A Comprehensive Guide to Countering Master Yi

Background: Hello, I am TehNACHO, a lowly Gold V Master Yi main. I started playing League of Legends back in S4 shortly after Yasuo released, since I thought the whole wind samurai shtick was neat. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I could improve my skills with Yasuo by practicing his side skills (namely reaction time and macro decision making). As I just found out about the crazy that was Cowsep's Master Yi at the time, I decided that taking Master Yi mid would be a far faster way to quickly train my reaction time with Alpha Dodging and reactive Meditates and train my macro decision making due to the fact that Yi is auto attack based. Little did I know, It's going to be 2 seasons later and I'm still trying to learn everything I can to maximize Yi's potential, in lane, or in the Jungle.

And so that's my story. Onto the thread, how do you counter Master Yi? Since it's currently hype to either play as or complain about Rageblade Bruiser Yi, I'm going to write mostly based on champion.gg's statistics, including both the most popular and highest winrate build: .

Part 1: Macro Strategy

So let's get universal ground rules about Master Yi out of the way first. Macro Strategies are the big overarching game plans you make to give you a general aim on how to win the game. The vast majority of the time, it's basically synonymous with team comps in competitive play; for example a siege comp's general macro strategy is to set up around an objective and outlast the opponent. You can take this a step down however and modify your overall play style to fit a Macro Strategy, without necessarily needing to build a whole team comp around an idea.

Take for example what I consider one of Master Yi's greatest weaknesses; he absolutely sucks at defensive objective control. He can't possibly clear an entire minion wave instantly thanks to Alpha Strike only bouncing off 4 units at a time, and even if he does utilize Alpha Strike, it can accidentally position him way too far ahead to stay safe from enemy poke or engage, not to mention that doing so sacrifices his best defensive tool as well. This is made even worse by the fact that, unlike for example a Marksman, his auto attacks are melee and he therefore must be within arms reach of the enemy team if he wants to try clearing the wave with auto attacks. This strategy is possible with almost every viable team comp that you can make, since the only requirements are for your team to group up at a tower and someone (preferably a Marksman) to apply pressure on the tower in question. You can turn the situation into a 5v4 siege or fight depending on if Master Yi wants to waste his time defending or throw his teammates under the bus farming, or it's going to be much easier to isolate and shut down Yi if he tries to be crafty and flank you. Being more proactive than the Yi when it comes to sieging towers simply shuts him down.

This advice extends to Neutral camps and shutting down Yi before he can become a menace. Because the Master Yis who both know how to gank and actually like to gank a lot are few and far between, it's a lot safer to be more aggressive in lane. This doesn't necessarily mean to fight your lane opponent all the time, but especially if you have a snare, knock up, or stun and/or your champ is okay at DPS, shove your lane and clear the scuttle crab when you see the opportunity. Done right, you get the CS/Gold advantage from clearing your wave and then the extra "3" minions the crab is worth, while also under minimal risk due to the Yi most likely still tucked away in his Jungle. Made difficult only by lane bullies and lane counters, in which case Yi is not your immediate problem, this is yet another nearly universal strategy that you can take advantage of with minimal extra effort and rather significant negative effects on Yi, namely screwing his Devourer Stacking hard. This also contributes to the next point:

If it's been 7 minutes into the game, Pink Ward the Dragon, and maybe the Rift Herald. Most Yis will have their Devourer around the 7 minute mark, and most Yis should know they can solo the dragon the moment they buy it. Simply drop a pink ward either all the way in the back of the pit or just behind the walls at the entrance of the pit, and you will know when Yi is eyeballing the Dragon. It will either scare him off from getting his sudden 5 stacks, or it will allow you to collapse onto him while he tries to take the dragon by himself. If he really is so ballsy as to solo the dragon after being seen, it only takes one champion at most to kill him if you walk up to him at the right time.

Finally, be really careful about following Yi's rotations. He's in the highest tier of base movement speed and when allowed to clear offensively rather than defensively, he can shove the lane all too quickly. In other words, if you follow Yi, you're going to lag all too far behind his clears and you're eventually going to lose any given towers he's rotating between. You need to predict where Yi will be rather than respond to his shoves if he's in any position to split push. His pathing, luckily, is incredibly simple and obvious thanks to his lack of ability to pass walls without some gimmick, so you don't even need to (for example) blanket your entire jungle with vision. Just one or two wards in key pathways will be more than enough to see where he's going well ahead of time and tracking his movements. Once you can predict where he is, it's only a simple matter of outflanking him and killing him all alone.

Or to summarize, proactive play beats Yi, reactive play loses to Yi. He's one of the best champions in the game when the game is on his terms, but likewise he's one of the worst defensive champs when he's on the back foot. Not taking the initiative is equally as bad as letting Yi call the shots. He's already going to outscale most champions in combat stats, so if you start a game against Yi with absolutely no macro strategy to shut him down, you're most likely going to, and honestly deserve to lose.

Part 2: Itemization

Let's assume you have 2000 HP, 85 Armor, and 35 Magic Resist; the generic stats for a pure squishy. At maximum stacks of everything, Yi will kill you in more or less one second ((211782400/204463811) seconds). Give or take his Alpha Strike, ramp up time, and that I threw in Sterak's AND Maw into that calculation, and Yi's more or less likely to kill a squishy in two seconds. I think we can all agree that dying in two seconds is one way to be useless.

To note, I calculated this with: x*(1.12*(((183.15+1.1*(54+55))(1)2.5+(91.575+0.55(54+55))(1)2.5/3)(100/(90+0.9385))+(4/3)1.5(30+0.2(183.15+1.1*(54+55)))2.5+(4/3)1.5602.5*(100/135)+54+(4/3)1.5(20+0.15*(27.75+1.1*(54+55))+0.075*(72))2.5(100/135))+1.5*(4/3)1122.5*(100/(90+0.93*85)))=2000

I don’t want to explain exactly what these numbers mean part for part because not many people probably can understand this absolute mess of an equation, but the simplified part is that x is time, 2000 is the target’s HP, and there are a bunch of 85s and 35s in there for the target’s resistances.

So, what do you build to counter Yi? Let's assume based on Stats/Gold and Slot Efficiency

Running through stats/gold: Health: y*(1.12*(((183.15+1.1*(54+55))(1)2.5+(91.575+0.55(54+55))(1)2.5/3)(100/(90+0.9385))+(4/3)1.5(30+0.2(183.15+1.1*(54+55)))2.5+(4/3)1.5602.5*(100/135)+54+(4/3)1.5(20+0.15*(27.75+1.1*(54+55))+0.075*(72))2.5(100/135))+1.5*(4/3)1122.5*(100/(90+0.93*85)))=2000+(3/8)*x

Armor: y*(1.12*(((183.15+1.1*(54+55))(1)2.5+(91.575+0.55(54+55))(1)2.5/3)(100/(90+0.93*(85+(15/300)x)))+(4/3)1.5(30+0.2(183.15+1.1*(54+55)))2.5+(4/3)1.5602.5*(100/135)+54+(4/3)1.5(20+0.15*(27.75+1.1*(54+55))+0.075*(72))2.5(100/135))+1.5*(4/3)1122.5*(100/(90+0.93*(85+(15/300)*x))))=2000

Magic Resist: y*(1.12*(((183.15+1.1*(54+55))(1)2.5+(91.575+0.55(54+55))(1)2.5/3)(100/(90+0.9385))+(4/3)1.5(30+0.2(183.15+1.1*(54+55)))2.5+(4/3)1.5602.5*(100/(135+(25/450)x))+54+(4/3)1.5(20+0.15(27.75+1.1*(54+55))+0.075*(72))2.5(100/(135+(25/450)x)))+1.5(4/3)1122.5*(100/(90+0.93*85)))=2000

In short, prioritize health, and magic resist is usually your most wasteful option.

Now slot efficiency.

The most slot efficient items are, in no particular order, Thornmail, Sterak’s Gage (Warmog’s Armor after passive), Randuin’s Omen, Guardian Angel (Zz’Rot Portal after passive), and Banshee’s Veil.

To calculate these I just added their stats into the earlier calculation. For example in Thornmail’s case:

x*(1.12*(((183.15+1.1*(54+55))(1)2.5+(91.575+0.55(54+55))(1)2.5/3)(100/(90+0.93185))+(4/3)1.5(30+0.2(183.15+1.1*(54+55)))2.5+(4/3)1.5602.5*(100/135)+54+(4/3)1.5(20+0.15*(27.75+1.1*(54+55))+0.075*(72))2.5(100/135))+1.5*(4/3)1122.5*(100/(90+0.93*185)))=2000

Repeating this process over and over, building on the past item, the top three items that maximize your effective hp against Yi are, in order:

Guardian Angel, Sterak’s Gage, and Warmog’s Armor

If you want to counter Yi, both gold efficiency stats and the items that you can build for slot efficiency suggest to maximize on actual health.

Counting the extra second we threw in for all the noise we had with these calculations, you get 4.3 seconds and the extra 4 second stasis Guardian Angel gives. You don’t even need Warmog’s Armor to be frank, Guardian Angel and Sterak’s Gage alone should last you at least 7 seconds, you can effectively negate Highlander. These aren’t even high end +3000 gold items, Guardian Angel and Sterak’s Gage are generic and near universally applicable items to all champions in the game, and such a minor and easy investment to essentially negate a gigantic factor in Yi’s power budget, Highlander’s reset, can easily be met to defeat Yi through itemization.

As an aside, if you ever come across the rare laning Yi and first item rush Sunfire Cape, I will find you, and I will cut you.

...and then probably die in the upcoming fight. Sunfire Cape is the epitome of counterbuilding Yi early game if you’re gearing up to fight him, as I’ve found.

Part 3: Counterpicks

Disclaimer: Please do not Counterpick if you don’t know how to use that champion. This doesn’t just apply to countering Yi, I mean this is a universal rule for Draft Pick in general. One of the reasons why I chose to talk about Counterpicks last is because it is the least universally applicable of any advice you can give to countering a champion one way or another.

Top Laners: Somewhat obviously, good Anti-Carries handle Yi fantastically well. Especially in the early and midgame, Yi is hyper reliant on Highlander for effectively doing anything and any champ that can burn Highlander, like Tahm Kench or Lissandra or Poppy, are all ways to more or less spit in Yi’s face when a fight happens. Following this are engage tanks or heavy roamers that can force Yi into that defensive crutch I first pointed out. Finally, Carry Based stat check champions like Juggernauts and Melee Carries are...less than optimal. Unless you know for sure you can get ahead of Yi by the mid game, trying to stat check Yi is usually a losing battle unless you have a solid defensive gimmick like Tryndamere’s Ultimate or Jax’s Counterstrike. Other than that however, top laners in general have the most answers to countering Yi at most any stage of the game, so that’s helpful.

Junglers: Outmaneuvering Yi is key here. His strongest counters can either match his rotations (Udyr and Quinn) or massively stand on top of his weaknesses (Skarner and Shyvana). Once again, stat check champions aren’t going to have much luck here, so you Dr. Mundos or Jungle Rumble players out there, be very aware that you are putting yourself at a distinct disadvantage trying to outfight Yi in an environment perfectly designed to incubate this particular strength of his.

Mid Laners: So as I mentioned before, I used to be a mid lane Yi main. It’s honestly been a while, but I can say with confidence that Yi...basically counters every typical mid laner out there. The vast majority of Mages and Assassins have too many really obvious tells for Yi to Alpha Strike and Meditate without a hitch. Unless you’re one of the 12 Swain mains out there or the like, 7 Malzahar mains, I really can’t say any Mid Lane Carries out there can be used to straight up counter Yi. My recommendation at this point is to either avoid Yi and focus on other squishies if you’re an Assassin or build particularly for waveclear and sieging if you’re a Mage. Mid Laners are generally the best teammates for clearing minion waves, so at the ed of the day, even if you can’t beat Yi, playing to your strengths is usually enough to stave him off until your Front Line comes to build around you in the Mid Game.

AD Carries: Remember what I said before about statcheck champions and how hit or miss they are at dealing with Yi? Yeah, basically that. Have fun dealing with your item builds, basically.

Personally I find Tristana especially annoying to deal with however.

Supports: Please please please don’t pick Sona. Just don’t. On a related note, any squishy support in general is just bad news, more or less a free 4 seconds of Highlander. Tank Supports in my opinion are your best bet for disrupting a Yi in action, and it becomes priority #1 to stand next to a carry that can kill Yi if you help them.

In general, counterpicking Yi comes down to your Top Laner, Jungler, and sometimes your Support. The name of the game becomes who burns Highlander the most effectively, or whoever is strong at playing the macro strategies that counter Yi. In general, if you’re a good champ for grouping up and engaging on an objective, or have some way to be an anti carry towards Yi, the given champ is a good threat towards Yi.

Part 4: TL;DR

Be more proactive than Yi. Force things to happen instead of waiting for or responding to Yi's actions. If you need to build defensively, build in that order. Countering Yi is all about either burning Highlander or setting up proactive plays, so your champions should match this. Don't intentionally pick a squishy support against Yi and if you're a carry, good luck.

Hope I helped in at least some way. Good luck with Yi on the Rift everybody.