Yorick Top Build & Guide — Patch 26.18

Overview

Yorick is a juggernaut (a slow, immobile melee champion that hits hard and tanks damage in extended fights) built around a permanent swarm of ghouls called Mist Walkers. His passive Shepherd of Souls leaves graves when enemies die near him, and Q (Last Rites) is the main tool to dig graves on champions. Once a few are on the floor, Yorick raises them into Mist Walkers — small AI minions that swing on his target and let him win any straight 1v1.

His game plan is to stack graves, cage the enemy with W (Dark Procession), mark them with E (Mourning Mist), and let the ghoul pack do the killing. From level 6, R (Eulogy of the Isles) spawns the Maiden of the Mist, a strong AI minion that pushes a side lane on her own and amplifies Yorick's autos against her target. The result: a champion that is mediocre at 5v5 teamfights but devastating at splitpush (pushing a side lane alone to force the enemy to send 1-2 defenders). The Maiden is a second top laner, and Yorick is the only champion who naturally plays 1v2.

Recommended Build

Starting items: Doran's Shield + Health Potion. The HP-regen passive softens enemy poke (low-cost ranged chip damage) until your level 3 cage combo is online.

Core items (in order):

1. Trinity Force — first-item spike (the moment your strength jumps the most). The Spellblade passive (a free empowered auto every few seconds after casting an ability) lines up perfectly with Q: every Last Rites auto triggers (procs) Spellblade. Adds AD (Attack Damage, the stat behind physical damage), HP, ability haste (lowers cooldowns) and Attack Speed.
2. Plated Steelcaps — default boots vs teams that hurt you with basic attacks. Cuts auto damage in extended trades.
3. Hullbreaker: the splitpush item, but read what it does now. 40 attack damage, 500 health, 4% move speed. Skipper charges on your attacks and the fifth one lands a burst that is much larger against structures, so a side wave plus a Maiden takes a turret in one push cycle. Boarding Party hands armour and magic resist to your nearby siege and super minions, not to you: the solo resistances were removed in patch 14.1, so Hullbreaker does not make you tankier in a 1v2. It makes the lane you left behind harder to clear.
4. Sterak's Gage — HP plus a lifeline shield: when your HP drops below ~30%, an automatic shield triggers. Exactly the window the ghouls need to finish the kill.
5. Spirit Visage — MR (Magic Resistance) plus a healing-amp passive that boosts Last Rites' small heal, the Doran's Shield regen, and any team shielding. Biggest survival multiplier in the build.

Situational items:

• Mercury's Treads — swap from Plated Steelcaps with 2+ AP threats or chained CC (crowd control: stuns, roots, knockbacks). Tenacity (shortens CC duration on you) is critical because you have no dash.
• Stridebreaker: into kiters who walk away from auto range (Vayne, Quinn, Gnar). The active is a 450-radius burst that slows by 35% for 3 seconds; it stopped being a dash in patch 11.13, so it does not close the gap for you, it stops them from opening it. Replaces Trinity Force as first item.
• Black Cleaver — into stacked-armor frontlines (Malphite, Rammus, Shen). Every Q and every ghoul auto shaves armor stacks for the team.
• Maw of Malmortius — vs AP-heavy comps with burst (Vladimir, LeBlanc). Magic shield triggers automatically when low HP — exactly when ghouls and Maiden need extra seconds.
• Dead Man's Plate — to splitpush faster and stick on slippery targets (Akali, Yasuo). Stacked move-speed closes the gap the kit lacks.

Boots: Plated Steelcaps by default. Switch to Mercury's Treads with 2+ AP threats or chained CC.

Skill order: Max Q first (waveclear, grave generation, lowest CD, biggest scaling). Max E second (shorter cooldown, stronger slow). W maxes last — damage is zero, wall HP scales poorly. R at 6, 11, 16.

Runes: Primary Precision with keystone (the main rune of the tree) Conqueror: 2 stacks per damaging hit, each worth 1.8 to 4 Adaptive Force, up to 12 stacks that refresh on a 5-second timer; at full stacks you also heal for 8% of the damage you deal. Pair with Triumph (heal + gold on takedown), Legend: Alacrity (Attack Speed stacks on takedowns, epic and large monsters, and minion kills), and Last Stand (extra damage below 60% HP). Secondary Resolve with Bone Plating (damage reduction on the next 3 hits) plus Overgrowth (HP scaling from minion deaths). Stat shards: Adaptive Force + Adaptive Force + Health Scaling.

Key matchups

• Darius: Favorable. His Apprehend (E) pulls one target — yours. The ghoul pack ignores it and keeps swinging. Save W for the moment he steps up to land Decimate (Q): trap him on three graves and the ghoul amp shreds him before Hemorrhage reaches 5 stacks.
• Garen: Skill matchup (the better player wins, regardless of pick). His Judgment (E) AOE clears your Mist Walkers fast — attack him through them, don't bunch them in the spin. Bait his Decisive Strike (Q) silence on a fake engage, then commit the real E + W cage.
• Fiora: Hard melee. Riposte (W) eats the empowered Last Rites Q auto and answers with a 25% slow and cripple for 2 seconds; it would only stun you if it caught an immobilising effect, and Yorick has none. You still lose the Q charge, which is enough reason to bait it. Bait the parry with an animation cancel (start the Q auto, strafe sideways) before the real swing. Once Riposte is on cooldown, cage with W.
• Teemo / Quinn: Very rough ranged. They sit outside auto range, blind your autos (Last Rites does nothing), and chip your HP for free. Freeze the wave near your tower to deny them farm (gold and XP from minions) and call your jungler — Yorick cannot win this 1v1 alone. Build Stridebreaker first if behind.
• Camille: Hardest melee matchup. Her Hookshot (E) leaps over Dark Procession, and her The Hextech Ultimatum (R) locks you in a 1v1 zone the Maiden cannot follow. Save E for the moment after Hookshot: marked while committed inside your ghouls, her R cannot save her. Buy Plated Steelcaps early: most of her damage is physical, and the only true damage in the kit is the second cast of Precision Protocol (Q), which converts 40% to 100% of that one attack depending on her level. Steelcaps cut everything else.

Power spikes & win conditions

• Level 3: With Q + W + E unlocked, Yorick has his full lane combo. Mourning Mist marks, Dark Procession traps, Last Rites finishes. The lane is yours unless the enemy is ranged.
• Level 6: First R (Eulogy of the Isles) unlocks. Maiden plus the starting ghouls mean you walk into every fight with four bodies against one. A 1v1 with R up is a kill against any immobile bruiser.
• Trinity Force completion (~ minute 13-15): Damage and stickiness (ability to stay glued on a target trying to run away) jump the most. Force side-lane 1v1s and start the splitpush loop (push a side lane alone to draw enemies off objectives).
• Hullbreaker completion + R online (~ minute 18-22): Peak splitpush window. Yorick + Maiden + ghouls tank turret shots, win any 1v1, and survive a 1v2 dive long enough for the team to start a 4v3 around dragon or Baron. Do not switch into a 5v5 grouping playstyle.

Common mistakes

• Pressing R for waveclear. Eulogy of the Isles has a 100-160 second cooldown. Using it on a wave wastes the Maiden push and leaves zero splitpush tools when the enemy rotates top. Save R for a 1v1 commit or to send the Maiden down a side lane.
• Caging on the wrong side. Dark Procession is a ring wall: if you cast it on top of the enemy, you cage them away from your ghouls. Always cast W behind the enemy so they are stuck between you and the wall.
• Walking away from your graves. Graves do not expire on a timer: they sit where they were dug until you leave the area or die, and you can only hold 4 at once, with the furthest one replaced when you dig a fifth. So the mistake is not waiting too long, it is roaming or backing off the pile you spent the whole wave building. Fight on top of your graves, not next to them.
• Splitpushing without vision. No wards (vision items placed on the map) on a side lane means you get collapsed by 2-3 enemies and die. Always ward the jungle entrance — Control Wards (block enemy wards too) on the river brush from minute 10.
• Stacking pure tank items. Yorick scales with AD — every Q auto and ghoul swing is a percentage of his AD. Going Sunfire + Warmog's flat out kills your damage; you turn into a slow walking minion. Stick to the AD-bruiser core.

Advanced tip

Practice the W cage angle. Dark Procession is a ring of 5 destructible walls — orientation matters. Cast the ring between the target and their escape route (their tower or the river), so the wall is what they have to break through. The enemy must either break a wall (2 attacks at rank 1, up to 4 at rank 5, while ghouls swing on them) or take the long way around — both buy Yorick the seconds his slow autos need to land a full Last Rites rotation. The highest-impact use is the level 3 all-in: mark with E, walk forward 1 step to bait their dodge, then cast W behind them in the opposite direction so they end up boxed in on top of your existing graves. Drill it in practice tool until the rhythm is automatic.