So you may be wondering, who is yorick, why is there no counter when he walks into a bar, and why should I play him?

Well in this guide i'm going to answer all of those questions, and then some.
As the title says, Yorick Lives Twice.

Pros:

• Crazy high sustain and damage potential.
• Capable of 1v2 fights without being too fed.
• Great poke against melee champions with his E.
• Yorick walks into a bar, there is no counter.

Cons:

• VERY mana intensive early game.
• Slow and susceptible to early ganks.
• Expensive to build.

Your first question is probably about this lone movement speed quint. Let me tell you a bit about it. First off, yorick moves rather slow, and he has no easy escape like shen or wukong. Having this 1.5% increase really makes that much of a difference, with it he can escape a bit easier. It also gives him a bit of chase potential, why waste itemization when you can use runes?

This is pretty self explanatory, yorick is being built AD and needs damage.

Chances are you'll be against an AD top, if you know you're not going against an AD top feel free to switch from flat armor to scaling and switch scaling ap to flat ap.

If you ARE going against an AD top its best to have greater magic resist when you finally see their AP teammates in the late game, even if you're getting ganked constantly the small amount of magic resist helps, so we won't use something else.

Again, the masteries are pretty self explanatory but I'll explain them anyways.

Double Edged Sword is taken to take advantage of your passive, which reduces damage by a percentage.
Expose weakness is taken to buff your damage after dropping your w and e.
Fury is taken to increase your DPS.
Brute Force is taken to increase DPS.
Warlord is taken to increase DPS.
Devastating Strikes is taken to increase your Spell Damage and Auto Attacks.
Havoc is taken for the damage buff.
Executioner is a must have on ANY damage champion.
The amount of killing you will do in a teamfight makes dangerous game worth it.

Now we go into defense for 6. This may seem odd but I will explain.
Recovery helps you stay alive in lane.
Enchanted Armour Increasing bonus armor and magic resist is awesome on a bruiser.
Veterans Scars is taken instead of other abilities for the chance at level 1 duels in top, they tend to happen and every bit of health is good with yoricks passive.

Now the odd 3, Fleet of Foot.
As was explained in the runes, getting that little bit of movespeed without buying movespeed items opens up more itemization choices.

Taking your first point in sustain ensures you don't get harassed out of lane.

The next point is your slow, getting to level 2 is really quick and is usually done before you get ganked at top, with this it makes your lane slightly safer from level 2 ganks.

Then you take your third point in your damage which will allow you to start being REALLY annoying.

From this point max your E (taking ult when you can), and then alternate your q and w starting with your q. The reason we don't max your q first is that you need the slow to secure kills and that gets harder the longer the game goes.

Yorick's ghouls attack for 35% of Yorick's AD and have 35% of yoricks health. Minions will take 20% damage every second until they die. Yorick gains 5% damage reduction and 5% more damage for every minion summoned, including his ult.

This passive seems to make people think that yorick is a burst champion not fit for DPS roles. The truth is that yorick can spawn his q/e every 5/6 seconds respectively, which is about how long his minions stay out. This allows him to stay in his buffed state as long as he can sustain the mana cost.
This move is similar to poppy's Q and Wukong's Q as it creates an on hit effect. The bonus over those two champions is that it gives you one of your minions who deals more damage than the others, AND gives you a move speed bonus while it is alive. If you are getting ganked your first step is to use this, hit something, and start running. This ability is also an auto attack reset.

This move is your get away or chasing skill. Use this to try and secure kills or get away from the enemy. It is an aoe slow that isn't very powerful but the minion will continue to slow those around it.

This is yorick's bread and butter. This ability creates a minion on target that will deal damage and heal you, if you use this to poke from afar you can easily zone players that run from it. This will keep you in lane and you should use it when you can spare the mana.

This is yorick's ultimate, which can be used to create a copy of any friendly champion. This move is best used on fed ADC's but can also be used on yourself or ap burst champions that are about to die. (I have used this on a katarina that got a triple with her ult, then she died. She ended up getting the penta.) This ability will revive any champion that dies while their ghoul is still alive. They will be given a second life for 10 entire seconds. This makes hell for enemy burst champions who just spent all of cd's on a champion that still has 10 seconds to wreak havoc.

Summoner Spells

A lot of you will instantly say "NOOB!" and then leave this guide. Let me explain something. Most tops wait for you to run out of mana and jump you, hard. When you take clarity you ensure you can have the mana when you really need it. Plus this removes the required manamune from the build, allowing you to get quicker utility for avoiding ganks.

Do I need to say anything?

Alternates:
This is only a replacement for flash, just in case you'd rather get places further than flash can take you.

Your main job as yorick during laning is to simply farm while poking and zoning with your E. If your opponent has pushed too far and you have poked them down a bit this is your chance to nail them (if you have wards.)

You should ALWAYS have wards up.

Early game you want to wait until you hit three before getting yourself out there, and if you are losing for any reason, try to freeze your lane just before turret, if the enemy goes in, its easy enough to back out towards turret safety.

Only dive if you know where the enemy jungle is and your opponent has no CC. Only dive when you are at full HP and the enemy is vulnerable and low health, turrets still do full damage to you.

Never stay in lane when you're low unless you know that you can sustain yourself back up without a roaming enemy coming to destroy you.

Mid game you should be 2 kills up on your enemy or you should be really farmed (130+ farm at 15 minutes). If you aren't then you won't get fed and will need to start being careful, this is where you will start to fall off, until you get to team fights.

Yorick's counter is ganks. If he gets camped hard he won't be able to farm, thus making him really weak. So if you see an incoming gank the first thing you need to do is Q SOMETHING. If you have nothing to Q then you overextended and you're going to die or lose flash. After you get your Q out, RUN. You don't want to use your W just yet. You want to wait until the enemy jungle has met up with the other top lane, when this happens W them both and keep running!

Here is a really badly animation I threw together for an example of a river gank.


Now, if you are fed (and I stress, you must be fed) and the enemy top is low you have another option: go in. When both the ganker and the enemy top are about to start hitting on you, drop EVERYTHING, even your ult. Focus on the easiest champion to kill then turn on the one left behind, worst case scenario: they kill you, but you will at least get one of them, if not both.

Why is this not being used? Well its a choice you can take, but it really hurts your early game utility and makes you VERY susceptible to ganks.

Good ol' trinity force. A little bit of attack speed, move speed, health, and damage, everything yorick needs. We start with phage for the ability to really smash out champions that try to run from you. Then we go with zeal, more attacks per second and even more movespeed! Then we finish off with sheen, little bit of mana and we still get even more damage. All in one item.

This is your first item that you really need to weigh. Do you need more sustain and damage? Or do you need to tank for your team? If you can get away with smashing through the enemy team, take this item! The increased aoe damage will really help your team in team fights and will make the jungle think twice about ganking you (or he will gank you and you'll just kill them both!)

Is your team getting slaughtered? Is your enemy just getting away? Then you need to get this item, it gives you more HP and still gives you damage so you don't get ignored when you start walking straight into the enemy team! A tank with no damage is a tank ignored.

More sustain, more damage, more fun! Very basic item that doesn't cost too much and gives you a good amount of AD and life steal.

By the time you get this item you will be spending all of your time inside the enemy team, why not damage them all while making yourself tougher to kill?

When tanking this encourages adc's to stop attacking you, giving you more time to really go at 'em!

This item gives tanky yorick's some damage while preventing total meltdown by APC's.

This item goes in the tank build to give yorick the missing sustain of the AD build and further reduce the damage done by APC's.
Items you shouldn't get:
This is an attack speed item, and Yorick doesn't brag about being a fast attacker, he brags about being hard to kill. Without the nearly maxed attack speeds of ADC's this item is wasted on yorick, and easily countered with frozen heart.

If you were building crit, you would have the masteries and attack speed to make it effective, but you don't. So this item is wasted on yorick.

Yorick doesn't need crit and cooldown reduction, your gold is better off somewhere else.

Ya, I said yorick had no counters, but its not really true, there are a couple champions that can really mess up a yorick.
Heimerdinger has enough burst to destroy all of Yorick's ghouls and Yorick before he can smash heimerdinger to bits. His turrets counter your minions, but you counter him. If he plays safe, you'll have a tough lane.

Morde can shield through all of your poke while inside a minion wave, making your poke to win laning phase completely useless. Given the chance he will shield through your burst and then roll right through you.

And now you know a bit about yorick, feel free to pick him up and give him a few go's to learn the ins and outs. You may just like him more than I do.

Creative comments are appreciated!