Master Yi/Strategy

Template:C-top

Gameplay

By Tyler 'RiotWenceslaus' Eltringham

We're reworking Master Yi in the coming patch. In addition to new sounds, voice over and spell effects, the Wuju Master is also getting a kit overhaul to combine his popular AP and AD builds into a single cohesive playstyle. Check out his reworked abilities and read how the kit plays out below.

Abilities

• Passive
• Q
• W
• E
• R

Double Strike

Master Yi strikes twice on every fourth consecutive basic attack, with the second strike dealing reduced damage. If Master Yi leaves combat, the counter on Double Strike resets.

Alpha Strike

Master Yi leaps forward and strikes up to four enemies, dealing physical damage to each. Alpha Strike can Template:Cctip to deal additional physical damage and will deal bonus damage to minions and monsters. Basic attacks reduce the cooldown on Alpha Strike.

Meditate

Master Yi channels for a short duration, healing rapidly. Master Yi heals more the lower his health. While channeling, Master Yi takes reduced damage from incoming attacks. This damage reduction is less effective against turrets.

Wuju Style

• Passive: Increases Master Yi's attack damage by a percentage.
• Active: Basic attacks deal bonus true damage based on Master Yi's attack damage. The passive bonus is lost while Wuju Style is on cooldown.

Highlander

• Passive: Champion kills reduce Master Yi's basic ability cooldowns. Assists reduce basic ability cooldowns by a smaller amount.
• Active: Increases Master Yi's movement and attack speed while granting immunity to Template:Cctip. While active, champion kills and assists extend Highlander's duration.

In lane

The changes to Meditate and Alpha Strike make Master Yi a more dynamic fighter in lane while rendering him less frustrating for his lane opponents. Since Alpha Strike prioritizes nearby units instead of striking randomly, a skilled Master Yi player can carefully aim his attacks while a canny opponent can avoid damage through careful positioning. Meanwhile, the cooldown reduction from basic attacks allows Yi to Alpha Strike more often, and the bonus minion damage helps him clear waves and maintain lane pressure. Also, the changes to Meditate make it a more potent option in emergency situations, but prevent Yi from simply spamming it to top his health off every time he takes damage.

In the jungle

To compensate for reduced early game damage on Alpha Strike, we've made the bonus damage to minions and monsters guaranteed to smooth out his jungle time. The cooldown reduction he gets from basic attacks should also allow him to Alpha Strike more often, allowing for a more consistent clear time. Also, since Double Strike now deals less damage more frequently and requires Yi to stay in combat, it should be harder for him to queue up a double attack, then come tearing out of the jungle to score a massive burst combo onto an opponent.

Late game

As the action edges into late game and the team fights begin, the changes to Highlander start to shine. The new passive gives Master Yi the ability to stay alive in rough situations by lowering the cooldown on Meditate and Alpha Strike. The true damage on Wuju Style gives Master Yi the freedom to initially focus tankier targets while waiting for the right moment to open up on vulnerable targets. Then, when the time's right, he can open up with Alpha Strike and punish the enemy team's more delicate back line. Meanwhile, the changes to Meditate increase its lifesaving potential when he's under significant focus fire, and the added damage and crit on Alpha Strike help it scale to keep up with his basic attack damage in late game scenarios.

Overall, the changes should help Master Yi play more consistently by combining the sustained damage of his AD playstyle with some of the nuke-and-juke utility of his AP build.

Champion Spotlight

By David 'Phreak' Turley

Whether you prefer to tear up the jungle or dominate a solo lane, this Master Yi Champion Spotlight is full of tips and tricks to help sharpen your game.

Master Yi's heavy-hitting nukes, sustained DPS and reflex-driven defensive abilities make him the ultimate high-risk, high-reward champion. He excels at fast, brutal ganks as well as diving into fights to assassinate targets before withdrawing with his impressive suite of escape tools. He's also got intimidating cleanup potential thanks to the extended duration on his ultimate when he scores a kill or assist.

Learn how to prove you're a true Highlander in this edition of the Champion Spotlight, featuring Master Yi tactics, masteries and more.

Recommended Items

Tips

Playing As Master Yi

Playing Against Master Yi

Tricks

Ability Usage

• Master Yi is a DPS-based champion that relies more on his auto attacks for damage through extra attack speed and only occasional use of his abilities which tend to be more for personal utility. Because of his ease of usage with high damage DPS, he is rather infamous due to being hard to duel against, his Alpha Strike being a powerful invincible execute to low health targets, and his Highlander providing resets on his ability cooldowns without him missing a beat as he slays his enemies.
• In order to unlock full potential, perfect timing/reflexes and having knowledge of your enemies abilities/cooldowns is highly recommended as Master Yi more than most other champions because of his low base defense, and weakness against hard CC. Master Yi is one of the most squishy melee auto-attack champions in the game, putting him in a lot of danger when he engages (it is for this reason some higher-level players build him as a bruiser). Master Yi is simple to learn, hard to master when against more powerful opponents, and easy to counter by CC and itemization, especially if played in higher levels of competitive play, many players would have better knowledge of how to counter him.
  • However, in the end he is extremely rewarding, with the potential to carry games once you master him and thus, mainly tosses most complicated traits involving caster-type champions out the window in place of learning to make solid decisions and make use of proper positioning. Also, one must be wary of the fact he has no team utility such as a form of crowd control, but he must and can still do his job as an assassin regardless.
• Master Yi's Double Strike is similar to Caitlyn's Headshot. It is very useful for dealing extra damage to enemies in lane, by gathering stacks through attacking minions, then attacking the enemy on the fourth strike. Note that delaying too long will cause the buff to disappear.
  • It is possible to cancel the second strike before the animation finishes, so be careful not to unnecessarily prevent its use.
• Using Alpha Strike with Double Strike ready and activating Wuju Style as soon as Master Yi reappears can be an excellent harassment technique as it often takes most of the opponent's health in early game.
• Alpha Strike's multiple-target component has a deceptively long range. You can target minions near an enemy champion to harass them, as well as farm at a better rate compared to most champions.
• If  Alpha Strike is used on a unit that dies before the ability finishes,  Master Yi will end up where  Alpha Strike was first cast as opposed to near the first unit cast on.
• Alpha Strike can also be used defensively. Since it includes a dash function, you can dodge skillshots. Also, Master Yi is untargetable during the teleport, so Alpha Strike can be used to dodge AoE nukes such as Nunu's Absolute Zero if timed properly.
  • Alpha Strike can also be used to escape chasing enemies, by placing a ward in the Neutral monster camp and using Alpha Strike on the creep, or by targeting nearby minions if fleeing while in a lane (be careful if the minion dies however! Yi will not end up anywhere else if he Alpha Strikes a dying target).
  • Alpha Strike also causes Master Yi to lose tower aggro when he uses it, by keeping a few friendly and enemy minions around Master Yi can tower dive an enemy champion without fearing the tower's attack after the dive.
    • He can also time it right when if during an even duel, to use it as an invincible execute, in case the enemy has one final attack of some sort either through auto attacks or ability burst as Yi can avoid it while killing them at the same time.
• By timing Alpha Strike properly, Master Yi can follow enemy champions over walls when they use a blink or a dash ability like Flash or Tryndamere's Spinning Slash.
• Alpha Strike is great for harassing no matter how many minions in a wave there are so that Yi can harass his foe for amazing damage from a distance. It is best for Yi to use Alpha Strike as a gap-closer and to dodge attacks. One must also keep track of other potential targets due to the ability also targeting the closest ones around.
• Alpha Strike has a high mana cost, so be careful not to use it too often or else you'll go OoM.
• If you're in a lane against ranged players, leveling up Meditate can allow you to stay in the lane longer and gain levels faster than the opponents.
• Use Meditate if you are being focused on, as the percentage damage reduction greatly reduces your damage taken.
  • Meditate is especially useful when an opponent is trying to turret dive against Master Yi. He can stand next to the turret and use Meditate to hold off damage from the opponent while they are repeatedly being hit by the turret.
• Meditate can help  Master Yi survive deadly 1v1 skirmishes by briefly activating Meditate right before the opponent throws high burst at you. In most cases this can turn the tide of the fight as your opponent can't finish you off quickly afterwards.  Meditate can reduce up to 70% incoming damage at max level, making it essential for any  Master Yi player to master this trick, and to time it right and being sure they won't die while doing so, because once Yi channels his heal, being a sitting duck can backfire on him.
• When you are being chased, hiding in a brush and channeling Meditate can give you the upper hand against the enemies. However, do not do this if they can still defeat you after the Meditate.
• When playing Master Yi, remember that Highlander reduces all your cooldowns by 70%. Try to cast Alpha Strike to secure kills or grab assists, reducing your cooldowns.
• Highlander can be used as an effective escape tool, especially with Ghost used at the same time. it is also incredibly great at chasing enemies because you cannot be slowed and gain a movement speed boost.
• Triggering Wuju Style and Highlander causes massive spikes in Master Yi's DPS, allowing for unparalleled dueling and assassinating potential. However, the former if activated too soon will reduce Yi's damage output upon the active wearing off while on cooldown due to short duration, and must be used if about to score a kill or if extra damage must be done on the get go.
• Wuju Style combined with Alpha Strike is very strong for last hitting minions.
• Master Yi is one of the best split pushers and can quite easily pull off a backdoor. Not only can he push lane very well with enough attack speed items, activating Highlander then attacking a turret or inhibitor can take it down very fast.
  • Though it should be noted that Wuju Style's active does not work on structures, so hold onto it for the AD bonus instead.
• Once Master Yi gets enough major items, he is able to rush into the enemy team, swiftly assassinate key targets like the marksmen or mages, and then Meditate or escape. Watch for cooldowns on disables while doing this, and make sure the enemy team is unwary, otherwise a bad decision can lead to a kill for the enemy team.
• Master Yi must pick his targets wisely with proper coverage from either the environment, situation, or via ganking; he can die easily if used recklessly without careful planning, and often needs his abilities to be able to win in most one-on-one fights with raw auto-attacking. And in other words, it's crucial to know when to engage into a fight Yi can win in.
  • Despite Master Yi lacking in teamfights, it's possible for him to dive into an enemy team cluster and run back out at full speed, due to his high base movement speed and with the combination of certain items and his ultimate making himself the perfect decoy/distraction and enabling his team to find a proper time to initiate.
  • It's wise to be sure that not all enemies are close and packed together, but are still within reach, so that cooldown refreshes from Highlander are more effective without landing Master Yi in too much danger of getting focused on; an example would be Alpha Strike usage to attack multiple targets to close the gap (depending on which enemy you choose to focus), especially if Alpha Strike's damage is quite high during the time.
• Master Yi is over-reliant on Highlander at times to make sure he's as mobile as possible while being able to duel with anyone 1v1. Make sure it's often off cooldown before running in to deal damage to any vital enemy champion, and be careful not to waste it too suddenly.

Item Usage

• Master Yi is almost always built as a melee AD carry focusing mainly on DPS for easy consistent damage because of his kit's nature. It is possible to build him as a heavy-hitting bruiser or burst carry, but Bruiser Yi is less recommended as it requires more experience and knowledge to succeed with in terms of trial and error from build varieties. However, bruiser builds no doubt, are recommended for anyone who prefers to live longer while still being able to deal damage.
  • It is due to the trial and error portion, Yi actually has very versatile build paths, and has many different items considered to be "core" to his kit. It's difficult to know which item builds provide the best results, but it allows him to stand out and be flexible with specific build paths.
  • The standard AD carry build revolves around a combination of attack damage, attack speed, critical strike chance, and armor penetration for maximum DPS, with survivability through life steal and minimal defensive items. Master Yi's damage directly scales in strength with all of these stats.
  • His AD grows multiplicatively due to Wuju Style, making it an obvious build choice.
  • Due to Wuju Style's active providing true damage, armor penetration is somewhat less of a priority for Yi, but it should not be neglected to be purchased regardless.
  • Playing him as a caster-type champion in the original days of Ability Power Master Yi tends to be risky if not, completely difficult due to proper need for timely for initiation and his squishiness, but full-raw attack damage builds that revolve around maximizing Alpha Strike's damage output for high one-shot burst are possibly just as effective, though armor penetration and cooldown reduction are to be considered, as well as high critical strike chance.
• Because  Master Yi is very fragile, burst damage through critical strikes and items providing life steal helps him finish the work quickly and stay alive as long as he's doing damage.
• Due to  Double Strike, attack speed items like  Phantom Dancer and  Berserker's Greaves and items that provide bonuses on attacking or subsequent attacking like  Blade of the Ruined King are more useful on  Master Yi. Also, higher attack speed dramatically reduces the cooldown for Alpha Strike. However, for maximum DPS, and to boost  Alpha Strike's damage and  Wuju Style, it is strongly recommended to not focus on stacking attack speed, otherwise there may be some occasions where Yi won't deal that much damage per hit. Due to this, a balance of actual damage and attack speed usually needs to be considered; if not built like so, Alpha Strike/ Wuju Style's would be severely lacking and Yi would often be forced to rely on Highlander for his damage.
  • Because of the attack speed and movement speed steroid from  Highlander, it is recommended to neglect these stats in the beginning of the game (other than boots) while itemizing for attack damage and life steal instead. This gives the highest increase in DPS and sustain.
  • It is important to keep in mind that with  Highlander's attack speed bonus it's not hard to cap out attack speed at 2.5 attacks per second, meaning you may have unused stats during  Highlander.
• Doran's Shield, as with most champions, helps in laning because of the basic attack damage reduction, health, and health regeneration, and if the player is planning to build him as a bruiser.
• The Black Cleaver is a great major item since it provides a little bit of several stats. With the attack speed boost of Highlander, and the multiple opponent application from Alpha Strike you can easily benefit from the stacking mechanism that penetrates their armor, as well as focusing on its higher raw damage. This item however, is more recommended for any raw damage/bruiser builds over more attack speed-focused builds.
  • The most recent reworked version of this item however, can now easily benefit Master Yi due to the armor shred having a greater effect due to his overall DPS, and the cooldown reduction has increased making Yi's abilities easier to spam. The Rage passive also works well in chasing and kiting, and its HP makes it a great bruiser item for Yi more than ever. Not only can it also boost the damage of his Alpha Strike and allow that very ability to also apply stacks, but Yi can also build it to help his team by shredding armor for them as well.
• Infinity Edge/ Lord Van Damm's Pillager is very recommended on all  Master Yi builds, even tanky ones, since  Alpha Strike and  Double Strike's second hit can crit.
  • Used in combination with Youmuu's Ghostblade or Phantom Dancer, not only is DPS greatly improved, but so his movement capability.
    • It is generally accepted that Phantom Dancer is superior to Statikk Shiv because of its better stats and due to no need to manage any special-and-timely-on-hit tactics. However, Statikk Shiv is mainly for those who want to focus on extra AoE and mixed damage burst, especially since Alpha Strike counts as movement for stacking up its passive.
    • Highlander and the active effect of  Youmuu's Ghostblade can be used as a popular combo to gain huge amounts of attack speed and movement speed. This can likely catch unwary opponents off guard and allow for a very fast gap-close, as well as a huge boost of DPS for dueling and taking enemy structures. However, both can be used back and forth in case one steroid expires, then the other can be activated as a backup.
• Wit's End can act as a minor source of damage, and synergizes well with  Double Strike and  Highlander. This can allow you to improve your magic resistance without sacrificing a significant amount of damage potential.
• Master Yi is extremely vulnerable to crowd control abilities, especially blind and snare, so players can consider  Cleanse as a summoner spell to counteract these effects.
  • The Quicksilver Sash can provide the active Quicksilver effect, and is very useful for countering crowd control. The magic resistance also helps against return damage from  Thornmail, a primary counter to  Master Yi. Building it into the  Mercurial Scimitar is highly recommended due to the high Attack Damage bonus and because Yi greatly benefits from the movement speed buff.
  • Banshee's Veil similarly helps to fizzle initiation abilities (which are often crowd control).
  • Building  Guardian Angel will help you survive due to the aversion to focus someone with it, and the passive can allow you to come back to a fight just as the opponents get low on health and clean up with repeated  Alpha Strikes.
• Trinity Force is a fantastic item when playing  Master Yi, with its multiple stats and passives.
  • The Rage passive enables a fine substitute or compliment for Furor, allowing him to easily stick to most every target with auto-attacks, as well as being able to kite.
  • The Spellblade passive can lead to impressive early-mid game burst in conjunction with  Alpha Strike and Double Strike. However, Double Strike will not make Spellblade hit twice.
  • The movement speed bonus has a higher effect since Master Yi has the highest base movespeed in the game.
  • The critical chance, attack damage, and attack speed synergize with his kit as a whole, while the small amount of AP slightly improves his Meditate's healing.
  • The HP and mana amount is also solid for extra defense and more spell casts, and if possible can be worked into some bruiser builds.
• In the Jungle, Master Yi most benefits from Stalker's Blade with the Devourer enchantment. CC is something Yi severely lacks, and along with the movement speed bonus, it makes chasing much easier.
• Similarly to Red Buff, items such as  Frozen Mallet or Bilgewater Cutlass work well on  Master Yi as he lacks any form of crowd control. Without said crowd control your movement speed from  Highlander may allow you to keep up with a fleeing target, but you can't help your teammate(s) close the gap to your target. Blade of the Ruined King improves upon Bilgewater Cutlass.
• The Bloodthirster, Ravenous Hydra, and Blade of the Ruined King are recommended life steal items for  Master Yi's damage output combined with survivability.
  • The Sanguine Blade is a suitable option on other maps.
  • Since Yi is DPS based, Sanguine Blade can rocket his damage output as he's on the offense, especially with his Highlander activated.
  • Ravenous Hydra is great for having extra burst on Yi's auto attacks, as well as having life steal with added sustain via health regen, with the AoE effects enabling Yi to deal more damage in teamfights and farm more effectively.
    • The active for both Tiamat and Ravenous Hydra can be used to gain vision on certain monsters in the jungle past thin walls, so that way Master Yi can Alpha Strike to the target for a wall-dash escape, which can be useful since Alpha Strike only hits targeted enemies.
  • Blade of the Ruined King has a strong synergy with his kit and build options, especially as a jungler, and allows him use of the active at his discretion for quick gap-closing.
  • The Bloodthirster's shield passive and powerful life steal greatly improves his sustain.
  • Essence Reaver is also a powerful choice for Master Yi, since not only does it offer mana recovery when he crits - something otherwise unavailable and maybe even in short supply - it also offers cooldown reduction,and extra 20% for other crit item a notable benefit for many of Yi's abilities.
• Last Whisper and its upgrades is a recommended item for Master Yi in order to stand against tanky targets, but as mentioned before, armor penetration is not as vital to Yi due to his Wuju Style true damage active scaling on raw attack damage, though that combined with items like Youmuu's Ghostblade and The Black Cleaver can instead benefit his auto attacks while Wuju Style is on cooldown, and most of all, the damage of his Alpha Strike.
• Nashor's Tooth is a potential AP item for Yi that can boost the power of Meditate while still benefiting his main role. The cooldown reduction is also a massive benefit to Yi's abilities. However, not only is this not recommended, but it should be the only AP item ever acquired on Yi.
• For defensive builds in general, Mercury's Treads are a good source for both magic resist and tenacity if one is planning on buying more offensive attack speed items as opposed to the Berserker's Greaves.
• For the tanky side of things, it is possible to include a Spirit Visage, as the CDR and mainly the healing boost passive can boost Meditate's healing power as well as life steal. Though other defensive HP items should be considered as well.

Countering

• Hard CC can single-handedly bring down Master Yi. However, his teammates may be able to hold you off before you are able to burst him down, which makes it important to isolate Master Yi or bait him into chasing you with Highlander, before shutting him down.
• As Master Yi's damage is completely physical, beyond a potentially minute amount from item effects, armor is the go-to counter to survive against him.
  • Attack speed slows do not affect Yi while Highlander is active, so Cold Steel is not as effective against him.
  • Thornmail is also relatively less effective because of Wuju Style's true damage bypassing it entirely.
• When Yi uses Alpha Strike, he will become untargetable and follow his initial target wherever they may go. Use this to lead him into more undesirable locations.
• When Yi uses Meditate, it is better to use a form of crowd control (especially silence or knockup, as these interrupt him) than attempting to deal damage.
• Using Exhaust on Master Yi will cripple his damage output, even during Highlander.
• Slow is ineffective when Master Yi uses Highlander, this also applies to attack speed reduction as well.
• Master Yi excels at split-pushing. Keep this in mind and be particularly aware of your mini-map.
• You can apply Grievous Wounds, (ex. Ignite) on Master Yi during Meditate to reduce his healing by half but it will not stop him from channeling the spell (Hard CC is required).
• Remember that Master Yi's Wuju Style only gives him the bonus when the spell is not on cooldown, making Master Yi weaker when Wuju Style is on cooldown.
  • Master Yi's sword glows a different color when Wuju Style is active.
• Remember that Alpha Strike places Yi at his initial target when it ends - you can "pull" him into a bad position if you are his target. Note that if the initial target dies when Yi is untargetable, he will return to the position he first cast Alpha Strike, so a smart Yi can land some interesting harassing blows; beware.
  • Alpha Strike can also follow you over walls when timed correctly, remember this if you are trying to escape with or without him.
• Be very careful if you happen to be on low health with little in the way of fighting back, as Yi can quickly execute you with Alpha Strike. This can be dangerous in teamfights, especially with out-of-position teams. By reducing cooldowns thanks to kills and assists, and spamming Alpha Strike to damage while being untargetable can cause a fed Master Yi to chain kill an entire team (even without Highlander).
  • It is instinctual to split when Yi uses Alpha Strike as the targets have been pre-determined at the time of casting and splitting will allow him to focus individual members of the team.
  • Group focus should be able to bring Master Yi down before he can deal his full damage potential.
• As a carry, Master Yi is very item-dependent and requires a lot of farm to scale up to late game, so during early game, it's crucial to deny him kills early to prevent him from doing major damage. If left alone however, scaling to late game can be a breeze for him as he can become one of the most dangerous champions in the game when fed.
• Master Yi's ultimate being immune to slows can backfire greatly on him; champions with fear as a source of CC can easily chase away Yi while Highlander is active, forcing him to flee at full speed due to ignoring the slow. Keep this in mind if you need to flee a pursuing Yi.
• Master Yi is easily one of the notable melee carries to rely very heavily on his ult. With it on cooldown, his mobility and dueling potential carries a lot more risk. Bait Yi into activating Highlander so that he is much easier to focus and catch once the active runs out and is on cooldown.

References

Template:C-bot