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Choose Champion Build:
Spells:
Flash
Smite
Ability Order
Double Strike (PASSIVE)
Master Yi Passive Ability
I. Introduction
In this guide I will be teaching you how to play Master Yi effectively and hopefully very good. When I play Yi I jungle, mainly because his early game is too weak to go to top lane, but he can go mid lane although I will not be covering it in this guide, as most of the time you take an AP Yi in mid, and not AD. But I have tried it out and I know it's viable.
Before I start I also would like to point out that Master Yi is an easy champ to play, but harder to master, once fed you will most likely win, but if you are feeding you will lose, because Yi have such a hard time recovering from a bad mid game.
Lets get on with the guide.
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Pros
+ Fast jungler if lucky + Immune to slows + 70 AD steroid spell + Great chaser/escaper + Q can proc like Wriggle's Lantern |
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Cons
- Stun = Dead - Weak early game - Gets focused in Teamfights - Blue dependent for fast jungle early - Can be slow in jungle - Ain't a ninja |
Runes
Explanations here below.
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Q U I N T E S S E N C E S |
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Q U I N T E S S E N C E S |
If you are going to play AP Yi these are the runes you should use to maximize your damage output:
Runes
Explanations here below.
Runes
M A R K S |
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M A R K S |
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S E A L S |
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G L Y P H S |
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Q U I N T E S S E N C E S |
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Q U I N T E S S E N C E S |
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Tier 1
Brute Force
for the extra AD that will help you in the jungle,
Butcher
take one point here to do a little more damage to minions and creeps Tier 2 Alacrity even more attack speed, will help you through out the game 4 points Tier 3 Weapons Expertise for more Arpen and 4 points in Deadliness for more AD that scales into late game Tier 4 Lethality for more crit damage, this plus Infinity Edge = 260% crit damage, Vampirism three points here for life steal, the little will help you in the jungle, don't underestimate it Tier 5 Sunder more armor penetration, this one is percentage tho, which is good as well, three points here gives you 6% armor penetration Tier 6 Executioner This will make you deal 6% more damage to targets below 40% of their max hp |
Tier 1
Resistance
,
Hardiness
and
Tough Skin
are so that you will take less damage from both minions and champions alike Tier 3 Bladed Armor when creeps hit you, you will deal 6 true damage back to them, making your clearing speed faster |
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Tier 1
Brute Force
for the extra AD that will help you last hit in the lane,
Butcher
take one point here to do a little more damage to minions and creeps. Tier 2 Sorcery cooldown reduction so that you can spam your spells just a little bit more. Tier 3 Arcane Knowledge more Magic penetration and 1 point in Havoc so that you can reach Blast and Archmage . Tier 4 Blast gives you 1 Ap perlevel, not so much but it's something. Tier 5 Archmage take three points here and it will add 3.75% more to your max AP. |
Tier 1
Summoner's Insight
for lower cooldown on flash,
Expanded Mind
for more mana and
Improved Recall
just so that you can reach Tier 2. Tier 2 Meditation gives you 3 mana regeneration per 5 sec, it's not much but it sure helps. Tier 3 Transmutation for some health back whenever you use Alpha Strike, it helps more then you think. |
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Double strike: This is Master Yi's passive, on the seventh attack you will strike twice, when you are jungling it's very important to take not of how much it's stacked, when you are hitting a creep and you reach that seventh attack, if the creep is about to die, switch to a different target with more health so you don't waste it.
Alpha Strike: This is your gap closer, and your best tool for clearing out jungle camps fast as it can proc against creeps and minions like Wriggle's Lantern.
You're going to want to max out Alpha Strike equally with Wuju Style and before Meditate.
- Use Alpha Strike to dodge abilities like Requiem, Dark Binding and Light Binding
- Alpha Strike Procs like Wriggle's Lantern use when you start at a new camp as it might just kill one or two creeps there
- Alpha Strike follows the target even if it flashes out of range, use it to catch up or confuse your opponent
Meditate: This is your heal, it doesn't heal that much but whats good about it is that it gives you 300 armor and magic resist at level 5
You're going to want to max out Meditate last as it does you no good in the jungle.
- Use Meditate to negate dots like Noxious Trap or heavy nukes like Requiem
- Meditate will also allow you to tank towers while your team attacks them as you get 300 Armor
- Even though it's not that useful you can use it against Ignite like said above to negate some of the damage
Wuju Style: This is your steroid that will give you 70 AD when maxed out and activated, don't think it's useless and use it when attacking towers/baron/dragon or attacking a champion
You're going to want to max out Wuju Style equally to Alpha Strike and before Meditate.
- Activate Wuju Style when you are taking your Red buff, as it will help you clear the camp a lot faster
- Using both Wuju Style and Highlander is an extremely effective way of taking down towers
- When taking Baron or Dragon don't forget about Wuju Style as it will help you take it faster
Highlander: This is what makes yi, yi. It will make you extremely fast and hit hard as well, but it will also make you immune to slows and attack speed debuffs like Exhaust or Ground Slam
You're going to want to max out Highlander whenever possible, at levels 6, 11 and 16.
- If you are escaping don't be afraid of activating Highlander to get further away faster
- Activate Highlander before Alpha Strike to start attacking with higher attack speed directly when you land after Alpha Strike
- Don't always chase with Highlander just because you can, you will easily be bursted down or you will get too far away from your team
- If you kill someone with this on all your spells will go of cd, even this. Use this to your advantage of constant using Wuju Style
In this part of the chapter I will be explaining how AP Master Yi's skills works, and I will also add some tips on how you can use them for maximum effect, note that these Tips and Tricks are for AP Yi.
Double strike: This is Master Yi's passive, on the seventh attack you will strike twice, when you are in the lane you should make sure that you hit either your opponent with your seventh attack or a creep that has full Hp or it will go to waste
Alpha Strike: AP Yi's main damage source, it deals a lot of damage through out the game.
You're going to want to max out Alpha Strike equally with Meditate and before Wuju Style.
- Use Alpha Strike to dodge abilities like Requiem, Dark Binding and Light Binding, make sure that when you use it that you will hit a champion, you will get no minion agro if you tag a minion with it first.
- Alpha Strike Procs like Wriggle's Lantern use it when a new wave comes, if you are lucky you can kill the first 4 creeps
- Alpha Strike follows the target even if it flashes out of range, use it to catch up or confuse your opponent
Meditate: This is your heal, when playing AP you will heal faster than someone who stand of the fountain
You're going to want to max out Meditate equally with Alpha Strike and before Wuju Style.
- Use Meditate to negate dots like Noxious Trap or heavy nukes like Requiem or to heal full hp in a bush after Requiem just struck
- Meditate will also allow you to tank towers while your team attacks them as you get 300 Armor
- Even though it's not that useful you can use it against Ignite like said above to negate some of the damage
Wuju Style: This is your steroid that will give you 70 AD when maxed out and activated, don't think it's useless and use it when attacking towers/baron/dragon or attacking a champion
You're going to want to max out Wuju Style last as when playing AP Yi you only need it when you have Lich Bane.
- Activate Wuju Style to activate the proc of Lich Bane.
- Using both Wuju Style and Highlander is an extremely effective way of taking down towers even if you play AP Yi
- When taking Baron or Dragon don't forget about Wuju Style as it will help you take it faster
Highlander: This is what makes yi, yi. It will make you extremely fast and hit hard as well, but it will also make you immune to slows and attack speed debuffs like Exhaust or Ground Slam
You're going to want to max out Highlander whenever possible, at levels 6, 11 and 16.
- If you are escaping don't be afraid of activating Highlander to get further away faster
- Activate Highlander before Alpha Strike so that if you kill someone Alpha Strike goes directly of Cooldown
- Don't always chase with Highlander just because you can, you will easily be bursted down or you will get too far away from your team
- If you kill someone with this on all your spells will go of cd, even this. Use this to your advantage of constant using Alpha Strike
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: The reason I use flash is stated above, I think that it's quite useful having a blink on Yi, as that means you can run into a teamfight and when you see them changing focus to you, flash out.
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: This plus Highlander will make you faster than Usain Bolt, jokes aside. This does basically the same thing as Highlander except it doesn't remove slows, it doesn't prevent you from getting slowed and it doesn't rise your attack speed. What it does is make you ghost like, it makes it so that you can move through units and ignoring unit collision.
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: This will help you gank by slowing the movement speed of the target much like Nasus' Wither, and it also reduces the physical damage the target does with 70% and ability/item damage delt by 35%.
- : If you feel that you don't need any of the above summoner spells you can take Ignite, as it is a true damage dot, and it also reduces the health regeneration of the target with 50%. It's basically Smite for champions.
If you are going to lane with Yi, you can follow the build above and all you need to do is to change your summoner spells to your liking, most of the time you want Flash + Ignite for the blink and the dot, but you can change to Ghost + Ignite, Exhaust + Ignite, Flash + Exhaust etc. It's really up to you what summoner spells you want.
Here I start at blue as you can see, it makes no difference on which side I am on, or what spell I start out with,
when you are level one you first of should buy Boots and 3 Health Potion, with this setup I usually level Alpha Strike first, as it will help you clear the blue camp faster if you proc with it at either the big golem or one of the lizards, next up I pick Wuju Style for more AD and to get some health back from your lifesteal masteries. When you are going in for a gank with Master Yi, and this is for both tanky or squishy Yi, you need to make sure that the lane preferably have some sort of CC or if you have Red, because you have no CC. Meaning that the best lane to gank early is actually bot lane, if you have Alistar, Taric or Leona it basically is a granted double kill for either you or your ad carry.
Later in the game when you can start taking dragons you could solo it if you have your Wriggle's Lantern, Phage and Zeal and a bit of luck. As you can proc twice on Wriggle's Lantern with Double Strike meaning it deals 850 extra damage in 2 attacks, but that is if you proc both attacks, if you also are lucky you might proc with Alpha Strike as well, meaning you take down dragon extremely fast.
When dealing with dragon don't be afraid of using Highlander to take it down faster as it will prevent dragon from slowing your attacks and you also get more attack speed from it.
There are also a few champions that I recommend that you stay away from and don't try and counter jungle, here is a list of champions that you can and can't counter jungle.
Malphite Medium/Hard: A great tank, quite fast in the jungle, deals damage even tho full tank
If you are going to try and counter jungle Malphite you have to be sure where he is, as he deals a lot of damage even if he builds full armor and no damage items.
- Try and steal his wraiths when he is at bot and wolves when he is at top.
- Never engage him one on one if someone on his team is mia, he will most likely win as you don't deal tons of damage yet, but he can tank tons of early damage due to his passive.
- Try and steal his blue as it will cripple both him and their mid lane.
Lee Sin Hard: A blind monk that deals a ****load of damage early, also quite fast in the jungle.
I'd recommend not to counter jungle Lee Sin as he deals way more damage than you early game, but the thing is, he falls of late game, you don't. So if you make it to late game you should be able to take him down or if you get very fed early then he will be quite easy to kill or if he fail ganks a lane, Lee Sin is one of the harder junglers as he requires you to do a success full gank early to be able to keep up or get a head, once behind with Lee Sin he has a very hard time getting back.
- Steal his jungle when he is ganking in the early game as it will help shut him down.
- Red, take his red buffs as often as possible preferably have a ward there so you can smite steal it without having to take damage.
- If he steals your jungle consider getting items like Avarice Blade or Heart of Gold.
Maokai Easy: A big tree that throws saplings at you when he roots you into place.
Try and get to him when he is taking his red early, this means that you need a very good pull early so that you don't have to use smite at the blue buff so that you can smite steal his buff when he gets there, or can you just kill him. When trying to counter jungle Maokai it really depends on if you have gotten a successful gank and if he got one, if you feel that he is too tanky for you, leave him alone.
- Kill him or take his red early as it will cripple him very hard especially if you kill him.
- Beware to flash as he uses Twisted Advance as he will follow you all the way .
- If he activates his ult don't fight him as he takes less damage
Shyvana Hard: Half dragon that is fast in the jungle and deals a lot of damage
Even tho that most of the Shyvana's are now playing on top lane she is still an formidable foe in the jungle, mainly because she is on the top 3 fastest junglers, when you are going to try and counter jungle Shyvana make sure that you know where she is, as she deals a lot of damage through out the game, I recommend that you don't try to engage her on lower levels alone, and preferably never alone against her. When you are counter jungling her try and steal her creeps when she is ganking a lane, as it will give you free passage into their jungle.
- Never engage on Shyvana 1 on 1 early game, she will probably win.
- Take her blue at level 1, as Shyvana doesn't have mana she starts most of the time at red.
- Consider getting Heart of Gold or Avarice Blade as she will probably try and o****er jungle you as well.
Nautilus Medium: Scuba diver with giant anchor that he throws at you after setting a depth charge after one on your team.
Mainly the same deal as Maokai, the thing with Nautilus is that he is a tiny bit faster and he deals more damage, making him a more dangerous foe, plus he has 4 cc's, he is basically designed to counter you. When counter jungling Nautilus you should try and find him at his red, and kill him there, as it will shut him down quite hard if he also can't gank a lane, meaning he will be a useless player for most of the game as he has to stay in the jungle to farm up what he lost to you, but that is if he can't gank, if he can gank some lanes he will come back into the game, but that means that you will have an easier time counter jungling him, but don't forget to gank lanes!
- Catch him at red so you can steal his red and probably kill him.
- Watch out for his hooks, they hurt a lot as they let him place his entire kit on you.
- Mercury's Treads are the recommended boots against him, as it will reduce all his cc and damage on you.
Nocturne Medium/Hard: DARKNESS, an ally has been slain.
Nocturne is to be feared in the jungle, as his ultimate gives him the ability to gank a lane regardless if it's warded or not, he also has a movement speed/ad buff, a spell shield and a fear. I recommend not to counter jungle Nocturne as he is fast in the jungle, but you can still counter jungle him, you have to be cautious tho, as once he is onto you, you can rarely escape both his movement speed and the fear. When jungling with Nocturne most start at blue meaning you can get a really good pull on your blue then hurry to their red, where he will probably get low on HP, giving you a free kill and a red buff, just remember to go b and hurry to your red so that he doesn't take it. If not shut down early he will be extremely dangerous in late game!
- Try and wait until his fear is gone before you engage him, as it will make you a sitting duck.
- If you see a bubble around him, don't waste any spells as they will be blocked by it.
- Catch him at red for easy kill and buff.
Skarner Medium/Hard: A scorpion with a fierce that will leave you suppressed and free to him to move around
If you are against Skarner in the jungle, make sure to look at his playstyle, is he going to stay in the jungle a lot or is he going to gank as much as possible, if he is just staying in the jungle and only ganking when someone pushes a lane, then you should gank as much as possible, so that you forces him to catch up by trying to counter jungle you, to prevent that simply place a few wards in your jungle so you can see if he is there or not. If he is ganking a lot, punish him by taking as much of his jungle as possible without getting caught, but remember, you still have to gank lanes!
- If he is farming a lot, gank a lot, and if he is ganking a lot, counter jungle him.
- Watch out for his ultimate, he will be able to drag you his team
- Kill him at his red, as he will be on low hp if he clears his jungle in a single streak
Warwick Medium/Hard: A vicious werewolf that will lock you in place and let his team kill you.
Even tho Warwick is seen more and more on top lane, he is still a solid pick for a jungler, with intimidating ganks. His ult Infinite Duress is a suppress, meaning that you will not be able do escape, unless you have Quicksilver Sash. I recommend that you try and steal his blue when he is taking it at level 1, as it will leave him vulnerable to counter jungling, and he will be a lot slower in the jungle, reaching level 6 a lot later.
- Gank as much as you can before level 6, as he will have trouble ganking before level 6.
- Cripple him by taking his blue early on.
- His ult has low cooldown, don't get caught in his jungle when he has it up.
That's about it for this chapter, I will be filling in more and more as I learn how to behave against certain junglers.
Item Sequence
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: This is kind of the standard item for AD junglers, it's used on top lane quite a lot too as it gives lifesteal and a free ward every 3 min perfect for warding
Baron Nashor
or
Dragon
.
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: These will give you some attack speed, it's not much but they are worth getting as you clear your jungle faster and letting you gank more often
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: This will make you a pain in the ***, as you will be able to stick to your target for so long due to your high movement speed and the passive slow, it also gives a good amount of HP that is needed on Yi for not being to squishy.
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: This item is going to make you a beast, you will hit so hard it's ridiculous, this is also a standard item for AD carriys, giving them a HUGE damage boost, letting them to crit more often and their crits does 250% of their ad instead of 200%.
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: Aah.. The Phantom Dancer, a very good item on Master Yi giving you attack speed, movement speed and crit chance, it will boost your attack speed a lot more than Zeal, and a good thing is it builds from Zeal which you should already have.
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: Ever thought of getting Hexdrinker? but thought: No, that item doesn't build into anything. Well, now it does and M.o.M is a beast like item, giving you much needed magic resist, a shield if you drop bellow 30% of your HP and it's passive is that you get 1 AD for ever 2.5% Hp you are missing. Take it, it will save your life.
- : Lifesteal, something we all love, swap Wriggle's Lanter for this, it will give you 22% Life steal when you have stacked it max and 100 AD, think about it, 22% lifesteal and 100 Ad when you bought this item and killed something 40 times, but beware, if you die you lose half of the stacks.
Here I will explain the items that I've recommended for AP Yi.
Item Sequence
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: This are the standard boots for most of the Ap carrys, Ap Yi ain't no difference, take these and you will hit hard with less AP and harder with more.
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: This is the AP version of Infinity Edge, there isn't much more I could tell.
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: When you have casted a spell your hands start to glow with a orangeish glow, that means your next auto attack will deal 100% of your AP in extra damage, that is a lot of damage when you have around 500 ap.
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: This item is going to make you more tanky and also add a slow to all your damaging abilities, in this case Alpha Strike, making this a great item for chasing or escaping.
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: When they are starting to stack Magic resist against you, just buy a Void Staff and you will hit as hard as you did before, not really but you'll hit quite hard.
- : This is the only item I ever buy on Ap Yi that contains AD, mainly because it gives you spellvamp, but it's active is so good on yi as it will help you chase a lot easier, much like Rylai's Crystal Scepter.
Item Sequence
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: This item should be taken if you need more magic resist, and you feel that you don't need Phantom Dancer as it will have to be a replacer to that, I then recommend that you get that before Frozen Mallet and just after Infinity Edge, I recommend that you get Recurve Bow before you start on Infinity Edge. You should still take a Phage after wriggles
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]: Even tho nerfed it's still a useful item, the only time I would consider this is you need more armor then you already have, then I would swap out Maw of Malmortius to this, it gives you both Armor and Crit chance both which you have use of, most use this in conjunction with Warmog's Armor, but I feel that that item will make you lose to much Ad to be worth it on Master Yi.
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: This is an excellent anti-ad item, it has an passive that if they hit you they have a chance of getting their AS slowed down, it's active is a game changer, as it reduces Attack speed and Movement speed, take this item if you feel that you need to tank way more than you should.
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: This is to most considered an anti-tank item, as it does percentage based magic damage upon the target, take this if you feel that they are too tanky, it will melt their hp away doing 4% of their max Hp as magic damage to them, it also gives you attack speed and armor, swap out Phantom Dancer for this if feel that you need it in the late game, otherwise keep the Phantom Dancer or swap it out for Wit's End.
- : This is a relatively cheap item, giving both AD, Cdr and Armor penetration, this should be taken early as it's not that great of an item late game as Last Whisper does basically the same thing but better, the reason I don't recommend Last Whisper is that it's more of a late late game item, when everyone has a Guardian Angel.
Here I will tell you a few other items that work for Ap Yi, but often they can't replace the original items I recommended.
Item Sequence
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: This item is really good if you are facing an Ap heavy teamcomp, otherwise I wouldn't take it.
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: This is a good item in general, but I feel that you aren't able to stack it as easily as Kassadin or Zyra, as you have longer cooldowns than them, you can take this item if you need mana, but build Tear of the Goddess and stack it up too 800 first.
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: This is a good mana regeneration item, as when you score a kill or an assist you get a percentage of your max mana back, it's great if you manage to use Highlander and Alpha Strike to get a kill as you get both of cd and you get mana back to continue doing that.
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: If you feel that you need cooldown reduction you can get this item, it gives you both Mana reg, Cdr and attack speed, all three of them you benefit from.
- : This item is great against teamcomps with a lot of cc, as it puts you into a stasis where you can't be hurt, but the downside is that you can't attack others while you are there.
When you enter a teamfight activate your ult and run to their ad carry in the back, as soon as you get to him/her, activate Wuju Style and kill them, after that you should go for their AP carry, when you have done this, you should immediately get out so you don't take too much damage from their tank, top and support, as they together will easily bring you down and then you can't do anything.
To summarize it all:
- Wait for tank to initate.
- Activate Highlander.
- Get to AD carry.
- Activate Wuju Style.
- If killed, activate Highlander again, and go for AP Carry.
- If not killed, get out as fast as possible
- Don't be the first one in, but be one of the first ones out!
Here is a list of what you are going to do in a teamfight if you play Ap Yi.
- Wait for the tank to start.
- Activate Highlander
- Activate Alpha Strike on Ad carry
- Use one autoattack on the ad carry then activate Wuju Style and autoattack again.
- Ad carry probably dead, activate Highlander and repeat on all the targets left.
- profit??
I am open to Constructive criticism, but the kind of criticism that's like: omg noob wtf you don't take Frozen Mallet on Yi.
Thanks to JhoiJhoi for her amazing guide on making guides, most of the BBcoding in this guide came from there.
Here are my other mentionable guides, click the image below.
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