What Makes Master Yi Strong in Bronze and Weak in Diamond
Master Yi’s stats are polarizing as ever: he wins 47.4% of the time in Diamond, but the Bronze win rate is 52.1%. This is the difference between the 32nd and 8th best performing Jungler. Let’s analyze what makes the ninja crumble against the big boys.
Counter Jungling
Junglers in lower Elo are your typical self-absorbed teenagers. They don’t pay much attention to anything but what’s in their immediate area. If you provoke one, they charge at you without putting much thought into it. I mean, it’s rare to see a Bronze jungle player venture into the enemy territory.
High-ranked players are different. They are alpha dudes and dudettes who know their strengths — and you won’t bullshit your way through them. Master Yi is vulnerable in early skirmishes, which is why Skarner (57.3%), Shaco (55.4%), Udyr (55.6%), and Pantheon (54.8%) have the upper hand in Diamond.
(Un)punished Scaling
Master Yi is a beast in the late game who stops at nothing (apart from stuns). Thanks to the generally passive gameplay in Bronze, he is free to farm. Players in low Elo waste their advantages and throw games a lot, so there’s always a chance to come back. Yi’s Bronze win rate at 40+ minutes is 53.28%. Accounting for inflation from early surrenders stats, this is the highest figure by game length.
Once you get into the Diamond territory, mistakes are not forgiven. A bad early start is much harder to come back from. Master Yi specifically struggles to recover from several deaths. His win rate by game length takes a nose dive at 20–25 minutes (46.31%) and leaps to 56% at 40+ minutes.
Discipline
It takes discipline to become a master, and it’s pretty ironic that the discipline is what kills him. Bronze players often use their crowd control spells as nukes, stun the nearest target or blow everything on one enemy. As a result, a lot of Elo boosters climb by doing the cleanup duty with Master Yi.
Skilled players reassess team fight priorities all the time. It would take an unexpected flank and dire mistakes from enemies to avoid all CC. There are cases when even one-trick-ponies can’t dodge anything with Master Yi’s Q.
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