Master Yi/Strategy

Skill usage

 * is similar to . It is very useful when farming minions. Gathering stacks on it by attacking minions, then attacking the enemy on the fourth strike is an effective harassment method. Note that waiting 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.
 * will hit even after  is used(tested)
 * 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 dash or a blink skill like  or.
 * 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.
 * 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 18 seconds. Try to cast  so it will result in a kill. This may seem like kill stealing but it will greatly increase the damage the other team will take.
 * 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 assasinating potential.
 * combined with are 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 autoattacking.

Build usage
AP Master Yi
 * can build several ways. He can be built as an AD assassin (as a typical AD Carry), or to be a tanky DPS.
 * 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 output and survivability through life steal and only one or no defensive items at all.  damage directly scales in strength with all of these stats except for life steal.
 * A tanky DPS neglects some of the above stats, preferably the expensive critical strike chance stat, to get two to four defensive items to prevent him from getting killed too fast while diving into the backline of an enemy team. Health, armor, and magic resistance can be found on several items with offensive stats.
 * Due to , it should be noted that attack speed items like  and , and items that provide bonuses on attacking or subsequent attacking like  are more useful on  than on general champions. However, for maximum DPS, and to boost  and, it is strongly recommended to not focus on stacking attack speed while neglecting attack damage. is also another great choice for burst damage capabilities.
 * 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 his attack speed, meaning you might waste money on unused stats during . Cap is 2,5 attacks per second. At level 18  can reach the cap from a total of 221% attack speed from runes, masteries, abilities, and items. With  activated only 141% attack speed is needed.
 * Cooldown reduction items are great to increase his overall use of abilities, which in general have fairly long cooldowns. However, like with most champions, cooldown reduction should never be one of the first stats you itemize for since you need other stats to increase the threat of your abilities in the first place.
 * Having 35% cooldown reduction will allow  to be completely reset from an assist during, thus allowing the chance to use the aforementioned in quick succession during a teamfight even if you can't get the killing blows.
 * , 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, 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 for tons of damage.
 * 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.
 * 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 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.
 * and  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 damage and attack speed runes. Life steal can also be useful with increased damage and attack speed.
 * is extremely vulnerable to crowd control abilities, especially blind and snare, so players are recommended  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 original Icy passive is very useful since he lacks any form of CC, but the new Rage passive enables a fine substitute or compliment for , Allowing him to easily chase down any target.
 * The Spellblade passive can lead to impressive early-mid game burst in conjunction with Alpha Strike and Double Strike.
 * The movement speed bonus has a higher effect since Master Yi has the highest base movespeed in the game.
 * can work very 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.
 * In the pre-3.10 versions, was famous/infamous for having an Ability power-based build that enables him a powerful  with possible magic penetration, and a  that granted 300 armor and magic resist could tank tons of damage by healing in a mass quantity per second (thus, healing more than foes can damage him at), mainly due to those two abilities scaling in ability power.  past-active of cooldown refresh enabled Yi to score kills with a powerful  that could be used again upon a kill that caused said cooldown refresh. However, this type of build usually cost Yi his original DPS qualities. The reworked  can still achieve high damage in attack power-based builds as it now scales in AD.
 * Regarding this kind of build, items like, , and  were very popular on AP , along with the aforementioned magic penetration with items like ,  and.
 * As of  rework, ability power now only affects  healing power, making AP Yi builds highly ineffective.

Countering

 * strength is his biggest weakness. His main damage output is his auto-attacks. Therefore, buying a or  will help you defend yourself.  is somewhat useless against Master Yi since his  active is an on-hit effect that ignores Thornmail's passive, but can easily kill himself when it's on cooldown.
 * Yi is also very squishy; be sure to be able to deal a good amount of damage on him since armor and magic resist is the least powerful of his strengths. But he may be able to with the proper build, out-damage many others.
 * 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 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.
 * With these in mind, requires careful judgment and placement/positioning in team fights unless well-fed; this is due to the fact that he lacks any form of crowd control. But one must not carelessly engage him as he might carelessly engage you/others on your team.
 * 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  can cripple his damage output, even during.
 * Slow is ineffective when uses . Keep this in mind when trying to flee.
 * excels at backdooring. 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).
 * When is laning mid, he relies on, thus making champions that can apply Grievous Wounds / healing reduction strong counterpicks (such as ).
 * This also makes building viable for countering, giving both AP and the passive effect of Grievous Wounds.
 * 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 depending on status.
 * Blue when is active
 * Yellow when is off cooldown
 * No glow when is not leveled or on cooldown
 * 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 untargettable, he will return to the position he first cast
 * can also follow you over walls when time correctly, try to get to use it before flashing over a wall.
 * As an AD carry, requires a lot to farm for, so during early game, it's crucial to deny him access to being fed early to prevent him from doing major damage.