Hey guys!

I bring you an updated version of my first Yasuo guide (to fit the season 8 changes)that was released during the VS event and the release of Nightbringer Yasuo, I had made it a simple build because I wanted it to be for the new players who gained interest in him, but now that this is a thing of the past, i'm ready to add a ''mechanic'' section in the guide!

Do not discredit this build just because the author isn't challenger, it is a reliable and trustable tool to learn the basics of Yasuo.

Let's get into it.

I think it is no secret to anyone: Press the Attack is fantastic and optimal on Yasuo.
It fits short trades with the 3-hit damage proc AND long trades with the bonus exposure damage.

Fleet footwork is also good in certain top lane matchups where you are put against a duellist, but even with the sustain I still think you lose too much damage by not taking Press the Attack

But before I elaborate on Press the Attack Yasuo, I would like to direct your attention to something that is definitely fun to try and toy around with in a blind pick norms:

Kleptomancy Yasuo. Your Q procs it instantly (like Ezreal Q) and the bonus income from it makes your 2-item powerspike come much sooner, on top of that the consumables you get from it are just so fun!

Alright so here is the Press the attack rune page i've been running on Yasuo, I will explain why I took the runes I chose AND why I did NOT take the runes I did not choose.

Primary tree: Precision

Keystone: Press the Attack

Heroism rune: Triump or Overheal*

Legend rune: Bloodline or Alacrity** or Tenacity***

Combat rune: Last Stand

*take Overheal if you are against a 5x Squishy team, you will be getting Bloodthirster, which synergizes in amazing fashion with Overheal. If they have tanks, take Triumph.
**take Alacrity if you are against a 5x Squishy team, you will be getting Bloodthirster, which means you will NOT get BoRK, this means your only attack speed item will be PD, PD and the +18% ATK speed from runes will not be enough to reach the CDR cap on Q, Alacrity helps filling this hole, aniways, you make up for the lost lifesteal by getting Bloodthirster.
***Against CC heavy team, explanation further down.
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Secondary tree: Sorcery

Secondary no. 1: Nullifying Orb

Secondary no. 2: Gathering Storm

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EXPLANATIONS:

Taking the Precision tree as your primary and the Sorcery tree as your secondary gives you +18% ATK speed, which is amazing on Yasuo, because you need ATK speed from runes to reach the maximum CDR on your Q when put in conjunction with PD and BoRK when you get it, which allows you to get defensive boots without missing out on ATK speed.

For the Keystones:

[*] Do not get Lethal Tempo, you will already reach the max CDR for Q with the +18% ATK speed and PD/BoRK, it's just a waste.

[*] Fleet footwork is viable as I mentionned earlier.

For the Heroism rune:

[*] Get Triumph , it is amazing for the same reason Dangerous Game used to be in the old system, except now it's even better! Surely you remember all the times that 5% HP heal saved you in skirmishes or teamfights, now picture 15%! I find it particulary efficient when you and your jungler are fighting a 2v2 against opponent laner and jungler, or even when you try to go for a 1v2. The healing kinds of work like the classic ''Heal-Bait'' of an ADC and is often unnacounted for.

[*] Overheal is viable in the situation I mentionned earlier

[*] Presence of mind: Do you get Sapphire Crystals on Yasuo? NO? YOU BRONZIE!

For the Legend runes:

[*] Get Bloodline, it is a superb rune because you usually won't get a complete lifesteal item (always get an early vampire scepter bois) before your 5th item!! That's a huge part of the game without good lifesteal. 10 takedowns is usually easy to attein and the lifesteal the rune grants makes up for the lack of sustain early game and allows you to invest into a fourth item Frozen Mallet.

[*] Alacrity is viable in the situation I mentionned earlier.

[*] Tenacity is viable if the ennemy team has a LOT of CC, coupled with Merc Treads, you can get a total of 45% CC duration reduction, which is almost 50%! It's insane, think about a Morgana binding snaring you for 1.5 second instead of 3.

For the Combat runes:

Here is where it gets a little tricky with maths, let's compare the 3 at their optimal efficiency:

[*] Coup de grace: When ennemies are under 40$ hp, deal 10% more damage. When you take them down, get +9 AD for 10 seconds (9 AD pretty irrelevent when you have 350 AD)

[*] Cut down: When ennemies have 2000 max. HP over you, deal 10% more damage.

[*] Last stand: When you reach 30% HP, deal 12% increased damage.

Here is why I prefer Last Stand:

In this build you always get Frozen Mallet, therefore it is very rare that you will get the maximum efficiency out of Cut down, which is why I do NOT reccomend it why this build, either way with a BoRK and your ultimate+ 100% crit you do way enough damage to tanks.

With Cut down eliminated, what differentiates Last Stand from Coup de Grace? I always think about Warwick's passive: have you ever switched from attacking a 10% HP target as Warwick to attacking a 100% HP target? Pretty brain melting. Feels terrible. My point is that in a teamfight this rune is NOT CONSISTENT, you rarely get to use it to it's maximum for a long duration because you switch out targets and it ''deactivates''

Last Stand, on the other hand, is reliant on YOUR health, which means it DOESN'T MATTER who you are attacking, the lower you get, the more damage you do, no matter what. I think this is optimal for Yasuo because you will always be focused down by the other team. Might aswell make them pay.

For these reasons, take Last Stand

For the secondary runes:

Secondary no. 1:

[*] Take Nullifying Orb, it's so good in the mid lane. The S8 runes have made mages stronger then ever and this is a mini-hexdrinker for free. It has saved me countless times and it will save you too!

[*] Manaflow Band: Do you upgrade your mana crystals into Tear of the Goddess when you play Yasuo top and go 0-20? NO??? BRONZIE!!!

[*] The Ultimate Hat: Your ultimate's cooldown is already like 38 seconds at rank 3, you don't need it to be any lower, especially since you aren't getting any CDR items.

Secondary no. 2:

[*] Take Gathering storm, it's free AD! The average LoL game on the NA server where us boosted monkeys don't know how to close out a game lasts 40 minutes, by the 40 minute mark, Gathering Storm gives you +50 AD! That's LIT FAM!

[*] Waterwalking is viable if you like to roam alot and are good to snowball and close out games where you have a lead as Dragon and Baron are in the river, giving you the bonus.

[*] Scorch is fine, just inferior to the other two, you can have fun with it, it is strong in the early game.

Other Sorcery Runes:

[*] Transcendence: CDR on Yasuo? I mean if you want to stack 6 black cleavers go for it but...

*it's bad*

[*] Celerity: You dont have movespeed in your kit, might work with PD but the interaction is not strong enough to beat Nullifying Orb or Gathering Storm, aniways Waterwalking is a better movespeed rune.

[*] Absolute focus: It's good but you're an NA Yasuo player, you're gonna spend more time dead then alive. In all seriousness, getting under 70% HP happens really fast. Too situational.

There it is for runes! I hope you enjoyed this section of the guide! Remember, this is preseason, nothing is settled in stone, runes might get tweaked and we might see a shift in what is optimal, but so far, that's what I've been liking and it works in the mid-plat norms MMR I play in.

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My thoughts about every rune in 1 sentence and my favorite for every set will be in underlined italic (On Yasuo):

DOMINATION:

Predator: Bad cus it's burst, not sustained damage
Dark harvest: Same thing as Predator, but you know, Dark Harvest is OP so take it on any champion lol.
Electrocute: Might work, but once again it's burst instead of sustained damage, and the cooldown is kind of long when as Yasuo you want to harass as much as possible early game.

Cheap shot: Works with your Tornado Q and your Ultimate, but it doesn't really do enough damage to be worth it.
Taste of blood: Bad, if you want sustain go buy a doran's blade and a vampiric scepter you nerd.
Sudden impact: Bad, it's lethality on Yasuo, having low amounts of lethality (Yasuo doesn't get any Lethality items except rare occasions) actually makes it scale down hard as the game drags on, it becomes almost useless.

Zombie Ward: It's great, us bronze Yasuo players need vision.
Ghost poro: Same thing except this one is cute.
Eyeball collection: It's good when you snowball, but the amount of AD it gives isn't really that great.

Ravenous Hunter: Good, it's like a good version of Death's Dance ;)
Ingenious Hunter: Aside from reducing the CD on your BoRK and Mercurial Scimitar it's useless and since these two items are situational and not core I'd never take it.
Relentless Hunter: Good but I think PD and boots is enough movespeed to invest another rune slot in it.

RESOLVE:

Grasp of the Undying: Good on Yasuo top lane if you need a better form of sustain to get through duelling when Fleet Footwork isn't enough, who doesn't like free stacks also!
Aftershock: Works with your Tornado Q and your ultimate! Funny but not efficient, like Cheap shot.
Guardian: Nope, it's bad unless you wanna do some Yasuo support shenanigans to get an S grade.

Unflinching: Your not Zoe and your not running the Summoner spellbook, it's too situationnal.
Demolish: Good if you run Grasp of the Undying and Overgrowth, once you get Frozen Mallet you can do 50% of a tower's HP in one auto!
Font of life: YASUO SUPPORT WITH ARDENT CENSOR (don't do it please)

Iron skin: Good against strong AD laners like Darius.
Mirror shell: Good against strong AP laners like Vladimir.
Conditionning: Good against AD and AP after 10 minutes, also augments the stat value of your merc treads/ ninja tabis/ maw of maltmorius/ mercurial scimitar/ guardian angel. More resists.

Overgrowth: This one is usually gonna net you around 7.5% bonus HP in late game, so instead of having 2700 HP you will have around 3000 HP, potentially higher depending on how many Grasp of the Undying stacks you got.
Revitalise: Sadly doesn't work on yourself, so unless your going YASUO SUPPORT WITH ARDENT CENSOR to synergyze with Font of Life, it's bad. (even on support Yasuo its bad)
Second Wind: Mini-doran's shield, mini specter's cowl, good in the top lane where you get Doran's shield as starting item, good synergy.

INSPIRATION:

Kleptomancy: I mentionned it at the very start of the guide... try it. It's a blast.
Frozen Augment: Terrible since you always get Frozen Mallet and slows don't stack. By the way, BoRK active shoots out a ray of ice, lol.
Unsealed spellbook: Could be good if you are taking ignite to destroy lane early game and then switch it out as the game progresses, ie. when you get executionner's calling to apply the grievous wounds, switch it for TP when you are top, switch it for exhaust when you are mid.

Hextech fashtraption: Sadly you cannot do the EQ-flash combo when the flash itself takes a year to channel, sorry lads.
Biscuit delivery: Man i'm really glad to have these biscuits to increase my max mana. Oh wait.
Perfect timing: It's good, nobody expects it, you can do some amazing outplays and baits and it builds into a GA which you need often.

Magical footwear: These are better then regular boots, why not?
Future's market: This is a pretty good rune, it allows you to have a negative bank account to go with your negative KDA. Seriously though it's fun not having to wait for 100g!
Minion dematirializer: Bad since Yasuo has no problem farming under tower.However if you are against Veigar you could always...

Cosmic Insight: CDR on Yasuo, ew.
Approach Velocity: This one actually has insane synergy with Frozen Mallet, as soon as you slow someone you get a massive movement speed bonus towards them, coupled with Phantom Dancer people will never get away from you.
Celestial Body: 10 minutes is too long, you need to be aggressive in lane early and you need all the damage you can get.

The funny Kleptomancy Yasuo build:

Primary Tree: Inspiration

Keystone: Kleptomancy

Contraptions: Perfect Timing

Tomorrow: Future's market

Beyond: Approach Velocity

Secondary Tree: Precision

Bonus: 20% ATK speed (that's insane by the way) and 20% potion and elixir duration... and what do you get using Kleptomancy? That's right, potions and elixirs!

Secondary rune no. 1: Triumph or Overheal (see above)

Secondary rune no. 2: Last stand or Legend: Bloodline or Legend: Tenacity or Legend: Alacrity (whichever you feel you need most)

Done! Thank you for reading all the way down there, enjoy the new runes and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments guys!

For items, it is fairly simple, here is the standard Yasuo build with the science behind it.

First buy: Doran's Blade/Doran's Shield + Potion

Second buy: Zeal+ T1 boots (Total: 1500 gold)

Third buy: BF sword (1300 gold)

Fourth buy: Phantom Dancer OR Statikk Shiv (1400 gold)

Get Phantom Dancer if you are against Duellists, like Jax in the top lane, get Statikk Shiv if you are against a AP squishy mage like Vel'Koz, Xerath, Ahri, to burst them down.

Fifth buy: Cloak of Agility (800 gold)

Then, you complete Infinity Edge and upgrade your boots:

Get Mercury's Threads If you are vs a AP heavy team with CC (never get it just for the MR, what is good about this item is the tenacity, if they have no CC, go for Berserker's Greaves)

Get Ninja Tabis If you are vs a AD heavy team (especially if they rely a lot on auto-attacking- like Ashe or on one powerful attack- like Zed)

Get Berserker's Greaves if you want maximum offense and are not going to get BoRK, you need max Q CDR ideally. (gives you ATK speed and CDR on your Q)

Now you have 3 item slots left.

For your fourth item, you almost always want to buy Frozen Mallet, it gives you 700 HP and every auto and Q will slow down the ennemy, however if you are against a AP heavy team, you might want to consider buying Maw of Maltmorius instead, to get the MR and the magic damage shield in case you get bursted down.

TLDR: Frozen Mallet for HP OR Maw of Maltmorius for MR/ magic dmg shield

For your fifth item, you either get Blade of the Ruined King if you are against 2 tanks or more, or Bloodthirster if you are against a team that has only squishies, like Jayce top, Evelynn Jungle, Soraka support, etc, the % hp dmg from BORK will not be usefull and you need the huge AD and +20% lifesteal to keep up with their burst damage.

TLDR: Blade of the Ruined King for tanks, Bloodthirster for full squishy team comp

For your last item, it is up to what you prefer, if you want more surviability, get Guardian Angel, the passive that ressurects you can literally win a teamfight. However, if your opponents have a lot of lifesteal/spellvamp (Swain, Vladimir) you might want to upgrade your Executionner's calling and get Mortal Reminder to cut down their healing by 50% after attacking them. Don't get Lord Dominiks, you won't maximise it's effects because you have around 2700 HP due to Frozen Mallet.

NEVER get these items just for the bonus armor penetration, since your ultimate already gives you a whopping +50% bonus armor penetration and the CD is so low you will always use it in a teamfight unless you suck and you cannot land tornadoes.

TLDR: GA for surviability, Mortal Reminder for lifesteal/spellvamp heavy champions.

That's it for item:

I'll do a chapter of me ranting about people buying Death's Dance over Bloodthirster, Edge of Night, and Black Cleaver. Seriously, y'all need to stop.

1st point in Q
2nd point in E
3rd point in W (even if your opponent doesn't have ranged potential, it buffes your passive and you are safer against a gank, since you can block stuff like Elise cocoon)
Then proceed to max E for burst (against AP mage mid like Vel'Koz, Xerath, etc) or max Q if you are against a duellist (Jax, Yi, etc)
After you have maxed Q, max E, or vice-versa if you started by maxing E.
Always take a point in your ultimate when you can.

Skill order looks like

Q-E-W-E-E-R-E-Q-E-Q-R-Q-Q-W-W-R-W-W if you max E
Q-E-W-Q-Q-R-Q-E-Q-E-R-E-E-W-W-R-W-W if you max Q

If you are TOP, take TELEPORT and FLASH,
It is NOT negociable to take TP, you MUST be able to follow on the ennemy top laner's teleport if he goes for a bot TP/ dragon TP/ baron TP, otherwise you open up your team to 4v5's. Aniways it is good to not miss CS if you get killed early.

If you are MID, take IGNITE and FLASH against a squishy AP mage like Vel'Koz or Xerath for more all-in kill pressure, or EXHAUST and FLASH if you are against a bursty assassin/ a duellist like Zed, Talon, Riven, etc, since if you exhaust them at the start of the fight you will cut down 40% of their damage and beat them 100% because Yasuo excels in long duration fights, he is a duellist, and if you survived the assassin's initial burst, he has nothing left and you can kick his ***.

If you are BOT, take HEAL and FLASH because you are going to have a hard time before hitting level 6 and you need a defensive summoner spell.

BONUS***

NOTE! If you are using the Unsealed Spellbook, you can take ignite top and mid and then swap it to Teleport/exhaust later into the game, this way you can use ignite to dominate lane without sacrificing more useful summoner spells.

Farming is extremely important on Yasuo since he has a gigantic 2-item powerspike that costs a LOT because of Infinity Edge and you want to get it as early as possible to snowball the lane, here is a comprehensive target that takes into account key moments of the game while always staying on top of your farming game.

5 minutes: Goal: 25 CS, if you reach 35 CS you are in business.
10 minutes: Goal: 70 CS, if you reach 95 CS you are in business.
15 minutes: Goal: 120 CS, if you reach 140 CS you are in business.
20 minutes: Goal: 160 CS, if you reach 195 CS you are in business.
25 minutes: Goal: 195 CS, if you reach 240 CS you are in business.
30 minutes: Goal: 250 CS, if you reach 285 CS you are in business.
35 minutes: Goal: 310 CS, if you reach 340 CS you are a god ;).

You should always aim for the ''goal'' target (25, 70, 120) since it provides you with enough ressources to stay even during the whole game with 0 kills even if you are behind! A good trick is to write them down on a sheet on paper and lay the sheet in front of you during the game and look at it every minute or so to keep track of how you are doing and what your next objective is. Do not stress yourself to reach the higher targets (35, 95, 140), if you reach them too often you might be AFK farming and missing opportunities to make roams and plays with your team.

Remember, farm wins games! If your laning phase ends and you are 0-6 but you still manage to have around 120 CS in 15 minutes, you will still be strong enough to kill people in teamfights and as mid game and late game happens you will magically become 20-6 if you are good :)

Note* Farming the Raptors is really easy and really profitable on Yasuo, try to steal the ennemy jungler's raptors, if you want to take those on your side always ask your jungler nicely.

When the laning phase is over and everyone starts running it down mid like it's ARAM, you should only group with them if you are really fed. If you are not, go to a side lane (top or bot) and farm as much as possible, it gives you solo exp, solo gold, and it creates pressure because you are splitpushing, and since you are Yasuo, they most likely cannot send someone to 1v1, if they send multiple people, ping your team towards objectives like dragons, baron, or towers.

So I've been seeing a lot of plebs getting Death's Dance and Black Cleaver, which are seriously terrible. I will explain why.

I've also seen Edge of Night. This one is OK. It's situational and can be fine in certain matchups, but it is highly overrated because people do not understand how Lethality works.

Alright: Here is why Death's Dance over Bloodthirster (let me add that you always get either Bloodthirster or BoRK, never Death's Dance, but some people get Death's Dance over Bloodthirster) is for boosted bonobos, it's a giant demonstration for the people who don't believe me. If you don't need convincing, here is a TLDR: ITS BAD

When you build Bloodthirster, you get 20% lifesteal on every auto attack AND on every Q, because it counts as an auto attack:

An average auto attack when full build will do 840. The healing from it= 170 HP

An average Q when full build will do 955. The healing from it= 190 HP

You also get a 350 HP shield, which is not neglectable.

When you build Death's Dance, you get 15% healing from all physical damage you deal,which means your auto attacks, your Q, and your ultimate. Your E does NOT heal you as it is magical damage.

Your ultimate is also neglectable for two reasons: First of all, it is more often then not (atleast in teamfights) a multi-target effect, therefore you only get a lousy 5% healing from it's damage, and you only use it once in a teamfight, where as you use your auto attacks and Q's a LOT.

But for the sake of maths let's do it, assuming you land the perfect 5 man ulti, you will deal, with 350 AD, 925 damage on 5 people, so 4625 damage. You will heal for 5% of this damage, which is 230 HP, ONCE in a fight. That's the amount of healing you get with a SINGLE Q when you have Bloodthirster. (minus 40)

Now for the Q and Autos;

An average auto attack when full build will do 840. The healing from it= 125 HP

An average Q when full build will do 955. The healing, when hitting ONE person, will= 145

That means every single auto AND every single Q you miss out on 45 HP if you had BT instead. That literally means that after autoing TWICE you already made up for not healing from your ultimate, and from there on you will keep on outhealing Death's Dance. Think about a teamfight where you auto 10 times and Q 10 times, that's you missing out on 900 HP! Plus missing out on the 350 HP shield, so 1250 HP! Definitely makes the difference between living or dying.

Also these maths dont take armor into account. Which makes BT even stronger, the more armor the ennemy has, the less damage you do to them and the less lifesteal you get from the autos and Q's. That means every point of armor brings your healing from Death's Dance closer to 0 compared to the healing from BT, you have +45hp of margin, therefore BT will always be relevent whereas Death's Dance might get negligible against armor.

But Death's Dance doesn't stop sucking there. Death's Dance actually punishes you for landing your Q on multiple opponents, for the same reason as your ultimate. At the instant you hit more than one person, you instantly cut the healing down to 5%, whereas Lifesteal will still apply the whole 20% of damage dealt to the first target hit as HP gain.

Let's compare the Q's:

If you hit a Q on 1 member with BT, you deal 955 DMG and heal for 20%= 190 HP!
If you hit a Q on 1 member with DD, you deal 955 DMG and heal for 15%= 145 HP.
If you hit a Q on 2 members with BT, you deal 1910 DMG and heal for 20%= 190 HP!
If you hit a Q on 2 members with DD, you deal 1910 DMG and heal for 5%= 95 HP.
If you hit a Q on 3 members with BT, you deal 2865 DMG and heal for 20%=190 HP!
If you hit a Q on 3 members with DD, you deal 2865 DMG and heal for 5%= 145 HP.
If you hit a Q on 4 members with BT, you deal 3820 DMG and heal for 20%= 190 HP!
If you hit a Q on 4 members with DD, you deal 3820 DMG and heal for 5%= 190 HP.
If you hit a Q on all 5 members with BT, you deal 4775 DMG and heal for 20%= 190 HP!
If you hit a Q on all 5 members with DD, you deal 4775 DMG and heal for 5%= 240 HP.

Conclusion, you need to hit FOUR persons with ONE Q to heal as much from Death's Dance as you would have by hitting ONE person with Bloodthirster (190=190), Death's Dance's healing value only beats Bloodthirster's when you hit all 5 people with one Q. That happens very rarely in a game, what happens the most often is 2 or 3 people, which is = to 95 and 145 hp compared to the stable 190 hp from Bloodthirster.

BT is just overall more stable, more reliable, and less requiring on you to actively hit all 5 people to actually get healed a little.
That's an insane difference.

The other stats and effects on Death's Dance aren't even good on Yasuo. The +10% CD is useless because your Q scales down with ATK speed and your E already has no CD. Your rank 3 ultimate also already has something like 38 seconds of cooldown.

As for the Bleed effect, the shield effect from Bloodthirster is just better. The shield actively NEGATES damage, whereas the bleed effect only transforms the damage into a DoT. You're still gonna take it in the face.

I made a very lenghty demonstration to help you understand the logic behind Death's Dance suckiness on AoE champions. Very overrated item.

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Next up: Black Cleaver: Unless you are going for a 6x Black Cleaver cheese transcendence build, which isn't even optimal on Yasuo, DON'T GET IT!

Black cleaver is terrible on yasuo, jesus christ lol. Your ultimate will always be up to use with a ridiculously low cooldown of 38 seconds Yasuo highly values every single of his item slots. Black Cleaver's purpose is to shred tanks. If you have 100% crit, your ultimate's 50% bonus armor CDR, and a BORK, and even a Mortal Reminder if your GA is on CD and you sold it, or you just need Mortal Reminder over GA, YOU WILL BE JUST FINE, you DO NOT NEED THE ARMOR SHRED.

And if you dont get it for the armor shred, don't get it at all! The stats are garbage too! You are getting 20% cdr which is useless on yasuo, since his Q scales down with atk speed and E is 0 sec. cd, and his R is already a super low CD, and it only gives 40 attack damage. If you get it for the combination of HP/AD, your go-to item should be Frozen Mallet, if your going for it for the HP/AD AND the Rage passive, Trinity Force should be your go-to.

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Finally, Edge of Night:

Edge of Night used to be really good into AP matchups, you would get merc treads, Hexdrinker, and a Edge of Night and basically have 180 MR with 2 items. Now however, it does not give MR anymore, only 250 HP, and like I said, if you want HP, get Frozen Mallet.

Edge of night is extremely situational, 250 HP isnt worth an item slot. But just in case you are one of those people who were getting it as an offensive item, Lethality isnt very efficient on Yasuo, since it scales down as the game goes on if you only have one lethality item. On top of that, nowadays everyone is getting Ninja Tabi's, and ADC's are getting Guardian Angel pretty early since it builds out of a BF sword, and mages get Zonyas. This disadvantage is accentuated by the fact you'll always get this item after your PD/IE/boots. Thats kinda too late, that's your 4th item, ennemies already have one armor item and the lethality is pointless.

This section is only advanced tricks, make sure you mastered the basics of Yasuo's kit (which I do not cover in this guide, but to be honest, just go play a game of coop vs ai and you'll understand the mechanics of Yasuo, easy to learn, hard to master) before trying those, as they are hard for the most part. Some are just little tricks that are good to know.

I included video references for the tricks that I personally find hard to understand without visual support, but you can find videos about all of them on Redmercy's channel or on the /Yasuo Mains reddit.
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Here are 21 tips and tricks about Yasuo that you can use to push your mechanics to the next level, I will be starting with the easiest and most obvious ones to the hardest and most complicated ones. Note that you should always practice tricks and advanced mechanics in sandbox mode before bringing them into PvP even if I dont specify it.

GREEN= EASY ( NO.1 TO NO.9)
YELLOW= INTERMEDIATE ( NO.10 TO NO.15)
RED= HARD ( NO.16 TO NO.20)
GOLDEN= ARE YOU MOE? (BONUS: NO.21)
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Trick no. 1: Chilling when recalling.

Are you recalling? Is there 1.5 second left on your recall? Do you see someone coming to interupt it ? Don't panic! If your passive is up, when they hit you they will damage the shield, and your recall will NOT be interupted, you can just chill and finish the recall to base, pretty funny and avoids the annoying person who make you lose 10 seconds by interupting it. (Doesn't work if the damage source is CC, as CC will interupt the recall)
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Trick no. 2: Top lane Yasuo passive trick.

You are playing Yasuo top? Your TP is ready? You want to TP bot to make a play? But ****! Your passive is down. So you lose a lot of precious time and waste a perfect opportunity by walking around trying to stack your passive and then teleporting. Worry not! If you teleport, even with 0 flow, it will instantly charge up to 100% upon arrival!
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Trick no. 3: Using W to get vision.

When you cast your W, it goes a little bit forward, so if you W over a wall or inside a brush you will gain a small bit of vision of that area.
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Trick no. 4: Your R resets your passive shield!

This is super important, during a extended fight, always wait till the ennemy destroys your passive shield before ulting, this way your ulti instantly refreshes the passive shield and you get more shield value in the fight.
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Trick no. 5: ALWAYS move when you fight.

This is a super important habit to take when you play Yasuo, when you are duelling someone that is melee, often you will just hit them in the face and they will hit you in the face. DO NOT STAND STILL! If you walk between every auto attack and every Q, you charge up your flow bar, and you can get multiple shields in one fight. If you stand still, you aren't gonna get any shields and you are possibly gonna die for it! Yasuo shield is really big! Use it! You can also use this to survive ignite, don't just give up, try to walk and E as much as u can and maybe you will activate your shield before ignite kills you and it will save you.
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Trick no. 6: Stop missing tornados, get up close and personnal!

Your Tornado is up? You want to murder someone in lane or in the jungle, or someone near you? Instead of trying to aim the line skillshot version of the tornado, just E on them and Q during the E animation to get a garanteed knockup (unless they dash/flash away during the early part of your E, before the Q procs)! I don't know why people are so afraid of doing this and always try to hit tornados, they are so easy to dodge, don't mess with people, E directly on their face. And if they are far away, E quickly through the minon wave to get near them, and then E on their face. Simple. Stop missing tornados.
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Trick no. 7: Getting an extra auto in a all-in trade.

Your tornado is ready? You want to go for an all-in? Your reflex is to auto, Q, and then R, right? Well actually with Yasuo you can wait for the very last second of a knockup before you ult people in the R, so dont stress! You can actually stick in another auto attack before ulting! It goes as follows: Auto- Tornado Q -Auto- R. One auto might not seem like a lot but when you crit for 800 dmg it does, trust me.
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Trick no. 8: You can do an instant Q right after ulting.

If you cast Q before Yasuo is about to land from his ultimate, it's gonna fire immediately at the fraction of second the ulti ends, maximum time efficiency!
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Trick no. 9: Ravenous Hydra animation cancel.

If for some reason you decided to get a Ravenous Hydra (seriously you dont need it lol but you can do fancy combos with it) you will notice that activating ravenous hydra's active has an animation. You can cancel the animation of the active by using your Q, so you basically use the ravenous hydra active and the Q at the same time (although you need to use the active before the Q)

*Also, just like you can Q during your E, you can activate ravenous hydra during your E too!
**You can use hydra active just before Yasuo lands from his ultimate just like using Q, it will activate automatically when you land.
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Trick no. 10: Using sound cues to know if your tornado hit in fog of war.

When you play Yasuo, you will eventually one day notice that there is a very distinct sound effect when you hit your tornao on someone. Well turns out this sound cue will still be heard by you even if the target hit is in fog of war. What is the purpose of it? First of all, you can «check» a bush without going too near or facechecking if you have no ward. Hear the sound? People are in the bush. Go away.

However there is a second sneaky use to that trick. If you are chasing someone and they go on the other side of a wall and you lose vision of them you could throw your tornado, but even if you hit them, you won't be able to R them because you have no vision. Here is the trick, if you throw your tornado, you can wait till you hear the sound cue. If you hear it, you can ward over the wall to gain vision of the ennemy: if you do it fast enough, he will be in the air as you ward, gaining vision of him will allow you to R him over the wall and «blink» to where he is.
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Trick no. 11: Thinking about preparing your tornado before a fight.

You will notice that in almost every trick you need to have your tornado ready. This has to become a second nature when you play Yasuo, when you see that a fight is coming, always charge up your Q to have a tornado ready when the fight breaks out, you can charge it up by using Q on jungle monsters or minions! Practice alot, it takes awhile to learn to handle the 6 seconds between every charge, Yasuo is a lot about spacing, game knowledge, and decision making.
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Trick no. 12: Using E or Q to cancel your auto attack animation.

What you can do to get a quick and fast burst on someone (champion or minion, its useful early game when you farm caster minions under tower, they dont die with only 1 auto). You auto, and right as you see the damage register, you Q or E on the target you attacked, this way you cancel the end of the auto attack animation, which is more DPS.
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Trick no. 13: Q Flash.

You can actually surprise ennemies by doing a Q flash instead of doing a flash Q, casting your Q and flashing during the animation makes it so your Q will activate at your new location after flashing, and immediatly, so it's way faster than flash and then Q. This is particularly useful for your Tornado Q, if the ennemy is out of range and you want to flash Q, DON'T DO IT! instead, do Q-flash, it's harder to predict and it gives less time to react. You will need to practice a bit in sandbox but it's not hard, it's just a good habit to take in league of legends, when you can cast before flashing, always do it, it's faster.
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Trick no. 14: Cancelling your tornado's animation using W.

One of the most important animation cancel of Yasuo is to cancel his tornado Q. The animation is very slow and very predictable, but you can cancel it and make it much faster if you Q and W simultaneously. The animation for the tornado Q and the animation for the Windwall are very similar too so you can catch people off-guard. On top of that, you can get a 2 for 1 deal if you manage to get the fast tornado AND block a projectile with the windwall. Super outplay!
It sounds worse than it is, seriously, try it, you will see how much faster it is when you W at the same time as you throw your tornado.

*Note: you can also do it with a normal Q
*Works with your E too, you can actually use WEQ all at the same time.
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Trick no. 15: Surprise EQ knockup into R.

You want to engage on a clump of 3-4 ennemy team members? Your team needs an engage, but the ennemy team is playing super safe? You are in a lane with minions around, or in the jungle with a monster camp around? Your flash is up? If all of the above are correct, you can actually surprise the ennemies with an instant EQ knockup into R on everyone hit by using flash.

First, you need to stack up your tornado.
When it is stacked, you need to make sure you will be in range to flash on top of the ennemies when you relocate using your E
Now here is the trick, you are going to EQ on a minion or a monster, and as the animation happens, you are going to flash on top of the ennemies. If you do it correctly (don't do it too late, practice in custom tool) the AoE knockup will take place at the location where you flashed, AKA on the ennemy team, then all you have to do is press R and gather the sweet ELO from their tears.
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Trick no. 16: Using jungle monsters or champions to go through walls.

Most useful trick ever! It will save your life so many times if you do it right! If a champion or a jungle monster (like the Gromp) is close enough to a thin wall, you can E through them.. and you will dash through the wall too! You can use this to get over walls without having to flash, very useful to escape in the jungle.

Some camps are harder to get through than others, so make sure to practice them all in sandbox mode.

Example video by NotCooper, starts to do all camps at 4:10 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVsyyL6ZOrQ
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Trick no. 17: Using an allied knockup to do a super tornado.

To do this trick you need an ally with a knockup like Alistar. Then you need to have your tornado ready. Then what you do is that at the very moment your ally knocks someone in the air, you aim your Q a certain direction and fire it, EXACTLY RIGHT AFTER (seriously, like 0,1 second after) you are gonna use R. What this does is that it is going to fire your tornado in the direction you aimed it at, but from the position of your ultimate, and not your starting position, this way you can get a huge range increase and surprise people with throwing out a tornado Q while ulting. What is cool about this trick is that if the person that you hit with your tornado is near the person you are ulting, they will also get caught into your ultimate and suffer from it's damage and extended CC, and you will land behind the person you hit your tornado on instead of the person you ulted on, but you will land BEFORE them, like 0.5 second before them!

Example by Redmercy, timestamp at 1:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNWMTvGAmBk
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Trick no. 18: Getting your tornado after only 1 Q.

This one is a little tricky. First of all you need the maximum CD on your Q, which is 1.33 CD (you hit it when you have around 1.55 ATK speed). Then, you need to have your tornado ready. First, throw your tornado, and hit someone. The trick is to predict that your tornado is gonna hit. While the tornado is travelling, EQ to a minion or a monster, and during the animation of the EQ, press your R, you have to be very fast as you dont have a lot of time to R. What this does is that it gives you a first stack of Q before you even ult, so after your ult when you land, you can Q immediatly and boom! Your tornado is back up again, not even 1 second after throwing one! Useful in teamfights to get a lot of CC on the ennemy team.

Practice alot in practice tool, it is hard.
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Trick no. 19: Using the blast cones to your advantage.

For this trick you need to be near a blast cone, have ennemy champions on the other side of the wall (it's where you are going), have your tornado ready, and have QSS ready. Basically you are gonna make sure you have vision over the wall and that there will be an enemy in the range of your E once you jump to the other side of the wall using blast cone. What you are gonna do is attack the blast cone, and WHILE YOU ARE IN THE AIR, you are gonna QSS. This is not gonna remove the knockup, but it's gonna enable you to use your abilities, so even if you are still flying in the air, you can click E on someone. So you QSS, and EQ knockup into R on the ennemies. Its very hard to pull off but quite surprising and almost as unpredictable as the EQ flash R combo.

This trick is useful when you are on blue team and the ennemy team is doing dragon, and you have the blast cone that leads into the dragon pit, or when you are on the red team and the ennemy team is doing baron, and you have the blast cone that leads into the baron pit.

Example by Redmercy, timestamp at 1:07, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPz2-qZUvuE
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Trick no. 20: Reducing your Q CD using E.

This one is a classic and is very hard to drill, I suggest going into a custom and practicing it against target dummies, but once it get's into your muscle memory it's easy. Some of you might actually be doing this sometimes without even noticing

Basically when you Q, you can look at the CD timer on the Q and when it reaches around 0.5 second, if you E to a target it will instantly finish the Q CD, which means you can EQ instantly even if there is still 0.5 sec. CD on the Q. 0.5 sec CD might not seem like a lot but it makes a big difference in longer, more extended fights, think about it, if you used it 4 times in one fight, you literally got an extra Q you would'nt have gotten otherwise.

The reason why this is hard is because if you E too early, you will actually do the opposite effect and you will prolong the Q CD, because you won't be able to use it until you finish the E animation completely.

Example by Redmercy, timestamp is 1:10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2oQvundcm8
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Trick no. 21: The ultimate Yasuo combo.

This one is a fusion of trick no. 15 and trick no. 18, once you have 1.33 CD on your Q, if you have your tornado ready you are gonna EQ flash on someone, but this time, you aren't gonna ult immediatly, instead, while they are knocked up, you are gonna EQ on them, and during the animation of your EQ you are gonna ult, this will do a very weird animation on screen that will look bugged, but it is the highest damage output possible. You have to be extremely fast because by the time you EQ on the person who is knocked up the knockup is almost over, usually it's so close that it looks like the knockup is over, so destroy that R button as fast as you can and practice a lot against target dummies in sandbox mode.

*Keywords to help you on your online research: Yasuo Beyblade, Keyblade, Airblade

Example by Redmercy, timestamp at 0:50, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPz2-qZUvuE

*If you are looking to push your Yasuo mechanics to perfection, he explains an even more advanced version of the combo at the timestamp 1:00
Basically what you do is EQ knockup someone, WAIT for the animation to finish, flash near another ennemy champion, EQ on them, and while you are doing your EQ on them, R back to the first person that you initially knocked up.

That's it! have fun playing Yasuo, make everyone tilt and spam you with pogchamp while you laugh over their dead bodies, and be the true challenjour you are.

You filthy Yasuo main.
I luv u <3