Akali vs Yasuo – How To Counter Yasuo With Akali?

Akali is a hard champ to play for the beginners. The Rogue Assassin jumps in and out of shadows to take down opponents before reacting. Her abilities are fascinating and often lethal. For example, Shuriken Flip and Perfect Execution make her highly mobile, making her jump around in combats difficult to lockdown. 

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To better understand Akali, let’s take a look at Akali’s abilities: 

• Passive: Assassin’s Mark – Spell damages a champ forming a ring of energy around them, and  exiting the ring increases the range and damage of Akali’s nest attack 
• Q: Five Point Strike – Throws out five kunai dealing damage based on her bonus Attack Damage  and Ability Power 
• W: Twilight Shroud – Summons a cloud of smoke and gains Movement Speed for a moment. She  becomes invisible and unable to be targeted. 
• E: Shuriken Flip – Performs a backflip and fires a shuriken dealing magic damage. The location of  the first enemy or smoke cloud hit is noted. Re-casting this spell to the marked target deals  additional damage. 
• R: Perfect Execution – Leaps in a direction inflicting damage on enemies she encounters. Re-cast  makes her dash in a direction executing all enemies she encounters. 

When summed up, Akali’s abilities imply lots of melee damage in the early game, excellent mobility, and a defensive shroud zone. On the other hand, Yasuo also has good mobility, shields, close-range poke, and moderate lane damage. 

So, the question is how to counter Yasuo, The Unforgiven, with Akali’s strengths and abilities. It has been noticed that Yasuo has a lot of problems fighting Akali if she is playing well, and he is most likely to lose unless provided support of some kind, for example, from jungle. 

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It’s hard to understand any of this without taking a look at Yasuo’s abilities: 

• Passive: Way of Wanderer – Shield allows quick trades and farm safely. It charges when he moves  and grants him double crit in exchange for reduced crit damage. 
• Q: Steel Tempest – Skillshot basic attack with increased attack speed with reduced cooldown  ability 
• W: Windwall – Four-second wall that blocks almost every projectile spell in the game • E: Sweeping Blade – Dashes through an enemy unit dealing magic damage. 
• R: Last Breath – Blinks to a nearby Airborne unit and repeatedly strikes them for heavy damage  while keeping them in the air for one second. It recharges the Way of Wanderer shield and gives  bonus armor penetration on all strikes. 

Given all that, Akali and Yasuo are roughly equal in strength, so their encounters do not differ statistically significantly. According to LOLALYTICS, Akali wins 53,26 percent of the time against Yasuo, which is 2,57  percent higher than the average opponent. However, other indications show that Yasuo is more likely to get first blood against Akali. In counter kills, Akali leads with 60 percent over Yasuo. In their battles, Akali frequently kills fewer minions than Yasuo, and she seems to be more critical to the team’s fighting ability than Yasuo. 

First things first, the most important thing to know while countering Yasuo with Akali is that it’s harder to win over Yasuo once he has received his dual items. Many things go in her favor, and as a good player,  you should be able to know how to use them. Don’t be fooled by Yasuo’s inertia in the beginning since he is probably letting you farm and push while he’s waiting for his dual items. Given that, you should know  Akali’s advantages and how to use them properly, which we’re about to explain. 

While Yasuo is more situational burst, Akali has a lot of sustained bursts, so there’s not much Yasuo can do if you play Akali right. Even his Ulti Windwall shouldn’t be able to block Akali’s Ulti since it doesn’t have a significant impact on her. It does take away some of her damage but not significantly. Also, Akali’s  Q can be used to pop Yasuo’s passive shield. She can spam her Q’s followed by powerful AA’s and use her smoke bomb to vanish when Yasuo tries to engage. 

As explained before, Akali’s abilities are pretty much targeted, leaving Yasuo with a lack of outplay potential. As an Akali, you shouldn’t waste your zone a lot with your shroud and become easy gank. Also,  the critical thing to remember is not to let Yasuo has his distance from you since he’ll probably be under the tower waiting for his chance. 

However, be aware that you’re very likely to be ambushed by jungler since it’s known that they’ll come and help Yasuo in this combination. With this in mind, you want to be prepared and use items such as Rabadon’s Deathcap, Lich Bane, and Riftmaker to have the odds in your favor. 

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Conclusion

To conclude, all favors are on Akali’s side, but she must be played exceptionally well to win this champion.  She is supposed to win this matchup but don’t be fooled by statistics. Yasuo can provide quality resistance and play her off with a strategic approach. Since the counters between these two are relatively common,  you want to be prepared for everything said before.