Not Updated For Current Season

This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page

Master Yi Build Guide by

The Final Yi

5,808 Views

4 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Kaminamina

Master Yi Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (4) More Master Yi Guides

Spells:

Cleanse

Ghost

Ability Order

Master Yi Passive Ability

Introduction/Disclaimer

THIS IS NOT MY BUILD
I took this build directly from a guide on Leaguecraft. In fact, the only thing I changed is the masteries, since the guide was written before the recent mastery changes. I just really like the cheat sheet function this site provides, and therefore will not write an in depth guide here. I will mostly be copy and pasting what Jimmix wrote on his less obvious choices. If you want to read the full guide (which I highly recommend you do), head over to Jimmex' guide at leaguecraft.com/strategies/guide/7398.
If you like the guide, please upvote it at its source. You may also feel free upvoting this guide so users of this site who may or may not know about leaguecraft, but it's much more important you upvote the guide at its source.
(Note: the Final Yi build is actually only part of Jimmix' guide, and I reccomend checking it out regardless of whether you actually like this build or not; his guide, "The Dark Arts of Master Yi" is the most in depth Master Yi guide out there.)
(Also note that dodge is currently being removed from the game so don't count on those runes of evasion for much longer.)

The Final Yi Pros/Cons

Quoted:

Pros:
-You're a freaking tank. You can absorb a ****load of damage. Everyone will laugh and not even focus you anymore.
-You have GREAT AND AMAZING DAMAGE. Just see how it works out.
-Fear nothing. Cleanse Ghost + Highlander = You can get out of anything. I mean it.
You can be getting get stunned by gold card, cryptic gaze, dazzle, slowed under sanguine pool, and shot by Ashe's frost arrow 1 at a time and still survive.
-Meditate makes you take no damage + heals you. What more can you want? Think of it as a recharge when you're running low on steam.
-Backdooring is easy because of great damage and you can tank towers for the love of league of legends.

Cons:
-Unless you have a stunner on you're lane early game don't bother with this build. It's extremely expensive.
-You need to be fed(Or you must be able to farm properly).
-Without a stunner early game you wont get fed therefore you will lose and have no late game.
-This build is best with at least 1-2 pre-made buddies.

Farming

(This is an important piece of advice on farming that I felt should be left in. It seems out of place and probably doesn't deserve its own chapter but whatever.)

Quoted:

Last Hit/Alpha. Not much to say here. You have at least 150 minion kills if a game last more than 30 minutes.

Don't spam alpha though, unless you have Golem Buff.
Helpful hint: IF the minion is dead and you alpha'ed to it, you'll return back to your original position. Try to get used to using this technique it's gonna be your main tower hug technique.

Also remember to last hit in the beginning of the game. You don't want to push to hard.(Not what she said)

Play conservatively, you shouldn't die during the laning stage.

Summoner Spells

Quoted:

Cleanse
Ghost

That is my summoner spells for Yi. There should be no other substitute regardless of the different Yi you choose to play. (Unless specified)

Why?
This is the best escaping mechanism in the game. With Cleanse, Ghost, Highlander. You can literally run into a 5 man team. Kill someone then Cleanse, Ghost, Highlander your butt out of there.

"Do not fear the unknown!"

"Yi I'll save you!"

If cleanse ghost and highlander is up. NEVER let your teammates save you.
Example: I was playing Yi and I stole baron(YAY) the other team knows and their on their way. So I check what skills I have up, I notice how I have Cleanse, Ghost, and Highlander up.

I can't type to my team mates due to me trying to micro my way out of baron's cove and I don't get a chance to ping either. But my fiddle on my team decides to "save" me. I'm glad I have caring teammates but with those 3 skills up I can get away from everything.

So I'm running and fiddle(could be anyone really) "meets me halfway"
Thing is with highlander + ghost I outrun him. So at half way where the enemy are chasing me, I outrun the fiddle(I have like half HP) thing is, the other team will realize I ran out but fiddle on the other hand can't. He's a slow walker and bam fiddle dies.

Think of it as the old bear joke.
2 campers are camping, and they see a bear. Both campers know they cant outrun a bear.
But one camper says:
"I don't have to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you"
Bear = Enemies
I = You
You = Teammate "saving" you.

Now I'm not saying "DONT SAVE THE YI" I'm saying, unless Yi pings like crazy. Don't bother or you better have ghost up.

Masteries

(I picked out these masteries, but I followed the basic gist of what Jimmix used. One thing you may notice when comparing guides, I chose to go 9/21/0 instead of his 0/21/9 because most of the choices he chose in utility were either moved farther down the utility tree or into the offensive tree, but it should make a huge impact on your play style.)

Quoted:

Why?
We start here, "DEFENSE MASTERIES? U CRAZY BRO?"
I realize that most Master Yi's go offensive masteries because they want the "damage". But people need to understand that damage is useless if you're dead. You go defense masteries so:

A)Demacian Justice will 99% of the time never be able to finish you off.
Also you will survive being feasted too even though Feast is true damage, you get a 4% damage reduction due to your mastery.
B) Cleanse is going to save your butt so many times.
C)Dodging ftw especially for 1v1s.
D)You survive a little longer.
E)Nimbleness will help you run faster.

Runes

Quoted:

Quints can be your choice of Attack speed or Armor Penetration.
Glyphs are all CoolDown reduction.
Marks are are half attack speed and half armor penetration
Seals are all dodge.

Why?
Armor Pen is always great of a DPS champion. But getting some attack speed is also great because most of your items should be damage orientated.
Seals are dodge because well once again, you have almost no survivability, dodging will help you survive(Be like the next Jax).
Glyphs are cooldown because who wouldn't want a 6-8 second alpha strike or 1 Minute ult?
Quints are attack speed and armor pen, Read the first 2 sentences under "Why?".

Skill Sequence

For this section I'm going to paraphrase what Jimmix said and add a bit of my own advice.

For your skill order as Master Yi, there are two main options. You can either:

It's recommended you go alpha first. Don't go Wuju unless you really know what you're doing.

Items

Again, paraphrasing this bit.
Although I listed Ninja Tabi on the build order above, if you are facing a team with heavy amounts of CC you must buy merc treads instead.
You will notice that the item build up there actually comes out to 4 item slots. The last two items are completely up to you. Here's what Jimmix recommends:

Quoted:

You can get another warmog or rylais if you want. I decide to get bloodrazer just because they probably have tank.
You want an IE to get maximum damage, you go Legion to help out teamfights and yourself.

You can't really be called a tank, well sorta. You could initiate and really survive just about anything.

Also if you use meditate you'll be able to reduce like 85% damage taken. Good stuff.

With this build, You will almost NEVER DIE. With Tank Yi. I usually do great even perfect games with 10+ kills. I even managed to get my first Quadra Kill with tank yi. Too bad this noob Taric stole my last kill on their jax.(Yi Main Syndrome.)

Once again, this is a very expensive build but very worth it if you're in those games that just no one can outpush each other. You know the games where theres 2 Heimerdingers and 2 Sorakas.
Tell Riot to make those 2 champs free for a week. See what happens.

So basically:

Summary

Quoted:

Core Build is expensive. But if you get fed it'd be easy to get the money to buy the items. Great team player.

The Final Yi Rating
Survivability: 10/5
Damage Output: 4/5
Spells: 3/5

Now wait I know what you're thinking.

"AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAH FINAL'S JUST A DUMB WORD TO COVER UP YOU'RE TRYING TO BUILD HIM AS A TANK. GTFO THE WORLD NOOB. ALL I NEED IS A BLOODRAZER AND BAM SIR YOU DEAD SON."

They have a bloodrazer? NO PROBLEM Grab a Force of Nature and Spirit Visage

You will dominate mid to VERY VERY EPICALLY 200 minute games. You also cannot be capped. Just spam warmogs if you want lulz. Remember with 5000 hp you deal a EXTRA 100 Damage. Add the IE +80 then Wuju = +35/70 + Base damage = WINNNNNNN. ANd with 5k HP you really cant die. Even with a bloodrazer. Just remember, it takes them 15-20 attacks at least to kill you. You can probably out DPS them, (lulz, then stack magic resist for more win)

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading this guide. If you want Jimmex' full guide, once again it can be found at http://leaguecraft.com/strategies/guide/7398. I highly recommend you read it, as it has loads of tips and content that I didn't even mention here.
Have fun!