Have you ever had a bad day? Bad enough that you wanted to not just win top lane but completely smack the other guy around to the point where he can't get a single minion kill without dying? This is the guide for you.

In this guide, I'll be going over how to play Yorick in a style designed to stay in lane for extended periods of time, constantly denying your opponent from getting experience and gold.

You may see some guides that build Yorick as a pure AD carry, and others that focus on lane sustain and survivability. If you want to have the survivability of a tank while completely shutting down your opponent and turning into a late-game monster, read on.

Pros
-Great harassment power
-Can maintain advantage in top lane
-End-Game dominance for your team
-Strong dueling power mid-game


Cons
-Vulnerable to early ganks
-Item-reliant build
-Can have mana problems early

At the start of the game, your goal is to keep your minion wave frozen in the middle of the lane. Carefully pick up as much cs as possible, while waiting for level 3.

Once you hit level 3, you should have one point in each of your abilities. Up until this point, you should have done everything possible to conserve mana. This is to prevent wasting mana with single spells against champions that will be able to sustain small bursts of single-ability damage.

Now is when we start putting all the mana regen we runed for to good use. Start spamming all 3 of your abilities on your opponent every time he gets close, opening with W to slow your opponent and closing with Q to increase your movement speed so you can get extra melee hits in as your opponent tries to run. You will be maxing E first to keep you sustained while you punish your opponent every time he comes in to cs.

Keep up this harassment, and you should force your opponent to recall early in the game with only enough gold to buy one or two basic items, likely some kind of health regen or sustain. However, you should use this time to remain in lane, gaining an experience and gold advantage.

Once you hit level 6, you become basically immune to jungler ganks. I say "basically", because there is really only one situation in which you will be vulnerable: When your lane opponent returns to lane at full hp. Because your goal is to constantly harass, your opponent will usually be unable to assist his jungler when he attempts to gank you. If you are getting ganked at level 6 and your lane opponent is low, simply turn on him, blow all your burst on your lane opponent, and ult yourself. Worst case scenario, you trade kills and the gank doesn't pay off like it would against any other champ. Best case scenario, you pick up two kills and mock your opponents in /all for their failed gank.

Once you've completed your Manamune and Sheen, you'll be a force to be reckoned with in any one-on-one encounter. Using your Q correctly, you can get extra attacks in to burst down enemy champions at an incredible rate. Around this time, you will also have an important decision to make.

Take a second to assess your game. If your team is doing well and isn't in immediate need of assistance, continue to do what you're doing. Freeze your lane, being careful not to push, and farm all the cs you possibly can. This should get you to your trinity force and possibly giant's belt rather quickly, at which point the laning phase will likely be over.

However, if you sense a need to start carrying your team, make sure to leave your lane Yorick-Style. Push the lane as hard as possible, making sure to zone your opponent with harassment in order to prevent him from clearing your creep waves.

Once you take out top tower, it's time to start assisting your team. Work with your jungler to set up ganks. Look for small engagements, where Yorick shines at this stage in the game. Open ganks with W to slow opponents, saving Q for last. You always want to save Q for the end of your combos. This will cause you to eat up one hit of Sheen at the beginning of your combo. Remember, Q gives you a free melee attack, so always use it immediately after a standard attack.

Continue to search for small engagements to assist your team. There will be some games where even Yorick can't carry the team, but your mid-game strength gives you the best chance to even out most one-sided game scenarios.

As the laning phase ends and team fights break out, continue to gauge each situation. If your opponents are focusing one of your allies in particular, be sure to ult them at the beginning of each teamfight. You should have a slight bias of using your ult on yourself or your AD carry, as the ghost scales with player AD.

If you followed the mastery and item builds suggested in this guide, you should be pretty tanky towards the end of the game. This will free up your ult more towards the end, allowing you to ult your increasingly-effective ad carry. I find that teams running Yorick usually have strong late-game teamfight potential due to the power of ulting the team's AD carry. This forces the enemy team to kill your AD carry twice if they decide to focus him.

Use your speed and AoE slow to zone out your opponent's carry. If the enemy team focuses their attention to you, great. This means focus is shifting to you, rather than your team's carries.

If you use your ultimate on a champion that isn't being focused, or is at least taking awhile to die, make sure to time it so as not to waste it. There's nothing worse than having your ult expire on yourself or an ally right before they die.