My name is ETG N1NJA and I've played Master Yi since I picked up league. I'm not very good by any means but I make this guide to share information and builds for those who are looking into playing Master Yi for the first time. I will be providing general purpose build paths instead of many item choices to make it easy for someone new.

Pros + Highest base movement speed in the game (tied with Pantheon) + Alpha Strike offers good AOE damage and can dodge skill shots + Meditate offers the ability to tank high damage abilities and also allows for an auto-attack reset to burst people + Deals consistent true damage with Wuju Style + Highlander offers slow immunity and turns Yi into a reset monster for team-fights

Cons - Extremely weak to crowd control - Vulnerable without Alpha Strike - Hard play at high level - No built in CC - Can be squishy

On-Hit

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Your primary keystone for On-Hit Master Yi. We take this because it synergizes so well with Guinsoo's Rageblade, giving us more true damage and additional AD. This keystone in conjunction with Guinsoo's Rageblade allows Yi to splitpush like a monster. A Yi with a stacked rageblade and conqueror can melt almost any champion that tries to interfere.

This rune is important as it gives additional gold on kills and more importantly returns 15% missing health which can be the difference between surviving a dive/2v1 and not.

This rune gives stacking attack speed which is good for On-Hit and is good since our build is focused on on-hit effects and conqueror's true damage.

Another rune taken to help us with ganks and finishing off targets as it does 10% additional damage to targets whose health is below 40%.

We take domination for Sudden Impact and Ravenous Hunter which provides a little bit of lethality after an Alpha Strike and good sustain throughout the game.

Really useful as it provides a little extra punch after an Alpha Strike and that can mean a lot for securing kills from early skirmishes.

Over the course of a game, this rune can provide an incredible amount of healing in the jungle and while splitting. Also synergizes with the on-hit magic damage of Guinsoo's Rageblade and even Wit's End to provide even more sustain.

Crit

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The attack speed boost this keystone gives can be very useful for early skirmishes, invaluable for assassinating targets, and allows Yi to get his crit burst damage off without actually building that much attack speed.

Really useful as it provides a little extra punch after an Alpha Strike and that can mean a lot for securing kills from early skirmishes.

Gives us AD for killing champions and wards which helps in the early game and scales well with the crit build.

Provides a ton of healing throughout the games if you get your stacks. Also really helpful in the crit build since you don't get a lot of lifesteal early and the sustain makes a big difference.

Precision is taken as it gives you access to Triumph and Coup de Grace which both assist with and reward you for getting kills in the early game primarily.

This rune is important as it gives additional gold on kills and more importantly returns 15% missing health which can be the difference between surviving a dive/2v1 and not.

Another rune taken to help us with ganks and finishing off targets as it does 10% additional damage to targets whose health is below 40%.

Flash: Is an essential summoner that should almost never be passed up. It offers extreme versatility, providing a near-instant escape and initiation tool. Arguably one of the best offensive and defensive tools in the game.

Ghost: A potential replacement for flash on Yi. It's short cooldown and movement boost can make it a great spell for either catching up to someone or running away. It can be popped right before a gank to ensure that you catch your target or to run away from an unfavorable confrontation with the enemy jungler.

Smite: The essential and necessary summoner spell for jungling in League of Legends. Smite is quite useful as it gives you a source of damage to finish off jungle camps and now gives you health back when you smite jungle monsters. Most importantly it gives you access to jungle items.

• Double Strike: This passive gives Yi a considerable boost in damage in team fights and to objectives; it also helps your clears. It works with Guinsoo's Rageblade and is very powerful when combined with an auto-attack reset.
  
• Alpha Strike (Q): This ability is AOE, gives you a huge chunk of damage, makes you untargetable, and is Yi's bread and butter besides right clicking. Don't just run in and use this ability to catch people; what you need to do is run up and auto then wait for them to use their escape ability, Flash, or hard CC, then chase through the escape with Alpha Strike to stick to them and clean up the kill.
  
• Meditate (W): Reduces damage dealt to you and heals. This ability isn't very good on its own as it has quite the cooldown and heals for very little which is why it's primary use is as an auto-attack reset. However, it can be used to eat large burst abilities and keep you alive if timed correctly. Use meditate to survive tower shots after dives.
  
• Wuju Style (E): This is your source of consistent true damage. Use this ability when fighting champions, or as an extra bit of damage to finish off a camp. Early in the game only use Wuju Style right before a double strike to maximize the damage output, after you get Bloodrazor it doesn't really matter when you pop it, however. Never use your Wuju Style against towers as it doesn't add any extra damage and gets rid of the passive AD you get when it's off cooldown.
  
• Highlander (R): The ability that makes Yi a (near) unstoppable killing machine in team fights. Grants increased movement speed, increased attack speed, immunity to slows, and allows for those sweet resets. Master Yi's ult makes him a reset champion because it passively reduces cooldowns on his other spells on kills or assists and while it is active, kills extend the duration of Highlander.

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We want to max out Alpha Strike first because it is our main source of damage and allows us to dodge skill shots. Then Wuju Style as it is our secondary source of damage, giving bonus AD when off cooldown and doing true damage when activated. We level up Meditate last as it is our utility spell and serves no use other than soaking damage and resetting autos. Always take Highlander whenever possible.

General

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You have 3 main choices when it comes to boots on Yi. Ninja Tabi, Mercury's Treads, and Berserker's Greaves. You want to take Ninja Tabi when your main threat is AD champs and/or auto reliant champs ( Master Yi, Jax, etc). You want to take Mercury's Treads when your main threat is AP champs or the enemy team has a lot of CC. You can take Berserker's Greaves if you don't feel like you're gonna die and you want extra attack speed (mostly taken in On-Hit if ever).

On-Hit

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This is the best Jungle item for On-Hit Yi because Bloodrazor is necessary for the attack speed and it grants Challenging Smite which synergizes with the build because of its on-hit true damage burn. Challenging Smite also reduces the target's damage towards you by 20% which allows you to win duals and survive longer to get your 6 stacks for Guinsoo's Rageblade.

Used primarily because it deals 8% of the target's current health on-hit and it's active deals 100 flat magic damage and steals 25% of the target's movement speed for 3 seconds; allowing for better duals and chasing potential. It also provides decent lifesteal and good stats.

The bread and butter of on-hit Yi. Guinsoo's Rageblade's passive makes it so that when you acquire 6 stacks (each acquired by auto-attacking), all on-hit effects will trigger twice every other auto-attack. If the enemy team gives you the chance to stack this item to 6, they essentially lose the fight as you have incredible attack speed and every other hit are proccing Wuju Style's on hit true damage twice and dealing 110 magic damage (30 from Guinsoo's Rageblade, 80 from Wit's End). Also provides armor pen and magic pen which isn't essential but doesn't hurt either.

Wit's End is used to balance out the build by giving you some extra magic resist and healing when below half health. It's additional damage, MR, attack speed, healing, and synergy with Guinsoo's Rageblade make it a welcome addition to the on-hit build as it provides both survivability through the MR/healing and damage through the on-hit magic damage.

Sterak's Gage is a defensive item giving you 450 health and giving you a shield when you take 400-1800 (based on level) damage within 5 seconds. It also grants 50% base AD when your shield comes up you gain increased size and 30% tenacity (resistance to CC). This item is the Maw of Malmortius of AD. This is bought instead against AD threats, as the magic damage shield and MR that Maw of Malmortius grants would be wasted against physical damage threats. Maw of Malmortius is a defensive item giving you 45 MR and giving you a shield when you take magic damage that would reduce your health below 30%. It also grants additional AD and lifesteal while in combat. This item is the Sterak's Gage of AP. This is bought instead because the MR it grants is considerable and it grants a shield similar to Sterak's Gage.

Defensive Item granting the same effects of Quicksilver Sash but with the bonus of granting 35 MR, 65 AD, and 10% lifesteal. Buy this when CC is your main concern but you still want some damage and lifesteal to stay in the fight and you don't think you'll get bursted often enough for the shields of Maw of Malmortius and Sterak's Gage to be useful.

Great defensive option as it provides armor, damage, and the ability to revive after being killed. Don't use the passive as a crutch however, as against a coordinated team they can just wait it out and kill you again. This item is very good because of the stats it provides, the ability to turn a very close fight, and allowing you to make small mistakes and not be punished that hard for them.

Crit

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Essential item for crit builds of any kind because of the chunk of AD you gain, the 20% critical chance you gain, and most importantly the 50% bonus damage you deal on crits (bumping crits up to 250% damage!).

Standard item which is good for the crit chance, attack speed, and movement speed it provides. PD is great for dueling because it boosts move speed and allows you to move through units (no more minion blocking!) while in sight range of enemy champions. It also is great for duels because of the 12% damage reduction you get to any target you auto-attack for 10 seconds (limited to one champ at a time).

Another item which is standard for crit because of the crit chance, attack speed, and movement speed it provides. Shiv is great for bursting and waveclearing because of its passive which is an energize effect. Moving or attacking builds stacks up to 100 and at 100 stacks, the next time you attack you release a bolt which chains to up to 5 targets and deals magic damage, doing extra damage to minions and can also crit. When you hit an enemy with an energized attack it'll do the extra magic damage to them which can potentially crit and helps your burst. The energized attack chaining to 5 targets and doing extra damage to minions (or monsters) makes it great for waveclear.

Defensive Item granting the same effects of Quicksilver Sash but with the bonus of granting 35 MR, 65 AD, and 10% lifesteal. Buy this when you think that you're safe enough to not need Guardian Angel and need to get through CC to kill their squishies.

Good item with a decent mix of damage and defense. GA provides decent damage while essentially providing a Zhonya's Hourglass upon death and with a far longer cooldown (not as good as the defense Zhonya's provides). The reason Zhonya's Hourglass is not used is that it provides AP which Yi cannot utilize at all, which makes it a waste of gold and a slot.

The go-to tank buster of League of Legends. Lord Dominik's Regards is great at killing tanks because it ignores 35% the target's armor (that becomes a lot late game!) and does additional damage to targets with more health than you. Buy this is the enemy team has 2 or more tanks or if they're just giving you a lot of fo trouble.

Essence Reaver is a great item as it gives you CDR (30% by itself!), a chunk of AD, and near-infinite mana sustain. This is because of its passive which gives you 3% missing mana back on every critical strike. Buy this item if you either never want to worry about mana, want to bring your crit chance up to 100%, or both.

defensive item giving you 45 MR and giving you a shield when you take magic damage that would reduce your health below 30%. It also grants additional AD and lifesteal while in combat. Buy Maw of Malmortius if you are having trouble with and/or are dying to AP champs a lot.

How to decide what to build

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Deciding whether to build Crit or On-Hit is important on Yi and here I will give you some guidelines to decide which build to use in which situations. Also, specifications about each item and why they're here is available in the Items section.

Pre-Game

You will decide your primary build in the champion select. In general, if the enemy team has 2-3 tanks, you will want to use On-Hit, and if the enemy team is full of squishy champs with 1 tank and maybe 1 off-tank, you're safe to use Crit.

Explanation

The main difference between On-Hit and Crit is who you need to kill. On-Hit is taken when the enemy team is full of tanks because you'll need to shred through those tanks to get to the squishy carries on their team. Crit is taken when there aren't many real tanks so you'll be able to blow up the carries and anyone who tries to get in your way and it can focus on pure burst since there aren't many tanks to worry about who will absorb that damage.

How to Use Them

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How On-Hit Works

The On-Hit build for Yi relies on stacking up Guinsoo's Rageblade which allows for incredible damage with all of the On-Hit mechanics at play. The Rageblade procs on every other auto, this interacts with your Double Strike which immensely boosts your DPS and allows for the jucier effects to proc quickly as you Double Strike every other auto rather than every 3. In total you're getting a ridiculous amount of true damage from Wuju Style, 30 magic damage from Guinsoo's Rageblade, and 80 magic damage from Wit's End. Every. Other. Auto. This allows you to mow through anyone who gets into melee range once you have 6 stacks on your Rageblade. It also utilizes Conqueror to send your damage through the roof as you get more of your damage converted to true damage and heal from it.

How Crit Works

Less complicated to explain arguably than On-Hit, we have the Crit build. The Crit build's objective is to hit like a truck by foregoing attack speed and On-Hit effects in exchange for high damage and chance to critically strike leading to autos and Alpha Strikes that can do upwards of 1000 damage. This build is a bit more expensive than On-Hit, and slow to start up because of that. The build process for Infinity Edge completes far later than Skirmisher's Sabre - Bloodrazor, leading you to feel slow, progression-wise. Once it gets going, however, it will destroy any squishy champion unfortunate enough to cross your path. Hail of Blades pairs wonderfully with Crit as it will allow you to burst squishy targets concerningly fast and make up for the attack speed we aren't building.

Teamfighting and Target Prioritization

Yi is a monster in teamfights regardless of what he builds if he can avoid getting focused by CC. Your goal as Yi is to get in, dodge and avoid their CC or skillshots, and deal as much damage as possible. Since you're a carry jungler, play like one. Wait for your initiators to go in and potentially soak some CC and damage abilities. After that, the enemy team will be served on a silver platter as their CC is on cooldown and they have nothing to stop you from Aceing them. As a general rule, pounce on the squishy carries when possible and not suicide. After you shred their carries focus on their supports, then tanks. Carry > Support > Tank.

General Clears

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Most often for clears you want to ask your bot lane to help you kill your bottom side buff (red or blue depending on side), this is generally known as a "leash" or "pull". You have two standard options from there.

The first option is the ganking path, which goes first buff > wolves (pop potions if needed) > second buff (smite) > gromp (optional for level 3) > gank lane closest to the second buff.

Your second choice is the full clear and it's exactly what it sounds like, Blue > gromp > wolf > raptors > red > krugs on blue side, or Red > krugs > raptors > blue > gromp > wolves on red side or some variation of that. The second option takes longer but is an option if none of your lanes are gankable or you just wanna farm.

Kiting

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Kiting as it relates to jungling is hitting a camp then running away to make it follow you and hitting it again, it can slow down your clear slightly but you come out healthier so you're more prepared to eat damage during ganks or survive encounters with the enemy jungler.

Master Yi is a great champion to start out with as in low elo he can dominate games if properly farmed or fed. He can begin to fall off in higher elo as it becomes harder and harder to play him as better opponents begin to exploit his weaknesses more frequently and effectively. He may seem easy to play but most of his difficulty in any rank is decision making rather than raw execution. Thanks for taking the time to read my guide. Any feedback is highly appreciated. Have a nice day.