Yorick didn't even get to be part of the most important part of his lore so I think that is very telling of what RIOT thinks of him.

He's obviously not a 100% flawless rework, but I think he provides the players with a very niche style of gameplay. That's also why he is very unpopular. The only failure, in my opinion, is how much of a low elo stomper he is, and how hard he falls off in mid-high elo. I may also count the fact that out of all splitpushers he's definitely the easiest one to catch, since he has no escape. Also fuck Ruination, they did him so dirty

I dont think he has low playrate because he is bad or badly designed it think it is because it takes a specific mindset/personaloty to play him. Take smash bros for example jigglypiff and lucario while not the best characters arent trash or something but have very low playrates because you need a very different mindset to play them than the rest of the roster

Loved Yorick at release and still love him now. As far as mains go, there are dozens of us... DOZENS

old Yorick was way worse from a gameplay design perspective and 100% needed his rework but at the same time. I miss the mindless fun of just spamming ghouls on people as old yorick. definitely not a kit that should have existed in a competitive game but his old kit was good dumb fun

Who is Yorick? I'm still looking through the Ruination story for him.

Exactly. Split pushing, especially as Yorick, is a lot deeper than simply buying Hullbreaker and turning on auto attack. A bad Yorick player can focus only on split pushing and have decent success at low ranks or if the enemy team doesn’t deal with him, which doesn’t make for fun gameplay for anybody. For a good Yorick player however his effective splitpushing is a tool he has to put pressure on the enemy team, just like how Darius has a tool where he can last hit someone with R and go crazy, or use his stick potential to beat anyone in lane. A good Yorick player can and will be effective in team fights and in taking objectives, while obviously not as much as a good Irelia would be in teamfights, he also excels in other areas where Irelia can’t keep up like taking baron solo at 20 minutes or demolishing turrets. He has a uniquely proportioned power budget, a very special play style, design and personality which makes him a very unpopular champion. That doesn’t mean he’s underpowered or badly designed however. Part of the appeal to Yorick mains such as myself is that he is niche champion, but for those he suits he works perfectly with. While I’d argue that he’s a bit weak early game and lacks damage without his R, the feeling of destroying someone when they totally don’t expect it makes up for it, and if he got more popular and people knew how to counter him he’d have to get buffed early and nerfed late as a compensation.

Back in the day, I was a Yorick main, I REALLY miss him. League lacks a summoner like yorick, he was a such unique champion, I feel so sad to remember the there's not a single champ similar to the old one. Also, nowdays you don't see that many manamune users anymore.

The thing that was really cool about OG yorick to me was how unique his ghouls were. You felt like a god of death because you have control over these different types of undead creatures. The current “mist walkers” are soulless and uninspired, they don’t make me want to play the champion at all anymore. Hell I’d argue Bard accomplishes the personal minions mini game better as well

The old Yoric used to be one of my most played champions, as ive got a sweet spot for summoners, with old Yoric specifically being what I would call a "minionmancer". His whole concept of utilising varied minions doesnt exist anymore. The new Yorik is more like a melee Azir, focusing on manipulating one kind of minion instead of a variety of them. Add to that that his minions arent available at a moments notice anymore unless you have your maiden ready. I personally prefer the old one, though I must unfortunately admit that his current iteration is more fair to play against.

What i remember old Yorick for the most, was being the ultimate Teemo counter. If you were Teemo, and the enemy picked Yorick, you may aswell dodge on the spot.

I was the only Yorick player pre-rework. I loved the kit. I wish they’d rework him and go back to something similar to the old one or make a new champ that summons.

For me it's a no, i never played the old one but i LOVE how satisfying is his minion and push advantage. He is extremely safe in lane, very few characters can bully him hard and make him feed, even then, it doesn't really matter as he gets so much more farm than the others, quickly evening the disadvantage. Plus i really don't mind and kinda like the heavy setup gameplay, it makes you reconsider what you can do in every situation and plan ahead, and when you do. Also the feeling of being an unkillable monster with maiden, or leaving her just at the right time so the enemy is thorn between the teamfight or losing half their base, is something no other character gives. (He reminds me of azmodan from hots, which was one of my mains, probably the reason i like him so much)

I was a yorick main until his rework frankly all my champs have been reworked in ways I didn't enjoy playing

Current Yorick is imo a good rework, he has good dmg and okay-ish sustain with his Q heals, the best part is that nobody really knows in low elo what he does and i keep perma-pushing because of it, I imagine he is a lot worse in higher elos only because players know how to deal with him.

I think it sounds like what old yorick needed was to be forced to choose a ghoul type. Maybe by ability cast all ghouls for the next 10 seconds will be of that type for example. so he doesn't get them all just chooses between catching, draintanking, or the last one I forgot

I feel like the 2 main issues with new Yorick and the reasons I dropped him after rework are: 1) he went from summon-based playstyle to summon as an augment. So they gave him some power without summons, but not enough to be relevant, and lowered his overall summon power. They essentially stole what used to be fun out of him. I would have preferred they gut his personal power more and put more into making more interesting and more skill expressive summons instead. 2) his lane pressure is now tied almost exclusively to his e (technically his w can also be used against immobile champs to the same effect). He suffers from the same issue as Illaoi. Dodge e, win trade. Get hit, lose trade. I agree he previously had too consistent a trade pattern, but it feels really bad to have all these summons and they are almost useless unless you killed all the enemy minions or you land e.

Good and informative video, I hope you keep making these Gars

Though the closest thing I've been to maining any champion was prerework Jax, I would say I was a very big fan of old Yorick. So I really strongly believe that the rework was just gutting him and replacing him with something somewhat similar, similar as in a Cat and a Dog. The funny thing is, I think old Yorick had alot more possiblity in showing up in metas just because he had such a strong ult, meanwhile his ult now although impactful isn't really game changing.

300k yorick so I'm excited to see someone finally talk about the best champ in league

I tried the old Yorick when I heard that he was going to get reworked. Man, he was insane. I ended up taking him to ranked games and solo killed every junglers. He helped me get to gold

No it wasnt. It was just Riots fault for not following it up lorewise. Also "99% may not remember the old Yorick Mori", now I feel old... please, do old Shaco next. And how did that Q land in 15:14?

This is probably going to get lost in the rest of the comments, but could you continue the "VS" series if you have time? I really liked those videos in particular. Maybe Miss Fortune VS. Lucian because of how similar their gameplay is.

As a Yorick main I have quite a bit to say. I feel like this video was awsome but you missed the biggest part of Yorick identity and why people often miss the value and skill of split pushing. It's all about pressure. I remember you said everything is about fighting recently in league and that's a problem, right? well Yorick shows how you don't have to do that. Pressure is a currency everybody uses but yorick teaches it. keeping waves pushed is pressure with tp because it's a constant threat that the opponent can't commit to something big like baron or elder while your team can. and is your pressure better by making people come deal with you topside on drake spawn or helping the fight? they might get a quadra and drake but you get two towers and their inhib is now open. I just feel like it would have been nicer to talk about this. especially because people always flame split pushers and now I get why. I have watched several people build hullbreaker right click top lane and that's it! those people are stupid and only succeed when the opponents don't deal with it well. It's disgusting and I want people to actually learn what split pushing is. You just didn't touch this. That said, I liked it, although I didn't play Yorick before his rework.

I’ve seen yorick personally 5 times in one day and every single time he’s completely destroyed my team and 1v5 the entire 30 minutes

I love the way you can just listen to his videos as a podcast while you are doing something else :)

I miss the old days of “yorick walks into a bar there was no counter”

8:25 Manaless Champs in a nutshell, love your vids VARS!

He’s one of my favorite champions bar none alongside Taliyah. Champs that are different from the standard of their peers are just more fun for me idk why. He also just has one of the coolest designs in the game and I love his voice actors deliveries.

The biggest failure was the fact he didn’t have a greater importance in the ruination event.

very good video. didnt even realise it was 20 min well done

As a yorick main this pleased me greatly. I only started a couple seasons ago so I've always been sad that I never got to play his original version because it seems like a blast. Honestly I think one of his biggest weaknesses is the fact that he basically doesn't have a passive. His passive should simply be his q passive and maybe have his old passive returned. It simply does nothing for him a majority of the time. In lane it's useless and in team fights and skirmishes it's even more useless

At 15:42 you can see 3 major spikes in pickrate. 1st one was when the rework first released. The 2nd was when the added maiden being tethered to yorick (on release she would automatically run down a lane) 3rd was when they added e mark spawning ghouls as well as a damage amp to marked enemies. The champ pre and post rework has always been riddled with bugs and intentionally neglected by riot because of this. It’s quite sad.

You missed biggest thing about new yoric problems, his balance issues.... he DESTROYS low elo (56,25% winrate in iron, 53,28% winrate in all ranks) and is destroyed in master (47,07% winrate) and has sub 50% winrate in d2+ (49,45% winrate), so guy can never be balanced on higher elo or he will be godtier, unbeatable champion in lower ranks

I love your video , keep them coming

Only played him in ARAM and I can say the following: Shovel go bonk Teamfighting as him is a pain, a serious pain in the booty 1v1ing Yorick is a dumb idea much like Illaoi if he gets on you it's game over, eat a shovel Lastly and most importantly his voicelines and sound design are real good, love that his theme plays during his ult...what do you mean that is irrelevant to gameplay 👀

I loved the old Yorick, it was so fun to play with him

Though I never got to play him, pre rework yorick still is my favorite champ, he looked so fun and jungle yorick looked so fun he could kill drag at lvl 2. I really hope someday were able to play the older champs in a gamemode or even a seperate game.

I was an avid player of Yorick and liked him pre-rework, however I came to love him post rework. The differences at first were jarring but the more you play it the more you realize they acknowledged every facet of his old gameplay in some way with this rework. You can tell Riot really tried to pay as much respect as possible to his original design instead of just creating a new character like they often do with other reworks. As far as it being a successful rework or not, I'm not sure if it's fair to call it a failure all because he reminds a niche, unorthodox pick. I think this is intentional. Let's be real, Yorick is a degenerate ass character. His sole win condition is to split as much as possible in the hopes that he can end the game before the enemy team does. He is incentivized in many ways not to play with his team and pretty much do the opposite of whatever everyone else is doing. It can be very frustrating not only to play against a Yorick but to have one on your team as well because you probably wouldn't realize he's even there. If this style of play was meta in anyway I feel like that would be very unhealthy for the meta and the game overall. NO ONE would enjoy a meta where Yorick flourished. We got a small taste of what a meta Yorick could look like back when they made a lethality build viable for him. And even though that build focused more on skirmishing it was still more than enough for his ban rates to go through the roof. Nobody wants to live in a world where Yorick is a meta pick, and as a Yorick player I'd prefer it no other way.

Oh the memories, I was a old Urgot OTP (Mid) and my duo was a old Yorick OTP, both super underrated picks and pretty strong too.

Old Yorick will always hold a special place in my heart. He was the first "Counter Pick" I ever learned. When I first started playing lol I would only play Garen top and would get dominated by Teemos every game. I picked up Yorick because he was listed as a counter to Teemo and went on a rat extermination campaign. Was really a turning point for me to understand how counters work and how to have a more diverse champ pool so I wasnt stuck getting bodied by Teemo every game.

I think that if they gave him a lot more consistency he wouldn't be as unpopular as he is right now and an alternate niche build would be nice too (quite frankly his kit would fit ap items a lot better). For example if the range and radius of W were bigger and if E was on a lower cd, had a doubled (or even tripled) size, had a larger range or was even turned into a point and click, Q had higher healing and also each abbility would always spawn a ghoul or fully healed one if all 4 were spawned allredy. All of that at the cost of lower damage. It would make playing him a lot more enjoyable and a lot more competitively viable.

I recently picked up yorick and so was intressted in what his old kit was. While I did not prefer it over his current state I did like the idea of it. I've been having a blast with this oversized shovel dwarf and seeing this video premiere I was kinda hooked. I personally don't see too many problems with his set up playstyle (but I don't mean I don't see any at all, there are ofc issues with a juggernaut needing set up) but the way I see some of the other stronger characters require some set up as well (all though maybe minimal compared to like pre level 6-11 yorick) like Yasuo or Yone (amazing examples I know, who doesn't love these guys) I'd love to see some possible adjustments to maybe remedy some of his issues but it's been so far so good for me at least. Good video none the less, would love to see more.

​i would like a champ with summon or/and a abathur type gameplay it would be fun if handle carefully

Thats one hell of narrow reasoning. First of all, he can still summon his army on command with ult. Secondly, he is now much more interactive than he was. Anything is better than old Yorick for a reason. Also him having the ghouls is his identity, so problems tied to that are withing the expectation. To be accurate, new yorick, is old Yorick with actual kit. His ability to summon ghouls got tied to minions and he has Maiden now but thats about it. Just this makes him success by default.

Love your vids, CARS

Maiden: Your form is so confining, you could be infinite! Yorick: I am enough.

1:52 Thats gotta be one of the best simplified explanation of what old Yorick was.

Another great video Btw your opinion on Aurelion getting a Gameplay rework only and what in your opinion what other champions could get one ?

at 15:12 the Yorick auto attacks a target that is more than double his auto range away from him

always love to see the first champ that I mained when I was new to the game being talked about.

gotta love the character most obsessed with being remembered most can hardly remember because of how rare he was

I could never forget old Yorick because if they one EU LCS match years ago when he was used by Unicorns of Love to assist the teams Cassiopeia. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever scene that still occasionally rewatch to this day.

I feel like that his E and the summon system holds him back. He's too dependant on his E and the AI of his ghouls and maiden are still bad. Would be nice if he could control his maiden like Annie controls Tibbers etc.

Yorick was the BEST Support back in the days... You had EVERYTHING needed.

I loved old yorick, biggest lane bully in the game

I've been waiting for this my entire life, just like how yorick is still waiting for people who actually play him

I remember the secret to old yorick was buying mana potions. Mana instead of health at level one, then maintain 3-5 every recall until you got tear. I had such a high winrate on him with this approach. No more mana potions these days! Also, his old winrate and playrate wad literally only bad because his mana costs were pushed until he was considered unplayable. Riot used to "delete" problematic champions through nerfs rather than do reworks. Evelynn being the biggest example in early league.

Alas, poor Yorick Trying to be a summoner class in a game without control groups

As a pre-rework Yorick player (InvertedComposer anyone?) I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. I don’t ever comment but seriously thanks for the amount of effort that goes into these, they always are great!

There used to be a t-shirt that said "I survived Yorick Top Lane". This was not a joke in any way, shape, or form. You didn't lane against Yorick in the old days, you merely *_survived_* against him.

Yes. Original Yorkick was a great champion, who summoned on every ability. His ult was also really flexible, since you could get a copy of the ADC, or use it to get a quick revive on the tank.

watching this video made me realize that i was one of the only people who played a lot of old yorick. his ultimate was insanely powerful back then, and honestly i remember it being super prevelant prior to season 3.

That FE Awakening BGM though! ❤️

The old design was too straight forward that you end up using all invocation no matter what happens, there not much decision making. The reworked Yorick have no complex way to control his summons I wish one day we could have a real puppet summoner champion, one that could summon different puppet based on the situation. If they make a special layout like for aphelios, we can have a kit when there's no puppet and then the spell kit change based on your summoning

Im not even going to lie... Yorick was the character way back in the day that made me fall in love with League along with the *real* Aatrox. I miss old league, Not for the game metas, Not for the fact i was better... But for the Characters i fell in love with playing that no longer exist.

He was the face at the beginning of the splitpush meta- it was infuriating how many yoricks I faced (and still do) in clash

Ya wanna know WHY Yorick struggled to become meta? Bc he's kneecapped with tons of bugs, inconsistent interactions (runes/items), and Riot nerfed him straight out the gate for low lvl play, making minions HP weak to AA, etc. As a mainly single target target juggernaut whose power budget is geared towards split pushing he's really not a popular pick due to his lower than average teamfight ability AND the fact that splitpushing isn't a super accessible strategy to pull off. And riot doesn't seems like they are looking to do much about his bugs, interaction consistency, or initial low rank nerfs. Yorick still has defense in the form of using Wall to trap people, they could afford to buff his MS steal on E ig to make it easier for him to chase, but paired with his wall, if he lands E he's likely to keep the target where he wants to wail on them with Q+AA buffing his ability to call ghouls is tricky bc the original goal WAS to make it not as consistent, so ig the path is to siphon more power out of ghouls into himself

i started playing in s9. and i love the current yorick. those changes he got at the begining of last season made him so good

About Morde boy... He traps him so well away of his ghouls, that he can summon an untargetable, immortal, fully efficient ghoul in the death realm. Said simply, he gains an infinite advantage (the ghoul will attack, untargetable because in the death realm, but attacks in normal dimension, plus it doesn't count as one ghoul).

Yorick is pretty much everything I want in a champion. My power fantasy is commanding minions and making strategic impacts all over the place without actually being in the thick of things, and a champion who can push all 3 lanes at once and specializes in crushing the enemy base or taking objectives (it's hilarious how easily he can solo Baron) while everyone else is busy killing and dying suits me just fine. Although he's not specialized for it he is actually quite good in teamfights as well. W can help your whole team escape into the jungle (provided they realize they can run through it) or lock down a target for your DPS specialist to kill. Ghouls rarely secure kills but are great at softening or scattering targets. And jumping a squishy and deleting half their health bar with a shovel to the face is a rare but satisfying treat. My one complaint was the difficulty in controlling his minions, but once he was given the ability to send the Maiden down a lane with a recast that alleviated much of that problem, though I'd still like some way to call his ghouls back once they are pushing a lane. And honestly, I LIKE the fact that he's unpopular. Having basically zero pickban means that he's a great champion to one-trick, and I'll probably stick with him unless Riot releases a champion who can actually play the game like an RTS.

I love new Yorick, but I also loved old Yorick very very much. Nobody knew what he did or how he worked, so I used to stomp so much in the old days. I had great fun and although I believe his update is better, I still miss the old one from time to time.

I remember back in the day when you looked up counters to a champion yorick was almost always the number one, even to himself

One relatively minor thing that I think would help is reworking the heal on his Q to be 2% max HP, doubled below 50%. As it stands, his healing is a flat value, but he ends up getting way more value from items like Steraks and Divine Sunderer anyway, which also end up raising his max HP and further limiting the value of the heal. Early game, that value roughly matches the current heal, but allows it to scale into the mid and late game. It's too low to really matter late, but that's honestly fine. We don't need more Aatroxes. If it *was* meant to scale into the late game, it could be made into 2-5% max HP, scaling with ult level.

Besides he not being part of the sentinels history i think his gameplay comes very close to what his lore tells us, he starts slow and kinda humble but slowly building up creating an army that destroys the lane if not checked

As a previous Yorick main I totally agree with this. They should give him another gameplay update which I think should go like this - Bring pack part of his passive: each basic ability summons a ghoul that gives him some small buff when it's on the map (Q ghouls: 3/5/7/9/11 bonus AD, W ghouls: 4/7/10/13/16 bonus Armor and MR, E ghouls: 10/12/14/16/18 bonus move speed). You can have up to 4 at a time and the oldest one is replaced by the newest ability cast. Q healing is now 5% of your max HP. E now always gives the ms bonus, not just when moving toward enemy and it can also be targeted against creeps (18/21/24/27/30% bonus ms). He gets his old ult back, but the clone only has 50% of all the original targets stats, and only attack with basic attacks and can't crit. Please let me know what you guys think of this idea. I think it would make him strong early game like a juggernaut is supposed to but not to oppressive, while giving him more gameplay options other than just split pushing (aka more competitive viability). What do you think?

FINALLY IT'S TIME! This right here is my favorite champion. I was super obsessed with playing him for a majority of my time playing this game and will forever be my comfort champion.

i miss old yorick but god was he a menace, i remember having so much fun when i first found him and not even that long after he got reworked, now instead of being the biggest "f you i win" pick hes basically completely dependant on his e, which isnt a whole lot better but hes no longer going to survive a 1v5 for 40 seconds and get 3 kills anymore

I loved to play old Yorick and just watch any enemy suffer XD. Then ofc came the the grouping stage and it all fell apart :(

Really looking forward to the Karma's rework for the following video!!!

I would like a summoner like those old goules. That seems fun

Hi Vars, Season 14 called and Low Elo has something to say regarding “has not found any success”. Great video as always though, recently discovered you and have been working backwards through your videos

It's crazy seeing gbay 99 play Yorick in someone else's video like 7 years later

I had the honor to play the old yorick quite a few times and he was one of my fav. Champs back in the day. I had a looot of fun with him back then but i do apriciate his rework for being different.

I was one of the only lunatics who loved old Yorick. I love the new one as well. A well made rework. Unlike Akali, who was my main but after rework is disgusting and plays different.

Old Yorick was one of my main supports alongside Old Sion. Both were so much fun to play, because my enemies never knew what to do against them due to them being so underplayed to the point of non-existence. Though part of me still misses having every ability summon a ghost, I really love what Riot has done with Yorick's rework. Nothing more satisfying than watching your ghouls fly across the map to bite at the ankles of an enemy you've marked.

I feel like you didn't really vibe check with Yorick mains on this one. Yorick is definitely not a failed rework. Frustrations mostly come from his ult being unreliable and buggy, and there's still some sadness from not having his previous ult though most like his new ult more. I just wish he got a bit more love, not to make him stronger, but to sharpen his identity as a commander of the dead and splitpusher. A lot of that could be fixed by giving him more control over Maiden instead of having Maiden take 3 tower shots cause you wanted to poke with your ghouls under tower.

i remember the old yorrick, and i mained it, i want it back! Only one problem: as i remember in the early seasons you cant pick him on ranked, he just basicly not in the champ select

15:00 The moment when I subbed. I love these jokes sneaking into analysis videos like this xD

Make Yorick's abilities summon a spectre that appears and does minimal damage like the old ghouls did tied to his abilities, then when maiden appears have her summon the old ghouls and give Yorick empowered abilities based off of his old ones. The old minions come with an extra mana cost to summon which can be recast after the ability is made, so this isn't just a free ability. In addition, Yorick's E also dashes him into the enemy as well on recast.

i liked the old yorick WAY more, he was a playable laner that didnt lose the second he missed 1 skill. cant say that to the current one, you miss your E? well you better afk behind the tower cuz you lose to everyone when its on cd (: all he does now is splitpush until you win because there is no1 that can stop him splitting 2 lanes without their team losing an obj. hes worse in design than he was pre rework and no1 can change my mind

I main Yorick but never get to try the old one wished to try out because he sounds interesting. Nowadays I love how something that looks so simple like Yorick Gameplay can have so much dept and long term impact on the game

I still think old Yorick was one of the most creative and unique champions. I loved playing him, I loved owning him, I loved every single aspect of him, from his splash art, to his playstyle, to his champion model, to his voicelines, I loved old Yorick from the bottom of my heart. I played a fair bit of new Yorick, but he is nothing compared to the true Yorick Mori.

Old Yorick was so fun to play, I remember picking him up because of InvertedComposer.

Yorick's old playstyle of having your unique ghouls being up constantly to help you felt like you were a real summoner champ. Now his minions feel more like a burst of damage and nothing more. His old W and E got me so many kills and saved my ass so many times back then. And I remember going Athene's then Liandry when I fought Jax back when Athene's was a damage with that sweet sweet like 10% or something mana you'd get back on kill.

I miss the old yorrick i loved the fact he summoned them with his abilities maybe I have it better in memory but Athmas and wormogs but u could do something without ulti and still fight In my opinion I miss the old champs kit sion irelia pantheon or in general more build possibilities like fck it I go ap it's ok or fck it I go ad

Saw a face check ad yesterday... Swear to everything holy it had your voice. You pimping your voice out?

i just realised his old abilities were basically the four horsemen of the apocalypse

As a Yorick main, the “edgy” side of him not having such a big community of mains and one tricks and being one of the lowest pick rate champions made me really attracted to master it in the beginning of the game! It’s something about being “unique” in the lobby, now that effect isn’t so big as before because now the champion is popularized! Something that HURT really bad the popularity of Yorick (and understandable) was the removal of certain items like Zz’rot and Banner, I remember in S7 when we had the Zz’Rot and Banner of Command build with the early Herald meta in the top lane, which made the champion COMPLETELY broken at the time, and felt right at the time for his place as a completely Solo Carry Split Pusher Demon in the SoloQ. And not mentioning that Yorick was a 6300 IP Champion and after it got to 4800 IP, which was hella expensive to “Normal” league players that didn’t spend money at the game and had to really count pennies to buy good runes which were a completely RIP OFF, that made hard him for being more popular to the new players, he didn’t had an “attractive” because you never saw him in the lobby.

A nice video to watch before Yorick get a mini-rework anytime soon.