How to effectively take care of the Master Yi + Kayle issue

hey wuu2··2 votes·710 views

TL;DR: either nerf Ardent Censer by enabling the passive on SHIELDS and SHIELDS ONLY (or just make it not synergize with Kayle's w)

  • Other options include removing Censer's level-scaling on-hit magic damage. (remember; Kayle and Yi are both gaining 'solo lane' and 'solo jungle' EXP for the majority of the early game, so will typically gain levels faster than other people at this time in the game. Therefore, they'll reach Censer's damage level spikes a lot faster than other champions on the rift are reaching their spikes. This is super aids at lvl 6 and mid-game!)

  • Making Censer more expensive

  • Giving Censer's passive a cool down period

  • Ban Yi every time you queue up for a solo game or risk losing because of a single item

Thanks for reading my TL;DR.

Now for the real beefy part of this post - explaining why it's so unbalanced (if it's not already obvious enough)

Whether you've played against it or not, you may have seen footage and/or heard of a "strategy" whereby a Kayle, usually situated in a solo lane (normally top) heavily itemizes allied-champion-buffing support items such as Ardent Censer, Knight's Vow, the new Zeke's, etc. and plays alongside a Master Yi jungle.

I would like to stress at this point that it does not necessarily matter whether or not Kayle loses her laning phase because she can quite comfortably farm until Censer. Once she has her Censer, (it's basically game over by this point anyway regardless) she's at little risk of being punished after level 6 because of her incredibly forgiving, mana-less ultimate; and she fears no aggression from her enemies because of the -inevitable- constant presence of her Master Yi in the top side of the map.

Let me break it down to you like this: this item (Censer) is simply not healthy. I'd like to learn from anybody who can effectively counter Kayle + Censer + Yi with the coordination of a solo queue team.

Ardent Censer Kayle healing Master Yi literally whenever her W is off cooldown, is not only obviously healing him; but it's also giving him a movespeed steroid (two very important things for a Master Yi who wants to 2v5), and if that wasn't already enough, it's also constantly granting him attack speed from the Censer passive! Oh yeah, did I mention that Ardent Censer also grants level-scaling on-hit magic damage as well as the aforementioned level-scaling attack speed steroid? Wait, did I mention that it also increases the Kayle's healing by 10%? Oh wait, I did? Sorry about that

Ardent Censer is almost 170% gold efficient whenever an ally is buffed by its passive. Great, right? ...considering it only costs 2300 Gold. Therefore, we're talking about 11-13 minutes for an average-CS Kayle to first-buy this item. Now let's add constant pressure from Master Yi to the mix, and give a kill or two to a poor-CS Kayle. If she didn't have her censer finished, she does now!

Cutting a long story short, the game is won by the Kayle and Yi split pushing top. It is often not possible to counter this given the typically poor communication in solo queue games. Ardent Censer is the issue, as it is completely pointless trying to fight Yi once Kayle has finished her censer.

Making an attempt to collapse on the two of them is pointless because she gives a ridiculous amount of free stats to her pet Yi (who will disappear from the map every 5 seconds, effortlessly avoiding your hard CC abilities with his Alpha Strike, whilst not being as conventionally 'squishy' as your average Yi, because Kayle can simply ult him + offer him kiting potential & heals every 5 seconds)

If Kayle's Yi isn't present and you see the opportunity to make a pick, she can just ult herself and hope to utilize the convenient tanky stats of her Knight's Vow to survive ganks as well as the healing buff on her Ardent Censer to further avoid dying in general. Her heal also makes her run (fly?) away from these situations faster as well, conveniently for her.

If Yi's Kayle isn't present, good luck collapsing on him and his 18 kills @ 20 minutes. That's all I'm gonna say.

Thank you, and goodnight.

17 Comments

Zone of Endless2 votes

How come I've never seen this strat when i play?

Spicy Rice1 votes

This is literally my first thought.

5050BS1 votes

You forgot that the bonus on-hit damage is a DRAIN not just damage. So it heals Yi.

The borken part of this is not Kayle or The Censer it is Master Yi. He is a ONE item powerSpike to 1v5 wining.

Once he has his Blood Razer jungle item very few can 1v1 him (and they have to play that champ well) while the Yi can almost afk fight.

Once Yi has ether item 3153 or item 3124 he can 1v5 this is because of the Items and the power of Alpha Strike OPness.

Kills should not make resets. Alpha Strike should have a MUCH longer CD AND a shorter range.

Yi needs a Zyra or Ryze level rework

Rewt1 votes

This is why Diamonds Laugh at us people in lower Ranks. "Yi is broken and can 1v5 off 1 item"

No. He cant.

Fab1 votes

Can you point me to the sentence where I said that Yi can 1v5 as soon as Kayle gets Censer? Hmm

Though I see your point, "people in lower ranks" don't know how to itemize or play against the Kayle + Yi strategy (don't buy executioner's, don't hard cc the Kayle, etc; they only focus the Yi when trying to collapse on the Kayle/Yi duo), which makes it very easy to snowball the inevitable lead that Yi will get and make it nearly impossible for the enemy team to win because of their uncontested/uncontestable split push.

Eventually, because of the snowball effect (which starts off with how busted ardent censer is early game and the ridiculous amount of synergy it has for the Kayle/Yi duo,) the Yi & Kayle will become strong enough to take on the team 2v5 at about 20 minutes, I shit you not.

Nowhere did I say that Master Yi was broken. Nowhere did I say that Kayle was broken.

  • However, I did say that Ardent Censer is far too gold efficient and its passive is far too generous for this to just be a meta thing that duos pick in Bronze-Plat whenever they want a free win.

It is not healthy for the game to have a champion or two banned every game because people in low ELO are scared to lose simply because of the snowball effect of Ardent Censer, which is why something needs to be done.

Rewt1 votes

da fuq..... i didnt even post this in this thread. There was a thread like 4 above yours who i was responding to. This is strang.

Fab1 votes

Lmao, it's all good man. Thanks for your comment anyway. Nice to see that I got some kind of community response summoner 3

Fab1 votes

Great, it's bugging out for me too now

Casual Dude1 votes

[deleted]

Fab1 votes

Though I see your point, the only difference is "low elo" don't know how to itemize or play against the Kayle + Yi strategy. They don't buy executioner's, don't hard cc the Kayle, etc; they only focus the Yi when trying to collapse on the Kayle/Yi duo, the list goes on. This makes it very easy to snowball the inevitable lead that Yi will get and make it nearly impossible for the enemy team to win because of their uncontested/uncontestable split push.

Eventually, because of the snowball effect (which starts off with how busted ardent censer is early game and the ridiculous amount of synergy it has for the Kayle/Yi duo, i.e. the entire point of this post) the Yi & Kayle will become strong enough to take on the team 2v5 at about 20 minutes, provided the enemy team are moderately brainless and this hypothetical situation is taking place in a solo queue game, where communication is conventionally a gray area.

Nowhere did I say that Master Yi was broken. Nowhere did I say that Kayle was broken. Nowhere did I say that Master Yi could 1v5, or even 2v5 (which is the point of this post) as soon as Kayle gets Ardent Censer. I said that Ardent Censer begins an unstoppable snowball effect, which leads to the inevitable demise of the other team.

In my opinion, Ardent Censer is far too gold efficient and its passive is far too generous. This cannot continue to just be 'the meta thing' that duos pick in Bronze-Plat whenever they want a free win because "the enemy team doesn't know how to counter it"

You're right; it is not fair for higher ELO players to experience low win rates on champions due to a nerf caused by its snowball potential in low ELO. But is it fair for low ELO players to lose every game that the enemy duo decides to play Kayle Yi in? No Is this post ranting about how OP Yi is? No Is this post making a statement about the ridiculous amount of synergy and the unstoppable snowball effect that Kayle w/ an early Ardent Censer brings to the table, with gold efficiency and situational examples provided (rather than just saying "THIS OP!!! NERF!!!")? Absolutely

Master Yi?! Gutted left and right?! He hasn't been touched since season 6! His last change was a tiny rework to his doublestrike, which was a buff! Come to think of it, the rise of the tank meta and hard CC champions like Gragas being played now more than ever is the only thing that I can really see having a drastic effect on Master Yi's playstyle. He still does Master Yi things, and he does them better than ever with the release of allied-champion-buffing support items lmao!

Thank you for the thought-out response, though. I look forward to your response.

Fab1 votes

I don't think Yi is in huge need of a rework; you just need to CC chain him and blow him up if he's playing a conventional Yi game - however, this post isn't about a conventional Yi game.

If their team happens to have a duo (first-item Ardent Censer Kayle + Master Yi,) you can expect the snowball effect inflicted by said item to have a completely game-changing effect. This is why Ardent Censer needs to see a nerf. This honestly just can not continue, because it's really not healthy for a 2-champ team comp to single-handedly (duo-handedly?) win games with very little counterplay.

Thank you for your response, I also appreciate the reminder that AC gives an on-hit drain haha, it's certainly not fun to play against

Casual Dude1 votes

[deleted]

Fab1 votes

Because I don't want to abuse Kayle Yi for free ranks. I already have a decent win rate playing without cheese strategies, and I don't want to get into a rating where I don't belong just to have Ardent Censer get a huge nerf and then realise "oh bother, I don't actually belong in this ELO!"

LadyRenly1 votes

you can dump on kayle

or invade yi

if yi is gonna camp top with kayle to get benefit from censor you can idk, take drag and get first turret bot??

Fab1 votes

Yeah, that's what you're meant to do; but does everyone know that whenever the enemy jungler pressures top side, that it's a good idea to pressure the bottom side really hard? Unfortunately, no. This is what I was meaning when I touched on communication issues in conventional solo queue games.

In fact, for some reason, people think that they're able to contest the Kayle/Yi! They then give up the opportunity to push bottom lane, dragon, blah blah blah; whilst the Yi takes rift herald and just prepares to push top so hard and so fast that Herald will eventually aid in the destruction of tier 1 top all the way down to the top inhib turret faster than you can ask your Nautilus top why he's only level 5 at 9 minutes.

In this hypothetical situation, let's say that blue team have unknowingly given up all potential objective comebacks, eventually leading to lots of kills going over to the red team's Yi, lots of assists going over to their Kayle, as the aforementioned champions scale into a monstrously un-counterable hyper-carry duo, There's not really very much that the blue team can do now.

Even if they did play the map, it's unlikely that they'd scale as well as the Kayle/Yi, with an under-leveled top laner, (who's being pressured out of lane by Master Yi contantly, remember?) I can't see this game going too well for the blue team.

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