal Bastion
My primary issue is the weapon looks like a clunky trophy instead of the warmace that is his first one. The colors are alright but first morde looks like a boss and new morde looks like a trash mob or mini boss
I think the new silhouette works a lot better than League Morde. It makes him look more like a building than a man in armor. And I also really like the new pattern design on it, but there's one thing I'm missing from the League design: layers. Morde's armor has layers of armor plates and even what looks like metal bones within. THAT'S what's really missing.
he looks like a decepticon now i love this new design (and the blue hues to distinguish him and his realm to the "cursed undead" green that the shadow isles use)
I think a good way to mix Mordes Lol an Lor designs would be to have his armor be a lot more "closed off" (like in league) when he has barely injested any souls, but after he has feasted on some spirits his armor would "open up" making it have more gaps while morde expands. (Like Lor)
Mordekaiser conquering the entire continent and the "world" uniting against him is the old lore (because the old world only used to be a single continent). In the new lore, at best Morde conquered a significant portion of East Valoran, hence the Immortal Bastion's location, and the Noxii tribes united to defeat him, hence Noxus was formed around said Immortal Bastion.
4:46 correction, thats not noxian script, its ochnun, the language he learnt in the shadow realm. It reads sahn-uzal, which was mordekaiser´s human(?) name
I like to believe Nilah got absolutely BODIED in the volibear fight, as she would, and she literally died. That is why she is now in the realm of dead, but because of the demon she is powerful enough to to just join morde's undead army, and then takes up the fight against him!
The new Mordekaiser looks more like a cartoon villain than a villain you would actually take seriously, I cant imagine this design being animated in a future cinematic where they have to seal mordekaiser back and he looks like this.
well I personally really like the redesign mostly because it does lean more into looking like armor from a battle being reanimated by something evil (his soul). The original is amazing of course. I think the redesign, like the lore team is trying to do now, brings much more consistency in the universe.
The way I see it it's actually the opposite, the LoL version looks way more like a walking armor while in LoR he looks like random scraps of metal put together.
The thing is the universe canon look of morde in his realm had the blue under control and jt still looked like morde the LoR desing is overflowing with light blue. I think they should tone it down a little gove some more dark blue and give the old helmet back and the design would actually be not so bad
One thing I wish League would do is lean into more extreme and unusual champs. They sort of did it with ASol's release, but then they decided to nerf him to unplayability until they deleted him and added a new champ in his place. What I mean is I wish League had champs like Smite's Jörmungandr and HotS' Deathwing - champs that are very explicitly not humanoid and play extremely different to how the entire rest of the game plays normally. So while I know you're explicitly talking about an Elder Dragon character in LoR, I can't help but think of it as a champ in League. Slow autos that splash, a take off ability to knock away nearby enemies, a beam breath ult (like the execute effect from the buff) that's global single target and executes, but can only be cast on enemies that were dealt damage by your team within the last X seconds.
Mordekaiser design before: Dark Indestructible Behemoth of a God-Emperor of Death. Mordekaiser now: Mordekaisers soul energy shining bright through sturdy armor with holes and surprisingly funny helmet. Being of soul energy... Mordekaiser I would love: The first one with whatever design changes need to be made. Would understand the blue colour of soul, even the visibility of his soul holding the Armor together as it is being fed other souls to grow more powerful as he has nothing to fear inside his domain, although would appreciate more indestructible look when readying for more serious battle. The helmet seems to clunky... I loved the sickly green colour as it was reminescent of all the death he brought and still shall bring upon the world, but understand it fights with Ruined kings colour pallete. Don't know if there are some changes to his lore whether he shall be pragmatist or psychopath whose powers would thus not be tainted by his emotions. But all the destruction he caused in his wake definitely colours him dark sickly murderous villain in my eyes. And I cannot seem to bring myself to like it yet. Will tell you as soon as I change my mind...
There's too much color in his design, sure we associated league Mordekaiser with green but in his design there's little of it because the armor itself is the core of his design, not his soul. Also I think the helmet's face was designed the way that it was because they drew too much inspiration from the Lich King's Helm of Domination, it's got the open mouth and eyes instead of a visor, but what made Arthas's visage intimidating was that you couldn't properly see his face when he wears the helmet as it was shadowy apart from the flames from his eyes. They placed too much emphasis on Mordekaiser's soul which isn't what defined him, he is defined by the Iron he wields, molds and physically is.
I imagine that as he's chilling in his realm, he'll occasionally decide to work on his armor more, make it bigger as he gains more souls/power, and generally forcing him to redesign it from time to time.
I suppose this new design is simply the way he looks in his death realm (even if we have that other image) whereas the LoL splash is the original armor that he will one day inhabit again
I always strongly disagreed with people who claimed that he was definitely going to be a Noxus champion. First of all, gameplay wise he clearly belongs to the Shadows Isles region. He is all about death, causing things to die around him and growing stronger in the process, that's 100% Shadow Isles gameplay, not Noxus. And secondly, Morde doesn't even have very strong ties to Noxus, only the physical location of it. Sure, he built the Immortal Bastion, but Noxus as a nation was founded after his defeat. When he returns, he will probably use the Immortal Bastion as his base of operations once again, but he wants to invade all of Runeterra. He doesn't care about Noxus specifically.
Yea Necrit is totally right. It's make sense for Riot for to change an iconic cool recently reworked design to a more "NOXIAN" blended in with everything else design.
the runeterra design reminds me of a ghostly general instead of a warlord who brings devestation and fear that you're own soul becomes a slave to his biding
My head canon is that the Morde in LoL is armour his worshipers made for him to be summoned into, whilst the LOR version is the form he has crafted for himself to exist in, within his own realm.
I feel like they unintentionally “slutted up” Mordekaiser with this redesign🤣 Skimped his armor, gave him a slave princess Leia skirt/banner & FFOnline bunny ears
It depends on how you look at things, if you see so many holes you can think "ha! Opening!" or... "shit my weapons are just gonna miss, can't hit air lol" and when you see thr face you can think "huh, cringe ghost" or "shit it seems to stares at the f void"
I don't hate the color, It kinda differentiates him from Shadow Isles and the very classic Shadow Isles Colors. I think just making the armor a bit more enclosed would help a lot.
soo..to a certain point if necesary to fix it, they can tell that mordekaiser is looking for his favorite armor in the living world and runeterra is basically his soul like armor
I am somewhat undecided on these expansions.. something similar to how it turned out to be with Galio and constructs. They just kept adding stuff to the "mystery" parts even though the guessing game is sometimes way more fun A sketch sometimes feel way more lively than the finished drawing
Old Mordekaiser was an Iron Revenant, a lord of death with his soul bound to his armor. New Mordekaiser is just a Noxian Transformer Talking more seriously, they tried to change his armor to look more "noxian" and they messed it all up. The banners and spikes look great but everything else seems less like a sharp noxian armor and more square and even futuristic? His league design looks menacing, it is a sharp yet bulky agressive armor. Now he looks clunky and goofy, its a sad downgrade. Nightveil follows the same problem, its design was agressive and transmitted really well its idea. It is the weapon wielded by Mordekaiser, forged with goddamn souls. Now it looks like a weird clunky olympic torch. His art sitting on his throne is also pretty upsetting. He is the lord of an entire death dimension commanding a horde of tormented souls to bring the apocalypse to runeterra. You expect it to look like a badass goddamn final boss, and you get a goofy robot dad sitting perfect posture on a generic throne. An art of Mordekaiser sitting on his throne should be terrifying, you should look at it and say "Man i sure dont want to make him get off his throne" but it kinda makes me want to laugh at him. Sorry by the bad english btw, not my first language
