[Challenger OTP Analysis] Yasuo, 1.66M Mastery on KR. Immortal Shieldbow in 19 of 20 Mid Games, 0-2 vs LeBlanc

There's a player in KR Challenger with 1.66 million mastery points on Yasuo alone. The gap to their second-most-played champion is 5.4x. Their season record is 397 wins and 322 losses, a 55.2% win rate. Of their last 40 solo queue games, 26 were on Yasuo, and those 26 went 16-10. That's a 61.5% win rate, running hotter than their season average.

Let's look at this player's (Naruto#Helix, 2577 LP) 26 Yasuo games using real match data.

How we picked them, and why Yasuo

Same criteria as always. We checked the mastery of the top 40 players out of KR's 300 Challengers, flagged as OTP candidates anyone whose top champion had at least 500k points and at least 3x their second champion, then kept only active players who'd played that main at least 5 times in their last 40 solo games. Three players made it this time. We've already covered the Hecarim (5.84M) and the Gangplank (3.46M), so the Yasuo was up.

Honestly, 1.66M is the lowest of the three. It's only about 1/3.5 of the Hecarim player's total. But the 5.4x gap to their second champion is the exact same ratio as the Hecarim player's, so they're every bit as dedicated. Of the 14 non-Yasuo games in their last 40, 9 were Yone (6-3), with 4 Alistar games and 1 Akali game making up the rest. (Yone is Yasuo's older brother, so maybe that's less cheating and more just visiting family.)

Lining up the three players' last 20 games: win rates were Hecarim 80%, Yasuo 55%, Gangplank 50%. CS per minute was Hecarim 8.9, Yasuo 8.7, Gangplank 7.4, so Yasuo farms almost as fast as a jungle Hecarim. Yasuo's kill participation was 51.3%, landing between Hecarim's 65.9% and Gangplank's 49.1%.

Of the 26 games, 20 were mid and 6 were top. Mid went 13-7 for a 65% win rate, while top was an even 3-3. Mid is the main role and top is the backup, and the win rates show it.

What Yasuo does

His passive, Way of the Wanderer, increases his crit chance and builds up a shield as he moves. When he takes damage from an enemy champion or a monster, the shield pops automatically. His Q, Steel Tempest, is a forward thrust. Landing it gives a stack, and at 2 stacks the next Steel Tempest becomes a whirlwind that knocks enemies up. Steel Tempest counts as a basic attack, so attack speed and crit boost it the same way they boost his autos. (I'm pretty sure this one detail decides almost all of Yasuo's build.)

His W, Wind Wall, creates a wall of wind that slowly drifts forward for 4 seconds and destroys every enemy projectile that touches it. His E, Sweeping Blade, dashes through a target enemy, and each cast boosts the damage of the next dash. He can't dash through the same enemy again for a few seconds, which is why you see him hopping from minion to minion. Casting Steel Tempest mid-dash turns it into a circular slash.

His R, Last Breath, blinks to an airborne enemy champion and keeps all nearby airborne enemies in the air longer. For a while afterward, his crits ignore a big chunk of the target's bonus armor. It can only be cast off his own whirlwind or an ally's knockup, which is where teaming up with allies starts to matter.

Runes: Shield Bash in all 26 games

Their keystone was Lethal Tempo in 22 of 26 games (85%), going 14-8, and Grasp of the Undying in the other 4, going 2-2. The 22 Lethal Tempo games had the exact same primary page every time: Triumph, Legend: Alacrity and Last Stand, with Resolve as the secondary tree in every one of them.

The interesting part: Shield Bash showed up in all 26 games. In Lethal Tempo games it comes from the Resolve secondary, and in Grasp games it's in the Resolve primary, so it's on the page no matter which setup they use. Shield Bash adds bonus damage to your next basic attack every time you gain a shield, which fits right in with a passive that builds a shield just from walking around. The other secondary slot was Bone Plating in 17 games and Second Wind in 5.

All 4 Grasp games were mid, against LeBlanc twice, Lissandra and Akali. Those pages took Domination as the secondary with Sudden Impact and Treasure Hunter. Against LeBlanc, both games paired this setup with Ignite, and the result was 0-2. The only champion they changed their setup for is the one they keep losing to, which probably means they know exactly how rough that matchup is. (Losing both games after all that prep has to sting.)

Flash was locked in. The other spell was Exhaust in 21 games at 14-7 (67%), Ignite in 4 games at 1-3, and Cleanse once, a win against Lissandra. The 4 Ignite games were against LeBlanc twice, Vladimir and Sett, and only the Sett game was a win. Exhaust, which shuts down the enemy's damage, clearly fits this player's way of winning better than Ignite, which is for securing kills.

Builds: Shieldbow mid, Kraken top

Mid and top builds split cleanly. In 19 of 20 mid games, they ended the game holding Immortal Shieldbow. The only exception was the Akali game, a Grasp setup. In the games where we pulled the timeline, all 3 mid games on Lethal Tempo finished Shieldbow first, somewhere between 9.8 and 11.7 minutes. Shieldbow throws up a shield when you're about to drop below 30% health, so Shield Bash triggers off it too. In the Grasp games against LeBlanc and Lissandra, the first item was Blade of The Ruined King.

The 6 top games look different. Only 3 ended with Shieldbow. In the Olaf and Aurora games, which we have timelines for, they finished Kraken Slayer at around 11 minutes, and in the Gnar game the first item was Blade of The Ruined King.

In all 8 games with timeline data, they bought Berserker's Greaves somewhere between 4 and 6 minutes. In mid, all 20 games went on to upgrade into Gunmetal Greaves (45% attack speed, 45 movement speed, 5% life steal). Yet every one of the 6 top games ended with plain Berserker's Greaves. Top games averaged 24.0 minutes, longer than mid's 23.2, so it's not that they ran out of time. Whether that's a game mechanic or the player's own call, this data alone can't tell us.

Items after that vary a lot. Death's Dance went 5-1 in 6 games, Lord Dominik's Regards 3-1 in 4, Infinity Edge 4-2 in 6, and Kraken Slayer 1-2 in 3. With 6 games or fewer each, take these with a grain of salt, but Death's Dance at 5-1 stands out.

Skill order in all 8 timeline games was Q max first, then E, with W last. The first three levels in mid started with E or Q, while the Olaf and Aurora top games opened with W.

Matchups: LeBlanc is the one they can't beat

Six champions showed up as opponents at least twice in the 26 games. Against Taliyah, Tryndamere and Yone they went 2-0, against Lissandra and Aurora 1-1, and against LeBlanc alone 0-2. The Taliyah games went 16/3/6 and 17/3/4. Out of the 3 games where they got 15 or more kills, 2 were against Taliyah.

The Yone mirror, the brothers' matchup, was also 2-0. One of those ran 35 minutes at 16/4/10, long enough to finish Guardian Angel, Infinity Edge, Wit's End and Death's Dance. Since they also played 9 Yone games themselves, they might just know exactly what the other side is going to do.

The 10 losses came against LeBlanc twice, Locke, Syndra, Vladimir, Talon and Lissandra in mid, and Olaf, Aurora and Renekton top. Their worst stat line was the Olaf game top at 4/12/6. Meanwhile the Talon game was 9/7/6 with 68% kill participation, not bad at all, and still a loss. Even on Yasuo, you get games where personal stats and the result don't line up.

What separates wins from losses

We compared averages across the 16 wins and 10 losses. The biggest gap was deaths: 2.69 in wins versus 6.6 in losses. They die about 2.5x as often when they lose. Kills were 7.94 versus 4.2, about 1.9x, and solo kills 1.81 versus 1.2, 1.5x. Kill participation, on the other hand, barely moved: 51% versus 47%. They show up to teamfights just as often either way. What decides the game is the kills they get on their own and the deaths they give up.

The other big gap was damage to buildings: 9472 on average in wins versus 4435 in losses, 2.1x. Compare that with damage to champions per minute, 833 versus 713, a gap of just 1.17x. Winning Yasuo games are the ones where they're hitting towers. Gold per minute was 508 versus 404, 1.26x, which is probably the tower gold showing up. Wins averaged 22.6 minutes and losses 24.6, so the shorter the game, the more likely the win.

If you want to play Yasuo in solo queue, there are probably three things to learn from this data. Run Lethal Tempo with a Resolve secondary and always take Shield Bash. In mid, build Immortal Shieldbow first and upgrade Berserker's Greaves all the way into Gunmetal Greaves. Take Exhaust. On the flip side, don't copy the Grasp plus Ignite setup against LeBlanc. Even a Challenger OTP went 0-2 with it, so that matchup still doesn't have an answer.

Summary

1.66M is less than the Hecarim or Gangplank players, but this player's runes were the most locked-in of the three. The primary page didn't change once across 22 Lethal Tempo games, and Shield Bash was in all 26 regardless of setup. One clear idea runs from the runes to the items: turn the passive shield and the Shieldbow shield into damage.

The wins have a lot in common too: fewer deaths and more than double the damage to buildings. Since kill participation barely changes, the games they win aren't the ones where they shine in teamfights, but the ones where they stay alive and take towers. Exhaust over Ignite, towers over kills. Yasuo has a flashy image, but what this Challenger OTP is grinding out is a very disciplined version of him.

A Yasuo who takes Exhaust over Ignite and hits towers harder the more he wins... the 0/10 stereotype was totally unfair