League of Legends has reached a point where we are forced to talk about Master Yi as the best character in the game by far. The champion has undergone major changes due to the introduction of patch 12.13 and has increased his win rate disproportionately. Historically one of the worst heroes in the lower ranks of the game, he is now able to win 55% of the games he plays above Platinum. A stat that, at lower ranks, still goes up more than a percentage point.
Riot Games goes overboard with upgrades to Master Yi
The truth is that the situation is quite surprising, but it is explained when we take into account the latest changes made by the developer. Many players have criticized Riot Games for doing a sloppy job when it comes to balancing the character. The developer has combined two of the most powerful upgrades possible. The devs have given him a rare mobility tool on his Q (Flashing Strike) and increased his attack range by 50 units. An adjustment that is only carried out in extreme situations since its impact on the win rate is more than proven.
The problem Master Yi has always had is that countering him was too easy for good players. However, it is now impossible to predict where the Lightning Strike animation will end up. In this way, the character is saved from any type of control effect that could prevent him from starting a chain of resets on his abilities. Having more facilities to get kills prolongs the use of his ultimate, he gets to use more abilities and achieves a domino effect that allows him to dominate the games in a very prominent way.
It is true that the patch has just started and the data could be adjusted. However, there will not be much variability unless Riot Games introduces emergency changes. If we take all the games played from Gold rank onwards, we have a solid sample of more than 20,000 matches. Even the bulk of the community has noticed the problem. The character’s ban rate has doubled and he continues to grow at a steady rate. Master Yi crashes 28.9% of games and is already among the most hated characters in League of Legends.
Patch 12.13 hasn’t just been problematic for this champion. Although this is the most exaggerated case, there are also big mismatches with other characters. Sivir also shows great growth in win rate from him once he has appeared in close to 40,000 games. In this sense, it seems very likely that developers will be forced to an emergency update again. Riot Games has had to consistently implement these changes since the release of the big update to durability and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop.
In any case, we will have to pay attention to the words of the developers over the next few days. The ideal is that you try to take advantage of the situation by abusing the most powerful characters or, at the very least, that you take it into account in the face of bans. We, of course, are not going to risk facing Master Yi until the company releases a tweak that reduces his power. Not surprisingly, he is one of the best characters of all time and lately, that is something we repeat a lot. The problem is that we are not exaggerating.