To play Yasuo, you have to accept that Yasuo is more than a champion. Yasuo is a lifestyle. You buy keycaps that replace “QWER” with Yasuo’s ability symbols. You grow out your hair so you can rock a shitty man-bun/ponytail that sticks up in the back, and you carefully slide a few strands of your bangs out to hang loosely over you face like a windswept ronin. Your coworkers become concerned when you change all of your “one-on-one” meetings to “1v1” meetings. You spend more time in Yassuo’s stream than you do with your loved ones. Samurai Champloo and Inuyasha occupy your 2nd monitor, and you recreate scenes from Sword of the Stranger with your mom’s umbrella when the servers are down.

Disappointment in your teammate’s skills transcends to disappointment in your friends and family. Your best friend gets hit on by a cute guy or girl? You can’t relate because nothing hits you, not with your impeccable windwall timings. Coming back from college in the summer and your grandma says she misses you? You don’t miss anyone or anything, especially not your Q3 ‘nados. Your younger sibling spills a drink and makes a mess? Pathetic, hours of beyblade/airblade/keyblade reps in practice tool have resulted in mechanical perfection, both inside the game and out.

Sorry I blacked out there for a second. Oh how to play Yasuo. Right. There is no answer to this question. You shouldn’t even ask the question. You just do. You forego any shame, any sense of embarrassment, self-reflection, self-awareness, or empathy. Humans are a social species, yet deep within us is a desire for the asocial. We fantasize about “beyond civilization”—the end of the world, the zombie apocalypse, the empty road with nothing but a blade for company. In a society that demands our socialization, demands that we spend our time posting pictures, liking, retweeting, sharing, and subscribing, all to connect the webs of humanity… Yasuo’s blade is the lone edge to cut those webs. So at the end of a long day of dealing with friends, family, coworkers, snapstagram, and instachat, don’t ask, “How do you play Yasuo?”

Because deep down, we all have a bit of Yasuo inside us. You just have to embrace it and lock him in.

Oh and these guides can help too:

10 Tips for Yasuo

Yasuo Combo Guide