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Free stall. Board wipe, free single target removal, easy high damage units. He always ends up being my all-rounder best pick for beating any adventure and I only have him at 3. I've been able to beat 6.5 with him.

My build:

Tempest blade - When I level up, stun all enemies Voidborne Carapace - When any unit dies, grant me it's keywords Everfrost - When I'm summoned, stun the strongest enemy

Disclaimer: I do not have any champs higher than 4* and don't have the full roster unlocked so this has been my experience so far. He's amazing compared to all my other champions around 3* but I know that at a 6* level others will be better.

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19 days ago - /u/Dan_Felder - Direct link

In terms of absolute win rate if you play correctly, Yasuo is easily in my top 3. Frankly I'd rank only Asol higher than Yasuo when it comes to my own win rate. However, playing with him to full power isn't obvious to many players and it's easy to make mistakes that dramatically reduce your win rate.

First, you need to know to hard-mulligan for key cards like Bladetwirler and Concussive Palm. Many people don't realize that Bladetwirler is basically the second champion of the deck, and getting one down early is way more important than getting an early yasuo. A turn-1 blade twirler puts the opponent on a very fast clock and can scale dramatically over the course of the game.

Second, you need to find opportunities to bank spell mana which involves refusing to play cards you don't need to. Yasuo with 3 spell mana in the bank is very hard to hurt but yasuo with 0 spell mana in the bank can be overwhelmed. Many experienced players will do this automatically but others used to the all-out style of Jinx or similar will stun an unnecessary early attacker instead of taking a single hit they can afford or will develop a unit they don't have to develop, etc.

Third, all your focus in the mid-game should largely be just ensuring you can't die - stalling attackers with stuns and then keeping the board clear with recalls to ensure your round start stun power keeps things easily under control. Stunning enemies so they can't block is often a huge mistake, passing with full mana + spell mana and stunning attackers, then developing after they attack and cracking back with an attack the moment you get the attack token is a massive win. Trying to play a stun first to stop blockers to make way for attackrs is much riskier.

Fourth, some people don't know that you can stun a unit that's blocking a unit with overwhelm to deal the overwhelm unit's full damage to the enemy nexus. Stunning before attacking is bad, but stunning a blocker that's blocking an overwhelm unit when it'll deal lethal is great.

Fifth, while Yasuo scales great he doesn't scale infinitely so you do need to switch from control gameplan into kill-kill-kill gameplan at some point, which is easy if you're running this like the famous "delver" archetype in MTG - establishing early blade-twirlers and riding them to victory - but very hard if you are going against higher star adventures that have infinite scaling and you don't have any comparable end-game scaling. Yasuo can't always do it on his on.

Insanely powerful deck but piloting it isn't as obvious as leblanc, nidalee, and other champions people rightly call powerhouses. Yasuo piloted well is truly insane and rewards playskill. But making a few mistakes can make him feel kind of mid.

19 days ago - /u/Dan_Felder - Direct link

Originally posted by jubmille2000

You just said it. There are CERTAIN scenarios that Yasuo will come out.

That's the point.

Jinx is better in much more scenarios than Yasuo. That's why she's in the top 3.

I'd disagree. Jinx can fizzle out much more easily than Yasuo. Yasuo is harder to pilot perfectly but if you pilot it well it's very hard for anything to kill you. Jinx is just strong and extremely easy to play and very fast so very efficient to play.

19 days ago - /u/Dan_Felder - Direct link

Originally posted by jubmille2000

That's fair. guess it's a more ,that Jinx has a lower skill floor than Yasuo, but Yasuo has a higher skill ceiling,?

I think that's a good way to sum it up. Jinx was specifically designed to be as easy as possible to play, which is why she does damage to stuff for playing or discarding cards. Even if you stall out and try to play defensive with her instead of pushing for a win, big misplay usually, the enemy nexus might just die through incidental damage anyway.

With Yasuo, your win rate skyrockets if you know to replace any cards in your opening hand that aren't Bladetwirler, Concussive Palm, or Will of Ionia (with Bladewhirler being the most important unless you already have 1) - which usually includes replacing Yasuo too outside of certain matchups and relic setups. Yasuo can afford to come down later and stabalize but Bladwtwirler on turn 1 makes a massive difference by building up and applying pressure every turn you can attack with them. Simply stalling with Yasuo is fine but being able to apply intense aggro pressure through a 17/3 quick attack overwhelm unit is a very big deal. Knowing when to bank spell mana, how to keep it alive, an how overhelm+stun-the-blocker interactions work is all valuable too.

Upgrades are also less inutitive on Yasuo. You desperately want to find ways to guaruntee more bladtwirler, either more forms of protection for blade twirler (which depends on what adventure you're running, you'll want tough or a health buff on them if facing Lissandra more than you'll want spellshield for example) or more card flow and ways to get fast spell mana banked. Yasuo with 3 banked spell mana is incredibly hard to kill, and ways to play defense while generating board advantage are key (and why concussive palm is so valuable).

If you can stick a bladewhirler early and find a moment to bank 3 spell mana safely, then you can basically just attack every turn with fae while keeping more mana up than your opponnent has available to stun and recall everything they play. At that point they can easily auto-lose the game by spending their whole turn playing some big unit you can use Will of Ionia on and basically skip their whole turn while further snowballing.

If you don't understand the deck's priorities or what threats the adventure will throw at you, you'll often struggle to close out the game before certain PvE opponents overwhelm you with late-game inevitability.

Played correctly, yasuo at 3-stars can punch wildly above his weight class in ways other champions can't. Stun is an infinitely scaling mechanic and his power-based version bypasses most protective mechanics like spellshield. Recall also scales infinitely. You just need to give him a bit of breathing room and ensure you can keep on the pressure while slowing the opponent down - then use a boardclear either in the form of yasuo himself or taking a support region that has access to more boardclears (like shadow isles) and draft accordingly.