Don’t you hate it when Yasuo 1v5s your team? Are there multiple Yasuo players in your games? If so, keep on reading. If you want to learn how to counter more compositions, bookmark bunnymuffins.lol to find my latest articles. Countering Yasuo is pretty brief, but not many players know how to do it.
Yasuo is Weak
If you’ve been reading my Meta Snapshot, you’ll know that I’ve always been saying that Yasuo comps are terrible in TFT. The only thing Yasuo is good for is making a click bait Youtube Video for popular players. Challenger lobbies have 0-1 Yasuo players. Every other rank has 2-3 Yasuo players per lobby. There is a reason for this… Yasuo is terrible. However, Yasuo is only terrible if players know how to counter him, which is why he succeeds in non Challenger lobbies.
When Azir got nerfed in 10.4, I have stated that Yasuo comps would die off. Luckily for everyone reading this, these people still have not given up on playing Yasuo. Again, this is likely due to the popularity of Yasuo in non Challenger games. When you play Yasuo, you don’t really need to think, he’s fun to watch, and you can place decently if you get the correct items.
Countering Yasuo
Let’s say you have some sort of Shadow Inferno Composition. How would you go about countering Yasuo? Yasuo targets the enemy with the most items, stunning them and doing several attacks. That means, you must be careful when stacking items on your carry units. Luckily, there are many ways around this.
Thieves Gloves
The first and easiest way to counter Yasuo is to build Thieves Gloves on your carry, in this case, Kindred. While your carry will still be targeted by Yasuo, you had a low investment in that champion by only committing two item components, which allows your other units to shine instead. Keep in mind, you only want to do this with champions who can actually utilize Thieves Gloves, and this is the case with Kindred.
Alternatively, you can put Thieves Gloves on a secondary unit or tank to distract Yasuo from your carry. Note, if you have 3 items on one unit, and Thieves on another, Yasuo will have a 50% chance to target each unit, so there is no guarantee of Yasuo targeting unless there is only one unit with 3 items.
Stacking Tanks
My favorite way to counter Yasuo is to stack your tanks with items. Let me know what your favorite way of countering Yasuo is in the comment section down below! In the case of this Shadow Inferno Build, you would want to put 3 items on Sion regardless of the number of Yasuos anyways. Having a ton of tank items on your tank make Yasuo’s effect useless. If you keep the rest of your team at 2 items, Yasuo will target Sion until he dies, giving time for your carries to kill the rest of his team.
Using Hexes
Similar to stacking a tank, you can utilize the Elemental Hex to count as an extra item. For example, if your tank Sion has a Guardian Angel and Bramble Vest, you can put him on a front line hex and he will now have 3 items for Yasuo to target. You can do something similar with your backline fodder units or secondary carry.
Cloud Map
Since we are talking about Hexes, Yasuo is terrible on the Cloud map. Despite being a cloud unit, the cloud map is actually his worst map. While you can still abuse putting your tank on the cloud hex, you can actually put your carries on the Cloud Hex as well. Cloud hex gives your unit a dodge chance which causes Yasuo to miss many attacks on your carry, rendering him ineffective.
You can also play Cloud units to counter Yasuo by playing Cloud Lux or a combination of Qiyana, Yasuo, or Janna. This synergy gives your team 20% dodge chance at 2 clouds.
Guardian Angel
An easy way of countering Yasuo is by using Guardian Angel on your carry. If Kindred has Rapidfire Cannon and Rageblade, do not add a 3rd damage item. Instead, try adding Guardian Angel. This item will allow her to live through on Yasuo ultimate and give her time to get another damage rotation off to either kill Yasuo or his teammates.
Healing Debuffs
Optimal Yasuo builds include a lot of healing items such as Bloodthirster and Hand of Justice. Naturally, the way to counter these builds are with healing debuffs. Shadow has a built in healing debuff with Kindred’s ability. Morellonomicon is playable on every champion with an Area of Effect ability, and Redbuff is strong on champions with abilities that hit multiple targets and trigger on hit effects, such as Sivir. Choose the method that is most relevant to your composition to shut down pesky Yasuo players.
Zephyr
This last tip may surprise you. Remember the beginning of the video when I mentioned that Azir nerfs would weaken Yasuo compositions? This is because Azir is actually the main carry in Yasuo compositions. If your opponents are not stacking Azir, they are playing Yasuo incorrectly. Since most Yasuo players are only concerned about their Yasuo, it should be pretty easy to pick off their Azir with a Zephyr. Alternatively, you can just Zephyr Yasuo since he is holding 3 items.
Conclusion
These are the easiest ways to counter Yasuo. To recap, we have
- Thieves Gloves
- Stacking a Tank
- Abusing Elemental Hexes
- Playing on the Cloud Map
- Guardian Angel
- Healing Debuffs
- Zephyr
There are many other ways to counter Yasuo such as splitting items on your units, such as having 4 units with 2 items and utilizing both elemental hexes, using poison to delay his ultimate, and utilizing item components on your transition units as bait. You can also just ignore Yasuo players and prep your team against your other 6 opponents and wait for the Yasuo player to get kicked out by the other players.
Thanks so much for reading, I have an Early Game Guide that is in post production now, so look out for that! If you’d like to see me play, follow me on twitch.tv/bunnymuffinslol to get notified of when I go Live!