Laning against him feels fair. He is the truest meaning of a champion who needs to be punished early and CAN be punished early (looking at you Nasus with your lifesteal and near flawless gank setup pre-6). Sure, his knockup is nearly unavoidable, but the cooldown on it is huge, his mana costs sometimes prevent him from even using it early on, and the truth is, without it, he is fairly lackluster. He is, to me, the champion that I feel is most fair to play against. But I've developped some hatred for his ult due to many Malphs being premade with Yasuos and all that story.
If I want a champion that I enjoy going against, I think I can name
, especially when I have another skillshot mage like Viktor. A battle between two immobile mages relying on nothing but movespeed to dodge skillshots is awesome.