Characters / League of Legends: Yasuo

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Yasuo, the Unforgiven

"Death is like the wind—always by my side."

Voiced by:
Liam O'Brien (English)
David García Vázquez (European Spanish)
Alfredo Gabriel Basurto (Mexican Spanish)
Tomokazu Sugita (Japanese)
Marco Antônio Abreu (Brazilian Portuguese)
Sang-Hyun Eom (Korean)
Ilya Khvostikov (Russian)
Appears in: Legends of Runeterra, Ruined King, 2XKO

""Hmph. One step ahead of the past."

An Ionian of deep resolve, Yasuo is an agile swordsman who wields the air itself against his enemies. As a proud young man, he was falsely accused of murdering his master—unable to prove his innocence, he was forced to slay his own brother in self-defense. In time, his master’s true killer was revealed, and his brother mysteriously returned from death, yet Yasuo still could not forgive himself for all he had done. Now, he wanders the world with only the wind to guide his blade.

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Yasuo is a Skirmisher champion that uses the wind to maneuver and protect himself, striking down his opponents with combo-based abilities. He does not use mana or any other resources, with his abilities only being limited by cooldowns.

• His passive, Way of the Wanderer, has two separate effects:
  • Resolve generates Flow, a unique resource, as Yasuo moves around. Upon reaching maximum Flow, Yasuo will consume it the next time he takes damage from an enemy champion or monster, converting his Flow into a shield.
  • Intent doubles Yasuo's critical strike chance, but reduces the damage dealt by his critical strikes, and converts any excess critical strike chance into bonus attack damage.
• With his first ability, Steel Tempest, Yasuo thrusts his sword forward, damaging enemies in front of him. This ability has an extremely short cooldown, and hitting an enemy with it grants Yasuo a stack of Gathering Storm. Upon reaching two stacks, Yasuo's next use of Steel Tempest will instead send a tornado in a target direction, damaging and knocking up enemies in its path.
• His second ability, Wind Wall, creates a wall of wind that moves slowly in a target direction for a few seconds, blocking and intercepting all projectile attacks and abilities that hit it.
• With his third ability, Sweeping Blade, Yasuo dashes to a nearby enemy, damaging them. This ability has an extremely short cooldown, with each use increasing the damage of the next dash, but cannot be used on the same target more than once every few seconds. Yasuo can also use Steel Tempest while dashing with Sweeping Blade, changing from a forward thrust or tornado into a whirling strike that hits surrounding foes.
• His ultimate ability, Last Breath, can only be activated if a nearby enemy champion is currently knocked up into the air. When activated, Yasuo teleports to that champion and strikes them and other nearby airborne enemies with a devastating sword combo, damaging and suspending them into the air for an even longer duration. Afterwards, Yasuo's critical strikes will gain increased armor penetration for a few seconds.

Yasuo's alternate skins include High Noon Yasuo, PROJECT: Yasuo, Blood Moon Yasuo, Nightbringer Yasuo, Odyssey Yasuo, Battle Boss Yasuo, True Damage Yasuo, Spirit Blossom Yasuo, Dream Dragon Yasuo, Truth Dragon Yasuo, Sea Dog Yasuo, Inkshadow Yasuo, Prestige Inkshadow Yasuo and Forseen Yasuo. Legends of Runeterra exclusively includes Cosmic Zephyr Yasuo, Wild Rift exclusively includes Soul Fighter Yasuo.

In season 1 of Teamfight Tactics, Yasuo is a Tier 5 Exile Blademaster, a unique origin that gives him a shield if he starts the battle not adjacent to any ally. With his ability, Steel Tempest, he stabs enemies up to 2 hexes away on first two casts, then fires a tornado that damages and knocks up all enemies in a straight line on third cast. In season 2 he was changed to a Tier 2 Cloud Blademaster. His ability was changed to Last Breath, which causes him to blink to the enemy with the most items, knocking them into the air and suspending them there while he hits them several times, applying on-hit effects with each hit. He returns largely the same in season 3 besides using his Odyssey skin and Rebel replacing Cloud as his origin. In season 4, he returns to using his base skin as a Tier 1 Exile Duelist; his previously unique Exile origin now shared between him and Yone. His new ability is Striking Steel, which strikes in a two-hex line for a percentage of Yasuo's attack damage and applies on-hit effects. Before casting, he may also dash a short distance to a position where he can strike two targets if possible. In season 5, he uses his Nightbringer Yasuo skin as a Tier 3 Nightbringer Legionnaire. His ability was changed to Burning Blade, which slashes his target for magic damage and grants Yasuo a stacking on-hit true damage bonus for the rest of the round. He was removed in season 6, returning in season 7 using his Dream Dragon Yasuo skin as a Tier 5 Mirage Dragonmancer Warrior. His new ability, Sweeping Blade, shields Yasuo for a few seconds and causes him to dash through his target, slashing surrounding enemies for bonus percent attack damage at his destination, with every third cast being empowered to deal triple damage, strike a larger area, and briefly knock up enemies hit. If Yasuo hits the last surviving enemy, he slashes them repeatedly until they die. In season 8, he uses his PROJECT: Yasuo skin and was changed to a Tier 2 LaserCorps Duelist. Steel Tempest returns as his ability, though in this iteration it only fires a tornado dealing magic damage and knocking up enemies in a line. Similar to his season 4 iteration, Yasuo will dash up to 1-hex so that his ability will hit as many enemies as possible. In season 9, he returns to using his base skin as a Tier 4 Ionia Challenger. In this iteration, his Last Breath ability launches a tornado at the furthest enemy within 3 hexes, knocking up all enemies in its path. Once the tornado reaches the intended target, Yasuo dashes to them and slashes them repeatedly for physical damage before slamming them to the ground, dealing reduced damage to enemies in a 1-hex radius. He was removed in the Horizonbound mid-set update, returning in season 10 using his True Damage Yasuo skin as a Tier 1 True Damage Edgelord. His Synthesizer Strike ability passively grants Yasuo a permanent attack damage boost whenever he kills an enemy, and on activation strikes his current target for physical damage. His True Damage Bling Bonus allows his spell to execute enemies below 15% health. In season 11, he uses his Spirit Blossom Yasuo skin and is a Tier 1 Fated Duelist, whose Fated bonus grants a shield at the start of combat. In this iteration, his Steel Tempest ability passively makes his basic attacks deal bonus magic damage scaling with his armor and magic resistance whenever Yasuo is shielded. On activation, he grants himself a shield also based on his resistances and strikes his current target for magic damage.

In Legends of Runeterra, Yasuo is a 4-mana 4/4 Ionia Champion with Quick Attack, who deals 2 damage to any enemy unit that is Stunned or Recalled to its controller's hand. When you have Stunned or Recalled 5 or more units (including your own) Yasuo levels up, gaining +1/+1 and striking enemy units when they are Stunned or Recalled instead. His signature spell is Yasuo's Steel Tempest.

Yasuo is one of the playable champions appearing in Ruined King.

He is part of the base roster for Riot's upcoming free-to-play 2v2 Tag Team Fighting Game, "2XKO"

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A-G

• Actually, I Am Him: In "Brotherhood", a young boy named Joab remarks on how there used to be an elder who mastered the wind technique only to be killed by his student. This is all seconds before Yasuo uses that same wind technique to retrieve a stuck kite.
  “There was an elder once who could move the wind, but he’s dead. And his student could too, but emai says he’s dangerous, that he killed the elder…”
• The Alcoholic: He dissolved into a drunken wreck after killing Yone and didn't really come out of it until he met Taliyah. He still drinks from his gourd once and a while, just not to excess.
• All of the Other Reindeer: As a child he was scorned by his village for being born out of wedlock. And then his headstrong personality made him a prime target for bullies, from which his brother Yone had to defend him.
  As a child, Yasuo often believed what the others in his village said of him: on the best days, his very existence was an error in judgement; on the worst, he was a mistake that could never be undone.

  "The Unforgiven"
• The Aloner: Because of his guilt, and the fact that every Ionian is wary of him, Yasuo prefers to travel alone, not keeping many friends or allies close by. He begins to shed this behavior upon meeting people who bring out his better side like Taliyah, Ahri, and Braum.
• And This Is for...: Invokes this with one of his shouts when using Wind Wall.
  Choryon! (Elder!)
• Animal Companion: Odyssey replaces his regular shoulder piece with a spiky lil' space lizard.
• Anti-Armor: Last Breath grants a whopping 50% bonus armor penetration with his crits, which differentiates him from most other users of Armor-Piercing Attack in that it strikes harder against heavily-protected enemies than less-protected ones, allowing him to cut through both tanks and squishies alike.
• Anti-Frustration Features: In order to address complaints during testing about his high dependence on knock-ups to start Last Breath, a line is shown between Yasuo and any enemies currently treated as knocked into the air to alert the player. This was because responding to ally's knock-ups required really fast reactions at times and due to varying spell lengths, it was often the case that a Yasuo would run toward a group of enemies attempting to cast Last Breath only to find that the airborne effect had worn off.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite growing up in magic-rich Ionia, he thought azakana were children's tales until he was nearly devoured by one.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: In his youth, he let his exceptional talent with a sword inflate his — to be fair, sorely-underfed — ego, and this lasted until his fall from grace. Even in game, he shows open scorn towards his fellow Ionian champions, particularly the ninjas.
• Ascended Meme: Like Vi's verbal reference to "getting dunked", an interaction between Yasuo and Master Yi is a clear reference to another one of the latter's memes.
  ''Nice... sword... boots?''
• The Atoner: Subverted. His name is cleared and his brother Yone is back from the dead (in a fashion), but Yasuo remains "The Unforgiven" because he is unable to forgive himself.
• Badass in Distress: In "The Bird and the Branch," Taliyah accidentally buries him under an avalanche (and overcalculates when trying to get him out and drops him through a stand of trees). When he recovers, he thanks her for the rescue but says he could have done without the trees.
• Barrier Warrior: Of a sort; his passive grants a shield that absorbs incoming damage, and he can create a wall of wind that destroys most projectile attacks.
• Battle in the Rain: His last duel with Yone, as shown in Kin of the Stained Blade, took place during a storm.
• Be All My Sins Remembered: Even with his crimes absolved and his brother Back from the Dead, Yasuo isn't ready to forgive himself or try to rebuild his life in Ionia. Instead he leaves for work in Bilgewater with a woman he barely knows.
• Beard of Sorrow: Glimpses of Yasuo before he killed Yone show that he was much more clean-shaven in the past, with the implication being that his hygiene slipped as he became a wanderer.
• Big Brother Instinct: As shown in "The Bird and the Branch," "Brotherhood," and some of his lines to young characters in LoR, Yasuo's gentler side comes out around children and teens, and he will help them if he can.
• Big Damn Heroes: He's one of the many Ionian champs who stand with Irelia against Noxus in "Awaken".
• Bilingual Bonus: Yasuo frequently slips into an ancient Ionian dialect based on the Japanese language.
• Black Sheep: The unplanned by-blow from a Disappeared Dad, Yasuo grew up thinking he was a mistake, and naturally he looked even worse compared to his reserved and disciplined half brother. All of this fed into a massive Inferiority Superiority Complex that eventually resulted in him abandoning his guard post.
• Blood Knight: He was aggressive and hot-headed when he was younger, always looking to prove his skill in battle. Even in present day his lines still carry a certain willingness to fight.
• Bloodless Carnage: Played straight in "Kin of the Stained Blade", where his blade (ironically) drips nothing but rain.
• Blow You Away: His abilities are heavily wind-based. He can throw out tornados, create a wall of wind that blocks projectiles, and can activate his powerful ultimate on opponents who are knocked into the air.
• Blue Is Heroic: While a flawed man with a lot of baggage, he's still a good person at heart, signified by the blue clothing he wears.
• Breakout Character: Yasuo's popularity has made him one of the biggest faces of the franchise. He's a common pick for promotional material like "The Climb" and stars in his own animated short prefacing the release of Yone. He's been a launch character and mascot in Wild Rift, Legends of Runeterra, and 2XKO, and he's one of the main characters in Ruined King.
• Brick Joke: Ties in with his distaste with Master Yi, the Wuju style, and Master Yi's own punny joke:
  Master Yi: Wuju pass me that potion?
  Yasuo: Wuju? ... No, I wouldn't.
• BFS: His blade is narrower than the usual BFS but longer than a standard katana. Steel Tempest extends his thrust with a burst of wind which can strike enemies outside of his basic melee range.
• Byronic Hero: Yasuo is serious, prone to brooding, and antisocial to the point of rudeness. In Ruined King he slowly relaxes and lets down some of his walls over the course of the game, particularly around Ahri and the ever-persistent Braum.
• Cain and Abel: The Cain to Yone's Abel... allegedly. Like Cain, he killed his brother and was forced into exile, but he loved Yone and hated himself for killing him.
• The Chosen One: Of sorts. Because of his mastery over the wind technique, many assumed that he was destined to be a hero — and then certain events led to his exile from his homeland.
• Clear My Name: Yasuo was introduced as the suspected murderer of his master Souma — charges which even Yone believed, with tragic results. After the release of Confessions of a Broken Blade, his name was cleared, with the truth revealed that Riven was accidentally responsible for his master's death, but Yasuo was not ready to forgive himself.
• Combos: Not to the extent of champs like Riven, but his kit encourages him to mix his abilities. Steel Tempest needs to be stacked twice before it becomes able to knock up enemies, which allows him to use Last Breath on his own. Also, Steel Tempest can be cast during Sweeping Blade to transform it into a 360º slash, which makes it easier to hit but decreases its range. Casting Sweeping Blade also charges up his passive shield slightly, while casting Last Breath instantly renews it.
• Cool Sword: Clearly when you've got a katana that creates storms. It changes depending on what skin it is.
  • High Noon Yasuo has a shotgun built into the hilt of his katana, which fires when he uses Steel Tempest's forward air stab.
  • PROJECT: Yasuo changes it out to a laser katana.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: The tragedy of his story; "Kin of the Stained Blade" suggests that if he'd stayed to face his accusers when Souma was found dead, Yone would have stood by him. Instead, he became a fugitive, which confirmed his guilt in his brother's eyes and set them on a course that could only end with one of them dead.
• Critical Hit Class: His intended build path, since Yasuo's passive doubles his critical hit chance (but lowers his crit damage slightly), increasing the damage of his basic attacks and Steel Tempest (since Steel Tempest is considered a basic attack for all intents and purposes). Any crit chance over 100% is converted to attack damage, so smart players max his crit first and then spend money on other stats.
  • Ruined King is no different; landing critical hits during any of his abilities can achieve bonus hits and effects. Namely his Raging Wind ability deals an additional attack if the previous one is a crit, going up to a max of four strikes.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: A chronic offender.
  • His appearance in "The Climb" displays his Wind Wall as far taller and wider than it is in game and shows him dashing repeatedly through an open field (in-game Sweeping Blade only lets him dash to an enemy).
  • His appearance in "Awaken" portrays his whirlwind from Gathering Storm as an actual tornado, casting dozens of soldiers airborne so he can carve them up with an equally-exaggerated Last Breath.
  • Averted in "Still Here", where his abilities are about in line with how they appear in game.
• Dash Attack: Sweeping Blade lets him dart around by slashing through an enemy he clicks on. It also has a nearly non-existent cooldown when the ability is maxed out, allowing Yasuo to dash around so long as there's an available target. And marking targets and being mid-dash is important to setting up his Steel Tempest combo. However, unlike most dashes in the game, it can easily be stopped by almost any sort of hard crowd control effect, so Yasuo can easily dash the wrong way into something that might kill him.
• Deadpan Snarker: Half of his dialogue in Ruined King is grumpy snark regarding his current situation. More patient characters like Braum do their past to look past it and reach out to him.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Despite the utility his abilities can give him in the vein of most attack damage casters, Yasuo is still mainly a melee auto-attack DPS champion. Even his stacking Steel Tempest scales off attack speed rather than cooldown reduction, meaning he has to make every hit count.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • In League: He's not slippery enough to make it out of danger unharmed like an assassin, but his kit requires too much crit to let him build tank items and go bruiser. His passive shield can pop too early, his dash can leave him stranded in a bad spot, and his ult can only be cast on airborne foes. But played well, and with a team that can set him up, he can carve through an entire team with grace and style. Like all hypercarries, he needs kills and items to overcome his weak early game; if he can't get rolling, he's useless.
  • In LoR: While he's a strong unit on his own, if he's allowed to level up he becomes exceptionally dangerous, as his "annoying-but-manageable" effect of dealing two damage to any recalled or stunned enemy evolves into a "potentially-match-ending" effect of getting a free attack on every stunned or recalled enemy. The problem is that a solid Yasuo deck is a very draw reliant setup that requires careful management of your stuns and recalls, and while you can have a ton of really scary units (including Legion Rearguard and Fae Bladetwirler) it's possible for you to get blown over before Yasuo can get strong enough to consistently clean house.
• Disappeared Dad: Yasuo's father vanished before he was born, leaving his mother to raise two sons all on her own.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: As shown in Kin of the Stained Blade, Yasuo did not want to raise his sword against his brother and only went on the offensive after Yone drew blood on him.
• The Dreaded: Yasuo is feared across Ionia for his supposed involvement in his master's death. "Brotherhood" shows a child who tries to to hurry his younger brother away upon realizing who Yasuo is. He even has a word associated with him, xiiri, which means "unwanted" or a "misfortune". In "Still Here," the leader of a group of Ionian thugs runs when he sees the 'old man' using the wind technique and realizes who they're dealing with.
• Easily Forgiven: Not by objective standards — he had to track down Riven and all-but-drag her to the village elders before he was finally acquitted. But by his own standards, he didn't deserve to be pardoned, apparently from a hard-to-shake belief that Death Equals Redemption. When Yone won't kill him either, he gives up on Ionia and heads to Bilgewater.
• Elemental Barrier: Wind Wall creates one for all projectiles with a quick sweep of his blade.
• Every Scar Has a Story: The mark across his nose had no particular story behind it when he was first released. In "Kin of the Stained Blade," it turns out to be the scar of the one blow Yone managed to land on him, before Yasuo realized he couldn't talk his brother down and would have to fight back.
• Excuse Me While I Multitask: The "You Really Got Me" Wild Rift trailer shows him fending off numerous assassins while trying to enjoy a cup of tea. He has an utterly bored look on his face while doing this. For extra humiliation, he defeats one with his tea spoon.
• Face Death with Dignity: As shown in the "Still Here" cinematic, when he's an old man facing invaders to protect a child, he faces an immense volley of arrows (that he can't even hope to windwall) flying at him by closing his eyes and accepting his death, which is why the last thing he sees is Lamb's arrow.
• Face of a Thug: Turns out being an unshaven, scarred vagabond with a big sword isn't the most approachable appearance, as he learns when he tries to help a young boy in "Brotherhood".
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Wears a torn muffler over his right side and an ornate wing-shaped guard on his left arm.
• Fighting Fingerprint: Sword-based wind techniques. This naturally drew suspicion to him when his elder was discovered slain by a wind technique.
• Foil: To Riven. Both are combo champions, both use the wind style, both seek atonement for their actions, yet come from opposite sides in a war, and are of contrasting appearances (female with short white hair versus male with long dark hair). The two are the focus of the story "Confessions of a Broken Blade," which revealed a previously-unknown connection between them.
  ''You can't run from yourself, Riven... I've tried.''
• Foreseeing My Death: Foreseen Yasuo (as seen in "Still Here") is Yasuo's dream of what will happen if he continues on his path as The Aloner and doesn't accept the possibility of forgiveness. Unlike Dreaming of Things to Come, he doesn't consider it his destiny, just a reminder.
• Fragile Speedster: A possible build path for him; his abilities all revolve around dashes and rapid slashes and his passive encourages high movement speed and constant running around to generate his Flow meter. The "fragile" part is mitigated by a decent-sized innate shield that he gets when he has maximum Flow, though he's normally fragile both during early game and if he builds like a full AD assassin.
• Frame-Up: "Confessions of a Broken Blade" hints that there was evidence of a third party present when Souma was killed, but someone from the sword school deliberately withheld it and let suspicion fall on Yasuo.
• Full-Contact Magic: It's not acknowledged as magic, but he is able to amplify the usual displacement of air from a sword thrust or slash into a powerful blast that can damage enemies or send them flying. While most of his attacks scale off his (physical) attack damage, Sweeping Blade has an AP scaling that increases as he dashes from target to target.
• Functional Addict: Downplayed, but he is implied to be an alcoholic. Most of his lines and gameplay don't touch on it, but his joke and recall show him drinking from a flask and very skillfully manipulating it with his sword. Some old sources from Riot also state the flask of his actually contains milk, and that he drinks responsibly (which you'd expect from someone whose life is constantly in danger).
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Sports one across the bridge of his nose.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: Shouts in an Ionian dialect based on the Japanese language during at least two of his abilities
  "HASAGI!"
• Good Old Ways: Officially, his Japanese shouting is regarded as an ancient dialect of Ionian, which no one but Yone uses.

H-Z

• Heroic Bastard: He never knew his father, and his mother got pregnant after only recently being widowed. Their neighbors outright called Yasuo a 'mistake' as he grew up and turned their whole community against him. That would leave a chip on anyone's shoulder.
• Honor Before Reason: Implied to be the flaw that results in him killing Yone, according to his bio.
  [Yasuo's] mission drove him ever forward, until he was tracked down by the one foe he dreaded most – his own brother, Yone... Bound by a common code of honor, the two warriors bowed and drew their swords.
• I Gave My Word: The larger part of Yasuo's motivation in Ruined King is merely to keep his promise to protect Ahri, even after she slips off to the Shadow Isles without him. Ironically, she left out of fear she would endanger him.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: Yasuo keeps his blade sheathed when not in use, and the draw movement is part of his attack animation. When he has been out of combat for a few seconds, he swipes his blade clean before sheathing it again.
• Ignored Epiphany: His brother attempted to teach him humility. It seemed to work, if only for a while. Subverted when their Elder was killed.
• It's All My Fault: After "Confessions," he has taken the blame for Souma's accidental death, thinking he should have been there to prevent it.
• Katanas Are Just Better: His weapon is a narrow, single-edged blade in this style (technically closer in length to a tachi or a nodachi).
• Lady and Knight: Subverted in Ruined King. He first appears in the story as Ahri's bodyguard, but she parts company with him early on.
• Last Breath Bullet: In "Still Here," Yasuo sees arrows about to rain down on him but still casts a whirlwind to cut down his last opponent as he flees.
• Launcher Move: Whenever his Q reaches its third cast when its Gathering Storm passive has been fully stacked. Also revolves around this type of crowd control solely for his ultimate to be activated.
• Lightning Bruiser: He has high damage and extremely high mobility, while also packing some defensive capabilities with his passive shield and his Wind Wall. His passive allowing him to reach max crit chance with only two items encourages players to diversify his other three item slots and build more defensive items without sacrificing damage, allowing Yasuo to become quite durable while still maintaining his high damage, high mobility status.
• Luck-Based Mission: Since he's a crit-class-based character/champion, he has double critical strike chance but less damage per crit. Because of his potential to snowball once he gets items, he starts out with low base AD, making most of his early damage heavily reliant on a luck-based mechanic.
• Magikarp Power: Like most melee carries. His laning is nothing to sneeze at, but his base stats are on the low side and he needs to invest in attack speed and critical chance items to start ramping up his damage before he can build more defensive items. Yet he scales hard with items and levels, becoming easily able to swing around duels and teamfights around once he gets going.
• Making a Splash: Sea Dog Yasuo exchanges his wind abilities for watery powers, flinging around whirlpools and splashing torrents with every strike.
• Master Swordsman: He was noted to have an unusual talent for the blade ever since he was young and was the sole pupil of his sword school to be instructed by Elder Souma in the ancient wind techniques. This did nothing to tame his ego. By Ruined King, while the rest of the party immediately recognizes his skill with the sword, Yasuo is humbled enough to admit that Souma was better.
• Meaningful Name/Meaningful Rename: Yasuo has several variant spellings in kanji. The variants are: 保夫, "protective, preserve, husband", 安生, "tranquil; content, life, birth", 康郎, "happy, healthy, son; young man", 靖男, "calm; peaceful, son; male, baron", 泰雄, "great; exalted, superior, male", 八洲夫, "eight; many, continent; island, husband." Yasuo is not his birth name. He was given this new name when he joined the sword school in an effort to steady his wild nature. Judging by this, his name would be rendered as 安生 (tranquil; content, life, birth) or 靖男 (calm; peaceful, son; male, baron) in kanji.
  • However, Riot decided the kanji used for his name is 康夫, meaning "healthy man".
• Miscarriage of Justice: Subverted. Yasuo ultimately pardons Souma's true killer, deciding the guilt rightfully belongs to him.
• Mentor Archetype: Served as Taliyah's mentor for a short period of time, trying to teach her how to control her powers.
• Mr. Fanservice: Increasingly as time goes on. His original splash makes him look weathered, grimy, and older than he's probably meant to be, but his Odyssey and Spirit Blossom skins bring the fanservice. In Kin of the Stained Blade, he has a shirtless scene to demonstrate that even "plain" Yasuo is built like a fitness model.
• My Greatest Failure: He left Elder Souma unguarded the night he was killed, leading others to believe he was the killer. Even after discovering his master died in an accident, he blames himself for not being there to prevent it.
• Not the Intended Use:
  • Yasuo was conceived as a top lane duelist-type of champion, but since release, he's been primarily played in the mid lane. This is because his kit makes him unusually suitable for fighting mages by fighter standards, as he can quickly dodge skillshots by using Sweeping Blade on minions, nullify projectiles with Wind Wall, harass back with Steel Tempest's tornado, and thanks to his incredible power spikes, he can often get the drop on the usual squishy mages of the lane surprisingly quickly.
  • 2021 started seeing the rise of Yasuo being played periodically as a bot lane carry in lieu of a traditional marksman. Despite the seemingly counter-intuitive placement of melee-focused champion in a lane almost entirely comprising of pairs of ranged marksmen and their supports, Yasuo's passive shield and Wind Wall can be effective at negating damage in trades, his mobility with Sweeping Blade allows for frighteningly high rushdown potential, and Last Breath gives him incredible synergy with supports with a knockup ability like Alistar or Rakan. Once again, with relatively high crit scaling and the general squishiness of the competition, bot Yasuo with the right team comp against the right matchup can be terrifying.
• Odd Friendship: In Ruined King, he finds himself opening up to the jovial and kind (and persistent) Braum, someone who's probably his polar opposite in temperament. The game ends with them going to the Freljord together, ostensibly so Yasuo can make sure he gets home safely.
• Old Master: In the "Still Here" cinematic, Yasuo is much older than we know, but is still more than capable of beating an army of Navori thugs all by his lonesome, holding them off with a walking stick before he gets his hands on a proper sword. This would carry over into his Foreseen Yasuo skin.
• One-Man Army: Promotional material with Yasuo often shows him holding his own against legions of enemies. His LoR art shows him effortlessly dispatching a band of Navori thugs and he shows up in "The Climb" blocking a army's worth of arrows with his Wind Wall. In "Still Here," even an elderly Yasuo is enough to take on five or six much younger men. Pray you never let him get fed to the point where he becomes this in-game.
• Only Friend: Originally it was Yone who was his only company, the latter defending his little brother from all the abuse he suffered. After Yone dies, Yasuo finds a companion once again in Taliyah who becomes his pupil in magic. Starting with Ruined King, he begins opening up to more people, particularly Ahri and Braum.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: His hot-headedness as a youngster was so characteristic that when he ran from his accusers when Souma was found dead, Yone assumed he must be guilty.
• Perpetual Frowner: His brow is furrowed in most if not all his official art. Kin of the Stained Blade is unique among his media for showing his face at neutral (to say nothing of resigned, disgusted, grieving, and utterly surprised).
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: He directly tells his resurrected brother to have his revenge in Kin of the Stained Blade, but Yone refuses.
• Poor Communication Kills: Yasuo initially did not know why he was suspected of killing his elder and escaped before he could find out. He only found out after Yone tracked him down, and even then neither took the time to explain themselves until it was too late.
  • This also applies in-game; Yasuo being very team-comp dependent with his ult means it's a good idea to speak up early if your kit has any knock-ups he can exploit. Even the millisecond of cc in Vayne's Condemn might be enough for him to get in with Last Breath.
• Power Armor: Sea Dog Yasuo dons a magic suit created by the Buhru to face off against Viego and the Ruination.
  Empowered by the Buhru during his fight against Viego of Camavor, Yasuo made an unlikely champion for the children of Nagakabouros—his obsession with past events flew in the face of everything they believed in. Yet even the mangiest sea dog has his day, and Yasuo stood against the forces of darkness, emerging triumphant.
• Power-Up Letdown: In LOR, Yasuo turned out to have an unforseen but crippling Weaksauce Weakness in his level 2 form which his level 1 form doesn't share- Frostbite. Level 1 Yasuo does 2 damage to any stunned or recalled enemy, while level 2 has him strike them instead (doing 5 damage by default). While this is normally a straight upgrade, if Yasuo is affected by Frostbite, his power is reduced to 0 for a turn, completely negating his level 2 effect. And since 2 of the most popular Frostbite cards that can affect Yasuo (Flash Freeze and Harsh Winds) are Burst speed spells, Yasuo players can find themselves in a position where they play what should be a board-clearing Intimidating Roar, only to find it doing no damage and their Yasuo still on 0 power, unable to capitalise (although the Frostbite in turn can be negated with a timely Elixir of Wrath or other Burst-speed buff spell).
• Pragmatic Hero: He wanted to prove his innocence, but when his fellow Ionian warriors came after him, he didn't hesitate to cut them down.
• Properly Paranoid: His voice lines paint him as constantly on guard and ready to defend against potential attackers. It makes sense given he makes for a high-profile target after being framed for murder. This is furthered by his LoR art where he's being stalked by what appear to be bounty hunters.
  "Follow the wind, but watch your back."
  "If you've come to kill me... I hope you brought friends."
• Real Men Wear Pink: Several of his alternate skins are addicted to utterly frivolous reading material, like romance novels or Star Guardian manga.
• Rōnin: His archetype, a wandering swordsman looking for purpose.
• Rule of Three: Steel Tempest is a three-stage combo move that knocks enemies up on the third hit, like a certain ex-Noxian's Broken Wings ability. This is repeated in his ultimate, Last Breath, which does two dramatic slashes before he lands with one final slamming slash.
• Samurai Cowboy: His High Noon skin, giving Yasuo a cowboy get-up and a gunblade to match.
• Samurai in Ninja Town: Given how he has special derisive taunts to all four of the ninjas, it's likely that he doesn't think too highly of them.
  ''Scurry back to your shadows, ninja.''
• Samurai Ponytail: Part of his ronin-esque design, though Taliyah's release lore added a new meaning to it: he wears his hair tied back with the thread she gave him as a parting gift. The hairstyle is so significant to his silhouette that all of his other skins have had to include it or something very like it (even Truth/Dream Dragon Yasuo, who wears his hair down).
• Self-Punishment Over Failure: When it finally comes to light that Souma died in an accident, the local council seems ready to let bygones be bygones, but Yasuo concludes that he should have been there to prevent the accident and exiles himself in punishment.
• Series Mascot: Yasuo has evolved into one of the poster children of the franchise, appearing in a large number of works relative to other champs and seeing yearly cosmetics in League.
• Shared Signature Move: Yasuo and his brother Yone have similar Q abilities, "Steel Tempest" and "Mortal Steel". The move involves a single powerful sword thrust, but when landed twice, the brothers can each perform an empowered version that knocks their opponents skyward. Yasuo fires off a long-ranged projectile in the form of a tornado, and Yone dashes forward with a powerful cross slash that knocks up enemies right in front of him.
• The Sheriff: High Noon Yasuo.
  The mysterious and reluctant sheriff of a two-street town, Yasuo is in self-imposed exile after being accused of murder in the eastern territories. Even so, he has driven off entire bandit gangs as well as many of the desert's deadliest threats, saving hundreds of lives along the way.
• Ship Tease: Yasuo and Ahri get quite a bit in Ruined King. Even though it starts as a purely professional relationship, the two certainly open up to each other more than the others. There's even a conversation in game where Ahri mentions that Yasuo reminds her of the man she loved, and he says he wants to see her again when they part ways at the end of the game.
• Sibling Team: He and Yone team up in Kin of the Stained Blade to take down an azakana.
  • The two of them also happen have very strong synergy in-game; the knockup from Yone's Mortal Steel can proc Yasuo's ultimate, then their combined damage potential can slice enemy teams to shreds.
  • Yone's skill in LOR stuns two enemies, triggering Yasuo's passive where he attacks stunned enemies.
• Situational Sword:
  • He can't use his ult unless his target is already airborne. This makes him somewhat dependent on a team comp with at least one reliable knock-up, though he does have the means to launch his foes into the air by himself.
  • Wind Wall blocks any projectiles that hit it, but it's completely useless against purely melee champions. It also doesn't block ranged attacks which don't count as projectiles (like Lux's ult or, say, Tibbers).
• Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship: Inverted. His standard first-two animations with Steel Tempest show him stabbing and thrusting with his katana (often regarded as a primarily slicing weapon), as well as slashing with it solely in his auto-attack animations (and if you count his Steel Tempest just after a Sweeping Blade). Standard Steel Tempest in particular, features wind that accompanies the said thrust to hit enemies a decent distance behind his initial target.
• Spin Attack: Sweeping Blade into Steel Tempest transforms the hitbox into a radius around Yasuo (which can miss if he has already dashed too far past the target), giving him solid area-of-effect, and still counts as an on-hit skillshot that can't be deterred by blind and/or dodge regardless. It can also pop his foes into the air if it's his third cast of Steel Tempest, setting up Last Breath.
• Student–Master Team: He (the master) and Taliyah (the student). Though the two don't have a lot of synergy in-game...which, given their respective masteries over wind and earth, makes perfect sense.
• Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Because of his layers of immense trauma and guilt, Yasuo is a magnet for the supernatural. Demons, who in Runeterra feed on negative emotions, are naturally drawn to him, and Ahri, who is drawn to strong emotions for feeding, tries to keep her distance from him so she doesn't accidentally kill him.
• Swipe Your Blade Off: He always does this motion before sheathing his sword. He even has two animations for doing it; one when standing still, a second when on the run.
• Sword Plant: His death animation. Similar to Riven, he collapses next to his sword after a brief struggle to hold himself up.
• Teen Genius: Was this when he was younger, but also so insufferably arrogant that he turned down the tutelage of a famous swordmaster who only took the best pupils. It took Yone's pleading with Yasuo to accept the Elder's teachings.
• Too Many Belts: Yasuo's bracers are fastened by six belts...each.
• The Three Certainties in Life: One of his jokes.
  "There are three certainties in life: Honor, death... and hangovers."
• Trauma Conga Line: After his master Souma was discovered dead, he was accused of murder and became a fugitive. His brother attempted to kill him to restore the Family Honor, and Yasuo had to cut him down, dissolving into a wreck of guilt and alcoholism afterward. After going through so much, some of his lines make him sound like he's teetering on the edge of the Despair Event Horizon.
  Yasuo: Is a leaf's only purpose to fall...?
• The Unfettered: Subverted. His preview (from the point of view of Yone) made him out to be an uncontrollable killer, a sword without a sheath, before his canonical backstory was released and it became apparent that he was framed. Played straight as Nightbringer Yasuo who is the literal embodiment of unrestrained chaos.
• Visual Pun: He plays a flute (or similar) for his /dance command. It's a wind instrument.
• Vocal Evolution: Compared to his voiceover at launch, Yasuo's lines from 2020 onward are lower-pitched and more gruff in tone.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Wears a ragged mantle over his neck and shoulders that does nothing to cover the rest of his torso.
• Walking the Earth: Ever since he failed his duty, Yasuo has struggled to find any new path and had been wandering Ionia for years. He was eventually forgiven both for Souma's accidental death and for Yone's death (the latter by the man himself), and with these major regrets settled, he decided that he no longer needed to remain in Ionia and departed for Bilgewater in the company of Ahri, leading into his appearance in Ruined King. By the end of the game, he's now moving on to Noxus, as "there's someone there who may need [his] help."
• You Can't Go Home Again: After "Confessions of a Broken Blade, revealed the true account of Souma's death, he still doesn't consider himself exonerated. Even seeing Yone alive again doesn't settle his self-disgust, and he decides to leave Ionia entirely. In Ruined King, he tells Ahri that Ionia hasn't felt like "home" in years.
• Your Mom: A possible taunt to an enemy ninja.
  ''Cute mask. Your, uh, mom sew that?''
  • Becomes incredibly hilarious if used on Zed since his mask is metal.
• Your Worst Memory: Killing Yone has haunted him for years, as illustrated in Kin of the Stained Blade. Seeing his brother Back from the Dead seems to have finally broken its power, though he still chooses to leave Ionia, leading into all of the Character Development he experiences in Ruined King.
• You Shall Not Pass!: He draws a line on the ground in silent challenge in "Still Here." The brigands facing him just laugh... at first.
• Yo-Yo Plot Point: Yasuo's life is defined by three major woes — his master's death, the fact that he was framed for it, and Yone dying in the attempt to kill him to restore the family honor. Over the years, Yasuo has seen his fortunes change — Souma's death was explained, he was acquitted, and his brother even came back from the dead — but every Yasuo-centered story begins with him wallowing in regret and ends with him making peace with his past and moving on.