The work of gravediggers is essential amongst the living, but invaluable in the Shadow Isles. There are many shades of death there, and each is embraced rather than feared or reviled. One can only ascend from one state to the next with the magical aid of a skilled professional. At the end of the first Rune War, Yorick Mori made his living as a gravedigger. His family owned and maintained the Final Rest Memorial, one of the oldest cemeteries in Valoran. The shovel he employed for his work had been passed down for generations. Each gravedigger taught his son that this shovel was imbued with the spirit of every forefather, and that those spirits would protect him during the long lonely nights amongst the tombstones. To his eternal regret, Yorick died without an heir, bringing the proud Mori line to a close. His body was interred with his shovel in the family mausoleum, and the Final Rest Memorial soon fell to ruin. Death, however, was not the end Yorick had expected.
Yorick emerged on the haunted shores of the Shadow Isles – not quite dead, definitely not alive – still clutching his beloved shovel. He soon learned that with it he could act as a ferryman for the Isles' undead denizens, helping them climb death's many-tiered ladder. This proved a curse, as a gravedigger must "bury his quota" before he too can ascend, or so the legend goes. No one knows what "his quota" is. Yorick dug tirelessly, waiting in vain for the day when he would be freed of his burden. As decades turned to centuries, the shame of his failures came to a head. He returned to Valoran to find his corpse, convinced that salvation might be buried with it. When he arrived, no trace remained of either the mausoleum or the memorial. Hope nearly lost, he discovered the League of Legends, and there saw an opportunity to immortalize the family name he allowed to be forgotten ages ago.

"Die first, then we’ll talk." -- Yorick

This is my very first build on mobafire, i hope it is a good one. I am going to try to update this frequently but for now i think i have things right. I hope to provide you with very useful information.

Pros
- tanky
- good early game laning/ harassing
- fairly balanced and fun
- You wanna tussel!

Cons
- takes practice(like most champs)
- difficult to learn how to do good in team fights

For runes i take armor pen marks and quintessences to put on the hurt with early game auto attacks. I also take mana regen per 5 seals to keep up with yoricks constant mana usage early game. For glyphs i take cooldown reduction to well, reduce the cooldowns on his very important abilities :)

For masteries i use 21/6/3 and the reason there are some points into defense is to make him a bit more beefy, then of course the enhanced ghost/ mana-health regen in utility.

For skill sequence you want take your E first(omen of famine), then your Q(omen of war), then Put another point into E, then take your next point into W(Omen of pestilence). You want to max your E first, then your Q, then your W while taking your R (Omen of death) whenever you can.

The reason why you want to max your E first is because it gives you ridiculous lifesteal and allows you to lane for much longer and more effectivly, and the reason as to why you put 1 point into omen of pestilence at level 4 is so you can do your ghast combo of W E Q and take the full bonus of Yoricks passive which increases damage for each ghast active.

For items You want to start of with a sapphire crystal, a health pot, and a mana pot to allow you to use your spells alot longer in the very beginning of the laning phase. Also you want to get tear of the goddess before your movement boots because if you play smart you wont need them right away if u utilize your ghasts slow/ speed buffs. then after movement boots you want manamune to help with the mana problem and increase your attack damage in the process. Then a blood thirster to increase damage/lifesteal which can help alot if your still in the laning phase with its lifesteal, plus all of yoricks abilities scale with attack damage. Then you start building frozen mallet for effective chasing, warmogs for durability, and atmas for some armor crit and its 2% of hp converted to attack damage bonus.

Alternate items, If you are facing a AP heavy team you can replace warmogs with banshee veil, and you can either keep the atmas impaler, or replace it and get phantom dancers for faster move/attack speed and crit or if you feel you need more magic resist get force of nature.

If you are facing an Ad heavy team you can replace either your warmogs or frozen mallet with a thornmail and you can either keep the atmas, or replace it with more armor, or something that has more damage.

If your facing cc heavy teams or dieing alot you can get banshees veil for warmogs or frozen mallet and replace atmas with gaurdian angel or quicksilversash or the summoner spell cleanse.

for summoner spells i take ghost and exhaust to make yourself good at escaping or going 1v1 in the laning phase with an ad champ. you can also take flash if you prefer but you should definatley have either ghost or exhaust with it. you can also take cleanse if your going against a cc heavy team.

It is good to parnter yorick up with a champion that can poke easily and run away, such as gangplank, zilean, annie, cassieopiea, etc. Yorick has an incredibly strong laning phase and with a good champion kills/ assists are garunteed. I played 4 games laning with my friend playing annie and i helped him get fed, our best game he went 18/0/3 with the enemey team surrendering at 20 and him getting 20 stacks of mejai's by the 16 minute mark. late game be comes incredibly tanky, and with the right coordination of casting your spells you can really put the hurt on some unsuspecting champions. Finally if you get your self into a sticky situation you can cast your ult on yourself for extra help and if u die u can continue to fight to pick up extra kills. REMEMBER TO CHECK BUSHES AND BLOCK SKILL SHOTS WITH YOUR W OR OMEN OF PESTILINCE