Yone vs Varus Counter Pick

Varus in the top lane offers a ranged duel with no way out. His Piercing Arrow reaches 575 units, over three times Yone’s 175, and it grows in range and damage the longer he holds it, so the opening minutes go to whichever player handles that charge time better. His other tools don’t create room for him: Hail of Arrows corrupts an area and slows, and Chain of Corruption roots, but once the gap has closed, neither one buys him distance. Across 272 games on patch 16.13.1, Yone wins 57.7% of the time, and the matchup is labelled Easy.

The item choices are unusually straightforward. Both champions deal physical damage, so armor looks like the default buy, but Blighted Quiver adds magic damage to basic attacks and detonates Blight alongside every other ability, while Way of the Hunter makes every second Yone attack deal magic damage. One resistance can’t cover both threats. Yone is ahead on defence throughout: he has 620 health and 33 armor at level 1 versus Varus’s 600 and 24, then 2,405 and 111.2 at level 18 against 2,385 and 92. His move speed of 345 compared with 330 helps him keep the range Varus needs to stay out of. The difficulty scores, 8 for Yone and 2 for Varus, line up with the outcome: the more demanding champion is also the stronger one, and a badly timed Soul Unbound is the usual reason he loses his lead.