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Does Everyone Counter Yasuo?

Ebolol··5 votes·1,516 views

So, I've been playing with a lot of Yasuo's recently, which should come to no surprise to anyone at the moment. I think I went through a stretch of 3 games with 5 total Yasuo's, and went on a 6 game 'Yasuo presence' game streak at one point in my 11 hour stint of playing league yesterday. One thing I noticed though is that these Yasuo's follow a very specific pattern. Every time they die, they write an Autobiography about themselves prior to that death, including useful information along the lines of how they died, why their jungler needs to camp them, how their windwall didn't go off, and especially how it's impossible for them to win a matchup because they got counter picked (in blind draft.) I mean seriously, I even went up myself against an enemy yasuo as Ziggs a couple days ago, and when he dashed to me, screamed 'HASAGI' 50 times, and I knocked him away with W, retaliated with my Q and E, and then ulted the 20% health Yasuo and caused him to flash. He would then recall while whining in all chat, word for word, 'how can I beat that fucking champion when you just knock me away wtf.' This trend continues with allied and enemy Yasuo's who consistently complain about how every matchup is a bad one for them, no matter how much of an immobile mage the enemy is. And because of this, the Jungler is getting heat about how Yasuo needs to be camped in order to overcome this matchup that is 'impossible' for this Yasuo to win. I didn't understand these anti-yasuo posts at first, but the last two days have certainly taught me a lot.

42 Comments

Rivuo5 votes

I love you. You spoke my mind. Every yasuo has the tendency to complain and cry even when they have favorable matchups.

Oh i died? Let me blame the jungler. Every fuckin yasuo player

Spicy Rice1 votes

I mean, when I have 2 people top lane just diving me for 5 mins, and the jungler never ever comes, and doesn't get anything else done on the map, I have a reason to be salty

Ebolol1 votes

You certainly do, but that doesn't happen every game, which is why it's strange how these Yasuo's consistently pull salt out of thin air every game.

MunchCrunchLunch4 votes

yasuo never falls off even after dying the most in the game due to his massive ability to waveclear and insta cs waves. you can't keep him behind unless hes bad

CerealBoxOfDoom2 votes

{quoted}

yasuo never falls off even after dying the most in the game due to his massive ability to waveclear and insta cs waves.

yasuo's waveclear actualy isn't very good unless he is using a really squishy build with no sustain. This comes at a price and even then he needs to waste time and cooldowns on doing this.

You should be able to exploit this.

Ebolol2 votes

That is certainly a tradeoff, but you do have to remember he can chunk waves surprisingly well with shiv. AD build or not, shiv (which is semi core) will deal a shit ton of dmg to all the minions. So if you are looking to trade the waveclear for PD, then that's your problem, not the champion's.

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

you seem to be speaking as though I play yasuo lol.

Anyways there's more than one way to exploit this. For example if he gets static shiv which can proc on his Q I believe, or even if it can't, he isn't going to have much say in whether or not he pushes the wave and yet he cannot freeze the lane effectively. Additionally if he wants his shield back he has to charge the shiv.

There is always a tradeoff. When he can't control the lane ganking for him becomes harder and it becomes easier for him to lose cs but then, even then, if he can manage to shove the lane hard enough then you yourself can just blow up the wave and boom... there is hardly any reason for you to bother sticking around the minions he needs to remain mobile around you any longer and he is going to have to over commit if he wants to kill you. This is the part where you get your defensive items and wait on it while you ward and try to keep him in the lane, or if he roams just follow him and force him into a big fight, or counterroam if your jungler doesn't feel like participating (ie don't follow him go the other way unless you can afford to fight him)

Ebolol1 votes

I never suggested you played Yasuo. While everything above is true, you're missing one thing. None of that has to do with how he falls off late game, but rather how he has a poor early game but people don't realise it? Or am I missing something?

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

earlygame is harder to explain, with math anyways.

but logically speaking there are a few scenarios

  1. yasuo wants to push his lane using static shiv - one does not simply turn static shiv on and off and he will get double crit chance from it. And regardless of whether his Q actually triggers it or not which it probably does he cannot farm without pushing harder than usual unless he uses his E but when you've built nothing but attack speed this is unlikely to work out

here's a pro game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is5jgBpXvsk

firstly notice how in the case of ahri she can just line herself up with yasuo and minions and wait on him to dash. He can't completely control his dash range but then he also has to push when he dashes and deal not much damage unless he's built to do damage with E in which case he's probably not gonna have an amazing midgame unless he kills you for some reason. I don't think that even scales with AD

But more importantly, after yasuo gets static shiv shoving is not optional

This one rolls lux of course but the opportunity will still be there regardless off who and how you play even if you don't actually use it.

yasuo cannot turn it off the shove unless he tries to farm with E which is not as safe as it might sound at all but then even after getting fed and shiv proc'ing he's not just instantly clearing waves in the video shortly into the match. He still has to follow up on this to clear waves, its not like its expensive manawise or anything (no mana) but the point is that yasuo cannot just perfect cs safely without wasting cooldowns. In order to farm safely he needs his enhanced Q which can only happen at max every (cooldowns x 3) and to set this up again he must push the lane unless he's getting 3 Qs off on his lane opponent(s) or jungle or something.

Its not objectively a weakness but it is a difficult to avoid playpattern while playing static shiv yasuo

  1. yasuo doesn't want to push and gets something other than static shiv - Well this one is simple, yasuo now just can't really push that hard. His Q deals 20/40/80/100/120 (+100%AD) its just an empowered autoattack even when he uses the ranged version. He cannot simply instagib a wave with this alone but he can sure as hell push it hard enough that he wont be able to stop it from freezing just outside your tower range which can happen even if you aren't actively pushing under the right conditions. If he gets ganked he can't dash away he can only dash in the direction of the enemy and again its not a controlled dash.

lategame is easier to explain

earlygame = no crit midgame = easy crit, he will get 100% crits easy lategame = everyone has crit now but his crits deal 90% less damage... his passive doesn't do anything anymore. Aside perhaps from keeping his build flexible. He is wasting some of his gold if he gets crit items also.

But I'm not an expert so here's some data to demonsrate my point

here it is (ctrl + F "game duration")

look at that thing, it drops like a fucking rock after 45 minutes. But more importantly yasuo only has a 50%+ chance of winning between 24 and 49 minutes and is otherwise useless. What this tells you is that if the game were to accelerate at the normal pace... then it would take about 49 minutes to seal the deal but if you can acquire results aggressively it could tilt him faster. Yasuo tends to peak at 45 minutes. BUT ALSO ONE MORE VERY IMPORTANT NOTE. If yasuo is winning or losing at 49 minutes that means he did the work to earn it from like 30-45 minutes or something. So if his peak winrate is at 45 mins then his optimal gametime is not at 45 mins but rather somewhere around 30-45 mins and somewhere between 34-49 minutes he burns out and just failfishes.

So the evidence very probably supports my claim but then it also appears to give a very clear timeframe as to when yasuo will be strong and when he will not have much positive influence on the game. Its just a matter of determining how long he starts winning before he changes the outcome of the data or basically determining when his power actually peaks and wanes and all that. Again, I'm no expert, it can be 15 minutes 2 minutes or even 20 minutes but he does in fact fall off

for the sake of comparison lets compare his falling off to a classic falloffer

leesin

lee's odds drop 2.5% in a 5 minute range, yasuo comes close

but then lets have a look at some random champs

Ahri

Braum

Cait

Diana

so it looks like yasuo's isn't TOO dramatic but at the same time he has a single peak and never gets back on again like I was saying beforehand.

Ebolol1 votes

I'm fascinated by this math, and while I'm not sure where you get it from, I enjoyed reading it. You clearly have a different outlook on how yasuo is played than I do, and while you have not sold me your opinion, you've still made me rethink some things, all things considered. Thanks for the post :)

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

some of it is arbritrary guessing, I try to point out when this is.

But remember, If yasuo is ending and winning the game at 45 minutes then he was able to bring the game to this conclusion at some point between 0-45 minutes. If he increasingly loses his chance to win after this then he is losing his ability to do so sometime between 0-45.

My guess is that the data reflects his strength relative to other champs at any given point around 5-25 minutes beforehand.

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

{quoted}

yasuo never falls off even after dying the most in the game due to his massive ability to waveclear and insta cs waves.

Bladerunner77773 votes

Yasuo gets shutdown pretty hard to early ganks

Ebolol1 votes

That's a great point, which is exactly why I camp an enemy yasuo whenever I jg. But the issue I'm expressing in this post is enemy yasuo's thinking every other champion is a counter to them.

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

when I jungle I don't usually bother ganking yasuo, not to kill him anyways. I will countergank his jungler all day long though. He, like most melee mids, isn't that bad without a jungler helping

Ebolol1 votes

And why do you think he's not bad without a jungler helping?

Btw, I love reading your insight and opinions on the champion. Enjoying these discussions w/ you.

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

some champs are built to fall off no matter how well they do if the game drags on.

Ebolol1 votes

Tying this to your other post, do you not think it's a viable idea to snowball a Yasuo in order to end a game before 49 minutes, considering most games end before then anyways?

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

also tying into the other post. Look carefully at how the data works.

No matter how he does it, no matter how he snowballs, no matter how godly the player is... if a nexus explodes at a particular time then odds are in or out of his favor.

Looking at the data again, this is gold and above

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/yasuo

If the nexus explodes at 45 minutes there is a 52% chance that yasuo won. If the nexus explodes at 49 minutes there is a roughly 50% chance that yasuo won.

The downward trend as far as we can tell after 45 minutes is -2% every 4 minutes or -0.5% chance of winning after 45 minutes starting at 52% at 45 minutes.

BUT

you can't win by 45 minutes (his peak) unless he did something to reach the end of the game for the past 45 minutes right?

HOWEVER

since you bring up snowballing his game winning endgame range(s) (50% or more) are 24 minutes to 49 minutes.

So yes, by snowballing and forcing an early surrender or just ending before the 45 minute mark you can give yasuo a good chance of winning.

Yasuo's winrate is at 51% or higher at around 27-47 minutes and peak at 52^ at roughly 45 minutes. So his peak is actually at some point before this and he begins his decline at some point before 45 minutes. By my guess, based off just 5 years of not particularly special experience, I'd say he begins his decline at around 30 minutes or whenever you might expect adcs to get their crits or whatever theyre gonna get

Ebolol1 votes

That's a lot of numbers, great to see how passionate you are about this topic. Not so sure how to argue with you anymore on this, so I guess I may just try out your advice and see how it works. Thanks for your time!

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

I'm just a ghost of champion feedback

By better understanding all champs we can learn to further oppress them under the despotic hotness of the only champ that really matters.

Ahri

For ahri is hawt and is thus justice

No bias whatsoever

#AhriFancultBanner

Ebolol1 votes

Preach

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

When muh waifu struggled (barely) against yasuo I just started buying her more jewelry item 1056 and made dark pacts with her item 1082 but then I also followed up with a more defensive (evasion + hp item 3152 ) build that gave me cdr for escapes and an extra escape on top of muh escapes after solving all mana problems. I pretty much used a higher risk build to make the earlygame harder on yasuo who is also using high risk builds to invest heavily in the earlygame...

... perhaps because he only has till the 30 minute mark. Ahri on the otherhand, by my logic, has the advantage earlygame and later in the game at around 35 minutes or something

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/ahri/platinum

CerealBoxOfDoom2 votes

yasuo doesn't need a counter. You just need a strategy.

yasuo doesn't counter immobile mages, he counters bad players.

being immobile is just a general weakness a lot of champs even some immobile ones will exploit

Ebolol2 votes

So you're trying to tell me yasuo vs malzahar or even yasuo vs jax is just as easy a lane as yasuo vs Ziggs? Not so sure about that.

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

Depends, are we pretending that this is a mechanically demanding game once you have a workable preset strategy?

Ebolol2 votes

Look, I'm not complaining in this post that yasuo is overpowered. The opposite actually. I know all to well how to counter him, but come on. You can't act like there aren't counters and champions you go well against for every champion.

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

I can actually. For the most part on champs I like to play a "counter" usually just means I have to do something I don't want to do.

Ebolol1 votes

Which is exactly why it makes the game more challenging. If you lose a lane it's your fault, not the fault of the enemies' champion (which is exactly what I'm stating in this post.) Regardless, the laning phase is slightly more challenging for you since there are less opportunities for you to do things you'd like.

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

I think I haven't lost to yasuo since I started getting item 1056 item 1056 item 1082 vs him

I used to just rush item 3165 but this build is faster and doesn't make you choose between cdr (less mana and more winning) and mana (more mana and less winning)

it instead gives you a third option

Ebolol1 votes

I rarely lose to Yasuo myself. Hence why I made this post which is suggesting the champion is weak

Aids cuz League2 votes

Every game is different, overall Yasuo is definetly up there in terms of overloaded, I didn't notice what all he really has til I played him a bit a few days ago.

At any rate, Countering Yasuo doesn't do much good as he is bound to get fed at some point in the game, I even tested it, I fed an Akali and yes it was on purpose. But after I got IE/PD and some lifesteal I started getting kills anyway, i was 3-4 levels behind some people that I went 1v1 with, I even managed a 1v2 and came out alive, WHILE diving under turret. This problem exists for Ekko too, ekko can be countered and can be behind but they will come back. The only way for these 2 champs to NOT come back, is to either continue trolling/intent feeding. Or disconnecting. Even bad Yasuo players tend to get fed. And I played him only a few games. You also need to realize that Yasuo only needs 1 of the 3 attack/speed crit items and Cloak of Agility to achieve a 100% crit rate, thats a total of 3000-3300gold, that is absolutely absurd because normally it would take around 10k gold to achieve 100% crit on anybody else. That is an obviously overtuned advantage. Ekko and Yasuo are so UNFUN to play against I've renamed them to Queefkko and Assuo.

aciddemons2 votes

I usually play Annie against Yasuo. The others are right, he never really gets behind; it's obnoxious as fuck. However, I have an easier time dealing with him as Annie, he can't really block any of your abilities aside from Q. The cc + burst really helpful, especially if they're not smart enough to buy qss.

Swain can also give him a hard time and lock him down a bit but I don't have as much experience with Swain vs. Yasuo. Annie is usually my go to, unless I'm just in a mood where I am pretty sure I can handle him with Ahri.

Michael Bacon1 votes

Those are all the garbage Yasuos.

Ebolol1 votes

Which seems to be a surprisingly large portion of them, but I'm silver, so that probably explains it.

LordGeovanni1 votes

some one didnt use their sheild from 5 seconds of running around with no cooldown on it

Killstrado1 votes

Usually when I do bad as Yas, I can't help but blame myself, because I tend to be terrible with him lol

Ebolol1 votes

He's a champion with a high skill cap. It's easy to do well with him if you're ahead, but you can't expect to do well with him consistently if you can't play him, similar to other manaless ad fighters who also seem to promote a more toxic playstyle

Calabok1 votes

Cut down his sliding ability and weaken his windwall. Go!

cinomenapplebae1 votes

Akali (easy) Riven (harder) Fiora (medium) Darius (medium) Annie (medium) Chogath (easy)

With akali use your w to dodge his knockup then q ult him

With riven play safe until level 2 then take e and use to dodge his knockup, If he dashes use your w or 3rd q then combo. This is kinda hard if youre not very good with Riven.

With fiora when he has his flowly thing that is showing that he has his knockup try to make him do it then dodge it with your w and try to stun him.

Darius should be simple, Just e him and auto

Annie, Use your stun to stop him from dashing then unleash your combo, and farm good.

I really like cho against yas since you have so much cc and can get his shield easy with your spikes

Ebolol1 votes

Jax?

cinomenapplebae1 votes

I have never played him so idk

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