Welcome to my WIP guide! on how to play Yasuo in preseason. A bit about myself, I'm a gold Yasuo main and mostly AD mid main such as Talon(imo i dont like the new rework :c) Zed and a bit of assassins like Ahri and LB. I've been playing League since season 2 (yes still gold) and i've played Yasuo since his release,Ever since i picked Yasuo up i fell in love with him. Here i'll be showing you guys my personal build on Yasuo! Yasuo is my current main right now and forever and i absolutely love the kit of this samurai, he offers alot of outplay potential but his weakness is himself, it is very easy to throw as Yasuo and hence many people hate having Yasuos on their team in ranked :(

Pros
Great Early Game
Alot of outplay potential
A shield passive
Double crit rate!
Insane mobility
Low skill floor

Cons
Gets ganked alot
High skill cap
Very easy to throw if bad
Teammates hate you if you do bad
Permabanned
A high skill ceiling champion
Crit deals 10% less damage and 25% less on Q

At a first glance my rune page for yasuo would look odd even for the veteran yasuo players out there. I picked up 32% attack speed runes because this allows us to cap our Q cd at level 14, with our Q cd lowered we can do many cool tricks for Yasuo such as the airblade to inflict extra damage on the enemies. Riot nerfed Yasuo in a recent patch that affected his attack speed growth so by running 32% attack speed page it is alot closer to prenerf yasuo.

I chose Fervor of battle for many reasons, It offers a strong damage output for extended fights from early game all the way through late game, New fervor gives AD which means that it can crit, gets added onto Q damage and ult damage! The new fervor of battle is amazing for Yasuo and there is no reason not to choose it

My 2nd option for masteries would be Warlord's Bloodlust but surviving the laning phase shouldn't be an issue, Warlord is only good when you start getting into the late game stage but I believe fervor can easily outclass it.

I also chose Battle Trance for laning phase, Usually you would duel the enemy laner and Battle Trance can help with early game to mid game, I would prefer it over Bounty Hunter since you can potentially win laning phase more than the snowbally mastery. For resolve tree i picked Siegemaster because the bonus armour and mr really helps if you're under tower getting poked at. Insight is a really good option since it lowers Exhaust cooldown from 210 seconds to 179. This gives you more opportunity to 1v1 duel and in teamfight you would use it on the enemy carries to reduce their damage output. A 2nd option I'd sometimes pick would be the new Fearless, yes it can help you survive but a 9 seconds CD is not worth it for 2 seconds minor defence.

Phantom Dancer is a must on yasuo regardless of how ahead you are, The item itself is the reason why Yasuo is so godly at 1v1, 12% reduced damage taken by the last champion you hit is alot more significant than it sounds, this item singlehandedly saved me atleast 5 deaths a game, It just shows how an early item can change the game around for Yasuo.

Frozen Mallet is another must on Yasuo, this allows Yasuo to be tankier and have alot more chasing potential with the onhit slows, Oppressor has been removed in preseason but this item is still one of a must on the wind samurai

Infinity Edge is a great choice for Yasuo, the recent nerf on Yasuo changed his ult armour pen to apply only on critical strikes, this item increases his crit to 100% paired with phantom dancer and also increases his crit damage! What's not there to like?

This section here refers to Project Yasuo vs all the other skins. As many players may know Project Yasuo has a totally different attack animation which might be cool since he strikes with 2 hand! This may have a negative effect if you truly wish to master Yasuo because Project Yasuo's aa animation feels very clunky, the current base skin attacks the damage proc before the blade touches the target which makes him feel "smoother" in terms of gameplay while Project yasuo takes longer for the animation frames to hit the target and the damage will proc. This means that all the other skins are considerably smoother and less clunky than project yasuo. I sometimes use Project Yasuo for aesthetic purposes but if you would like to play yasuo to the fullest, don't use project yasuo. Another noteworthy thing is that Project Yasuo E dash is a bit faster than the other skins E (animation wise not gameplay advantage).

My three choices of mastery is Teleport, Exhaust and Ignite. In the middle lane I usually run with Exhaust because it gives you the cutting edge in a 1v1 duel, Phantom Dancer with Exhaust is a guaranteed win in a 1v1 situation regardless of how fed the enemy is. Teleport is what i take for top lane because well, map pressure :P

Of course taking Flash is a nobrainer, you should always take flash

I think maxing E is an obvious one, It allows yasuo more mobility in the game as E cooldown goes from 0.5 seconds to 0.1, It also allows yasuo to dash onto the same target more often and usually the enemy laner would try and stack armour against Yasuo to mitigate his damage, by maxing E you're punishing them by adding a decent amount of magic damage onto them.

I'd suggest maxing Q if you're in a lane where it's hard for you to farm and in a lane with tough melee attackers

There are many cool tricks to do as Yasuo. First off you have something called an Airblade, it's when you throw a tornado out or someone gets knocked up you would EQ (spin) onto a minion or any nearby enemies then ult to the knocked up target, the spin damage would actually follow you to the airborne target and you will deal extra damage and gain 1 stack of Q for faster tornado. This trick is very tricky to perform and usually require 1.33 CD (capped) on Q to perform it. There's another one called the Beyblade, essentially this is when you have a knockup Q ready, you would EQ (Spin) and then flash directly after that to the target, this trick catches people offguard and since the spin follows you they get hit and also get knocked up and you can follow up with an ult. The Keyblade is just those 2 tricks combined and is very hard to pull off :P

When you knock up a target as yasuo pre Q cap, you should always AA the target before you ult because the amount time they'll still be knocked up you can fit in 1 more AA for extra damage.

In the jungle there are multiple walldashes, you can dash through the monsters to the opposite side of the walls as yasuo in the jungle, every camp is dashable with the easiest being gromp and the hardest being raptors

There is also animation cancelling involved to throw opponents off-guard, one of the best way to deceive an enemy is when you have a 3rd Q stack, you throw out your windwall and your tornado at the same time, Riot coding made the windwall animation takes priority so the enemy wouldn't realise you actually threw a tornado out, this is best used from point blank to mid-range opponents so they don't have the opportunity to react fast enough.

Yasuo is a very powerful champion if played correctly, his immense strength and the outplay potential makes him one of the greatest champions in the league, however he is very hard to play and master. If you do decide to pick up Yasuo i wish you luck in your future endeavour of becoming the master of the wind :D