Counter Guide

How to Beat Yone

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Every other melee carry has to decide whether a fight is worth it before he walks in. Yone gets to decide afterwards.

Losing to him rarely feels like losing a duel. It feels like agreeing to a duel, winning it, and then somehow finding out it didn't count. Soul Unbound [E] lets him commit to a fight and take the commitment back, and everything frustrating about the matchup grows out of that one idea. Still, the same ability is where he's beatable, because the moment it ends is the most predictable thing he does all game.

Matchup Snapshot Yone, the Unforgotten

Where You Meet HimTop or Mid Lane

Damage TypeMixed, roughly half and half

Why He Is FrustratingHe can un-commit to a fight he already lost

MobilityHigh, but on a leash

Biggest ThreatSoul Unbound [E]

Hardest CounterRenekton

What a Counter Needs

Crowd control you can hold for four seconds rather than one you have to use on sight
A lead that arrives before his items do, or range that makes the lead unnecessary
Damage that doesn't rely on landing basic attacks into a champion who can turn them off

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Yone on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Yone

Renekton5,606 games53.4%
Irelia3,250 games53.0%
Pantheon2,461 games53.0%
Sett5,556 games52.9%
Jax6,141 games52.9%

Picks Yone Beats

Yorick3,605 games42.6%
Dr. Mundo3,012 games44.9%
K'Sante2,487 games45.5%
Gwen1,403 games45.6%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the top lane against Yone. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 135,117 Yone games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Yone Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

He gets to change his mind. A dive he shouldn't have taken costs him nothing if he can get back to where he started, and that turns every risky play into a free one.
Half his damage is magic. Buying armor answers about a third of the problem and feels like it should answer all of it, which is how people end up dead with a big number on their item sheet.
He shields off doing his job. The longer a trade runs, the further ahead he gets, so the fight you thought you were winning at four seconds is the fight you lose at eight.
He starts fights from outside melee range. Backing off to the edge of his reach isn't the safe distance it looks like.
He scales like a marksman with a gap closer. Late, he's a full carry who can also reach your back line himself.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

Soul Unbound [E] ends where it started, every time. He doesn't choose the return point, so anything you place on that spot lands for free.
The early lane isn't his. He wants items badly and has very little to fight with before he gets them, so the first ten minutes are your window.
He has to be near you to build anything. No shield, no stacks and no pressure come from standing back, so a lane that punishes walk-ups starves him.
Crowd control at the wrong moment is very costly for him. Catch him while he's out of his body and he can't answer, can't shield and can't leave.
He's squishy for something that dives. Any team that focuses him when he arrives, rather than watching him arrive, kills him.

Countering Yone

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

Hold your crowd control for the return. This is the single habit that flips the matchup. Everyone spends it the moment he jumps in; the people who beat him wait the extra beat and catch him where he has to reappear.
Win the first ten minutes or accept you won't win the lane. He's beatable early and he isn't beatable at three items, and there's no middle strategy that works.
Build both resistances, in that order. Mixed damage means one defensive item is half an answer. Boots that cut crowd control plus one piece of magic resist does more than two armor items ever will.
Make his basic attacks worth less. Anything that dodges, blocks or blinds turns off the part of his kit that actually kills people.

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

Playing a Bad Yone Matchup

Stop fighting at the edge of your range. His opener reaches further than a melee champion's should, so the distance that feels safe against everyone else is the distance he wants you at.

Give up short trades entirely and look for the long one only when he has nothing left. A trade that ends after two seconds is a trade he wins on the shield alone.

Ward for him rather than for the jungler once he has an item. He roams better than most laners because leaving is cheap for him, and the lane you're not watching is the one he's about to decide.

Best Yone Counters

Three ways to beat a scaling duelist: kill him before he scales, turn off the damage, or make his all-in the thing that hurts him. One counter each.

Pantheon Kills Him Early

Pantheon's whole game is the ten minutes Yone is weakest in, and his crowd control doesn't need to be aimed (that matters against a champion whose main defensive trick is being somewhere other than where you're looking).

Granted, you're on a clock. If the lane goes even, the game slowly stops being yours, so take the kill when it's there rather than farming toward a scale you don't have.

Jax Turns Off The Damage

Yone kills people with basic attacks. Jax is the champion who can simply decline to be hit by them for a few seconds, and those are exactly the seconds where the extended trade was supposed to be going Yone's way.

Get the timing wrong and it's a free kill for him instead, because you spent your defensive window on nothing while standing in melee range of a champion who out-damages you.

Sett Hits Back Harder

Sett stores the damage he takes as Grit, up to half his maximum health (it starts decaying 4 seconds after the hit, so don't sit on it). Haymaker [W] spends all of it at once on a shield and a punch that deals true damage down its center, so a Yone who commits to an extended trade is building the answer to it.

Facebreaker [E] stuns for a second when it catches an enemy on each side of Sett and only slows when it doesn't, so line it up with a minion behind Sett. Pit Grit [Passive] also regenerates more health the lower he gets, which takes the edge off the short trades Yone uses to set up the all-in.

Itemizing Against Yone

The mistake here is buying one resistance and assuming it covers him. It doesn't, because roughly half of what he deals is the other type:

Mercury's Treads is the first buy and it isn't close, because the knockup that starts every fight is what makes the rest of it land. Spectre's Cowl is the cheap way to stop pretending he's a physical damage champion. Randuin's Omen blunts the critical strikes he builds toward and slows the chase after a trade you decided to leave. The Control Ward is for the side of the map he keeps disappearing to.