Master Yi Counters | Best Counter Champions Picks and Strategy to Beat Master Yi

Master Yi has one gap closer, no crowd control and no way to disengage, and he still runs away with low elo games because nobody actually stops him.

The reason he takes over games is that the answers to him are cheap and almost nobody buys them. Stopping him is far easier than it looks.

Check out our top Master Yi counters below for more information on how to beat him!

Counter Guide

How to Beat Master Yi

Matchup Guide · Patch 26.14 · 3 Counter Picks

Master Yi has one gap closer, no crowd control and no way to disengage, and he still runs away with low elo games because nobody actually stops him.

Watching a fed Master Yi run through your team while every ability you own does nothing is one of the most helpless feelings in the game, and it is worth saying plainly: that is not a skill issue, it is what the champion is built to do. Alpha Strike makes him untargetable, Highlander clears slows, and Meditate undoes a burst you spent everything on. He is a punishment for teams that have no crowd control and no plan for a champion who only wants to right-click.

Matchup Snapshot Master Yi, the Wuju Bladesman

Where You Meet HimJungle

Damage TypePhysical and True

Why He Is FrustratingUnstoppable if nobody stops him

MobilityAlpha Strike [Q]

Biggest ThreatHighlander [R]

Hardest CounterJax

What a Counter Needs

Hard crowd control, because he has none of his own to trade with
Something that stops or dodges basic attacks, which is his only damage
Terrain or a wall, since Highlander only answers slows

Master Yi Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

Highlander [R] gives him movement speed, attack speed, and immunity to slows for its duration, and champion takedowns extend it, which is how one kill becomes four.
Wuju Style [E] adds true damage to every attack, so armor alone does not save you and tanks are not safe from him.
Alpha Strike [Q] makes him untargetable while it resolves, which dodges most single-target abilities and lets him jump a wall of minions to reach a carry.
Meditate [W] restores health scaled off how much he is missing and cuts incoming damage heavily while channeling, which lets him full-clear and duel without ever going home.
Highlander's passive refunds a large chunk of his basic ability cooldowns on every takedown, so a fight he is winning gets faster as it goes.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

He has no crowd control whatsoever. Nothing in his kit stuns, roots, slows, or displaces, which means he cannot stop you from leaving or from fighting back.
All of his damage comes from basic attacks. Blinds, attack speed slows, dodge windows, and damage return all hit him harder than they hit anyone else.
Highlander answers slows, not walls. Slow immunity does nothing about impassable terrain, and it does nothing about stuns, roots, or knock-ups either.
Meditate is a channel. Any hard crowd control interrupts it, and he cannot move while it is running.
Alpha Strike is on an 18 to 20 second cooldown. Once it is spent, his only way to reach you is walking in a straight line at melee range.

Countering Master Yi

Based on the strengths and weaknesses above, beating Master Yi comes down to champions who can accomplish at least one of the following:

Bring hard crowd control. A single stun, root, or knock-up ends a Highlander window, because slow immunity does nothing against any of them.
Turn off his basic attacks. He has no ability damage to fall back on, so dodge windows, blinds, and attack speed reduction are close to total answers.
Wall him off. Terrain-creating abilities work through Highlander, which is what makes them better than any slow you could apply instead.
Punish him before level 6. Without Highlander he is a melee champion with one 600 unit jump, and he loses almost every early duel in the jungle.

If you are already locked into the matchup without any of those tools, these strategies still work:

Playing a Bad Master Yi Matchup

Interrupt Meditate rather than trying to out-damage it. The channel reduces incoming damage heavily, so waiting it out is worse than any interrupt you have available.

Save your escape for after Alpha Strike resolves, not before. He is untargetable while it runs, so anything you cast during it is wasted, and he is at his most vulnerable the moment it ends.

Group when his ultimate is up. Highlander extends on every takedown, which means the only way he gets a long window is by finding people alone.

Deny the reset rather than the damage. Even a Master Yi who is far ahead in items ends a fight quickly if the first kill does not refund his cooldowns.

Best Master Yi Counters

These three answer him by evading his attacks, punishing them, and refusing to let him arrive. All three are jungle picks.

Jax Dodges the Autos

Counter Strike is the most complete answer to Master Yi in the game. Jax enters a stance that dodges incoming basic attacks entirely for up to two seconds, takes reduced damage from area abilities at the same time, and then stuns everything nearby when it ends, with the damage growing for every attack he dodged. Master Yi's whole kit is basic attacks.

That means the ideal Highlander window, all attack speed and no crowd control, is the exact scenario Counter Strike is best against. Leap Strike gives Jax the gap closer to start the fight on his own terms, Relentless Assault matches Yi's attack speed ramp, and Grandmaster-at-Arms hands him armor and magic resist for every champion he hits during it.

Rammus Turns His Damage Back

Rammus punishes Master Yi for doing the only thing he can do. Defensive Ball Curl grants a large chunk of armor and magic resist and deals magic damage back to every enemy that attacks him, which against a champion attacking several times a second is a serious amount of damage he cannot avoid.

Frenzying Taunt is what makes it inescapable. Taunting Yi forces him to keep attacking into the returned damage for the full duration, and a taunt is hard crowd control, so Highlander's slow immunity does nothing about it. Powerball into Soaring Slam then knocks him up, and Spiked Shell quietly converts all that stacked armor into Rammus's own attack damage.

Trundle Walls Him Off

Trundle is the pick that beats the specific thing Highlander is supposed to solve. Yi becomes immune to slows for the duration, but Pillar of Ice creates actual impassable terrain from 1000 units away, briefly knocking back anything standing on it. Slow immunity has no interaction with a wall, so a well-placed pillar simply removes him from the fight.

Frozen Domain then gives Trundle attack speed, movement speed, and increased healing inside a zone he chooses, which is the duel Yi cannot win, and Chomp saps his attack damage while adding it to Trundle's. Subjugate finishes it by dealing max health damage and stealing his armor and magic resist for the rest of the fight.

Itemizing Against Master Yi

Master Yi attacks with a mix of physical and true damage, so raw armor is not the whole answer. Slowing his attacks down is:

Frozen Heart is the standout because its attack speed reduction cuts every part of his damage at once, including the true damage from Wuju Style that armor does nothing about. Plated Steelcaps and Randuin's Omen handle the physical portion and the critical strikes, and Zhonya's Hourglass gives a squishy champion a stasis window to survive an entire Highlander duration.