Pros of Yorick

+There's a chance you'll be underestimated, especially if you're playing at a lower MMR
+Excellent harass from the latter portion of the laning phase onward
+Phenomenal pushing capabilities - take out ALL the towers
+Because of Omen of Death, if you get out of position and end up definitely going to die, you can take some opponents down with you sometimes. BTW - Don't use this as a crutch.
+Difficult to counter
+Great sustain as long as he has mana
+He's a blatant Shakespeare reference

Cons

-Great sustain as long as he has mana
-Early game requires great care
-It's easy to get overconfident and to start chasing kills thanks to Omen of Death
-Has difficulty escaping - Solution? Don't get out of position in the first place

Yorick is a very fun champion.

First off, he's an excellent pusher, which is exactly what you want in a solo top. He's also not the most common pick you'll see played, or banned. Because of this, many people you are up against might not know how to play well against a Yorick who knows what he or she is doing.

End-game, Yorick is a VERY powerful 1v1 Champion, and an asset to the team with his ultimate, Omen of Death.

That's why Yorick is good.

My summoner spells of choice for Yorick are Teleport and Flash.

Teleport, I feel, is incredibly underrated; it's also my favorite summoner spell.
If you use it correctly, and not conveniently, it might be the most powerful spell in the game. Sure, it can be used for a quick buy and then back to the lane, at it's most basic level. I feel however that it's best used when pushing lanes. You could push a lane really far and then teleport away not only to save yourself, but to commence pushing another lane while they're distracted. As long as you don't waste the cooldown on this spell, you are a huge advantage to your team, and you can make Yorick's already incredible pushing capabilities even stronger.

Flash I feel is just an all-around great summoner spell. It can help you get kills, it can save you from a gank, and you can juke with it.

Many people may disagree with my choice of runes for Yorick and say stuff like, "Why would you waste stats by getting armor marks?"

Armor seals and MR glyphs will provide plenty of defense. By magnifying that armor quantity with full armor marks and Quintessences, you'll have so much armor you will have excellent sustain in the top lane. Your runes will also synergize with your late game build by allowing you to not spend as much gear getting armor, you can get some more damage instead.

These masteries are good for Yorick. The utility tree will increase your ability to stay in the top lane as long as possible, while the offensive tree just gives some nice bonuses to CDR and AD.

When farming as Yorick you need to be extremely careful.

As much as you can, stick to getting last hits with nothing but your auto-attacks - sometimes this will be hard depending who you're laning against. If you're last hitting with your spells you'll burn your mana really quickly; just learn to time your auto-attack more accurately.

If you wisely and carefully mix in some spells, your ghouls will help push most people away, thereby shutting down your opponent's farm! But find the balance: pushing too hard will make your jungler mad at you because he can't gank, and put you at risk of being ganked. Try to just use your ghouls to keep your opponent from farming.

E.G. - Using Omen of War or Omen of Famine to last hit a minion, causing the ghoul to then go and harass your opponent.

Yorick has a difficult time in the first several minutes of the game - Mana problems can be abundant and you're not spitting out damage yet.

For the beginning of the game just focus on last hitting with your auto-attack (see "Farming"). You shouldn't be aggressive yet, just accrue AS MANY LAST HITS AS POSSIBLE. Getting a massive gold bonus from farm will give you the gear you need to snowball hard.

By now you should have some gear and you should really be able to start hurting some people. If your jungler knows what he's doing and YOU aren't pushing too hard, he should be able to get some sick ganks and help you wreck your turret.


At this point, keep in mind your mana - you need to have enough so that if at any given moment a fight would break out, you'd have enough mana to be worthwhile - so just be mindful of that.

Also, you're farm should really start to be incredible. Whilst watching your mana carefully, don't be afraid to use your spells during this phase for some hardcore pushing and farming, especially if a lane is unoccupied. Doing this will not only make your CS (Creep Score) skyrocket, giving you a butt-ton of gold, but you'll push lanes and knock down turrets - the spell-spamming part will help build up your Manamune, too.

At this point you should have most of your items and likely only need one or two more if you farmed properly.

You should be powerful, but just remember you are an asset to your team; they can't lose you right away. Your Omen of Death can be a very powerful game-changer if used properly at this point in the game. Since the revenant from Omen of Death benefits from a percentage of the Champion's attack damage, by using it on the ADC, it'll really add some damage to a team fight. Another good benefit of using this on the ADC is that if they get focused down quickly they can continue to fight.

Yes, my choice to get ability power on Yorick is highly irregular, but surprisingly viable and effective. This build synergizes very well within itself. My line of reasoning is, "Since Yorick basically needs a Manamune/ Muramana to be effective, why not take advantage of this unique item choice?"

So I did.
Two things must be considered, and they are the key reasons why this build actually works.

1) Muramana grants Attack Damage based on maximum mana.
2) Muramana's active effect is a toggle on-hit effect that does damage based on maximum mana.

To fully utilize Muramana, one needs mana.

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Because of this philosophy, Rod of Ages and Iceborn Gauntlet end up being great item picks. Both will grant mana, which will not only allow you to throw around more ghouls, but also increase your attack damage, as well as the on-hit from your Muramana.

This last part is crucial. Because of the on-hit effect from Muramana, attack damage is not as necessary. I'm not saying attack damage is a bad thing; I'm just pointing out that with this much mana, the on-hit from Muramana will deal crushing blows every auto-attack.

The other thing Rod of Ages and Iceborn Gauntlet gives Yorick (besides mana) is a nice bonus to health, armor, and cooldown reduction. A sexy on-hit effect is thrown in there, too, thanks to Iceborn Gauntlet. Ultimately, these two items grant a fair amount of survivability.

The reason ABILITY POWER works from these two items is because Omen of Pestilence benefits from 100% of your ability power. Since Rod of Ages should be obtained early, rather than later (probably still during the laning phase), this extra damage will greatly help your harass and will help you get some early kills.

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Atma's Impaler v. Ravenous Hydra

This choice is yours and depends greatly upon the game.
Basically, if you need more damage, get Ravenous Hydra, and if you want more armor get Atma's Impaler. Atma's Impaler will synergize with the health from Rod of Ages and Banshee's Veil to grant you attack damage.

So yeah, that's pretty straightforward.

This build strategy is not yet entirely finished. My plan is to continually add onto it as time progresses, addressing different methods of gameplay with Yorick, as well as against specific opponents. I'd also like to add a more in depth section on runes/masteries/summoner spells, explaining more and featuring some alternative options.

Also, it should be noted this is my first guide.
Have any questions, comments, or words of advice?
Want to let me know how much you failed/owned with this guide?
See any blatant mistakes within my guide?
Leave your comments here and I will try to respond to them in a reasonable and timely manner.

Thank you for reading my guide on Yorick!
Best of luck to anyone following this guide.

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I'd also like to give credit to jhoijhoi for her Guide to Making a Guide and help with BB Code.
Thanks!