I’ve been playing a lot more League of Legends lately with some other Guild UMBRA members, and have noticed that Master Yi just wrecks people now. Sure he was a strong champion before (if you knew how to play him), but now if you aren’t focusing him down from the start Yi will do insane damage to the entire team.
Why the change?
First of all, Riot Games changed Master Yi so that he would be a more balanced champion. They went in with the intent to nerf him. In the end Riot ended up just making him stronger by putting all his focus into one build. Yi can now be classified as the ultimate assassin among all the available assassins in the game.
What Riot changed
Basically Riot took away the need to build AP, or Ability Power, by changing how Yi’s abilities work. Master Yi now heavily relies on AD (Attack Damage) for his damage skills. Meditation is dependent on how much damage Yi has taken. A high level player can now take out a whole enemy team if they are caught off guard by him. Really, there are only two reasonable counters to Yi at the moment: silence him as he enters the fight, or prevent him from entering the fight all together.
How will this effect the pro gamers?
After seeing all the changes Yi has received, one has to wonder how the pros will adjust to this. Certainly there will be teams who adjust to include Yi into their playable champions roster, if they didn’t already have them. I believe we will also see an increase in Master Yi bans in official eSports games. Either way Yi is a champion to watch in upcoming pro matches.
I suspect that Riot Games will be scaling down Yi’s skills slightly due to the imbalance Yi causes to the game. Tell me what you guys think in the comments below.
