Wuju Master gives your units +1 Might at six XP and makes them enter ready at eleven. This list climbs with Hunt units, Herald of Spring, Reckoner's Arena and Gardens of Becoming, and those XP thresholds then lower the cost of Master Yi, Unstoppable, who drops from 12 Energy and 3 Power to 6 Energy and no Power at eleven.
View the matchup cheat sheet
Should you play Master Yi?
Pick Wuju Master if you like building toward a powerful turn and can defend the small units that get you there. Keeping your early Hunt units alive helps you reach both thresholds.
Best for
Midrange players who enjoy planning several turns ahead, protecting Hunt units, and changing gears once the thresholds are active.
Think twice if
You want your Legend active in the opening or dislike planning around XP thresholds that your board has to earn first. Falling behind early can delay every part of this deck at once.
Key Cards
Master Yi, Tempered costs 4 Energy with no Power and has Hunt 2, and at six XP he gains Deflect and Ganking, which makes him more expensive to target and lets him move from battlefield to battlefield. Herald of Spring costs 4 Energy and 1 Power, has Hunt, and gives you 2 XP when you play it. Master Yi, Unstoppable starts at 12 Energy and 3 Power with 12 Might, and his cost falls as your XP climbs, down to 6 Energy and no Power at eleven XP.
Wuju Master
Legend
Master Yi, Tempered
Chosen Champion · Body
Master Yi, Unstoppable
Key card · Calm
Herald of Spring
Key card · Calm
Master Yi’s Field Guide
This is the XP-based Wuju Master, not Wuju Bladesman and its lone-defender bonus. At six XP, Wuju Master gives all your units +1 Might. At eleven, your units enter ready as well. Those are active thresholds, not XP you pay or permanent upgrades you unlock once. Hunt units give you XP when they conquer or Hold, so the first job is to give them a battlefield they can actually keep. Several Hunt units can contribute XP from the same scoring event. You do not need to keep them alone, and sometimes supporting the first Hunter is worth more than trying to spread into a second losing fight.
How Master Yi wins
Get the early Hunt units through a useful conquest or Hold, cross six XP, and let the stronger board help earn eleven. The small cards improve along the way: Gemhand Hunter gains its own +1 Might at six in addition to the Legend's +1, while a Wuju Apprentice played at that level draws a card. Once eleven is active, a newly played threat can attack immediately instead of giving the opponent a full turn to arrange a response. Spend that advantage on the score. A huge board still loses the game if you leave both battlefields unattended.
Early gameGemhand Hunter, Wuju Apprentice and Scuttle Crab are the 2-Energy plays, and the two Hunt units start the XP count. Gemhand Hunter and Wuju Apprentice have Hunt, so each gives you 1 XP when it conquers or holds, while Scuttle Crab draws a card when you play it, can still conquer and hold with 0 Might, and gives you 1 XP when it dies. Master Yi, Tempered costs 4 Energy with no Power and adds Hunt 2, and Herald of Spring costs 4 Energy and 1 Power for Hunt plus 2 XP the moment you play it. Keep Discipline or Defy available when you can, since getting the first Hunt unit through a hold is often worth more than adding another body.
Cross the threshold before paying for the payoff
Wuju Master · Wuju Apprentice
Let an XP gain resolve before playing a card that cares about the new level. Wuju Apprentice only draws if six XP is active when you play it, and a unit only enters ready if eleven XP is active as it enters. If you reach eleven during your turn, units already on the board do not ready because of it. The new ready-entry benefit applies to the next unit, not retroactively to units already in play.
Tempered's Hunt 2 and Arachnoid Horror's Hunt 2 can produce four XP when both conquer or Hold together. Grim Resolve can add another two XP when the unit it improved wins a combat. That is separate from Hunt: a free conquest earns Hunt XP but no combat-win reward. Use the trick where it changes a real trade. Spending it on a fight the opponent can still comfortably win loses both the body and the XP you were depending on.
Preserve the unit without inventing another ready
Emperor's Divide · Zhonya's Hourglass · Defy
Divide can move your units from one battlefield to base, and Hourglass can replace a friendly unit's death with a heal, exhaust, and recall. Both can preserve a Hunt unit or a larger threat for later, but neither makes it enter the board again. Eleven XP does not ready those units just because they changed locations. Defy can stop a qualifying answer while keeping the fighter in place, but it only counters a spell that costs no more than 4 Energy and 1 Power, and it does nothing against an ability.
Strengths
Several small units can advance the same XP total, and the first threshold improves the board that earned it.
Hunt, Grim Resolve, and battlefield abilities offer several routes to XP when one line is unavailable.
At eleven XP every unit you play enters ready, so a new threat can move to a battlefield the turn it arrives instead of giving the opponent a turn to answer it.
Weaknesses
The Legend supplies no early stat bonus. Losing the first Hunt units can leave both the board and the expensive hand behind schedule.
A ready threat is not automatically safe. Reaching eleven XP does not stop enemy spells and abilities from choosing your units.
Saving a unit by withdrawing it may concede the point or the next Hold. Resource value is not enough when the opponent is already close to winning.
This is my Wuju Master pick because almost every card in it pushes XP toward the two thresholds, and the list has a finisher that gets cheaper as the XP climbs. Gemhand Hunter, Wuju Apprentice and Herald of Spring have Hunt, Master Yi, Tempered and Arachnoid Horror have Hunt 2, and Herald also gives you 2 XP the moment you play it. Reckoner's Arena can double that: when you hold there it activates the conquer effects of the units there, and Hunt counts as both a conquer and a hold effect, so each Hunt unit gives its XP twice. Gardens of Becoming, Grim Resolve, Alpha Strike and the Deathknell on Scuttle Crab add more routes. At six XP every unit you control gets +1 Might, Tempered gains Deflect and Ganking, Wuju Apprentice draws a card when you play it, and Concentrate costs 2 Energy less. At eleven your units enter ready, Concentrate costs 4 Energy less, and Master Yi, Unstoppable falls from 12 Energy and 3 Power to 6 Energy and no Power, which means a 13-Might unit that can move the turn you play it. I like that Discipline, Defy, Back Off and Zhonya's Hourglass give the early Hunt units real protection, because losing them before they hold is what slows this deck down the most.
Midgame
Take a battlefield you can keep and let the XP resolve before you spend the cards that care about it. Grim Resolve gives a friendly unit +3 Might this turn and gives you 2 XP if it wins a combat, so save it for a fight it will actually win. Alpha Strike lets a friendly unit deal damage equal to its Might, split among enemy units at battlefields, and you gain 1 XP for each unit it kills, so play Punch First first when you want the bigger pool. At six XP, Concentrate costs 3 Energy and Wuju Apprentice draws when you play it, which helps refill the hand. Back Off stuns a unit so it deals no combat damage this turn, and it draws a card if you played it from your hand. Emperor's Divide and Zhonya's Hourglass both save units by sending them to base, so check whether keeping the unit is worth the battlefield it leaves.
Late gameAt eleven XP your units enter ready, and Master Yi, Unstoppable costs 6 Energy with no Power, so he arrives with 13 Might and can make a standard move to a battlefield the turn you play him. Concentrate costs 1 Energy at that point, and Arachnoid Horror can be played to a battlefield where an enemy unit is alone, and your other units can be too while the Horror is on the board. At sixteen XP, Unstoppable can't be chosen by enemy spells and abilities. Turn that late-game power into points, because a big board that leaves a battlefield open can still lose the race.
Battlefields
Hunt payoff
Reckoner's Arena · Master Yi, Tempered
When you hold Reckoner's Arena, it activates the conquer effects of the units there. Hunt is both a conquer and a hold effect, so each Hunt unit holding here gives you its Hunt XP twice: Master Yi, Tempered alone turns one hold into 4 XP, and Herald of Spring or Gemhand Hunter beside him adds 2 each. You still have to keep the battlefield through the opponent's turn first, which makes this the place where Discipline, Defy and Zhonya's Hourglass matter most.
Steady XP
Gardens of Becoming · Scuttle Crab
Every unit at Gardens of Becoming has an ability to exhaust and gain 1 XP, which gives Scuttle Crab and other small units something useful to do even when they cannot win a fight. Use it on your own turn, and remember that the exhausted unit cannot make a standard move unless something readies it first, such as Portable Portal, which may ready a unit at its battlefield when you play it and pay Body Power. The opponent's units here get the same ability, though it only matters if their deck uses XP.
Runes for reactions
Targon's Peak · Discipline
When you conquer at Targon's Peak, you ready up to 2 runes at the end of that turn. That leaves runes ready during the opponent's turn: two readied runes can pay for Discipline's 2 Energy, which helps the Hunt unit that just conquered in a defense and draws a card. Because it needs a conquer, it suits a turn where a Hunt unit is already attacking there.
Sideboard
Take the key spell first
Sabotage
Sabotage costs 1 Energy and 1 Power, makes an opponent reveal their hand, and recycles a non-unit card you choose. Bring it in against decks that rely on a few important spells or gear, in place of a reactive card like Defy.
Answer Fury pressure
Decree of Focus
Decree of Focus is a 1-Energy Reaction that gives +4 Might this turn to a friendly unit that is in combat with an enemy Fury unit or being chosen by an enemy Fury spell. It does not counter the spell, so it will not save a unit from an effect that kills it outright. Swap it in for a general combat trick against Fury-heavy decks.
Stop targeted spells and abilities
Not So Fast
Not So Fast costs 2 Energy and 1 Power and counters an enemy spell or ability that chooses a friendly unit or gear. Unlike Defy, it is not limited by the spell's cost and it also stops abilities, but it only answers effects that choose your units or gear, so bring it in when the opponent's answers are targeted.
Stop damage-based removal
Unyielding Spirit
Unyielding Spirit prevents all spell and ability damage this turn as a Reaction, which can protect a whole board of Hunt units from a damage sweeper. It also stops damage from your own Alpha Strike and Rampage, and it does nothing against kill, stun or return effects, so bring it in only when the opponent's removal is mostly damage.
More removal
Rampage
Rampage costs 3 Energy and has a chosen friendly unit and a chosen enemy unit deal damage equal to their Mights to each other, with an optional Body Power as an additional cost for +2 Might on your unit. Your unit takes damage equal to the enemy's Might, so use it with a unit that can survive the exchange or when trading a Hunt unit is acceptable.
Answer gear
Tomb-Raider Barbara
Tomb-Raider Barbara is a 4-Energy, 4-Might unit that kills an enemy gear when you play her, or disempowers it if it is Empowered, but only if you control 7 or more runes. That makes her a later answer than an early one, so bring her in when the opponent's gear is doing important work.
