**** Mordo (Master of the Mystic Arts) **** Updated (8/7/17)

DesertTortoise

If 5/5/3, black tile creators are what you'll focus on. C&D work pretty well, Switch/3Fist will spam the board with black but are a bit squishy. If you run him at 3/5/5 then you can just use him with IM40 or Switch to get him purple and blue. 

I'm running him at 5/5/3 to give his black a whirl even though the rework sort of stopped him from being a closed loop. My 301 Mordo is boosted to 409 and his numbers are a bit nuts. His black hits for 5,644 default but 3,712 per black charged tile once there's 4 or more on the board. That's kind of silly since his default damage is still pretty bad, all things considered, but can get out of control and hit for around 20K or more later in the match. Blue is steady damage, 10 blue AP for 18,256 is standard boosted damage so I won't complain about it. Purple is bonkers, at 5 covers its 2,134 damage per AP the enemy has. I didn't try a 5 cover purple build since the first day mostly had goons who don't hoard AP but that is lethal damage. 

His black, at 5/5/3, is pretty much constantly up with a team that creates black tiles but it's still quite a bit of work since you have to build an entire team around a black that's only good during the right board conditions. I had a situation where I KO'd an enemy with 7 black charged tiles on the board which would have been 25,984 damage for 8 AP. I do wish that even if there are 4 or more black charged tiles on the board it'd at least create one other charged tile just so you don't get 'stuck' so easily at 4. 

I think 3/5/5 will be his default unboosted build and something I look forward to trying against some of the higher scaled tile moving nodes 

sinnerjfl

Biggest problem I'm seeing with the new version is his black ability. You need to use a black ability to make more black to use it several times more...  which makes the whole thing extremely slow and at that point, why not use someone else with a better black?

Blue can make black charged tiles too but only 3 which is under the damage threshold. It's 10 AP and with few characters actually making blue tiles, you might use this twice in a match tops.

Purple seems solid but you shouldnt let the AI get that much AP in the first place...

Tiger_Wong

He's amazing with C&D. I'm looking for a 3rd. Settling for 4* Blade right now. 

hopper1979

I bet he is good with them (they are next on my list since I cannot get any green cards for Iron Fist), I am running him with SS and Carol in current event.  Blue is this teams strongest color so you keep those two behind SS and hit with Mordos' blue, Carol's black and Mordo's pink, heal with SS blue when necessary.  I have been running Mordo/Chulk/SS in simulator and they are very solid as well, excellent surviveability rainbow team black goes to black hole or Hot dog stand not Mordo.

granne

Both blue and purple are no joke now, at least boosted. Black is meh, but I didn't like his old black much either. I still don't think I'd be using him if he weren't an essential, but he may be a handy counter to passive-heavy teams in Sim.

Straycat

I thought he was more fun before, but is much better now. I'm still trying him at 5/3/5 so that his playstyle is about the same as before. I think his black is still not well designed. It should create more tiles than the threshold at 3 or more covers, so you can match away one to fuel it to fire again. That might let a 4/4/5 build be viable. Problem I've been having this event is bad luck on the placement of the charged tiles, so I can't match them and can't use them. But I've been running him with Cyclops since they're both boosted, and Mordo tanking. Cyke generating black helps, but I'm finding Cykes blue and red, and Mordo's purple are ending matches faster than multiple staff attacks. Thanks CL based scaling!

Jaedenkaal

Might go well with Vulture. As long as you keep 6 black around every few turns for Circling Prey, any extra can go towards Staff. 

Anon

I Champed Mordo the day he was reworked. I had him at 5/5/3 because that's how I thought he was best (let's face it, his purple was garbage).

Post rework I was running him 3/5/5 because of mucho damage from Blue and Purple. Recently on a whim I've switched him to 5/3/5 and I'm finding this might be his best build. It won't do as much direct damage as 5 in Blue will, but man, once you fire his Black once, you'll have no trouble building for a 2nd or 3rd charge in no time. When boosted (as he is now) his Black alone is slaughtering teams even before I get the Purple out!

I loved his Blue Pre-Rework, but now it's looking like his worst power.

hopper1979

After getting some levels into C&D and seeing how well they work at black or yellow tile generation I am going to try Mordo at 5/5/3 for pve (enemies just don't build up enough power for pink to be great in pve) I think they should be able to go through groups very quickly just off black generation alone.  On PVP I would go back to 3/5/5 for Mordo C&D and pair them with somebody like 4Cage or Electra (3/5/5) so pink can go to Mordo and you have a solid tank in Electra or Cage.  I am about half way to leveling C&D when I finish I will let you know what I think of Mordo/C&D/Electra when I can that one looks better in my head than 4Cage but I think they both would be solid.   

Jaedenkaal

3/5/5 is fine in PVE on nodes where there is even one tile-matching enemy. They'll build up enough AP in a color they can't use for you to take out the last enemy in one go, generally.

When he's champed of course you can re-spec him any time you like, so that's nice.

Anon said:

I Champed Mordo the day he was reworked. I had him at 5/5/3 because that's how I thought he was best (let's face it, his purple was garbage).

Post rework I was running him 3/5/5 because of mucho damage from Blue and Purple. Recently on a whim I've switched him to 5/3/5 and I'm finding this might be his best build. It won't do as much direct damage as 5 in Blue will, but man, once you fire his Black once, you'll have no trouble building for a 2nd or 3rd charge in no time. When boosted (as he is now) his Black alone is slaughtering teams even before I get the Purple out!

I loved his Blue Pre-Rework, but now it's looking like his worst power.

That might be true when he's boosted but when he's unboosted there are so many better black powers out there. Blue damage powers on the other hand are fairly rare. 

DesertTortoise

I think 5/5/3 or 3/5/5 are perfectly fine when he's boosted. Unboosted, I can't see a build other than 3/5/5 for him in most situations. His 5/5/3 builds requires you basically prioritizing his blue and black and you'd be way better off letting someone else have that black when he isn't boosted all things being equal. 

JarvisJackrabbit

talleman said:

Must say that i enjoy Mordo since his rework. And especially now when he is boosted. Not sure who to pair him with tho. Any suggestions?

I've been enjoying him quite a bit at 3/5/5 with a 5/3/5 C4rol and 4/5/4 Riri. Black goes to C4rol and there's some flexibility with the two active blues. There are active abilities for each color, too.

abominatrix

The Riri/Carol combination is pretty good (I'd run Riri 3/5/5 if you're running Mordo at 3/5/5, but that's just me). 

A couple of other combinations I run:
Mordo/Jean/IM40 - PVE only, obviously, but it works; Run Mordo at 5/5/3 for this one since you'll likely use Jean's Purple over Mordo's
Mordo/Gamora/Rocket - I've been running this one quite a bit since Mordo was boosted and then Gamora; Blue feeds Gamora's black, with lots of strike tiles and other goodness.
Mordo/Fist/Cage - Mordo black generation feeds Fist, Mordo at 5/3/5 or 3/5/5
Mordo/Thor/third - Mordo takes the place of Cho for the extra charged tile generation feeding Thor's Red; Mordo at 5/5/3 maximizes this. For PVE, third can be IM40, for PVP take your choice.

If you use Mordo as a Black battery (and Blue nuke), you can team him with anybody who can use the Black (Carol, Gamora, Wasp, etc.). As a note, Galactus is coming up, I would think he could feed Ghost Rider as well.

Good luck!

Rick_OShay

As other posts have stated, 5/x/x probably only makes sense when he's boosted. Other than that, I just have to keep him at 3/5/5 and feed someone else's better black. 
Also as mentioned, and as I was looking forward to when his purple was revised, Mordo was excellent vs Galactus. Feed black to Ghost Rider, sure, but...
Mordo's purple alone (for just 9 AP cost) did amazing damage once Galactus had acquired lots of AP.  
800+ damage x 20 enemy AP for example = 16,000+ damage for an unboosted character.  Incredible.

Jaedenkaal

mexus said:

No one would ever go for 5 black, 3 blue?

Trouble with that is that, although the Black alternate (ie good) effect caps at 8 Black Charged tiles, it stops making them if there are already 4... and it makes 4. So you have to do a lot of silly hoop jumping to get the 'good' damage out of it without firing it several times and matching some of them away in between (low damage) firings.

Normally all that would mean is that you'd go 5/5/3, and chain Vaulting Boots in between a few SotLTs, and get some good damage in there with some self-acceleration. 

Unfortunately, Power with Purpose is so clearly the best of his 3 powers (against tile-matching teams, at least) that you'd almost never put it at 3 covers without an extremely specific reasons, and so you end up building him as a 3/5/5 because Vaulting Boots at least does something by itself at 5 covers.

iron-n-wine

I just champed Mordo today and wow that purple is a one-shot kill when he is boosted

Punisher5784

iron-n-wine said:

I just champed Mordo today and wow that purple is a one-shot kill when he is boosted

This PVE event is crazy with boosted Mordo.. I am pairing him with SW for the quick purple, he's one shotting everyone! I should have tried SCL9 instead of going for the easier SCL7

iron-n-wine

His blue is no joke at 14k boosted too (I'm running him at 3/5/5)

Vhailorx

iron-n-wine said:

His blue is no joke at 14k boosted too (I'm running him at 3/5/5)

Nope, for the cost his blue is a joke (edit: for damage).  

14k for a boosted 4* nuke that costs 4x match3s is poor efficiency.

For just 12 black ap 4* iron fist can do about 30k.  And he even self-accelerates his black.

Hell, moonknight green does about the same damage for almost the same ap unboosted!

Mordo is no longer a disaster.  But he still isn't great.

Rick_OShay

Kind of.  We shouldn't overlook the value of changing the enemy strongest color to charged black tiles - to gather for someone else's black - like 4Fist.