From what i've been reading it sounds like riven is in fact quite weak and easy to deal with so i've probably been going about this lane matchup all wrong
I've been trying to pick up top lane master yi and i'm not quite sure what to do when the riven i'm facing reaches level 2 or level 3
How would you advise i go about trading damage with her?
Romans VI XXIII2 votesYou cant "trade" damage with riv. Specially at lvl 3. She out trades any one at that point, specifically a yi. Your best bet is to try and out CS her with out feeding her.
ShinTwist1 votes
etc
insaiyanbacca1 votesshe does not out trade everyone at level 3 she can out trade a good many including yi, but she does not out trade everyone just for example 
(yes kha can completely destroy riven top)
Drunk Rummate1 votesI wouldn't recommend trading damage at all with a Riven as Yi. You can't really fight her at most stages of the game, that's just a bad matchup for you.
Best bet is using your Q on the wave for some poke damage but that won't work unless she dumbly uses her shield beforehand.
MLDzXnRRR1 votesWait for ganks. Run exhaust. Start flask or cloth 5. Btw if Riven wastes her q on minions lvl 1 u can q her and go for the kill (this is with the unsafe dorans blade start). Also the typical Master Yi build is bad vs her (ghostblade and Bork) - you need to instakill her with auto,Q, auto or she can combo + execute you. She is not DPS, but spammable burst. I think that FIora, Trynda, Jax, Irelia, Trundle are better than Yi vs Riven (if you are going for melee dps toplaner).
MattZeeX1 votesWell I'm Silver and you're Challenger or Master or something, I forgot. I watch your videos, but that's beside the point. Here's my advice anyway. In my opinion, Riven only does well versus three matchups, Tryndamere, Yasuo and Master Yi. She probably does well against all squishy adcs, but only if you allin them and take 0 poke, so it's most likely a skill matchup.
When I play Riven vs Yi, I cheer a bit inside because I know it's an easy lane, whilst Riven's cc is lacking (1.5 seconds over TWO abilities compared to some other virtually point and click cc abilities), it's enough to deal with Yi. Ignore others saying she is impossible to trade with, you just have to use your Q poke where you Q a minion and hit her. Yes she can shield but, but that's a spell temporarily on cooldown (so is yours, but you can lower it with autos). You can use this small window to go aggressive if you have a lot of attack speed, although the one spell probably isn't significant enough. You can also just keep Q'ing and hope Riven forgets to E. The point I'm trying to make is that Riven has 0.6 hp per second at level 1 which is crap, so outpoke her, you have so much sustain.
Another thing I like to do when I play Yi is to Q dodge, Q dodge her knockup or her Wind Slash, those are the two most important spells to dodge, though if you can dodge her stun that's great too. If Riven does not land her third Q or her stun or her Wind Slash, you probably can kill her if it's not early on. When you fight her, wait for her to waste her third knockup and stun (or dodge as I stated earlier) and then you can meditate to reduce the damage of her AA burst.
You know, now that I think about it, this is practically a free lane for Riven. My advice is just to start flask or cloth armour with lots of mana pots and try to poke her with Q, every bit of damage you do to her WILL stick to her, and even if you don't have any health pots you will always be healthier than her after any given period of time assuming she is not lifestealing more than you. I think you just need to survive till late or get your jungler to gank. A medium to low HP riven from your poke will die easily in a gank, as you can burst her easily with ult before she gets away. Late game you will absolutely destroy her and instakill her, unless she is VERY fed and lands one of her CC spells, though her third Q is easily dodged, is predictable, and is clunky. Riven is pretty bad unless very fed against all champions, except for Yi, sorry man.
If I remember correctly you build bruiser Yi or something, so that will make this lane much easier for you, Riven will struggle to kill you unless she has armour pen, and the new Black Cleaver is a great item on her, but it has a shit build path (excluding the CDR) so take advantage of that.
Again, to reiterate, don't trade with her at low levels unless she is coming on to you. Let her do the standard spamming E and Q to get into range, walk away while she does this so she loses damage. Once she's used up her Q's, she will either leave or still try to go in. In either case go in on her, she loses a fair bit of damage and CC and it should make the trade go even or in your favour. If you trade poorly versus Riven, it's still fine. You will always come out on top in trades after a ten or thirty seconds because her HP regen is complete crap and you have somewhat decent HP regen and meditate.
A final note, Riot randomly nerfed Riven after not having touched her for so many patches. She has been in a horrible place for a while now and then she randomly out of the blue nerfs her with no compensation buffs. Riot is really dumb in this area but whatever... Anyway, Riven's Wind Slash is now a LOT SLOWER, so it is MUCH easier to dodge with Yi Q than before, and even then Cowsep did it with ease so I should think you'll have no trouble.
EDIT: The guy above me says Tryndamere counters Riven, I always beat Riven as Tryndamere and I always beat Tryndamere as Riven, I guess it's a skill matchup, but it feels really easy and a lot easier when it's Riven vs Tryndamere.
EDIT 2: You're Diamond, but I feel like you're a lot better ^^
Ixoziel1 votesWhy are you playing top lane master yi? This post is like asking how to deal with jinx as AD ziggs. Yi is awful against most top laners. Play him in the jungle or mid if it's a favorable matchup.
Play tryndamere against her. If you lose that lane, you're doing something horribly wrong. Not only does he have vastly superior sustain, free AD and crit, he can reduce her AD by a massive amount early game which hurts every single ability she has. His ult is also great against her, because she wants to ult when her enemy is low, but tryndamere can just pop ult and be unkillable at 1 hp.
Fiora can easily beat her once you get 6. Just use your ult to avoid hers.
Shyvana can just farm while shrugging off her damage. Kennen can kite her and E away if she goes aggro. Lissandra will completely ruin her day by denying her most of her abilities with root, and has ult to kill her or avoid damage.
Commando Yi1 votesWhy are you playing top lane master yi? This post is like asking how to deal with jinx as AD ziggs. Yi is awful against most top laners. Play him in the jungle or mid if it's a favorable matchup.
Play tryndamere against her. If you lose that lane, you're doing something horribly wrong. Not only does he have vastly superior sustain, free AD and crit, he can reduce her AD by a massive amount early game which hurts every single ability she has. His ult is also great against her, because she wants to ult when her enemy is low, but tryndamere can just pop ult and be unkillable at 1 hp.
Fiora can easily beat her once you get 6. Just use your ult to avoid hers.
Shyvana can just farm while shrugging off her damage. Kennen can kite her and E away if she goes aggro. Lissandra will completely ruin her day by denying her most of her abilities with root, and has ult to kill her or avoid damage.
had a chat with cowsep recently about korean yi's and he mentioned all the best yi's on the korean server played yi top - trying to figure it out
i remember ryan choi used to be very good at this?
Drunk Rummate1 votes[{quoted}](name=Commando Yi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=pVsvxRss,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2015-05-15T17:16:10.641+0000)
had a chat with cowsep recently about korean yi's and he mentioned all the best yi's on the korean server played yi top - trying to figure it out
i remember ryan choi used to be very good at this?
There's a cinderhulk build for Yi that's getting popular at high level play so maybe this is what they're doing to deal with Riven. You kinda need to build defensively against her in lane or you're gonna die a lot as Yi.
BluePolarizer1 votesI wouldn't play Yi top. I have 300+ games on Yi. If you have to lane Yi, mid Yi is better because he is slippery against skillshots but not slippery against people who are in your face. Even though Yi can build tanky later he still needs 1 damage item first, and getting there is hell if you lose lane hard. Its the same reason AD Fizz didn't do well against Riven top - he can't even get close to Riven to start his DPS without getting chunked or killed.
ShinTwist1 votesNowhwere near the MMR you play at, but the most annoying thing about Yi in lane for me has been his alpha strike, it leaves little to no room for me to strike back and can be used to CS, kind of like old AP Yi used to do. It probably helps that you outscale her, I guess early trading is more about avoiding any retribution, while once you have a couple items you should be able to just straight up kill her.
Roaming if you push could make the enemy Riven player cry internally, since when dealing with an opponent who outscales you that you need to keep down, seeing them get a kill is really demoralizing.
Also, I wouldn't say Riven is a weak champion, just that she shouldn't have been changed at all.
insaiyanbacca1 voteswell i dont play riven but i know how to play against her, and you first problem here is picking yi top. other than that you just try and bait her stun out and maybe bait her q or shield out and try and trade with her when some of those are down, but playing yi top means you probably wont out trade her very often