Hi, I'm a big main (kinda OTP) Master Yi . I wanted to create a guide to collect and share my knowledge about Master Yi and to discuss about that with you in the comments to expend what we know about him. The aim of my guide is to create a guide about Master Yi as complete as possible.

Master Yi is currently an AD assassin, mostly played as a jungler. The most common way to play Master Yi is with an on-hit build, relying on (auto attack). When you think about it, it's a really particular way to play an AD assassin, when you compare it with others ( , , , ...).
His kit is simple to understand :
Alpha Strike : Hit until 4 ennemies while being untargetable
Meditate : Regenerating HP and reducing incoming damage for 4 seconds
Wuju Style : add true damage on for 6 seconds
Highlander : + movespeed, + attack speed, immunity to slow, when you get a kill or assist, decrease 70% of your current cooldowns on your others spells and extend the duration by 7 seconds

Master Yi is an easy-to-play champion. But don't think it makes it easy to play every game : it's a trap !
Yes, everybody can understand his kit, but a few people can make it effective against a counter comp, where a beginner will be in 0/10 at 15 minutes.
So, Master Yi is an easy-to-play champ, but also a hard-to-master one.

there are a lot of changes in preseason (jungle, drakes, top & bot...). There is also a new lethality item :

Currently, imo it's too early to conclude if this item can be included in Yi build, but i don't think you will rush it after your jungle item (because gives you 73% AS at 6 stacks and double use of ). Maybe for a 3rd item if you go on-hit build it's a trash item for on-hit build, never consider buying it, it's as worth as buying .
For lethality build, I think you can buy it for a 3rd item too (I don't think it can replaced as 2nd item).

10.5 : The current change on Blade of the Ruined King is great for . I think you can consider buying it as your 3rd item when you are ahead in the game, and if you already like the blade. But personally, either I'm ahead or not, I prefer to buy or . I think it's better to consider buying it as your 4th item.

When you play Master Yi , you need to understand one thing : you do not have base damage.
To make it clear, when you spawn in the summoner's rift, you are (80% of the time) weaker than every other champ in your game. You will generally have to avoid 1v1 early game.
BUT you have a great scaling.
In conclusion, you generally need to scale at a certain point when you can drive the game.

And the question is : how to scale as Master Yi ?

I will try to give you a lot of key-points to answer this question.
But before going further, you need to understand a GUIDE CAN'T MAKE YOU BETTER IF YOU DON'T PLAY. You need to play regularly Master Yi if you want to improve.
Plus, you will see the more the question is hard, the more the answer will be something like "with experience you can know what is the best choice to do at this moment".
Because yes, Master Yi is hard to master.

PS for Yi mains :
Don't get me wrong, you can also have a really aggressive play style and drive the game at the beginning of the game, but it depends about the game, your comprehension of LoL in general and your own playstyle. I will develop this part further.

So Master Yi is mostly played as a jungler. So you need to know a jungle road to start the game.

Imo one of the "best" road jungle to start Yi is a standard full clear:
Red -> Krugs (+smite) -> Raptors -> wolves -> Blue -> Scuttle -> Gank (if possible)

During your clear, you have to check regularly your mini map to see how is the situation on each lane everytime, and more (if there is a gank of their jungler and so the possibility to invade etc)

When you will try to start the scuttle (around 3:20 when you did a good clear), check for the priority of your midlane : if you meet the jungler in the river for the scuttle, you fight ONLY if you have the priority of midlane (and toplane in the best situation). If not, just go back and try to take the scuttle bot.

After your first clear + 1 scuttle, you'll have the red smite and a dagger. Now, the better way to chase after the game for you is to return bot to clear the krugs and check for a gank mid or bot and the drake (if possible).

Master Yi is really good at sneaking drake with this stuff. So in low elo, you can try to take the red plant to go on the dragon pit and do it, even if you didn't take the scuttle bot (because we assume if they did the scuttle bot they will not put more vision on the drake).

Master Yi early game is always about taking opportunities, to be in reaction and not really taking action. After some experience, you will probably have the ability to trace the enemy jungler. So you'll have more opportunities to counter gank or invade his jungle. If you want to climb, you'll need this ability.


Everytime in a game, your opponents will always do mistakes (in laning phase, they will overstay, or trade without vision, or go to deep in their lane...). So, because you check your minimap a lot, you will see these opportunities to gank/catch. And you will adapt your gameplay to punish their mistakes to start or increase your advantage : that's the base of snowball.
Simply, You will not have to create opportunities, but more taking them.

If you buils on-hit (and in general), you will upgrade your abilities like this : You max Q first for clear jungle, which is not always that easy when you begin LoL. Plus, it will decrease the cooldown of , so you will be able to use your alpha strike more frequently in skirmishes and teamfights.

The second option is like this : We assume here you have an aggressive playstyle, or Hail of Blades as main mastery.
Your objective is to be reallyaggressive early/mid game thanks to your "burst" on AA with max + . It's an interesting play-style which has been nerfed on 9.10 (no more +10% passive AD with ), so be careful.

I will do tier lists to make it easier to read. The aim is first to understand what are the best items on , and second if you want to be more flexible on Yi, what are the other options and how can you decide to buy one item more than another.

on-hit build

S tier : essential as core build. You can also go on Skirmisher's Sabre - Warrior, but imo when you have + , you don't have enough AD to burst nor AS to play around , so you can't have a lot of impact in mid game. On the other hand, with + , you start to have some AD and you have enough AS to play around your passive. : you MUST BUY IT. This is the best item to use your passive as much as possible. : after your 2 first items, we can consider you have enough AS to do some stuff in your game. Now, you need to increase your dmg and your survivability. Thanks to the passive of , you will take 30% less AD and AP dmg (delayed in DoT (damage over time)), so indirectly we can say you have like more armor and magic resist, you "just" need to hit minions/champions to heal yourself (so you erase the DoT from ). And you don't heal from AD dmg on AA, but from every source of dmg (true dmg on , dmg from ...). Keep in mind when you are low-life, don't use if you are in range of AA on cs/champions, because doesn't deal dmg instantly, so you can die from DoT of . : every stat on this item is pretty strong on : AS, dmg, lifesteal. The slow+boost of MS on active makes you able to run away from your opponent or to collapse on him, in a situation without it could'nt be possible. It's the best item to buy when you know after 2 items the game will be finished soon. Thanks to his passive (deals 8% of target's current HP in bonus AD dmg on-hit), it's a must have against tanks. During S9 I felt their wasn't a lot of opportunity to buy it, because their wasn't a lot of heavy tanks. But now in S10, with the rework of , their could be more opportunity. A tier : between S and A tier depending on opponent team composition, but generally A tier. It increases your dps with AP dmg on-hit, which scales with your levels in-game. (from 15 to 80). It ain't linear scaling, it scales pretty well at lvl 13-14. Thus, it ain't interesting to rush it after your jungle item, and it doesn't give a constant lifesteal (only when you have 50% HP and less) and you gain a lifesteal equivalent to the AP dmg on-hit from only. Against heavy AP comp, it's really efficient(50 RM), but in another case, imo other items have a better synergy with your core build or kit. Its strongest strength is to be cheap compared to S tier items (2900 golds only) for interesting stats. : it's a great option when you are not really ahead against a tricky comp when you can't really find flanks or opportunity to fight, and you assume your team has enough dmg (you want to go bruiser). Alone isn't really efficient on , imo you need to go on a second bruiser item like randuin to make it efficient. But alone it can sometimes make the difference between life and death. : efficient against AD crits comp. The slow on active can be gamebreaker in teamfight/catch.

lethality build

in process

Here I'll talk about how you can use kit in a more efficient way.

- meditate reset

Typically, when you just finish the animation of your AA which proc the damage of your AA (because the animation of your AA last after you deal your AA damage), you instantly and instantly after AA your opponent. So your coming AA will be earlier than if you did not the meditate reset. (I will add a video later, it will be more relevant). So the sequence looks like that : > >

- tips for jungle

kite your camps : one base of jungle, it's not because you are a melee champion that you can't kite. Of course you can. Use on tip for meditate reset : on each AA, cancel the last part of the animation (after you deal your dmg) by going back from your camp. It's really effective against your buffs, krugs , raptors . You will see yourself taking less dmg and clearing your jungle faster. It isn't easy to start learning that but it's really effective on the long term. how to use Wuju Style: activate when you're going to proc your passive . If you use it another case, you will not optimise the use of your spell. You use your E 2 times under passive. On your first clear, last 4 AA. So if you activate on a , you will have 2 under . Otherwise, only one.

- tips for ganks

how to use Alpha Strike ? : if you can gank the lane, try to come close to the opponent simply by walking. DO NOT use only because you are in range. On your first gank you have a cd of 18 seconds. So use it as a last resort. Try to use it when the opponent will and if you are sure you are able to kill him quickly. which lane can I gank ? : NEVER gank a losing lane, because you lose 2v2 on counter gank, and you are really not sure il you can kill the opponent even in 2v1 (he can have for example...) Try to see some dominance in your laners (farm, position, vision, general form of pressure...). You need to feel the game, to understand what you can do and what you cannot. For example, if your midlaner is under turret, half HP, with a big wave, just before the scuttle spawn, you understand he can't come to help you to secure the scuttle (it's part of the notion of snowball). So if you see the jungler opponent in the river, just go back and try to secure the other scuttle.

- general tips

is an ability commonly used (by importance) : to avoid cc to avoid dmg to increase dmg on an isolated target as a gap closer So STOP using everytime you can reach an opponent, regardless of the situation. It's generally more useful to use your as a gap closer than (because it's instantaneous =>surprising your opponent, delay the fight so in ganks avoid that,...). USE... YOUR... BRAIN !!

- main precision Precision tree is probably the best main tree for thanks to Conqueror, Legend: Tenacity and Triumph, compared to the others. I will explain why just after. Conqueror is overall the best main rune for . It increases your dmg along the fight and gives you 15% of life steal, which is essential (and also a lot of lifesteal) on to survive until the end of a fight. thanks to last great ideas of character designers, there are more and more and more cc which have a bigger and bigger hitbox and a bigger and bigger effect in the game. So now, in nearly 110% of the games, you will encounter champions with a lot of ccs. Even if you are the smartest Yi player of the world, you can't avoid every cc. BUT, I can give you the best counter to this, which will give you the happiest life you could have imagined in your ranked games: Legend: Tenacity. It stacks really fast (approximately around 15 mins in game you have all stacks) and give you 30% of tenacity while fully stacked. Combined with Mercury's Treads, you get 51% of tenacity, which is pretty good. Combine it with Wit's End, even if you get low hp in teamfight, you will regenerate quickly. For Triumph, despite the fact it is the only viable choice of the branch, it will give you some hp after a kill participation, which is essential to survive after or during a fight (or after a dual when your opponent ignited you for example, it can makes you stay alive...]. - secondary domination As you scale with , Taking scaling runes is a good option. Imo, Eyeball Collection is one of the best secondary rune for you. You love fights, I love fights, we love fights, so take "lifesteal" with Ravenous Hunter. This rune heals you with the dmg on , on , on , on : it's really efficient in fights. You can exchange this rune with Ultimate Hunter but I think it's more complicated to optimize this rune, so make it easier for you at the beginning with Ravenous Hunter, later maybe with some experience :) .