Gnar vs Mordekaiser — Top Lane Matchup Guide

How to win lane as Gnar against Mordekaiser · 51.17% win rate over 596 Emerald+ games · Updated 2026-07-27

Verdict: A genuine skill matchup — the favour swings window to window (3 apiece of the 7 stages). Gnar wins 51.17% of games vs Mordekaiser in top lane (596 Emerald+ games analysed).

Favour timeline — who owns each window

StageFavouredWhy
Level 1GnarMini's ranged autos plus a single Boomerang win the first trade — Morde has no dash to punish you and can only eat the poke.
Level 2MordekaiserHis W shield makes the return trade safe, and stepping in for the Hyper proc lets his E pull and isolated Q slam your fragile Mini body.
Level 3MordekaiserAt 3 his full E-pull into isolated Q with W shield up out-trades a squishy Mini Gnar who overstays inside his range.
Levels 4-5GnarWith Rage banked your Mega Wallop stuns him even through his W shield and a wall-pinned GNAR! flattens his dash-less body for the kill.
Level 6MordekaiserRealm of Death drags you into a stat-siphoning death-realm 1v1 — caught in Mini with no Mega bulk or wall, you lose that duel.
First itemEven / skillIt is pure form RNG: Mega-up you wall-combo him, Mega-down he ults you, so the window is a coin-flip on your Rage timer.
Two+ itemsGnarYour wall-ult and front-to-back Hyper kiting peel him off the carry, wasting his single-target R and reclaiming the teamfight.

Early game (levels 1–5)

Level 1-2 is mine: Mini's ranged autos plus a Boomerang let me poke a dash-less Morde who simply cannot trade back, so I chip him and step out past his Q range. But the second I walk in for the Hyper third-hit proc, his E can drag me in, and at 2-3 his Q lands its isolated bonus damage on my squishy Mini body while his W shields the counter-trade — that flips short range hard to him. Hit him at distance, never sit inside his E.

Read the rest of this matchup

The full Gnar vs Mordekaiser report continues with the mid-game plan, the late-game and teamfight plan, every power spike to play around, and the win conditions for both sides — plus cooldown tracking and the live enemy-jungle tracker inside the app.

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