Master Yi Counters: Who Beats Master Yi

Updated for patch 26.21. Ability details come from Riot’s official game data for this patch.

Master Yi counters are junglers with hard crowd control, because his kit has none of its own and everything he does runs through basic attacks. He’s a 175 range melee Fighter whose Alpha Strike makes him untargetable, whose Wuju Style adds true damage to his attacks, and whose Highlander makes him immune to slows. Stuns, taunts, sleeps and attack-dodging answer that; slows don’t.

The five names below come from matching his abilities against theirs. We didn’t open a stat site, and the order is about the quality of the answer, not a ranking.

Why is Master Yi hard to counter?

• Double Strike (passive): every few consecutive basic attacks, he strikes twice.
• Alpha Strike (Q): he teleports across the battlefield, dealing physical damage to multiple units in his path and becoming untargetable while he does it. It can critically strike, and basic attacks reduce its cooldown. Cooldown 20/19.5/19/18.5/18 seconds before those reductions.
• Meditate (W): a channel that restores Health and reduces the damage he takes, while adding Double Strike stacks and pausing the remaining duration of Wuju Style and Highlander. Cooldown 10 seconds.
• Wuju Style (E): bonus true damage on basic attacks. Cooldown 14.
• Highlander (R): a burst of Move Speed and Attack Speed, immunity to all slowing effects, and a duration that extends on champion kills or assists. Passively, kills and assists cut the cooldowns of his other abilities. Cooldown 85.

He is a snowball with a sword. Simple as that. Highlander extends itself on every kill or assist and refunds his other cooldowns at the same time, so one good fight turns into a second one before anyone has respawned. Alpha Strike dodges a spell (sometimes the spell that would have killed him), Meditate heals the rest, and Wuju Style turns the attacks into true damage that Armor can’t touch. What he never gets is a stun of his own. Nothing in those five abilities stops an enemy from moving or casting, and that is where every counter on this page starts.

Which champions are the best Master Yi counters?

Rammus

Defensive Ball Curl (W) vastly increases Rammus’s Armor and Magic Resistance and returns damage to enemies who attack him. Master Yi’s whole plan is attacking, so every Double Strike feeds the reflection. Frenzying Taunt (E) forces him into a reckless assault against Rammus, which means he attacks the one target he shouldn’t while the carry walks off. Powerball (Q) slows, and Soaring Slam (R) slows again, though Highlander ignores both (sure, the taunt still lands). Funny enough, Spiked Shell gives Rammus bonus Attack Damage from his Armor, so he hits back harder the more he builds against Yi.

Jax

Counter Strike (E) lets Jax dodge all incoming attacks for a short duration and then stuns everyone around him. Against a champion who deals damage only through attacks, two seconds of dodging is two seconds of nothing, followed by a stun. Grandmaster-at-Arms (R) raises his Armor and Magic Resist on activation, and Relentless Assault (passive) stacks Attack Speed as he keeps swinging, so the duel after the stun is one Jax usually wins. Leap Strike (Q) follows a Yi who tries to leave, and Empower (W) adds damage to the next attack when he lands.

Poppy

Steadfast Presence (W) stops enemy dashes around Poppy and slows and grounds the dasher, and Alpha Strike is a teleport rather than a dash, so Riot’s text doesn’t promise the wall catches it. Test that one before you rely on it. What is certain: Heroic Charge (E) pushes him back and stuns him against a wall, Keeper’s Verdict (R) knocks him very far away, and her passive Armor and Magic Resist grow when she’s low on Health, which is exactly when a Yi is diving her. Iron Ambassador (passive) adds a temporary shield when she picks the buckler back up. Thing is, a Yi knocked across the map by the hammer has lost the fight he extended Highlander for.

Lillia

Lilting Lullaby (R) makes every enemy carrying Dream Dust Drowsy and then asleep, and a sleeping Master Yi isn’t attacking, isn’t meditating and isn’t extending anything. Dream-Laden Bough (passive) deals additional max Health damage over time whenever a skill hits him, and Blooming Blows (Q) stacks Move Speed on spell hits, which matters because Highlander gives him immunity to slows, not to being outrun. Swirlseed (E) slows, which he ignores during the ultimate, but the damage and the Dream Dust still apply. Can he Alpha Strike out of the sleep? Not once he is already asleep, no.

Sejuani

Permafrost (E) stuns a champion who has maximum Frost stacks, and Winter’s Wrath (W) applies those stacks across two mace swings. Arctic Assault (Q) knocks him into the air, and Glacial Prison (R) freezes and stuns the first champion the bola hits. That’s three separate stuns on a champion with zero crowd control immunity. Her passive, Fury of the North, grants Frost Armor with Armor, Magic Resist and immunity to slows, and shattering it on a stunned enemy deals massive magic damage. In practice she locks him down long enough for everyone else to finish the job.

How do you play the lane against Master Yi?

• Save the stun for after Alpha Strike. He is untargetable during the teleport, so a stun thrown at the start of his Q hits nothing. Hold it until he reappears.
• Don’t rely on slows. Highlander makes him immune to all slowing effects while it runs, and kills extend it.
• Interrupt Meditate. The channel restores Health and reduces the damage he takes, so a stun during it saves a kill.
• Deny early kills. Highlander’s passive refunds his other cooldowns on every kill or assist, which is how a single assist turns into a chain.
• Group on him. He has one escape (Alpha Strike, 20 seconds at rank 1 before attack reductions) and no way to disengage once it’s used.

Which items counter Master Yi?

He deals physical damage from attacks plus true damage from Wuju Style, so you reduce the attacks themselves. Thornmail gives 75 Armor and 150 Health, and Thorns deals magic damage back to him and applies 40% Wounds for 3 seconds, which cuts into what Meditate restores. Its component, Bramble Vest, does the same for 800 gold if you can’t afford the full item yet. Frozen Heart reduces the Attack Speed of nearby champions by 20%, a direct tax on Highlander and Double Strike. Randuin’s Omen brings 75 Armor and 350 Health, cuts damage from Critical Strikes by 30% (Alpha Strike can crit), and its Humility active slows nearby enemies, though that part is wasted once his ultimate is up. Boots matter too: Plated Steelcaps trim 10% off every Attack that lands on you. What about the true damage? No Armor touches it, so Health is the only stat that helps, which is why Heartsteel and Sunfire Aegis show up on tanks who expect to face him. Mages take Zhonya’s Hourglass for 2.5 seconds of Stasis, and every item here is listed with its full numbers in our LoL items database.

When is Master Yi at his weakest?

Honestly, before his first kill. Highlander extends on kills and assists and refunds his cooldowns the same way, so a Master Yi who hasn’t picked up a kill yet is a Fighter with a long Alpha Strike cooldown and an 85 second ultimate. Shut that down early. No snowball.

The second window is the moment he reappears from Alpha Strike. He was untargetable, and now he isn’t, and the Q won’t be back for a while unless his attacks shorten it. One stun there, before Meditate starts, and he’s stuck taking damage with no way to reduce it (Meditate reduces damage only while he channels, and a stunned champion can’t channel).

If the jungle position is new to you, our guide to LoL roles explains how it differs from a lane. Want his outfits instead? The Master Yi skins page has them, while the Master Yi ARAM guide covers how he plays when the whole map is one lane. Put simply, Master Yi counters bring a stun he can’t dodge and the Armor to survive until it lands.

FAQ

Who counters Master Yi the most?

Junglers with hard crowd control or attack denial: Rammus, Jax, Poppy, Lillia and Sejuani. Each brings a taunt, dodge, sleep, stun or knockback that his kit cannot answer.

Does Master Yi have any crowd control?

No. None of his five abilities stuns, roots, slows or knocks up an enemy. Highlander only affects his own Move Speed and Attack Speed and makes him immune to slows.

Do slows work on Master Yi?

Not while Highlander is active, because it grants immunity to all slowing effects. Outside the ultimate, slows apply normally.

Can you stun Master Yi during Alpha Strike?

No. He is untargetable while he teleports between targets. Stuns land once he reappears.

Are these picks taken from win-rate tables?

No. We read Master Yi’s patch 26.21 ability descriptions against each champion’s kit and chose the five whose abilities answer his most directly.