Will Riot ever get this champion's balance right?
Master Yi's Win Rate Soars After Another Round of Buffs
Insert the CJ from GTA: San Andreas meme. It's that time on the Rift again. The time where Master Yi is either a pick or ban champion in any ranked game, no matter if it's against enemies or your own allies.
In patch 12.13, Riot Games not only buffed but also adjusted Master Yi with some new mechanics to his abilities, in addition to new scaling. Nad now, only two days into the patch, we can already see incredible results in his win rate.
What are the Master Yi Buffs in Patch 12.13?
To hear Riot Games say it, it almost seems like they made an effort in thinking up the buffs and the repercussions this champion will bring to the games once they are implemented:
"Master Yi has always been a champ that is strong at lower levels of play, but not-so-great in higher skill brackets. We’ve been keeping our eyes on Yi after our last set of nerfs and now feel like we can give him some power back in a way that helps reduce this skew. Since Yi is pretty dependent on being durable in higher brackets of play, we’re giving him more ways to increase his survivability in fights"
However, what they gave him instead was a way to make lethality Master Yi work again, with as many drawbacks reduced as possible:
Master Yi is a menace in low elo and with the that came in LoL Patch 12.13 he is even more obnoxious. Low elo players should beware that he is going to be doing a lot more quick healing throughout elongated fights, and be far harder to catch and predict.
| Abilities | Changes |
| Base Stats | Attack Range: 125 ⇒ 175 |
| Q - Alpha Strike | NEW] Pick and Choose: When Alpha Strike ends, Yi is placed 75 units in front of his primary target ⇒ By default, Master Yi will be placed 75 units in front of his primary target. During Alpha Strike, Master Yi may right click to instead be placed 75 units in the direction clicked |
| W - Meditate | Cooldown: 28 ⇒ 9 seconds Mana Cost: 50 ⇒ 40 + 6% maximum mana per second Damage Reduction During Meditate: 60/62.5/65/67.5/70% ⇒ 90% for the first 0.5 seconds, reduced to 60/62.5/65/67.5/70% for the remainder of the channel Lingering Damage Reduction: For 0.5 seconds after Meditate ends, but not exceeding a total of 4 seconds ⇒ For 0.5 seconds after Meditate ends |
This way, Master Yi has a healthy jungle clear, a way to outplay his opponents and avoid his worst enemy, crowd control, while his attack range allows for easier ganks and ambushes.
What is Master Yi's Win Rate in Patch 12.13?
In Gold elo, Master Yi currently boasts a Win Rate of 55%, and it's only rising as more and more players are picking up this champion, evidenced by his rising pick rate as well.
Most Banned Champions in Iron
On the other hand, in Platinum and above, his win rate right now is around 53%, as better players are picking up on the fact that he is OP currently, and are banning him every chance they get. The winn rate will balance out, as it always does, once a counterplay is devised. However, there is no doubt that his kit is, currently, overloaded, and Riot will likely have to revert a lot of these changes.