Yasuo Riftbound Legend Guide | Hextech Analytics

Yasuo’s Field Guide

Unforgiven pays two Energy and exhausts to move a friendly unit to or from its base. The unit itself does not need to be ready because you are paying the Legend's exhaust cost, not taking the unit's normal move. That lets a freshly played, exhausted unit reach a battlefield and attack. It does not ready that unit, cannot move an enemy, and cannot move a unit directly between two battlefields. The ability has ordinary Main-Phase timing. Ride the Wind and Star-Crossed provide different options at different timings; they are not interchangeable copies of the Legend.

How Yasuo wins

Yasuo wants the unit that entered at base to matter sooner, then wants the next movement to produce another useful result. Units with their own move triggers turn each Legend activation into extra value, and Windrider rewards a third move in the same turn with a point. You do not need to assemble all of those in one turn. Choose the unit whose payoff fits the board, and keep enough resources for the response that protects it.

Key interactions

Moving, readying, and returning to hand are different

Traveling Merchant · Ride the Wind · Star-Crossed

The Legend moves without readying. Ride the Wind moves and readies. Star-Crossed returns a unit to its owner's hand, which is not a move. A unit that triggers when it moves, such as Traveling Merchant, triggers from the first two but not from Star-Crossed or from a recall to base. A ready Merchant can move to a field to discard and draw, then the Legend can move it back to base for another. That second move leaves it exhausted, and abandoning the field may give up a future Hold. The cards are only worth it if the position you leave is acceptable.

Plan the third move before spending the first payment

Yasuo, Windrider · Unforgiven · Ride the Wind

Windrider has Ganking and scores a point on his third move in a turn. For example, start with him ready at a field: move him to base normally, use the Legend to move him to another legal field, then Ride the Wind back to base. That is three moves for four Energy and one Chaos Power, leaving him ready. Any intervening fight still has to be resolved. The point comes from his ability, so it does not require the third move to conquer a field. Recall is not a move, and moving a fourth or sixth time does not earn another copy of the third-move point.

Strengths

The Legend can bring an exhausted unit into an immediate attack without paying a separate ready effect.
Units with move triggers give ordinary movement a card return, while several other threats reward the same positioning tools differently.
Windrider's ability point offers a way to make progress beyond a straightforward Might trade.

Weaknesses

The two-Energy Legend payment can compete with protection, draw, or a needed second unit.
Some of the best movement lines leave the previous field empty or put the unit back at base instead of setting up a Hold.
Returning a threat to hand may save it but also removes its temporary bonuses and requires paying to play it again.

Shadow's Pick

Yasuo tournament list by Bronk0

16k€ Grand Summoner Skirmish, Sep 26, 2026

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Deck total $65.20

Legend (1)

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Runes (12)

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7xTCGplayer market price $0.12 ea.

Battlefields (3)

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1xTCGplayer market price $0.07 ea.
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Spells (15)

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Power
1
Energy
1
2xTCGplayer market price $2.34 ea.
Power
1
Energy
1
3xTCGplayer market price $0.98 ea.
Energy
2
1xTCGplayer market price $0.20 ea.
Energy
1
1xTCGplayer market price $0.22 ea.
Energy
1
1xTCGplayer market price $1.19 ea.
Power
1
Energy
2
2xTCGplayer market price $0.60 ea.
Power
1
Energy
2
1xTCGplayer market price $0.28 ea.
Power
1
Energy
3
1xTCGplayer market price $3.80 ea.
Power
2
Energy
2
2xTCGplayer market price $0.07 ea.
Energy
3

Gear (1)

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Energy
2

Units (24)

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Might
4
Power
1
Energy
5
1xTCGplayer market price $0.26 ea.
Might
3
Energy
4
3xTCGplayer market price $8.21 ea.
Might
3
Power
1
Energy
3
2xTCGplayer market price $2.92 ea.
Might
3
Power
1
Energy
3
2xTCGplayer market price $2.91 ea.
Might
5
Energy
6
3xTCGplayer market price $0.08 ea.
Might
2
Energy
2
3xTCGplayer market price $0.25 ea.
Might
0
Energy
1
3xTCGplayer market price $0.14 ea.
Might
4
Energy
4
3xTCGplayer market price $0.08 ea.
Might
3
Energy
3
3xTCGplayer market price $0.23 ea.
Might
2
Energy
2

Sideboard (10)

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Energy
2
1xTCGplayer market price $0.62 ea.
Energy
1
1xTCGplayer market price $0.26 ea.
Might
3
Energy
4
1xTCGplayer market price $0.22 ea.
Energy
1
1xTCGplayer market price $0.52 ea.
Energy
2
1xTCGplayer market price $0.60 ea.
Power
1
Energy
2
1xTCGplayer market price $0.28 ea.
Power
1
Energy
3
1xTCGplayer market price $3.80 ea.
Power
2
Energy
2
2xTCGplayer market price $0.18 ea.
Might
5
Energy
5

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Shadow's take

This is my Yasuo pick because the Legend's moves do more than set up Windrider's point: they feed a trash engine that keeps bringing the deck's cheap cards back. Traveling Merchant discards and draws whenever it moves, Shadow Order Disciple can Burn a card for +1 Might when it moves, and Ezreal, Prodigy and Zaun Warrens add more discards, so the trash fills while you are developing. Tail-Cloaked Matriarch can then play a unit costing up to three Energy and one Power from your trash to your base whenever she becomes Empowered, and Fizz, Trickster's play trigger does something similar for a spell with an Energy cost of three or less, though you still pay that spell's Power and it is recycled afterward. A hidden Tornado Warrior ties it together, because playing it from face down can empower something at that battlefield: Steel Paws becomes a seven-Might fighter for the turn, while Matriarch or Kharox gets its Empower trigger without paying for it. Warrior's Empower ends with the turn, which also means Matriarch can be Empowered again later for two Energy and one Chaos Power. I like that Windrider is still there when the board is stuck, since his third move in a turn scores a point no matter what the trash engine has done. Just remember that Warrior cannot empower a Matriarch who is already Empowered, so decide whether to pay for her Empower or save her for the free trigger.

The Game Plan

Early gameTraveling Merchant, Shadow Order Disciple and Steel Paws are the cheap starts, and Ezreal at three Energy and one Chaos Power discards one card and draws two. Those discards are not wasted, because Matriarch and Fizz can later play cards back from the trash. Paws has zero Might until it is Empowered, but it can still take an empty battlefield, and its Deflect makes the opponent's spells and abilities that choose it cost one more Power. Hide a Tornado Warrior for one Power once you control a battlefield you expect to keep, since it can only be played from there starting on a later turn and it only stays hidden while you control that battlefield.
MidgameThe Legend's two-Energy move works on exhausted units, so a Merchant or Matriarch you just played can reach a battlefield the same turn. It does not ready the unit, and like Matriarch's and Kharox's own Empower abilities it can only be used in your Main Phase outside a showdown. Tornado Warrior is a Reaction from face down, so it can also turn a Paws at that battlefield into a seven-Might defender on the opponent's turn. When the trash has an Ezreal or Fizz in it, moving Matriarch to the Warrior's battlefield first lets the face-down play empower her and bring that unit back to your base. Fizz still needs each spell's Power, so Discipline, En Garde, Gust and Up from the Deep are the ones he replays for nothing.
Late gameWindrider's third move scores a point, and Ride the Wind matters most here because it both moves and readies him. Starting with him ready at base, a normal move to a battlefield, Ride the Wind to the other battlefield and a Ganking move afterward give three moves for two Energy and one Chaos Power, although any combat on the way still has to resolve. Kharox is the expensive payoff: Empowering it costs six Energy and two Chaos Power on top of the six Energy to play it, or nothing through a face-down Tornado Warrior at its battlefield. Its trigger makes the opponent Burn 3, then lets you play a unit from their trash without paying its cost. Keep Defy or Not So Fast for the turn the opponent tries to stop your last point.

Battlefields

Blind

Zaun Warrens · Traveling Merchant · Tail-Cloaked Matriarch

Warrens is my default because its conquest discard feeds the same trash Matriarch and Fizz use. Merchant can discard and draw once when it moves here and again when you conquer. Each of those replaces a card rather than adding one, so keep something in hand you are happy to discard. The opponent gets the same filter when they conquer it.

Going First

Minefield · Tail-Cloaked Matriarch · Up from the Deep

Minefield puts the top two cards of your Main Deck into your trash when you conquer it. Going first, an early conquest here can stock the trash before Matriarch and Fizz arrive, and an Up from the Deep put into the trash this way can be played from the trash with Flow for three Energy before it is banished. The cards are random, so treat it as extra fuel rather than a way to find one card, and the opponent's conquest puts their own top two cards into their trash in the same way.