It's been literally years since Mordekaiser was a professional staple, but FlyQuest demonstrated today that the Iron Revenant is far from obsolete. His unique strengths meant that FLY always had the upper hand against Team EnVy and they managed to take the series in three games.

FlyQuest played their usual polished game, with excellent jungling from Moon and solid pressure from Hai in the midlane, but it's Altec who's the hero of this match. He piloted Mordekaiser to a 7/2/10 KDA, showing just how strong the metal knight can be when given the right setup. The lack of siege potential on FLY's comps didn't seem to mean much when they were able to bring a drake to bear against NV's towers, and good focus fire mean that Altec was always picking up ghosts in teamfights.

The Mordekaiser pick was a clear demonstration of FlyQuest's playstyle and emphasizes their interest in bringing out new, unconventional picks. "I think it's very important to be able to play the meta and always be able to play the top-tier champions, but the teams I've been on have always been the first teams to pull out new shit," said LemonNation in a postgame interview. "There's no way this team has ever played against a Mordekaiser. They have no idea what to do against it."

Of course, it's not like NV put up no resistance whatsoever. Their early game in the first match was solid thanks to LirA's pressure, and Seraph had a great game two despite getting ganked constantly. However, they were definitely unprepared for FlyQuest's unique picks and were largely beaten in the draft phase.

Game 1 had a slew of weird picks from both teams, with Ninja bringing out Talon to face Hai's Zed and the FLY botlane playing Mordekaiser/Nautilus. NV initially held the edge thanks to good rotations and mistakes made by Altec, but FlyQuest didn't collapse. They rose to the pressure instead, turning the game into a veritable bloodbath with kills traded across the map. Superior drake control allowed FLY to eventually start taking towers, and the sheer number of lethality champions on the side of NV meant that FLY's itemization was almost too simple. With armor stacked up and a team that thrives on being clumped, NV could never find the picks that they needed to come back.

However, NV were quick to adapt. A swift Mordekaiser ban forced Altec onto Caitlyn instead, and NV were able to bring out Seraph's Ekko to counter Ball's Camille. FlyQuest attempted to get Balls fed with near-constant roams from Hai, but their ganks were only able to pick up kills on occassion, despite the pressure. With the lack of support from their midlane and jungle, FLY's botlane weren't able to hold their turret and NV picked up tower first blood, granting them a slight gold lead. From there, it only got worse for FLY - Seraph's Ekko became a splitpushing nightmare despite the ganks, and NV turned their slight snowball into a full-on avalanche. Game 2 went their way after only 34 minutes of play, evening up the series.

You'd assume that NV would ban out the Mordekaiser again in game 3, but somehow the Iron Revenant slipped through the first phase of bans. FlyQuest pounced, locking him in in their second rotation alongside Nautilus, but then brought out a surprise Blitzcrank to support him. The unconventional botlane duo was slightly counterpicked by NV, but FLY played the matchup beautifully and were able to snowball through the early game after a few good picks. NV were almost completely shut out through the final game - they only earned one kill and took zero objectives, leaving them gold-starved and unable to stop FLY's pushes.

Image credit: Gameinfo.na