The Mysterious Yone Master
"Preseason, huh..."
I slowly worked my way through Leori's Patch 10.23 notes.
Leori was the kind of game that changed so drastically every season you could almost call it a different title entirely. Even so, I personally considered this item overhaul the most insane patch in the game's history. With the introduction of item tiers, the sheer number of items that had vanished and the ones newly added was staggering. This was an item patch that could shake Leori down to its very foundations — a patch that effectively turned every single player into a newbie overnight.
It was a highly divisive update. And yet, interest in Leori right now was hitting an all-time high.
"I don't like this."
I let out a sigh as I scanned the item list.
Previously, crit-related core items had come with a 25% critical strike chance as the standard package. This patch had nerfed the crit chance on every crit-related Legendary and Mythic item down to 20%.
Yone was one of my main champions, and his passive doubled critical strike chance. Before, finishing just two crit core items had been enough to hit 100% crit. Now you inevitably needed three crit-related Mythic and Legendary items to get there. You could pad with crit components, sure, but after running the numbers, completing full core items still came out ahead.
The bottom line: for Yone and Yasuo — whose passives traded a 10% reduction in critical damage for that doubled crit chance — this was not a welcome patch.
By comparison, the tank items were absurd. You'd have to experience them firsthand to grasp just how broken they were, but it was clear their stats were anything but ordinary.
Well. Not that I planned on playing tanks anyway.
I spent time in Practice Mode figuring out how to rework Yone's build, and eventually arrived at one conclusion.
There's no answer in the Mythic items.
The crit-related Mythics were Immortal Shieldbow, Galeforce, and Kraken Slayer. Of the three, Shieldbow and Galeforce were at least somewhat suited to Yone — but neither was actually good. Expensive for what they offered; poor value, in a word.
Shieldbow looked appealing on paper thanks to its lifeline effect and the scatter of lifesteal, attack speed, crit chance, and movespeed. But every single one of those stats was mediocre, and it was an open question how much a lifeline would even boost the survivability of a champion as squishy as Yone. Galeforce added an extra dash, which seemed nice, except the cooldown was completely unhinged. Strip away the cooldown and it was a solid item — but it was still too early to render a definitive verdict.
I abandoned the assumption that you had to buy a Mythic and that it had to be your first core. The current state of Yone's crit Mythics was bad enough to shatter that dogma outright.
I turned my attention to the Legendary items instead, searching for anything crit-related and examining each one in-game. Before long, I found a single crit item that looked like it had real potential.
+40% Attack Speed
+20% Critical Strike Chance
The raw stats weren't impressive for the price. But the two passive effects sitting underneath them were anything but ordinary.
The first dealt 45 physical damage on-hit for every 20% critical strike chance you had. The second caused every third basic attack to apply on-hit effects twice. The penalty: critical strikes no longer applied at all.
In other words, it was an item that abandoned crits entirely and converted critical strike chance into bonus damage instead.
And that penalty was actually a buff for Yone. His passive already carried a 10% reduction to critical damage — and this item completely erased that drawback. Completing a single Guinsoo's meant ninety bonus damage on every basic attack.
Glimpsing the enormous potential locked inside Guinsoo's Rageblade, I dove straight into research.
"...This is broken."
It didn't take long to reach a conclusion. First-item Guinsoo's Yone was obscenely, ridiculously overpowered.
Nangin Geomgaek.
He had made his name under the title of high-elo Yasuo one-trick master. A Yasuo that active pros couldn't handle — that even the legends of the past couldn't touch. That was Nangin Geomgaek's Yasuo, and people had begun calling him the pinnacle of the champion.
Then one day, a Yone appeared who could go toe-to-toe with the player even the pros acknowledged. A low-level account with no play history from the previous season, matching Nangin Geomgaek blow for blow? And in their first meeting, Nangin Geomgaek had been thoroughly defeated by this mysterious Yone player. The laning phase might have been even, but the gap in how they steered the game had been overwhelming.
That day, Nangin Geomgaek hit a wall for the second time in his life — the same kind of wall he'd felt when he faced the idol of every Leori player, the living legend known simply as him.
Confronted with a barrier that felt so familiar, Nangin Geomgaek became acutely aware of the mysterious Yone master's existence. He searched the player's match history constantly, queuing the moment their games ended. Match after match, he clashed with the mysterious Yone master. He knew full well what he was doing was stream sniping, and he couldn't stop. He just wanted to win once — just once. Even knowing he wasn't in their league, he treated the mysterious Yone master as his rival.
He never won. Not a single time.
Do I just give up?
The thought had barely formed when the mysterious Yone master posted a fifty-game win streak — and then vanished without a trace. After they disappeared, Nangin Geomgaek refreshed their match history every morning. The mysterious Yone master never appeared again.
Seasons passed. The day preseason began, Nangin Geomgaek finished researching a new item build for Yasuo and queued a ranked game to test it. First pick, he locked Yasuo immediately. First-picking Yasuo carried risk, but Nangin Geomgaek had always played with that kind of risk on his shoulders. It didn't bother him.
Both teams filled out their drafts. And the enemy mid laner's pick was none other than Yone.
Most people said Yone was a losing matchup into Yasuo. But the mysterious Yone master had always beaten Nangin Geomgaek. Against the so-called pinnacle of Yasuo — no, against any high-elo Yasuo one-trick — counter-picking Yone was something only that player did.
Thump—!
Nangin Geomgaek's heartbeat echoed once in his ears.
"Nangin Geomgaek?"
I let out a hollow laugh at the Yasuo nickname on the loading screen. Running into the opponent I'd matched against with bizarre frequency back when I was the mysterious Yone master — on my very first game? At this point, you could call it fate.
Ah. For Nangin Geomgaek, maybe a curse? After all, he hadn't taken a single win off me. The LP I'd farmed from him alone had to be well over three hundred.
Still, it wasn't a bad thing. For testing Guinsoo's potential, there was no more fitting opponent than Nangin Geomgaek's Yasuo.
The game began.
Having lost the laning phase to his Yasuo more than a few times, I played as carefully as I had on my smurf, minimizing risky plays. The whole point of this queue was to test Guinsoo's — not to win.
I played stable until Guinsoo's came online. Both junglers collided topside over the scuttle crab, and my top laner and I rotated in immediately, sparking a skirmish. Nangin Geomgaek's Yasuo arrived at roughly the same pace, but our top had been so thoroughly stomping theirs that we took the 3v3 cleanly. I hadn't won that fight through skill — just good team luck. Not that any Leori player ever complained about good team luck.
After pocketing two kills from the skirmish, I bought a Rageknife. The item advantage flipped the matchup, and lane priority swung my way. I used that control to harass Nangin Geomgaek's Yasuo as hard as possible — trading aggressively every time he tried to last-hit, faking jungle presence to plant the fear of a dive. Yasuo was forced to recall, and as that damage kept compounding, the item gap only widened.
After stripping the turret plating gold as well, I recalled and completed Guinsoo's. Thanks to a price far cheaper than any other core item, it came online at a ridiculous seven minutes.
Alright. Let's have a little taste.
Back in lane, I immediately forced a fight on the Yasuo sitting in the middle of a massive enemy wave. Even past the earliest phase of the game, that many minions was a serious liability. My health started draining fast —
— and with utterly absurd damage, I deleted Yasuo in an instant.
"Holy shit."
The burst was even more ridiculous than I'd expected — damage I hadn't fully imagined. The enormous potential I'd glimpsed in Guinsoo's Rageblade had detonated in my hands.
And the enemies caught in that explosion simply could not withstand the power of Guinsoo's Yone. The enemy nexus went down before the fifteen-minute mark. Not a single person on the other team had been streaming. The game had ended like this because of one Yone who bought one item called Guinsoo's.
After the game, I checked my damage on the results screen. My Yone was sitting on an overwhelming damage share. Confirmed that the research and theory held up in a real match, I closed the results screen and went to queue again.
Or rather — I was about to.
Nangin Geomgaek has sent you a friend request. — [Accept]
A friend request arrived in my messenger. If it had been some random stranger, I would have ignored it. But the sender was none other than Nangin Geomgaek.
This account hadn't accepted a single friend request from anyone. Partly because it was a hassle — partly because I didn't want unnecessary rumors circulating. But Nangin Geomgaek? He was worth accepting. Even after matching me countless times, he'd never sent a request. If he were the type to add people for no reason, he would have done it back then. There had to be a reason.
I accepted Nangin Geomgaek's friend request.
The sudden sniping request caught me off guard. A sniping request — aimed at me, someone who wasn't even a streamer? And wasn't sniping something people just did without asking?
Or maybe this was some scheme to cash in on the "mysterious Yone master" keyword. But as far as I knew, Nangin Geomgaek wasn't a streamer either — just a regular player.
I understood his situation instantly. Getting absolutely demolished by me after so long — his competitive fire must have exploded.
Going 0/6/2 will do that to a person.
His Yasuo had ended the last game at 0 kills, 6 deaths, and 2 assists. Before, he'd always lost by narrow margins from roughly even games. Getting crushed this thoroughly by the player who'd reappeared out of nowhere — of course his pride was burning.
I thought over his request, then felt the corner of my mouth lift. An amusing idea had occurred to me. I smiled as I typed.
Sniper or not — there was no way I was going to get sniped that easily.
My demand seemed to catch him off guard. Silence hung over the chat for a moment. Then, before long, his messages came through.
Nangin Geomgaek accepted my proposal without hesitation. And so, the player once called the pinnacle of Yasuo started streaming for the first time in his life.
The news began spreading through every Leori-related community.