Master Yi/Strategy

Skill usage

 * In order to unlock full potential, perfect timing/reflexes and having knowlegde of your enemies abilites is highly recommended as  because of his low base defense.
 * is similar to . 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.
 * Using with  ready and activating  as soon as  reappears can be an excellent harassment technique as it often takes most of the opponent's health in early game.
 * 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  is used on a unit that dies before the ability finishes,  will end up where  was first cast as opposed to near the first unit cast on.
 * can also be used defensively. Since it includes a dash function, you can dodge skillshots. Also, is untargetable during the teleport, so  can be used to dodge AoE nukes such as  if timed properly.
 * can also be used to escape chasing enemies, by placing a ward in the Neutral monster camp and using on the creep.
 * also causes to lose tower aggro when he uses it, by keeping a few friendly and enemy minions around  can tower dive an enemy champion without fearing the tower's attack after the dive.
 * By timing properly,  can follow enemy champions over walls when they use a blink or a dash ability like  or.
 * 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 gapcloser and to dodge attacks. One must also keep track of how many targets are around due to the ability now only targeting the closest ones around as opposed to a near-random set out of luck (with an enemy champion being one of the targets out of high sheer luck).
 * If you're in a lane against ranged players, leveling up can allow you to stay in the lane longer and gain levels faster than the opponents.
 * Use if you are being focused on, as the percentage damage reduction greatly reduces your damage taken.
 * is especially useful when an opponent is trying to turret dive against . He can stand next to the turret and use to hold off damage from the opponent while they are repeatedly being hit by the turret.
 * can help Master Yi survive deadly 1v1 skirmishes by briefly activating  right before the opponent throw 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.   can reduce up to 70% incomming damage at max level, making it essential for any Master Yi player to master this trick.
 * When you are being chased, hiding in a brush and channeling can give you the upper hand against the enemies. However, do not do this if they can still defeat you after the.
 * When playing, remember that reduces all your cooldowns by 70%. Try to cast  to secure kills, reducing your cooldowns.
 * can be used as an effective escape tool, especially with 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 and  causes massive spikes in  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.
 * combined with is very strong for last hitting minions.
 * is one of the best backdoorers. Activating then attacking a turret or inhibitor can take it down very fast.
 * Once gets enough major items, he is able to rush into the enemy team, swiftly assassinate key targets like the carry or mages, and then  or escape. Watch for cooldowns on disables while doing this.
 * 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 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 are more effective without landing  in too much danger of getting focused on; an example would be  usage to attack multiple targets to close the gap (depending on which enemy you choose to focus), especially if 's damage is quite high during the time.

Build usage

 * is almost always built as a melee AD carry.
 * The standard AD carry build revolves around a combination of attack damage, life steal, attack speed, critical strike chance, and armor penetration for maximum DPS, and survivability through life steal and minimal defensive items.  damage directly scales in strength with all of these stats.
 * His AD grows multiplicatively due to, making it an obvious build choice.
 * Due to 's active providing true damage, armor penetration is less of a need for a Yi with high raw attack damage.
 * Due to , attack speed items like  and  and items that provide bonuses on attacking or subsequent attacking like  are more useful on  than on general champions. Also, higher attack speed dramatically reduces the cooldown for . However, for maximum DPS, and to boost 's damage and, it is strongly recommended to not focus on stacking attack speed while neglecting attack damage.
 * Because of the attack speed and movement speed steroid from, 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  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 .
 * , as with most champions, helps in laning because of the basic attack damage reduction, health, and health regeneration.
 * is a great first major item since it provides a little bit of several stats. With the attack speed boost of Highlander, you can easily reach and benefit from the maximum four armor reduction stacks.
 * / is very recommended on all  builds, even tanky ones, since  can crit.
 * Used in combination with, , and (or all three together) can not only improve DPS, but it can amp up critical strike chance and enabling Yi to inflict many strong critical strikes in a row, all while having more possible movement speed to chase down targets.
 * and are often debated upon for which is best for Yi, especially since one of the both combined with  is enough attack speed for Yi to suffice. The former is often more popular to enable more burst damage in combination with /'s passive, though the latter is best for raw stats and running through minions. Though both the Shiv and Dancer have been combined in some builds.
 * Because  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.
 * and the active effect of  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 gapclose.
 * can act as a strong source of magic damage, and synergizes well with ,, and . This can allow you to counter opponents with huge amounts of armor, though armor penetration may do the same job.
 * Since  is an effective DPS/Pusher, it is useful to build him with attack damage and attack speed runes. Life steal can also be useful with increased damage and attack speed, as Yi tends to need it more than most other carries due to being a melee champion.
 * is extremely vulnerable to crowd control abilities, especially blind and snare, so players can consider  as a summoner spell to counteract these effects.
 * can provide good results in surviving; the active "Cleanse" effect is very useful for countering crowd control. The magic resistance also helps against return damage from, a primary counter to . Building it into the  is highly recommended due to the high Attack Damage bonus and because Yi greatly benefits from the movement speed buff on the "Cleanse" active.
 * similarly helps to fizzle initiation abilities (which are often crowd control).
 * Building  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 s.
 * is a fantastic item to rush when playing, with its multiple stats and passives.
 * The Rage passive enables a fine substitute or compliment for , allowing him to easily chase down any target with auto-attacks.
 * The Spellblade passive can lead to impressive early-mid game burst in conjunction with  and  . However, 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 it offers and the attack speed synergizes with his kit as a whole, while the small amount of AP may give a bit of a push to his healing from.
 * can work well with , as after level 6 you can often choose your battles and rip through most squishies with ease, creating a powerful snowball effect in the early game when there are few hard CCs to stop you.
 * Similarly to Red Buff, items such as  or work well on  as he lacks any form of crowd control. Without said crowd control your movement speed from  may allow you to keep up with a fleeing target, but you can't help your teammate(s) close the gap to your target.  also works just as well.
 * is a great item for jungling with Master Yi early game, as it enables damage overtime without needing red buff constantly, so Yi can force an easier retreat on targets to regain lane dominance for his team. However, it's possible to sell the item for others that fit his build more, if jungling no longer matters around late game especially.
 * ,, and are all recommended life steal items for 's damage output combined with survivability.
 * The first one mentioned is popular for all AD-based champions alike, being somewhat easy to rush early game, and is great for snowballing on raw damage output and life steal stacking; however, on other maps, the is the only direct substitute for it.
 * Since Yi is DPS based, can rocket his damage output as he's on the offense, especially with his  activated, and/or his  as well.
 * is great for having extra burst on Yi's auto attacks, as well as having a more all-around life steal mechanic with added sustain, with the AoE effects enabling Yi to deal more damage in teamfights. Unlike and, the damage stays consistent but is still high, making it great for an early game item to farm and splitpush with via crowd clearing minion waves/monster packs. However, depending on how much attack speed Yi has, it can be hard to fit the Crescent active in the middle of his auto attacks without trying to slow his attack speed down.
 * is more of a situation-based item, due to the fact that as of its recent nerfs, the attack damage it provides is not as effective for 's active, and is more of a counter against as well as a mere gap filler for attack speed and/or life steal. However, depending on how tanky enemies are in terms of health, then this item tends to do wonders for Yi's auto attacks, though buffing up  is best left to higher damage items.
 * However, any of these two or all three items combined can be very powerful for Yi indeed, especially / in combination with can really make use of the combined damage output to power up 's active effect.
 * The BotRK itself however, is nowadays still powerful regardless of its nerfs due to giving a good DPS boost, which is what Yi excels in.
 * is a viable item for in order to stand against tanky targets, but as mentioned before, armor penetration is not as vital to Yi due to his  true damage active scaling on raw attack damage, though that combined with items like  and  can instead benefit his auto attacks while  is on cooldown, and most of all, the damage of his.
 * For those on the AP part of it, is a very powerful item for those who prefer mixed damage DPS and extra ability power to power up . The cooldown reduction is also a massive benefit to Yi as well as its movement speed. However, this should usually be his only AP item, and the rest should focus on damage.
 * On a related note, the other final recipe from the ingredient along with, which is the , tends to be expensive, but also offers the same kind of DPS potential packed with CDR, only with attack damage in the place of AP. This also works very well for those who prefer Tenacity in order to escape CC easier, with CC being one of  biggest weaknesses.
 * For the tanky side of things, it also possible to include a, and especially combined with a tanky DPS build with a , the CDR and mainly the healing boost passive can massively boost healing power, especially added with the damage reduction since the rework.

Countering

 * Hard CC can single-handedly bring down Master Yi, always. 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.
 * strength is his biggest weakness. Since his main damage output comes from his auto-attacks, buying a is a very good choice against Master Yi. But note that  active is an on-hit effect that ignores Thornmail's passive and bypasses armor.
 * Since a change made lately, attack speed slows no longer affect Yi while using, so or  are much less effective against him.
 * If  goes all-in against you during a teamfight, becoming untargetable will cripple him:
 * He will waste at least half a second idling, giving your team a chance to react.
 * More importantly, he will be forced to either retreat (which may spell an unfavorable return for your team as he lives on) or attack a less favorable target while you are untargetable.
 * As such,  is a great item to counter him with if playing with any AP champion.
 * When Yi uses, it is better to use a form of crowd control (especially silence or knockup, as these interrupt him) than attempting to deal damage.
 * Using on  will cripple his damage output, even during.
 * Slow is ineffective when uses, this also applies to attack speed reduction as well.
 * excels at split-pushing. Keep this in mind and be particularly aware of your mini-map.
 * You can use on  during  to reduce his healing by half but it will not stop him from channeling the spell (Hard CC is required).
 * Remember that only gives him the bonus when the spell is not on cooldown, making  weaker when  is on cooldown.
 * sword glows a different color when is active.
 * Remember that 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, so a smart Yi can land some interesting harassing blows; beware.
 * can also follow you over walls when timed correctly, try to get to use it before flashing over a wall.
 * 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 . This can be dangerous in teamfights, especially with out-of-position teams. By reducing cooldowns thanks to kills and assists, and spamming to damage while being untargetable can cause a fed  to chain kill an entire team (even without ).
 * It is instinctual to split when Yi uses 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, requires a lot to farm for, so during early game, it's crucial to deny him kills early to prevent him from doing major damage.
 * Master Yi's ultimate being immune to slow can backfire greatly on him; champions with fear as a source of CC can easily chase away Yi while 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.
 * Any form of CC that slows but locks movement into a set path can also be just as powerful against Yi, such as making him run full speed uncontrollably towards  direction.

Master Yi/Strategy