Counter Guide

How to Beat Yorick

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Yorick doesn't need a gank, a lead, or a mistake from you. He needs about twelve minutes alone with a side lane and a tower.

Most split pushers threaten a tower. Yorick takes it, with a permanent squad of Mist Walkers and a Maiden doing the work while he hangs back behind them. Then there's Dark Procession [W], which is the only ability in the game that decides whether a fight happens at all by building a wall around it. Being caged and chewed on is a genuinely awful experience, and no amount of reading the solo queue tier list makes it feel better. What helps is knowing that his summons are made of paper and that the cage has a door you can make yourself.

Matchup Snapshot Yorick, Shepherd of Souls [Passive]

Where You Meet HimTop Lane

Damage TypePhysical

Why He Is FrustratingHe takes towers without any help

MobilityNone

Biggest ThreatDark Procession [W]

Hardest CounterYone

What a Counter Needs

A way out of Dark Procession [W] that isn't standing there breaking it
Enough area damage to clear Mist Walkers before four of them become eight
A plan for the Maiden that's better than hoping she walks into your team

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Yorick on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Yorick

Yone3,605 games57.4%
Warwick647 games54.2%
Irelia1,645 games54.2%
Volibear929 games53.1%
Sett2,057 games53.0%

Picks Yorick Beats

Tahm Kench616 games39.4%
K'Sante737 games43.1%
Gnar831 games43.8%
Darius2,452 games44.9%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the top lane against Yorick. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 56,492 Yorick games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Yorick Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

The longer the game goes, the more of the lane is his. Every champion and large monster he kills leaves a grave, and every grave becomes another body walking at you.
Dark Procession [W] is a destructible cage on a cooldown that reaches twelve seconds. It doesn't damage you, it just removes the option to leave.
Mourning Mist [E] reduces armor, damages, slows and marks, and his summons move faster toward anything it marked. One cast turns a loose pack of ghouls into a coordinated one.
He gets a second champion he never had to pay for. The Maiden raises more Walkers on her own and makes his attacks on whatever she's hitting land harder.
The poke you spent two minutes landing quietly goes away. His last-hit button (Last Rites [Q]) heals him every time he presses it, and by rank 5 that's every four seconds.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

He has no dash and no escape. He's a slow melee champion who walks everywhere, and every gank works on him exactly as well as it looks like it should.
Mist Walkers die to almost anything. A single area ability removes most of his damage, and he can't get them back quickly.
Dark Procession [W] is destructible. It has health, you can attack it, and picking the right segment turns a death sentence into an inconvenience.
Mourning Mist [E] is his only setup tool. Sidestep it and the ghouls arrive slowly and separately, which is how they die.
The Maiden can be killed. Doing it costs him between one and three minutes of ultimate cooldown, which is the largest single swing available in the matchup.

Countering Yorick

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

Bring area damage. It isn't a preference in this matchup. Ghouls are most of his damage and they die in one hit to the right ability.
Have an answer to the cage. A dash over it, a blink out of it, or the burst to break one segment before it matters.
Punish the window with no Maiden. Between ultimates he's a slow melee champion holding a shovel, and that window is long.
Don't duel him in the side lane on his terms. Either match his split with someone who wins the one on one, or send two people and make the trade elsewhere.

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

Playing a Bad Yorick Matchup

Stand where Mourning Mist [E] can't hit you and the wave at the same time. It's his only way to pull the ghouls onto you quickly, and it's a skill shot.

Break the cage on the side you came from rather than the side he's on. The exit that matters is the one leading back to your tower.

Buy armor early. Everything Yorick and every one of his summons does is physical damage, so the same component answers all of it.

Pick up grievous wounds if the lane goes long. Last Rites [Q] is a heal on a four second cooldown, and it's the reason he never has to go home.

Track the Maiden rather than Yorick. When she's dead your tower is safe for a minute or more, and that's when the rest of the map is worth playing.

Best Yorick Counters

Yone is the hardest of the three for him to deal with.

Yone Walks Out of the Cage

Dark Procession [W] is how Yorick holds someone still long enough for the ghouls to matter, and Yone has two ways straight through it. Soul Unbound [E] dashes through terrain (and the ring counts as terrain), and so does the third cast of Mortal Steel [Q]. The cage barely slows him down.

Spirit Cleave [W] handles the army. It's a cone that hits everything in front of him for a slice of each target's maximum health, so the Mist Walkers between him and Yorick go down in the same swing that's already hitting Yorick. When Soul Unbound [E] ends, Yone snaps back to his body and a share of the damage he dealt Yorick lands again as true damage.

Irelia Resets Through the Ghouls

Bladesurge [Q] refunds its cooldown whenever its target dies to it, and a Mist Walker is exactly the kind of low health target that dies to it. His summons stop being a wall and start being a row of stepping stones, which also happens to be the fastest way out of Dark Procession [W].

Flawless Duet [E] stuns and marks, and a marked target refreshes Bladesurge [Q] as well, so she always has a way back to him. Defiant Dance [W] cuts the physical damage she takes while she charges it, which covers the one thing Yorick actually does, and Ionian Fervor [Passive] stacks attack speed off every spell she lands. She wins by treating the ghoul pack as a resource rather than an obstacle.

Volibear Chains Through the Ghouls

The Relentless Storm [Passive] stacks up as Volibear fights, and at five stacks his basic attacks throw lightning that chains to up to four more enemies nearby. Against a champion who fights from inside a crowd of his own summons, every swing hits the crowd.

Frenzied Maul [W] heals him on the second hit against the same target, so the long trade Yorick wants runs Volibear's way. Stormbringer [R] also disables turrets where he lands (for up to four seconds), which matters against a champion who spends the game split pushing next to one.

Itemizing Against Yorick

Yorick, the Maiden and every Mist Walker deal physical damage, and most of it arrives as basic attacks:

Plated Steelcaps reduce incoming damage from attacks by a flat percentage, and since the ghoul pack is nothing but attacks, that percentage applies to all of them at once. Bramble Vest cuts the healing on Last Rites [Q] and punishes him for walking up. Frozen Heart reduces the attack speed of nearby champions, which slows Yorick himself rather than his summons, and its armor is the largest single block available. Randuin's Omen covers the long fights where the Maiden has been sitting on you for ten seconds.