Ah, Dr.Mundo. The forgotten champion. Or is he? I talked to the best Mundo player in the world, kmax9. He has the highest LoLSkill score with Mundo in the game and he has reached Diamond almost excusively playing Dr.Mundo. We talked a lot about Mundo, a bit about the new system and how he grinded to Diamond.

A little bio about him: Kmax9, grew up in the Atari generation, which is also known as Gen-x. His first video game system was an used Atari 2600. Asteroids, Space Invaders, and Star Wars were his favorite games.

Kmax9's first computer was a Tandy 1000, and his gaming continued with the King's Quest series and other games of the Sierra Games Era. In that time he played games like Doom, Warcraft 2, and Diablo.

The first multiplayer internet game kmax9 played was called Bolo, and it was played on Mac (which is now ported to windows as Winbolo). It was up to 12 player tank, pillbox, warfare strategy game. In the community kmax9 was known as Pawn. Skip forward, graduating from college, then starting a family. He had been out of gaming for a few years, before his friend intorduced himself to League of Legends. After trying out the game he soon found his beloved champion, Dr. Mundo.

Hello and thank you for attending to this interview.

kmax9: Thank you.

For starters, where did your passion for gaming start from?

kmax9: I started playing games with my friends when I was younger, which we still do on Monday nights. I grew up in the 1970s/-80s, so I had an Atari which I played with. I remember that the first computer my parents bought me was a Tandy 1000, which nobody on their twenties even knows what it is. It had a 0.6 gHz processor so it was a pretty old computer.

I started playing more in College, especially focusing on one game, Bolo. I think it has a lot of similatiries with League. It doesn´t have different champions or anything, but it has two sides where you had similar resources like bushes (grasses in BOLO) where you can visually hide from the enemy just like in League. This meant that it had a lot of surprise attacks like ganks in League. It also had a lot of teamwork in to it. It was a really fun game to play and it kinda got me in to gaming

Do you think Bolo was part reason for your interest in League of Legends?

kmax9: Well, I think League has a lot of strategy, like Bolo has. I was not the best tactics player in Bolo, whic probably affects why I picked Mundo as my main champion.

Well, now that we are in the topic, why Mundo?

kmax9: I think I chose him because he is a forgiving champion, which helps my sometimes over aggressive playstyle. Mundo is a champion that has high damage output while being very tanky at the same time.

I started using Mundo in the jungle back in season one, when no one actually played Mundo in the jungle. I got raged pretty hard at for picking him because Mundo was a champion that was considered being trash. Evelynn was the worst at that time, so Mundo was second on the list, which was the main reason why people raged at me. Anyways, I started devolving strategies for playing Mundo in the jungle. I started counterjungling, which no one really did at that time, evolving my own jungle routes to do that.

Also I think that the best thing about Mundo is his Cleaver, since it it is so useful for jungle, Buffs and it is the best feeling with Mundo when the enemy just thinks they got away and you use the last Cleaver to finish off the job.

In sense, I might not be the best player in the world, but my objective with Mundo is to help out my team, and Mundo fills that role well. This is mainly the reason I still play him today and it has actually now became like a thing that: "Hey, kmax is playing Mundo!"

No wonder it became a thing, since you have over 6000 Dr.Mundo games played. Don´t you ever get bored at playing only one champion?

kmax9: The game for me is not really about the champions, it is more about the gameplay, the objectives and the goals. It is just that I enjoy the other parts of the game, the best part being the competitiviness of the game.

I have sticked with Mundo, because the variety of every game is still different anyways, even if I do just play Mundo. But I still have tried to pick up couple more champions in to my champion pool, because at times, it is not an option to play Mundo when you have to go to tournaments, where you can´t always have Mundo available.

To the topic of variety of every game being different, lets talk about the roles Mundo fits, because you play Mundo in every single role except for ADC. Can you talk about the main differences of playing, for example Top lane Mundo and Support Mundo?

kmax9: The roles have many differences from each other. You know, when I play Mundo in top, you wanna play like Nasus, where you sit back and get your farm. Now, if your jungler comes to gank, it´s fine, you can go all in. But it is just the fact that Mundo doesn´t have a true gap closer if the person is good at escaping, like Riven. In top you have to be aware of ganks because of your weak early game. If I don´t loose the top lane by more than 20 CS, I think I have won the lane and if my jungler has came to help me, it just makes my life so much easier. Mid game Mundo in top is actually really fun against certain AP Champions, since I play Mundo almost as an AP Caster in top lane which counters quite a few AP Champ.

Now, to Support Mundo. I like to do early engages with him if my ADC is able to follow up, sometimes taking Ignite and Exhaust. But the main point of Support Mundo is that his damage is gonna be about the same no matter what happens with items. It changes a little bit though if you add Sorcerer´s Shoes or Haunting Guise, but otherwise you are leveling up your Q, which does damage based on the enemy´s health so you don´t really need gold for that . This make you able to have really good ward control in bot lane and still have a high poke comp with your ADC. Although Support Mundo is good, I have done awesome with it, and I have also done terrible with him. It depends on the game.

So in which role do you think Mundo works best?

kmax9: Personally, I feel like I can control the game with jungle in soloQ. I feel like I am making the calls and controlling the team. I feel like I am in control of the buffs, and I am aware of when we should take them and when not to. I sometimes consider it is like poker, where you have strategies like bluffing something you are doing because they don´t have enough vision covering you or if bottom leaves to go to Dragon, sometimes the other team is curious to come and see where did they leave and come to check the Dragon. This is where I can use some tactics, and sometimes solo the Dragon at level six or seven and tell bot lane not to come help so that the enemy team won´t get suspicious. I will do this if I have vision over the area and I believe the enemy don´t have any idea about the fact that I am doing the Dragon. This is the thing with Jungler´s part, I feel like I am in control of the game.

If I remember correctly, people used to build some AD items to Mundo like Youmuu´s Ghostblade in the late season two. What is your opinion on AD Mundo?

kmax9: Here´s the thing with AD Mundo. I have played him in Ranked Threes lately, building Infinity Edge or/and Phantom Dancer on him and it is hilarious. AD Mundo is great from levels one to sixteen, but once you get above that, you have to be in the middle of every fight, which can get you in trouble from time to time. If you are greatly ahead and you have all the tankiest things, you just get kited too much, since you are in 5v5s and 4v5s where they have enough CC to kite your auto attacks. That is the reason why I started using the Magic Penetration Mundo with a tanky build.

That seems to be a really interesting build! I have to ask you, why does it work so well with Mundo?

kmax9: Well, I started doing some math with Mundo and tried ot figure out how to make Mundo more useful in teamfights. Back then, no one was actually building Magic Penetration on Mundo, so I tried out taking Magic Penetration glyphs, marks, seals and quintessences. I used to build Mercury´s Treads to Mundo and then I tried changing that to Sorcerer´s Shoes. I started testing out Magic Penetration Mundo on normals and I realized I do huge amounts of damage with only two or three cleavers to people that weren´t building any Magic Resist. I have been using it ever since almost every game.

I use to add Haunting Guise to my build for getting better damage output and I build Liandry´s for the slight HP benefit and the burning effect. It works really well with my Q and W. Although I don´t really build Liandry´s every single game, since I use a different build against heavy AD teams.

Can you tell me about the masteries you use with Mundo?

kmax9: So basically I have two Mastery Pages for Mundo, which are lane Mundo, which also considers Support´s role and jungle Mundo. For jungle Mundo I use 9 in Offense and 21 in Defense. In Offensive tree, I take four points to Fury and Deadliness plus one in to Weapon Expertise. That is only because I am spending so much time on jungle clearing.

In the Defensive tree I use the usual Though Skin, Bladed Armor and then of course Durability and Veteran´s Scars for health. Juggernaut I use to get the percentage health, Summoner´s Resolve I use for the ten extra gold. I usually use Tenacious to reduce the crowd contol effects. Then I take one point to Legendary Armor and one point to Honor Guard obviously.

For lane Mundo, which considers also lane Mundo, I use the Magic Penetration tree. I will stick one point in Summoner´s Wrath and four in to Sorcery. I don´t like the new offensive tree, because I dont want to take Ability Power for Mundo, but it is the only way to get my Magic Penetration. If they would change that for next season, it would be great.

I change the Defensive tree quite a bit, depending on the Champion I play against. If I am against an AD Caster I put it all in to Armor and if I am against some AP Caster I will put it all in to Magic Resist. So basically that changes based on the game.

I feel like Utility is just waste for Mundo. I mean, there are some things I would love to use like the Spell Vamp/Life Steal, but I need to take so much useless stuff for Mundo that I really don´t need to have. I know other people use it, but I just don´t really agree that it is useful for Mundo.

How about the runes you use with Mundo?

kmax9: I have five pages for Mundo. I have to pages focused on Magic Penetration Mundo in lane. The two pages mainly have slight differences that are based on the opponent you are against . They both have 8.11 health per level (146.03 at level 18) and 13.5 Magic Penetration. The differences in the two are that in the Top Mundo page I have 12.7 Armor and in the Mid Mundo page I have 10.7 Magic Resist.

Mundo - test is a page I have been using for playing top lane Mundo recently. It ignores all the Armor or Magic Resist and instead it has 9.74 health per level (175.24 at 18) with 19.5 Magic Penetration.

Then I have my Jungle Mundo. I have used a lot of math to form the page. It isn´t anything scientific, but it has been working really well for me. It has 6.1 Magic Penetration and 8.1 Armor Penetration. I use Hybrid Penetration Marks and the Attack Speed Glyphs (which make a total of 5.1% Attack Speed bonus) combined with the Armor Seals which give me 12.7 Armor. I also like to use the Movement Speed Quintessences since I have to be in move all the time to get succesful ganks all over the map.

Then I have a page called Mudno, which I use on Dominion mainly. It has 15.9 Magic Penetration and 11.7 Armor Penetration with 6.88% Attack Speed. This page really doesn´t have any defense on it.

Top Mundo page: Greater Mark of Magic Penetration (x9), Greater Seal of Armor (x9), Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration (x9) and three Greater Quintessence of Scaling Health runes.

Mid Mundo Page: Same as Top Mundo page, except that he uses nine Greater Seal of Magic Resist runes instead.

Mundo - test: Greater Mark of Magic Penetration (x9), Greater Seal of Scaling Health (x9), Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration (x9) and three Greater Quintessences of Magic Penetration.

Jungle Mundo: Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration (x9), Greater Seal of Armor (x9), Greater Glyph of Attack Speed (x9) and three Greater Quintessences of Movement Speed.

Mudno: Greater Marks of Hybrid Penetration (x9), Greater Seal of Attack Speed (x9), Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration (x9) and three Greater Quintessence of Hybrid Penetration

To talk about Mundo more, why do you think that Mundo´s pick rate is so low and what kind of people do you suggest Mundo for?

kmax9: The thing with Mundo is that you really need to get used to how to play Mundo, because he is not the strongest Champion in the world until really late. He is actually kinda weak, since if you don´t build any Armor of Health, you will be wortheless in teamfights. And the thing is that you have to be actually in the side of the fight protecting your ADC or going after their ADC, and that usually is kinda in the edge of the fights. But the thing with Mundo is that you are a really good chaser. This benefits you in 1v1s and 1v2s quite a bit-

I would recommend Mundo for people that want a Champion that is a little forgiving at times. Also if you like fast, AoE jungle clear, Mundo is the champion for you. I think people should give Mundo more chances and I actually think Riot might do something for Mundo´s early game, we will have to see, since they have talked a lot about bruisers and their current stage.'

To talk more about you, you haven´t always been in Diamond. Can you talk to me about your rankings from season one to this day?

kmax9: At the end of season one I was Gold. I think that the game has literally grown me up, but also I think the whole League atmosphere has changed quite a bit from season one. This has made impact on my gameplay quite a bit and I have started grinding the ladder. I was still Gold from the whole duration of season two. I was at low Gold at the start of this season and I have been in Diamond III, but I fell few divisions and I am at Diamond V at the moment.

You have climbed the ladder quite a bit. Can you tell me about how did you climb the ladder?

kmax9: So, I started out in Gold V, and I remember how I got nine promos denied before getting to gold IV. That is how League is. When people tell me about the "noob trap" and how people get lucky with the teams. Sometimes I sympathize with them, but other times you just got to grind the ladder. This is the thing with the promos, I won one and lost two, won one and got back in to promos, which I lost again before finally hitting Gold IV.

My raging has been a problem earlier, and I have been banned up to two weeks at times. Since then, I have learned not to rage back at people. The reason why people used to rage at me back in season one/early season two, was because I picked Mundo who was considered to be trash at that time. To give an example, I remember one game where I was 6-0, and my team basically quit on me, because they said that Mundo can´t carry.

My tips to climb the ladder are to concentrate on your teamwork and not to rage at people. One thing that has helped me was finding Magic Penetration Mundo to get the most damage out of Mundo. It is funny, since sometimes after the games I like to look at the damage done to champions. I have some games where it is me that has done the most damage to champions with the build.

Talking about changes, which system do you prefer more, the LP system or the ELO system?

kmax9: That is actually kinda tough, because I feel like it has been a challenge to get up the ladder. To compare the two systems, when you got stuck in the old system, you could just keep going down and down and down. With the bracked system, when you get down to Gold V or Silver V or so on, you have this huge groupping of players with 0 points, which I have seen since I was stuck in Platinum V for a while. Your MMR gets eventually so low that you gain really low amounts of LP. You have to get on a really big streak to get out of the *put League name here* V and I think that is the main reason why so many people are stuck in there.

People talk a lot about being "lucky" with their teams, and I get it, sometimes I get lucky with my teams too, but if you don´t have that skill set to grind yourself out of 0LP, then you will just get stuck in that bracket forever. I may not be the most skillful player there is, but I grinded it out, because I had enough talent and teamwork to get to the streaks. For example, when I got to Diamond, I was in Plat II at first, where I grinded with winning atleast 24 games out of the 30 I played.

In the new system, one thing I like is that if you start loosing really much, you can´t keep falling (except for the decay) forever. The thing although is that I think in this season it has been a lot easier to get in Diamond, since it is like the Platinum of season one.

Although you seem to like the new system, which season have you liked the best?

kmax9: I have kinda gone back and forth with this one, since the biggest change to me is the Magic Penetration and the rise of glasscannon assasins. Whoever now can get in first and do the damage is almost guaranteed to win the fight. This almost deletes the tanks out of the games, because of the way the Penetration works. I mean, you see some AP Carries that build sustain to blow up in the air. I do feel like there are items that make AD Casters too strong like Rivens, Lee Sins and ADC´s with lifesteal. All those have affected this season strongly.

On the other hand, I have achieved the best this season and I have got myself to Diamond. So I think season three has been the best for me, and it has of course made things more interesting. I sometimes wish for the days of season two, where you actually had these tanky battles, but I think season three has ended really well for me. I can still understand how some people prefer season two more.

If you would be able to get in to a LCS team, do you think having only one main Champion would be a flaw for your team?

kmax9: I actually do have some back up Champions, which my stats don´t show, but for example my Volibear is ok. I like Volibear, since he is a bit like Mundo, since his passive is like Mundo´s Ultimate is available at level one. I know that the enemy team can ban Mundo and that is why I have been working on some alternatives.

But if I would get to a team, I would obviously have to work on getting atleast three or four main Champions, since it is obvious people will ban Mundo against me. But some would say that Mundo is not the best Champion there is, so they might not ban it against me. This has been seen in some broadcasted tournaments, where the casters were really surprised they didn´t ban "kmax´s Mundo". In these occasions the enemy got to see why you ban Mundo against me.

I don´t really think my skill level is there though. I mean, I am really good at Mundo and my tactics are pretty good with him. I haven´t really watched the LCS though, but I know that it has many changes to what people do in soloQ, like warding, which is so much more important in the competitive matches.

Well, we are almost at the end of our interview, but I still have to ask one question. Do you have any tips for the people that are desperately trying to grind Leagues in the end of the season?

kmax9: I would say, don´t give up. I almost did it when I achieved Diamond, since I felt I won´t be able to get to Challenger anymore, but now I feel like moving up to atleast get my MMR up to Diamond IV or III to help me out for the reset. I don´t actually know what kind of reset it will be, but I am assuming they are doing a soft reset again.

But you are definitely gonna run in to problems. You are gonna run in to trolls, afks and bad situations. But still, you should try not to rage at anybody, it doesn´t do any good to anyone. Try your hardest in any situation. Work on strategies that will benefit you. If you are on a streak, try to mainly use the champions you are the most comfortable with. And you got to remember, it is not too late to climb the ladder. You can do major changes in one night. I, myself grinded from Platinum I to Diamond III in only one night. You should try is to achieve the rank with playing soloQ. I don´t usually DuoQ, since I haven´t had good luck with it.

That was the last question I had. Thank you very much for this interview, and good luck with soloQ!

kmax9: Thanks. But before we go, I would like to give a shout out to friends that have made League more fun to me. Making new friends in League has made the time spent a blast. First to Lou @OceaniaLOL, and all of his Oceanian friends. Thanks. Kmax89, Screacher, Xtacy, and all the other people on my friend list, as well as my real life gaming friends, Kevin, Will, Marcel, John, and the rest.

If you are interested, you can also see him streaming in here: twitch.tv/kmax9. Also remember to follow him on twitter @k9kmax!