How to stomp on Yasuo every game below Diamond.

Greetings Summoners

I've played a handful of games in Gold with Yasuo, so like most non-challenger Yasuo mains, I feel confident that the information I'm giving is useful, even if it's not and my team is actively flaming me for it.

So, everyone thinks that Yasuo is some crazy high skillcapped champion with a ridiculous learning curve and crazy hard mechanics. Right? Well, that's what high-elo players think, but in high elo, every champ tends to have a really high skillcap. Even someone like Annie can get into "mechanical" territory when you're in Diamond.

In low elo, you can bang your keyboard on your desk and reliably pentakill. So, here's some tips for mid to low elo Yasuo mains who are having trouble with his "mechanix".

Step 1: If you can successfully move your baby fingers to the "Q" key and "Right Click" buttons, congratulations, you now quality with the necessary mechanical skillset required to reach Platinum. Seriously. No kappa. Hear me out.

I wholeheartedly believe that Silver Yasuo mains are complete geniuses. Yasuo has been a freelo champion since his release, and if it weren't for them playing him so bombastically, Riot would have figured this out a long time ago.

Yasuo mains have made such a habit at playing him so badly, that Riot is convinced that he's actually balanced. The truth is that Yasuo's power lies in your restraint. Trying to e-combo everywhere and play like you're the Huni of Bronze and you'll just feed your ass off, but literally never even use E and somehow you find that your winrate will jump up.

So here's the math, with an AA+Q combo, you've already won the trade in lane. Spamming your Q on CD means you'll just about be hitting them 1.5 to 3 times for every 1 time they auto attack you. That's like starting the game with 4 daggers by just entering the game.

Literally, just "play like a bitch" and farm. You should have nearly perfect CS since there's no excuses to miss CS with 2 chances to last hit each one. You have ranged poke every 8 seconds and a free shield to absorb any harass you might take. You basically autowin any trades you're in if you play like you're a normal laner without a braindead kit. They have CC? Farm. They don't have CC? Farm and punish them for farming because there's 100% no chance they can contest you if you zone them off of the wave.

I don't play Yasuo because he's a boring champion, but I've played enough of him to know that, if you're willing to hold back that throbbing murder-boner for just a few minutes while you scale, you'll get to use it anyways. 99% of the Yasuo's who feed in my games die within the first 5 minutes of the game by getting solokilled by their laner because they didn't Q and right click properly. If they didn't die within the first 5 minutes, they were basically guaranteed to hit their stride and take over the whole game.

Now, why is Yasuo "broken" in low elo, but meme-status in high elo? Well, simply put, high elo players got wise and grew a brain, deciding that not letting the Yasuo get so massive in the first place was a pretty good strategy to not lose to him. I can't tell you how many stupid fights I would never win on auto-attack heavy champs like Tryndamere or Jax where they just felt like a hot knife through butter on Yasuo.

Now, why is E'ing around bad in the first place? Isn't mobility good? It is, but not the way Gold and below use it. You see, Silver Yasuo players will get into a fight and immediately E into the middle of the creep wave, dashing back and forth, trying to weave in autos and Q's between then, thinking they're Neo dodging bullets when in reality, the entire time they're dashing around, their laner is just wailing them in the mouth because they stay in auto attack range the entire time. They eat half a dozen unnecessary autos and then wonder why they lost.

Well, maybe because you spend more time trying to look cool than you did actually dealing damage. I don't think I've ever lost a straight up slap-fight with any champion in lane when I just use autos and Q. That's the thing though, Yasuo is explicitly designed to stomp slap-fights. That's what his whole kit revolves around. It just so happens that he gets pretty bursty when you have almost 400 AD on him.

Seriously, you really can't lose as Yasuo in some elo brackets. Just give it a try sometime if your Bronze salt is getting the better of you. Just play him more like Jax and less like... well... hyper-flamboyant xXxDeathL0rdR3aper2k17xXx and more like IDoQGud.

:^)