Master Yi

Wuju Master

Calm

BodyIntermediate

Wuju Master asks the early units to earn XP as well as points. Six XP improves the whole board; eleven turns the expensive cards you have been holding into immediate pressure.

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. The thresholds are rewards for a functioning board, not a substitute for one.

Best for: Midrange players who enjoy planning several turns ahead, protecting Hunt units, and changing gears once the payoff becomes affordable.
Think twice if: You want your Legend active in the opening or dislike holding expensive cards until the board earns enough XP. Falling behind early can delay every part of this deck at once.

Key Cards

Herald of Spring supplies two XP when played, giving you a way to cross a threshold without first winning another battlefield. Unstoppable is the reason those thresholds matter so much. At eleven XP he costs six Energy, needs no Power, and enters ready under Wuju Master. The Legend's six-XP bonus also makes him thirteen Might. That is a very different turn from paying his printed twelve Energy and three Calm Power.

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 earn 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. The expensive cards become easier to fit around interaction. 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 thirteen-Might unit still loses the game if you leave both battlefields unattended while admiring the discount.

Key interactions

Cross the threshold before paying for the payoff

Herald of Spring · Concentrate · Master Yi, Unstoppable

Herald's play trigger gives two XP. Let it resolve before paying for a card that becomes cheaper at the new level. Concentrate costs five Energy normally, three at six XP, and one at eleven. Unstoppable costs ten Energy and two Calm Power at three XP, eight and one Calm at six, then six Energy and no Power at eleven. Those reductions replace one another rather than adding together. If Herald takes you from nine XP to eleven, Herald itself has already entered exhausted. The new ready-entry benefit applies to the next unit, not retroactively to him.

Protect the Hunt that earns more than a point

Voracious Gromp · Master Yi, Tempered · Grim Resolve

Gromp's Hunt 3 and Tempered's Hunt 2 can produce five XP when both conquer or Hold together. Grim Resolve can add another two XP when the unit it improved survives and wins combat. That is separate from Hunt: a free conquest earns Hunt XP but no combat-win reward, while a mutual trade does not let the dead unit win. 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 · Repulse

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 Unstoppable for later, but neither makes it enter the board again. Eleven XP does not ready those units just because they changed locations. Repulse is the way to stop a qualifying answer while keeping the fighter in place: it needs a friendly unit at a battlefield and an enemy spell or ability choosing that unit and no other friendly unit. It is not protection for a unit still at base or an answer to every sweep.

Strengths

Several small units can advance the same XP total, and the first threshold improves the board that earned it.
Herald supplies XP on play, while Hunt, Grim Resolve, and battlefield abilities offer other routes when one line is unavailable.
At eleven XP the deck can draw cheaply and deploy a ready threat in the same turn. That leaves more room to protect the attack instead of spending everything on the unit.

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 discounted threat is not automatically safe. Unstoppable only becomes unchoosable by enemy spells and abilities at sixteen XP, not eleven.
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.

Shadow's Pick

Master Yi tournament list by ECL TheRed27

79th place · RIFTBOUND SHOWDOWN SERIES - LUCCA, 2026-09-12

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Deck total $110.63

Legend (1)

1x$0.15 ea.

Runes (12)

7x$0.11 ea.
5x$0.13 ea.

Battlefields (3)

1x$0.05 ea.
1x$0.16 ea.
1x$0.28 ea.

Spells (20)

2x$0.22 ea.
Energy
3
3x$0.06 ea.
Energy
5
2x$2.78 ea.
Power
1
Energy
1
3x$1.43 ea.
Energy
2
2x$0.35 ea.
Energy
2
3x$0.08 ea.
Energy
2
3x$0.22 ea.
Power
2
Energy
1
2x$0.25 ea.
Energy
3

Gear (3)

3x$15.76 ea.
Energy
2

Units (17)

1xChosen$0.14 ea.
Might
4
Energy
4
3x$0.09 ea.
Might
2
Energy
2
2x$0.04 ea.
Might
4
Power
1
Energy
4
3x$1.05 ea.
Might
12
Power
3
Energy
12
2x$3.84 ea.
Might
0
Energy
2
3x$0.08 ea.
Might
5
Energy
5
3x$0.06 ea.
Might
2
Energy
2

Sideboard (10)

1x$2.75 ea.
Power
1
Energy
3
1x$2.78 ea.
Power
1
Energy
1
3x$0.18 ea.
Might
2
Power
1
Energy
3
1x$0.25 ea.
Energy
3
2x$0.47 ea.
Power
1
Energy
1
2x$14.86 ea.
Power
1
Energy
1

Shadow's take

This is my Wuju Master pick because the three Gromps give the XP plan a threat that can fight and accelerate the payoff at the same time. Hunt 3 makes a single successful Hold meaningful, especially at Reckoner's Arena. Herald gives another two copies of a reliable XP step, and the full set of Unstoppable means the deck has something substantial to do once it reaches eleven. I like that the protection is split between keeping the fighter in place and preserving it when the fight is already lost. Hourglass can preserve a unit that would die, while Divide can bring the Hunt board home without asking you to replace it from hand. Those are different decisions, not interchangeable safety buttons. Concentrate is what keeps the hand from running dry after the setup. At eleven XP, one Energy for two cards and six for a ready Unstoppable is a turn worth working toward. The important part is still reaching it with a battlefield left to defend.

The Game Plan

Early gameLook for Wuju Apprentice or Gemhand Hunter with a follow-up that helps them earn XP. Crab supplies a card immediately and an XP if it actually dies, but it is not a Hunt unit. Tempered is available from the Champion Zone for four Energy, and Herald costs four Energy plus one Calm Power to supply two XP on play. I would send back excess Unstoppables and an unsupported Concentrate before keeping a hand that cannot contest the first battlefield. Take an uncontested point when it is available; Hunt does not require combat. If the opponent contests, protect the unit whose survival brings the next threshold within reach rather than spending every trick on the first attack.
MidgameCount the exact XP the next play will produce before choosing the order. Crossing six makes Hunter four Might, not three: one increase is its own and one is the Legend's. Play the Apprentice you want to draw from after the threshold is active. Gromp can earn three XP from a conquest and another three from a later Hold; it does not need a special combo to be worth protecting. Grim Resolve is an Action for an open Showdown, while Discipline can react to a spell already on the chain. Keep Body Power for Punch First and Calm for Defy; Repulse is a sideboard option. Spending five Energy on Concentrate while still below six XP needs a good reason when the alternative is developing the Hunt unit that makes the rest of the hand cheaper.
Late gameAt eleven XP, use the cheap draw and ready-entry benefit to make an attack now while leaving a response available. Unstoppable is thirteen Might with the Legend, but he does not have Ganking. Tempered has that permission at six XP; the bigger Yi still cannot move directly between battlefields without another effect. After sideboarding, Alpha Strike can use a large friendly unit to deal its Might split among enemies at battlefields, earning an XP for each unit it kills. The friendly unit may be at base, but the enemy targets cannot be. Choose the targets with their protection and possible reactions in mind; it is not an unconditional board clear. At sixteen XP Unstoppable becomes much harder to target, but do not wait for that milestone when an earlier protected attack already wins.

Battlefields

Blind

Reckoner's Arena · Voracious Gromp · Master Yi, Tempered

Holding Arena activates the conquest effects of units there. Hunt already triggers from the Hold, so a Gromp that remains there for Arena's extra trigger can earn six XP: three from each effect. Tempered can earn four. You still scored only one point; Arena does not create another conquest. This is a good reason to protect the Hunt unit rather than treat its first point as the end of its job. The opponent gets the same extra conquest effects from their own Holds.

Going First

Gardens of Becoming · Wuju Apprentice · Master Yi, Unstoppable

Every unit here can exhaust to gain one XP during its controller's own open Main Phase. At ten XP that can be the last step before a six-Energy Unstoppable enters ready. The unit paying the exhaust cannot also spend that same ready action moving, but it can still defend. A unit that just moved into Gardens is already exhausted and cannot immediately pay again. Take the shortcut when the threshold changes this turn, not when moving the unit would earn a more useful point.

Going Second

Targon's Peak

Peak readies up to two runes at the end of the turn after a conquest. Use the later ready to support Defy or another response on the opponent's turn. It does not pay for the current fight, and a rune recycled for Power cannot be readied on the board.

Sideboard

Remove Gear

Disarming Rake

The three Rakes kill Gear on play. Bring them when an engine or Equipment is deciding the exchanges, trimming a less useful combat trick or slow draw. At eleven XP the Legend makes Rake enter ready too, but the Gear removal does not require that threshold.

Protect the important holder

Defy · Repulse · Sabotage

The extra Defy keeps its printed-cost limit. Repulse counters an enemy spell or ability choosing one friendly battlefield unit and no other friendly unit; it does not protect a unit still at base or stop a sweep choosing nothing. Sabotage removes a non-unit answer before committing. Choose the protection that fits the opposing cards.

Use the large unit to clear a path

Alpha Strike · Rampage

Alpha Strike lets a friendly unit deal its Might divided among enemy battlefield units and gives an XP for each kill. Rampage instead exchanges damage with one enemy and can add two Might for an extra Body Power. Those are unit-damage effects, not combat wins. Add the appropriate answer when your large bodies can profit from it without dying to the return exchange.