How to win lane as Karma against Yasuo · 54.24% win rate over 59 Emerald+ games · Updated 2026-07-27
| Stage | Favoured | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Karma | Mantra is up at level 1, so RQ Soulflare is a huge first-blood-threat poke the moment he steps to last-hit, and his melee Steel Tempest range can't answer it. |
| Level 2 | Karma | Your Q chips him while he has no minion to E-dash onto and no Wind Wall uptime to block every cast, and Gathering Fire refunds Mantra as you trade. |
| Level 3 | Karma | Layered Q into RQ Soulflare out-trades his early autos, and bait-then-real-Q beats a single Wind Wall charge while your W root ignores the wall entirely. |
| Levels 4-5 | Karma | Your bullying peak — repeated Q and RQ Soulflare push him off the wave and let you tax plates behind Inspire's speed. |
| Level 6 | Even / skill | Even — his R takeover off a Q3 knockup and E-dash gap-close arrive just as your Mantra is only the re-empowerment you already had, so the all-in offsets your poke. |
| First item | Karma | Your first AP or haste item sharpens RQ burst and shield value while he's still pre-crit, so you reclaim the bully window. |
| Two+ items | Yasuo | He out-scales hard: two crit items plus Wind Wall on cooldown let him eat a Q and all-in your thin frame, so let your team deal with him. |
Yasuo is melee and immobile until he has a minion or you to E-dash onto, so your level 1 is brutal for him — open with RQ Soulflare the second he walks up to last-hit, and the delayed Soulflare zone plus slow chips him for free. The wall to fear is his W, Wind Wall: it eats your Q and RQ Soulflare projectiles, so never fire real poke into a raised wall. Throw a cheap Q to bait it, then land the actual Q or RQ in the window after it expires. Note your W tether is a target-lock, not a projectile — Wind Wall does NOT block it, so you can still root him through the wall.
The full Karma vs Yasuo report continues with the mid-game plan, the late-game and teamfight plan, every power spike to play around, and the win conditions for both sides — plus cooldown tracking and the live enemy-jungle tracker inside the app.
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Playing the other side? Yasuo vs Karma guide →
All Karma top lane matchups →
Also played in: Mid Lane