My Favorite Mana-using Counter to Zed in Lane

Master Yi.

Let that sink in for a few moments, and then read on for my analysis of why Yi is a strong counter versus Zed in lane.

1. Master Yi is AD. Even if he runs himself OOM, he can still farm well and trade with auto attacks (mainly his passive and Wuju style for burst trade).

2. Master Yi can push waves hard as/harder than Zed. Alpha strike can easily begin to start clearing whole minion waves after purchasing a brutalizer and some other AD. This allows for fast lane farming as well as more time to bully Zed around.

3. Master Yi is a strong duelist and split pusher. If Zed tries to fight you early, you can usually match or out damage him. If he roams, you can push his tower extremely fast because of your wave clear and steroids.

4. You can easily dodge his poke with alpha strike. Simply Q onto a minion when he uses his shuriken. If you position well, you can also often hit him with the damage of your Q at the same time.

5. Your meditate counters his ult. Zed loves to burst squishies. Master Yi looks like the perfect target. He ults you, drops you to kill range, and shadows out. Your W heals for more the more hp you are missing, getting you to healthy levels very quickly after his all in if he isn't ahead enough to kill you outright (which shouldn't happen, you should be bullying him), and the massive damage reduction it grants negates a significant amount of his burst. Zed also has NO WAY to stop your meditate channel. For optimal reduction, start the channel as soon as he marks you, your channel lasts longer than his mark by a whole second and can reduce his damage twice.

6. You scale well into late game. Whenever somebody says that you should take a bruiser versus Zed, they forget that bruisers do not carry games well, and you basically forfeit a carry when picking a bruiser into him. Yi counters him in similar ways to most bruisers (Dueling power, sustain, hard to burst), but scales into late game as a damage threat, not a tank.

7. Late game, you can team fight better, and split push just as well as Zed. Zed, for all his raw damage, relies heavily on his ult to actually secure his kills. Yi is much more DPS focused, and since his damage is not tied to long cool down abilities (rather, critical damage from autos), he can deal much more consistent damage throughout a team fight, while still having significant burst through items and his steroids. Late game Yi is a legendary split pusher, and because of how your kit counters Zed's burst and poke, you can often force him out of split pushing (either by killing him or just smacking him around until he is forced to concede to your dominance). Once you force Zed out of the lane he was pushing, you can then push it right back at him just as hard and fast.

TL;DR: Yi is AD (OOM is less impactful), pushes harder, avoids Zed's harass, counters his burst, kills tower if he roams, and scales equally well.

Your thoughts?

EDIT: An additional advantage Master Yi has over the average mid laner is that he can fully utilize life steal, allowing for simpler sustain in lane than almost any mage who doesn't have health return naturally in their kit. Granted, Zed can also use life steal, but champions like Lissandra don't have any way to heal themselves so any poke they take hurts that much worse.