Theorycrafting Master Yi

Master Yi is generally a menace at low elo and a troll pick in high elo (Master/Challenger tier for the sake of argument). Most of the problems with him can't really be solved without a huge rework, but there might possibly be ways to improve him with small changes.

• Making Meditate not interruptible by CC. Hear me out on this. The way Meditate works now, it's rarely possible (or helpful) to channel this spell for more than a fraction of a second. You're standing still, you're not attacking, and any CC will interrupt you. I'm not suggesting making him immune to CC while channeling Meditate - I'm suggesting something more like Jax's Counter Strike, Galio's taunt, or Swain's ultimate, which are spells that can be relied on to protect them but don't make them unstoppable. Meditate would still be balanced because it's a pure defensive action, although obviously this would be a large buff to Master Yi that would require compensating nerfs. I suggest halving the time that Master Yi can channel Meditate.

• Put diminishing returns on resets. That means the first reset adds 7 seconds to Highlander, the second reset adds 6 seconds, etc. This is a nerf to situations where Master Yi is doing really well and dominating the enemy team, something that happens often in low elo games but rarely at high elo. It's removing unnecessary power from the champion.

• Pause Highlander when Master Yi is in stasis. That means Stopwatch, Guardian Angel, Bard ult, etc. These items/effects are anti-synergistic with Master Yi because they waste so many precious seconds of Highlander, and this would fix that. These items are purchased more at high elo than low elo, and the players make better use of the items.

• Make Master Yi untargetable the instant he casts Alpha Strike. This is a complicated change, but what it does is it makes the spell as reliable as the untargetability spells that other champions have, with the caveat that he will no longer be able to disjoint CC's. That means he won't be able to dodge spells like Irelia's stun, Blitzcrank's knockup, Leona's Q, and Alistar's stun. Eating those spells and disappearing anyway is possible because there's a cast time at the start of the spell. This change would be good in combination with the Meditate buff I described above.

• Give Master Yi new ways to use Alpha Strike. When Master Yi uses this spell, it's very easy for skilled enemy players to CC him because there's only one place where Master Yi can reappear - right on top of the target he pressed Q on. But what if Master Yi was able to choose where he reappeared? If he could hold Q to reappear on the 2nd target of Alpha Strike, he would be less predictable and he'd have more choices to make in combat. Or, if holding Q could make him reappear at his casting location, then Master Yi would have the ability to reliably poke with Alpha Strike. It wouldn't be OP in lane because doing this to enemy champions would draw minion aggro. Or, a 3rd possibility: if holding Q made him untargetable for just a little bit longer than normal. Any of these changes would increase the depth of playing Master Yi.

• Nerf the attack speed from Highlander. I'm just spitballing this because most of my other suggestions are buffs. Lowering the attack speed of Highlander doesn't affect the strength of his basic abilities (which are already weak enough when not using Highlander) but also indirectly increases Alpha Strike's cooldown.

• Switch Highlander to cost mana per second instead of having a fixed duration. Low elo players are bad at managing mana, and 7 seconds isn't generally long enough at high elo. Win-win. You could possibly work around the mana costs with Essence Reaver but you would be sacrificing damage by doing so, since Infinity Edge and other items are so much stronger on Master Yi. The mana cost could increase per second so that the duration is never too long, and Master Yi's basic attacks could recover missing mana when Highlander is on cooldown so that he can recover from the huge mana cost.