how the fuck do i deal with yi?

shyv··9 votes·9,140 views

this isn't a whine thread about him being overpowered, i just hate him as a champ and i always ban him because i have no idea how to shut him down. at my elo he's an unstoppable monster but in diamond+ he's garbage and barely viable. what gives? how do i shut him down?

like, i get the basics, CC him because slows don't work. but even then he can alpha, or if he's a TOTAL dick, he can get a qss.

how do i deal with him in general? especially when i'm jungle. i'm a shyvana main. should i invade? can i kill him pre 6? counter jungle so he can't get sated? what am i doing wrong? i hate this fuckin champ im so bronze.

63 Comments

Just Blame Jenny13 votes

Yi tends to dominate low elo because people are, 1) good at getting caught out, and 2) not so good at CCing a fed Yi. He's an extremely snowbally champion that thrives on enemies' poor play.

Some things that will help:

  1. Ensure all your lanes have proper warding coverage. If they don't, try to help them out here yourself. Buy pinks, drop wards, and take scuttles when your lanes are pushing. Yi gets incredibly dangerous when fed, so you want to deny him any opportunity to get kills.
  2. Most Yis go for a sated devourer build. Counterjungle him whenever possible to slow down his stacking. Is he ganking bot? Then clear his entire topside jungle. Are you playing a particularly strong early game jungler? Then kill him in his own jungle early and often. Warding his jungle can make this very easy for you.
  3. Again, Yis tend to go for a devourer. He needs his stacks. He wants dragon, rift herald, and scuttles. Don't let him get these objectives. Ensure top and bottom maintain pressure. Make taking those objectives for yourself a priority.
  4. So, you managed to hit late game and, despite all your hard work, Yi still got extremely fed? Your only answer here is to try to encourage your team here to target him with their CC. Ping him in team fights first thing.

There are going to be games where no matter what you do, Yi is going to get fed. He's going to kill you and your entire team. Try not to get discouraged; he's simply very good at roflstomping at low elo, and it can be very hard for a single individual to stop him. But continue to do everything you can to at least minimize the chance of him taking over the game, and at the very least, you'll likely climb to brighter pastures.

shyv1 votes

thank you!

La Barbotte10 votes

make your match history look like this Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus Rammus

shyv1 votes

dude i don't even own rammus lmao

considering getting him. he's the most annoying thing in the world when you're a fed adc / fiora. like he just rolls up and fucks your shit up with the click of a button.

La Barbotte10 votes

same for yi, he basicly suicide, or you can go fiddle, you fear him while he has ult and hes in his base XD

Knoyle1 votes

Rammus is basically known for being an AA champ's worst nightmare. I've caused Yasuos to RQ (honestly not even hard to do this really) very early in game. It's also funny to see when a Jax, Trynd or Yasuo goes top and Rammus is actually laning there.

AzureInTheDark1 votes

Do it. Buy Rammus. Ascend and become truly 'Ok.' He's also cheap as hell, so that's nice too.

LSmaster161 votes

Ok

LaserDeathBlade5 votes

Stopping Yi is kind of a team-wide effort which is why he's so popular in lower ELO but extremely rare in higher ELO

Better players understand that for the first 10-15 minutes Yi can't do shyt so it's essentially a 4v5 and they take advantage of that.

In lower ELOs (like me after the reset) I've literally seen people trying to run away from an early game Yi and getting slowly chopped down instead of just turning around and gibbing him.

shyv1 votes

most of the time i do whatever i can to shut down the enemy jungler. i think i have a way different mentality when i play against a yi because i just fucking hate him so much. is he weak early game? can i invade and counter jungle him like i do when i'm facing every other jungler? normally when i'm playing shyvana jungle, the enemy jg gets no buffs or farm. leave them one small chicken, one small wolf, whatever. they get no cs or xp.

but when i'm playing against a yi i avoid him as much as possible, because i don't want to be that idiot that tried to fight a yi and gave up first blood trying to invade.

like, in my head, i can roughly estimate who is going to win a trade between me and the enemy. as long as i have enough experience with a champ it takes me a split second to figure out that i can win a 1v1.

but with yi, i just assume i can't and run away lmfao.

LaserDeathBlade1 votes

Lol you'd have to screw up really bad on a traditional 'strong jungler' to lose a 1v1 to an unfed Yi, e.g. miss everything

You should just try playing him a few times, it'll give you a good idea of how vulnerable he is unless he's fed. You can pretty much only play 'clean-up crew' until you have your items which is putting a LOT of faith in your allies.

shyv1 votes

i tried playing him a couple times just to see what would shut me down. but most of the time it was just me getting kills, meditating away the damage from the rest of the team, and going "holy shit this champ is so unfair i feel bad for playing him"

like i know complaining about yi is super bronze but he's just that one champ i can't fucking stand. i'm sure everyone has them. i'm just tired of seeing him and tired of losing to him lol.

LaserDeathBlade1 votes

I mean the best way to not have to deal with Yi on a constant basis is to get higher ELO, and step 1 is to pick a jungler that can gank instead of Shyvana.

Yi's not going to get fed if your team gets fed first.

MeleeNuke3 votes

Play Fiddlesticks! If do your best to q - w him he's pretty much screwed. Another smart pick is Jax , because with the proper timing of his e, he will destroy yi basically only use e defensively. If Yi is attacking you use it!. Poppy will also do amazing against yi. If you time her ult correctly, master yi will be a goner. Her stun against a wall is particularly useful as well. Zilean will basically just flip off their yi until he afks. Yi can get kills super easily, so by simply preventing that, he's doomed. Late game your double bomb is devastating to him as well. Veigar Thresh Cage the animal! Viktor Velkoz Leblanc Malzahar Lux Fizz Brand Depending on which one you're playing, you can pretty much just kill him.

As for general tips, buys this handy doohickey: item 3363 , this will help you get vision while you make sure top and bot lanes aren't gonna cause any trouble. Ignore any advice about "We need to group" because ignoring lanes will lead to lost turrets for nothing. That's why this game is all about strategy. Take heavy advantage and push mid hard if you ever find yi split pushing. Hope that helps!

TehNACHO3 votes

Speaking as a Yi player:

  • Counter Jungle. Even one bad death in my pre-6 clears will fuck me over like no tomorrow, easily pushing my sated back a whole 5 minutes per kill if you get me at the right time(s), and or punish me after the kill. Shyvana's actually a pretty well known and pretty dangerous Counter Jungler, so keep that in mind.
  • Stop running around alone. A good Yi player with half decent Alpha mechanics will kill virtually everyone except the best duelists at 1v1s. Or at least if you do, make sure that you have way more wards than just that single ward in the bush immediately next to you, because by level 11, if you see me running at you from that close, you're basically already dead.
  • Take an early drag. I have a sort of system to clear the jungle up until I buy Devourer, and then immediately solo drag (as it's rather easy to do with Yi), and many other Yi and other Devourer players follow a similar pattern. If you manage to screw up the timing there, it sets Devourer way back. If you can't take it that early, you can also simply make sure to ward the area about the time you expect the Devourer user to buy their Devourer. I am typically able to afford Devourer around 8-10 minutes into a given game, for example.
  • Try to force objectives if you can. Unless the rest of Yi's team is godsend at counter sieges or counter engages, Yi's typically abhorrent ability to defend objectives is a major weak point in his macro strategy. If done early enough, you can draw him out of the Jungle and slow down farm, and/or if he does try to defend a tower, a poorly timed Alpha Strike to clear the minion wave can easily lead to his death if you catch him immediately after.
  • Resist the urge to fire that slow moving, highly critical skill shot at Yi if he's running at you to initiate. A simple Alpha Strike and you just wasted whatever tool you just burned.
  • You know what really gets me as a Master Yi? Baits. I am not kidding, a simple Red Trinketed bush and a teammate brave enough to drag me into that death bush is really all it takes to catch me. I and many other Yitards are really greedy early to midgame, and then way too overconfident come late.
  • The Guinsoo's build has a rather particular weakness towards Grievous Wounds and upfront burst. The Crit build on the other hand has an upside down bell of a power curve, making him particularly weak in the mid game.

Or to sum everything up, be proactive. If Yi has the priority to call the moves he wants to make, he will most certainly win, but on the other hand, if you force him into a situation or if you simply take the initiative to move the game pace along before he can properly respond, you will win. Catch Yi out in the open and you win simply because he can't handle a strong initiation. Force him to leave his jungle and answer to your early objective pushes, that screws with him hard. Know when Yi's statistically at his weakest and punish him then and there. The big thing at the end of the day is that it's your job to defeat Yi, and the primary way to do so is to get a step ahead of him, because he has absolutely terrible answers to anything you throw at him when he isn't ready.

GlockHammer2 votes

I've lately started playing alot of Shyvana Jungle and have yet to lose to any Yi, though having played vs loads of them in the last few days.

Advice 1.

As Shyvana: Build devourer as usual, but instead of going after Bork directly after, go deadmans instead and spirit visage after that. Why you might ask? The deadmans is probably obvious, as it will shave off alot of his physical dmg, however, as Yi will also be going devourer, and guinsoo he will be doing a metric ton of magic damage as well. I've done this build path every game and haven't failed yet to duel any Yi. You won't do exacly as much dmg as him, but while he will be squishy, you will be tanky as hell and aslo dealing massive magic damage.

Note: This is just for the one vs one scenario.

Advice 2.

Might be worth cautioning your teammates to play very safe early and not push lane, Yi might lack cc but makes up alot of it with his rapid kill potential, much like Rengar, if he doesn't get fed, he'll be having a hard time scaling up fast enough, some good Yi's will circumvent this by farming the jungle hard, depending on how he plays, use it to your favor. If he ganks alot early, he won't be farming alot, if he farms alot, means you got a prime opportunity to set your team ahead of his. As he is so squishy early, you can actually invade him and kill him if you got decent map awareness.

Advice 3.

Masteries and runes! Make sure they are optimal! Personally, as Shyvana has among the strongest jungle clear in the game. I generally focus my masteries around her scaling, going full AS reds, armor yellows, 6x cdr per level blues, 3x mres.per lvl blues and cdr per level quints. Doesn't give you the best early game presence, but if you time your ganks well that won't matter, Shyvana's effectiveness is dependant on cdr while not having very little room to get cdr items that's why I think this is pretty optimal.

As for masteries, my preferred favorit is:

18 ferocity, go piercing thoughts instead of battering blows as you will be doing more magic damage than physical between ur devourer, w, and e.

12 resolve, go defensive over sustaining, if you take a rift scuttler between each clears you will never lack health as you get loads back by taking the scuttler, I generally full clear, take a scuttler, then gank with full hp.

Advice 4.

As shyvana is really good at clearing and sustaining in the jungle, use this to time your backs for optimal buys, I generally back when I have enough gold to get a stalkers blade and dagger and a pot or two, my next back tends to be when I can buy devourer and boots, that timing has worked excellent for me. Always go stalkers blade as Shyvana, it gives you extra utility, that is peeling and chasing potential, if you use it well you won't need BotrK to score kills, don't ever take skirmish saber unless you are VERY confident with your Shyvana game or intend to rush bork after devourer, why? Because you already deal a metric ton of damage and are among the best duelers/skirmishers in the game, even without the damage boost, you don't actually need it, but I can see advanced Shyv players making good use of it.

Advice 5.

Last but not least, don't fool around, close the game as soon as you get a chance, don't take chances to farm kills. Yi is a beast once he is fully built. Don't let him get there.

Hope this helps you improve your Shyv game, good luck and happy hunting.

Br4ndon2 votes

ban him

Sire Hippington2 votes

As shy, you can and should invade him early. You should have a faster clear and stronger 1v1, and the most effective way to deal with Yi is shut him down early.

Yi will usually get alot AS and proc onhits twice as fast as other champs with passive+sated - and thornmail damage return is an on-hit!(same with rammus W) While YI will still deal alot damge to you with his truedamage and magic on-hit from items to ignore the armor, thornmail will actually deal alot damage to him aswell.

Also, YI beeing a pup stomper but grabage at high elos is a thing of the past. Since they buffed fixed his devourer interaction and Fervor of battle, he actually does have a higher winrate at diamond than in bronze. http://champion.gg/champion/MasterYi/Jungle, his plat+ stats

Proelium1 votes

Malzahar is my answer

shyv1 votes

can u elaborate?

also i main jungle and i don't think malz jungle is very good lol

LeBraum James GG1 votes

rush devourer on shyv with botrk and i think you might be able to duel him if your good, otherwise get randuins and thornmail.. i figure frozen heart would be little bit of a waste on shyv maybe.. i dont play her though

shyv1 votes

frozen heart would be a terrible item on shyv yeah

i usually get dead mans in place of randuins for the movespeed buff and empowered AA but thornmail is a great lategame item on her.

my build is usually item 3930 item 3153 item 3009 item 3742 item 3065 item 3075 in that order

but still... yi is just annoying regardless of the champ i'm playing. no matter who i'm playing or how tanky i am he just fucking shreds me and i don't understand it.

LankPants1 votes

frozen heart would be a terrible item on shyv

It's not terrible, it's just super situational.

There is a point where it's worth wasting gold on the mana just for the aura, most teams won't reach that point but occasionally you run into something stupid like a 4 ADC comp in solo que, at that point FH becomes a fairly good item.

my build is usually item 3930 item 3153 item 3009 item 3742 item 3065 item 3075 in that order

You should really build Rand's over DMP and Tabi over Swifties when you're against a Yi.

I'd also say Devourer isn't a great buildpath into Yi, you're not going to outdamage him so I'd say it's better just to be a tank for your team. If he can't kill you quickly it makes it hard to reset his alpha strike.

I'd recommend something like item 1413 item 3143 item 3047 item 3748 item 3065 item 3075 . This build gives ~1.2K more HP than yours, which is worth the drop-off in damage against a reset champion like Yi.

kaltenashes1 votes

how tanky i am he just fucking shreds me and i don't understand it.

because of this: E- Wuju Style COOLDOWN: 18 / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14

Passive: Master Yi gains 10% AD as bonus attack damage while Wuju Style is not on cooldown.

Active: Master Yi's basic attacks deal bonus true damage for 5 seconds Bonus True damage: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+ 10 / 12.5 / 15 / 17.5 / 20% AD)

if his blade is blue that means he activated this ability, so just like jax avoid long engages with him

you can counter true damage building health

Proelium1 votes

[{quoted}](name=trying too hard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=FUlPuOK9,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2016-01-24T04:02:29.590+0000)

can u elaborate?

also i main jungle and i don't think malz jungle is very good lol

Hard CC/Lockdown does wonders vs him.

Beyond that I've seen people counter him with assassins like Rengar. Boom... Yi dead and can't fight.

Ez dePaz1 votes

Honestly Malz Jungle is not to shabby and one amazing counter devour junglers as he excel at taking the objectives they desire. It's not an easy way to play the game but a really fun one if you get a hang of it.

Jungle Malz Build http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/master-1-ad-jungle-malzahar-the-voids-legion-394091

(Former Master) Jungle Malz Twitch http://www.twitch.tv/aquadragon33

shyv1 votes

why tho lol

Ez dePaz1 votes

Beacuse getting dragons/rift heralds before the devour jungler really slows them down and that is the key to defeat them. Malz is the champion who can solo dragon/rift herald the earliest. Other pros are all the jungle potential that lays in his kit.

Passive: Essentially doubles/triple your attack damage and acts as shields to keep your HP up in the jungle.

Q: This spell gives vision on both edges which makes roaming the map much safer.

W: %HP damage is great for clearing the jungle.

E: Jumping dot, put it on small creeps to maximize the damage.

R: You WW's R right? Malz got the same range and is 0.7 seconds longer (2.5 vs 1.8). Makes for some scary ganks.

Yeah his ganks pre 6 ain't that good but indifference to other R gankers he does shit before level 6 that is Dragon level 2/3 and Rift Herald after that. Counter junglers like Lee will usually try to do something early on. Ward the bush next to red, smite it (not killing it) and do the krugs, He might get there and try starting it, if he is lower than you (most likely) go for it. He will try smite red to get hp back. You get a kill and your red. This works against most counter junglers. If the don't come or the red is gone before you get there, it's not that big of a loss you don't really care for red more than any other camp.

Starfish H1 votes

Step 1. Be a infuriating piece of garbage assshole Yankee doddle dandy shit and buy Shaco Step 2. Bring ignite and clear you JG Blue and Gromp in 2 seconds. Head to their red smite it and stack in bush towards their base. The one near Krugs. Step 3. Get first blood and proceed to gank while also stealing enemy JG camps and I'll Yi against constiently.

shyv1 votes

ha. i used to play shaco a lot. he's fun but not really my style. i like people that deal a shit ton of damage while also being somewhat tanky. shyv, leona, vi, ekko (i play him as tank jg)

Only Play Darius1 votes

"Shit ton of damage while also being somewhat tanky"

You should actually try Yi out. Sated devourer is so god damn efficient on him that you can build defensive items and still do crazy damage. I have had success with all different kinds of items item 3071 item 3748 item 3078 item 3022

shyv1 votes

i refuse to play yi

Only Play Darius1 votes

I mean if you want to escape Bronze there's no jungler who will get you out faster than Yi but whatever.

shyv1 votes

im in gold i dont need to escape bronze lmao

InHaruhiWeTrust1 votes

you just have to sacrifice your soul to lord Teemo and forever be know as a MasterYi player #notworth

also shes really hard to play well especially for really low elo but i shit on yi with my bae Evelynn . take small camp with leash then invade and kill him. as long as your lanes don't lose lane crazy hard (which you lose anyway regardless of pick for the most part) AD Evelynn usually out scales him with item 3931 item 3742 item 3153 item 3124item 1315 if you can't beat him with these items then get item 3075 otherwise another dmg item or mr if you need

kaltenashes1 votes

i have the same feels, i love being the jungler and found a lot of success with Shyvana Vi XinZhao Pantheon Skarner

i tried MasterYi, i dont know how to play him, the only game i played with him, i fed early game and after sated devourer and a few items i started to get fed

i think that with these champs against yi is better to go cinderhulk, if before you finish your jungler item, you got some kills, then build more damage

invading his jungle and leaving the small monsters its good, if you kill him in his jungle its awesome, try to secure the scuttler before he gets there and keep a pink ward in dragon

if you get to pick your champ after the enemy has locked yi, get a champ that can gank early, it works wonder if you apply a lot of early pressure in lanes, his team mates will start to ask him for ganks and he cant deliver

LankPants1 votes

how do i deal with him in general? especially when i'm jungle. i'm a shyvana main. should i invade? can i kill him pre 6? counter jungle so he can't get sated? what am i doing wrong? i hate this fuckin champ im so bronze.

Shyvana into Yi is a bad matchup. He will outscale you and you don't bring the needed dueling power or hard engage to shut him down. The best thing you can do is try to counter jungle him and hope you can set him behind, if he gets his sated and he isn't massively behind he's probably going to split push you top death.

shyv1 votes

i've been playing a lot of blind normals lately so i can learn my matchups and play without bans, so i get better at counterplaying and learning my hardest counters. but you're right, i wouldn't pick shyvana into yi intentionally. just doesn't work out most of the time.

Troiann1 votes

Yi is really fucking strong with rageblade/devourer because it basically means you can't itemize against him. So basically what you have to do is work as a team to shut him down with CC in bronze (yi's usually never get QSS in low elo). That's his only counterplay. And even then it's possible for a fed yi to 1 v 3 simply because most yi's build bruiser now, allowing him to tank and still shred with the combo of magic damage from rageblade, the bonus AD from rageblade, and his extra true damage that scales off of the rageblade, and the healing from the AP from rageblade allows him to tank decently.

Keep in mind this fucker is running around in plat+ with a 54% winrate so even in higher levels he's still strong. It's not his fighting that makes him weak. It's the fact that he's worthless for 20 minutes, and in high diamond/masters games are basically decided by the 12 minute mark, usually by the team that had the god tier lee sin.

shyv2 votes

god fucking damnit. even when i get to plat im still gonna have to put up with him?

4ManVotedAgainst1 votes

You are on the right track by banning him if not using CC-Heavy Burst-Champions. I frequently ban him myself if I'm not using Kennen. For the record, Yi has a higher-than-average win-rate, closer to 54%, rather than what is displayed by LoL-King. Alternate jungler-choices that have a better chance to deal with Yi include Panthéon & Udyr... another thing you could do is bring me as a queue-partner & I can deal with Yi as Kennen so-long as nobody's fed the shit out of him. I always go Kennen if the enemy team picked Yi because my late-game-Kennen can easily blow up Yi as long as I've COUNTER-engaged right after he's used Alpha-Strike.

Another thing you should do is keep track of Yi's location, see if you can convince your laners to help you kill-invade him during lane-phases, and when I use Kalista, I often spam the jungles & rivers with Sentinels, allowing easier tracking of enemy jungler-movements. Ping appropriately without tipping off the enemy team, predict where Yi plans to gank, and set up counter-ganks appropriately, hope that you have laners that are on the same page about shutting Yi down, and make sure your team has some decent level of combined C-C, otherwise just queue-dodge (that 54% win-rate I am not making up either even if it is not reflected by Lie-King).

shyv1 votes

i mean, shyvana's win rate is pretty high too, but i have no cc other than a knockback so if i can't out duel him (i can't unless he's really bad) then i'm kinda fucked

4ManVotedAgainst1 votes

Shyvana's win-rate appears to be closer to balanced/average than Yi whose over-all win-rate is higher.

[{quoted}](name=trying too hard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=FUlPuOK9,comment-id=000b0000,timestamp=2016-01-24T07:35:18.870+0000)

i mean, shyvana's win rate is pretty high too, but i have no cc other than a knockback so if i can't out duel him (i can't unless he's really bad) then i'm kinda fucked

Speaking of win-rate, I am just going to state the following, regarding my observation of the highest win-rate team-compositions :

➜ One or two members with very strong long-distance wave-clear (usually only needs to be one & will usually be a mid-mage) ➜ A minimum of three members on the team able to CC enemy targets (any combination of tanks/mages/supports/etc) ➜ Two to three tanks to be able to use as a front-line for absorbing enemy damages and crowd-controls ➜ Two to four members with high-damage-output

I don't think you should solely main only one champion. Add some junglers to your pool that can make up for Shyvana's weaknesses in order to deal with problem-junglers. I main the trio of Kennen/Malphite/Galio, all of the kits having a similarity of AoE-Ulti, what is basically known in the job-market as cross-over skills (ever worked as a cashier, then you have customer-service experience, and that applies to getting another job as say a call-center customer-service representative). I cannot tell you which junglers have similar kits to Shyvana but I do know that Shyvana enjoys a lot of mobility compared to other junglers so Udyr could be a good secondary choice for back-up maining.

AL0001 votes

any tank is not well against yi because he will do ad, ap and true damage... but he is squishy if play badly...

cc and burst is only the way to kill yi... dont waste your spell if yi didnt use his q... OR use his heal to absorb your meaningful damage...

if ww, or aatrox or any dps champion with sustain + tank items then possible to duel against yi...

Ace Access 1 votes

Yi can be taken down if you stun him then follow up with a big burst of damage at him

also silence him whenever you can otherwise he will Q the living daylights out of you

Alleo1 votes

I think you're trying too hard....you need to be relaxed a little.

Shahamut1 votes

surprised I havent seen this already, but I usually can outduel Yi as Trundle .

I was top lane the other day vs a jungle yi (went typical devourer route etc) and I was killing him 1v1, even if just barely and that was before I got the ruined king for on hit sustain. That Bite attack that steals away AD really makes a difference.

fééd l0rd1 votes

korean advice, don't feed him and kill him before he kills you.

Transgressor1 votes

I have no advice because I'm trash myself.

What I do have is a conclusion:

He thrives on the chance one might not coordinate to shut him down. And if he gets the advantage, he goes out of control. The only way you can resolve this is by coordinating with your teammates. Get a premade group in ranked, even easier with the AIDS that is DynamicQ, and just tell your friends "let's shut down this motherfucker". Watch Yi get cockblocked so hard he uninstalls the game.

He's kinda like Katarina, not in the chance that he gets blown away by the slighest CC like she does, but in the sense that coordinate to the point he doesn't get the chance to do what he does best.

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