Yamato vs Silver
Yamato's team wins 50.2% Silver's team wins 49.8%, across 42,777 games
Written for the Yamato player. Playing Silver? See Silver vs Yamato →
Yamato has the edge
Yamato usually wins 47.2% of games. Against Silver that is 3.0% higher, over 42,777 games.
- Whole match 50.2% +3.0% vs usual 42,777 games
- Sharing a lane 50.4% +3.2% vs usual 13,940 games
- Oracle and above 48.7% −1.0% vs usual 970 games
"Sharing a lane" counts only games where both were assigned the same lane — the laning matchup itself. "Oracle and above" counts only matches whose average rank was Oracle and above, against Yamato's usual win rate at that rank.
The fight at a glance
If you're Yamato
Has the edge
Entangling Bola Silver throws a bola that deals spirit damage, slows the target, and prevents them from using movement abilities, stamina or jumping for the duration. Crowd Control Slow plus a complete lockout on movement abilities, stamina use and jumping… Damage 40 spirit damage; -45% move speed for 1.5s at base with an additional -25%… Defensive Stopping a diver's dash mid-approach is her main defensive use 1 1 AP: additional -25% movement speed 2 2 AP: -8s cooldown (23s to 15s) 5 5 AP: bola ricochets to a second target Wait out Entangling Bola 23s cooldown
WhyIt is her setup for everything, it is her only answer to a diver, and at 23s base (15s at 2 AP) an empty bola is the window to commit a dash-based engage that she cannot stop.
- Watch out
- Entangling Bola into
Boot Kick Boot Kick Silver dashes forward and kicks the first enemy she hits, dealing melee damage while pushing herself backward off them and leaving a mark. Crowd Control none, but the kick displaces Silver herself away from the target Damage 45 mark damage and 25 bonus spirit damage on the marked shot; Mobility A forward dash that ends in a backward push off the target — net… 1 1 AP: -6s cooldown (21s to 15s) 2 2 AP: restores stamina on hero hits 5 5 AP: applies enemy damage reduction to the target into 
Slam Fire Slam Fire Silver instantly reloads and gains a large fire rate bonus for a limited number of shots, with bonus weapon damage scaled to the target's health. Damage 3 shots at 300% fire rate, dealing 4% of the target's current health as… 1 2 AP: damage boost and -10s cooldown (25s to 15s) 2 5 AP: additional health-scaling damage : the bola removes your dash, stamina and jump for ~1.5s, the kick marks you, and Slam Fire empties 3 boosted shots into a target that cannot strafe. - Your edge
- Yamato has more burst damage than Silver.
- Buy
Knockdown Knockdown +35s Cooldown +0.1s Cast Delay +2s Stun Delay +0.5s Stun Duration +75 Bonus Health +5% Ability Range +5% Radius Buy it against the long-range poke from Silver.
If you're Silver
Shadow Transformation Yamato transforms with an initial invincible window, refreshes her ability cooldowns, and for the duration casts them much faster while immune to negative status effects and heavily… Damage No direct damage; the power is in refreshed abilities cast 60% faster Mobility T2 adds +4 m/s move speed during the transformation, on top of her already… Defensive Initial invincibility during the 1.5s transformation channel, immunity to… 1 +7 weapon damage 2 +4 m/s move speed and -30s cooldown (160s base) 5 +3s duration (5s base up to 8s) and +30% bullet resist and +30% spirit resist Wait out Shadow Transformation 160s cooldown
ThenForce it early with a fake commit, disengage, and then fight her in the 130-160 seconds it is down, when she has only her 730 health.
- Watch out
Flying Slash Throws a grappling hook at an enemy and pulls herself to them, landing a light melee hit and leaving them significantly slowed on arrival. Crowd Control -40% movement slow for 2.5s on the target Damage 66 melee damage Mobility Pulls her to the target from 23m base (T3 adds +8m, up to 31m) 1 -18s cooldown (36s base down to 18s) 2 gain +35 Spirit Power for 6s 5 alt-cast to grapple allies, +8m cast range, and +1 charge Flying Slash reaches 23-31m and lands with a -40% slow for 2.5s, which means once she picks you there is no walking away from 
Power Slash Power Slash Yamato channels for around a second and a half to build up a sword strike, then releases it as a ranged slash. Crowd Control T1 adds a 32% movement slow for 3s Damage 145 spirit at full charge (about 1.96x spirit scaling), with T3 adding +150… Mobility none — she is channelling 1 +32% movement slow for 3s 2 -4s cooldown (12s base) 5 +8m cast range, +150 damage, and increased Spirit Power scaling and 
Crimson Slash Crimson Slash A wide slash in front of her that damages enemies and reduces their rate of fire. Crowd Control none, but -30% fire rate for 4s is a heavy offensive debuff Damage 55 spirit (about 0.37x spirit scaling) Defensive Heals 55 (about 1.04x spirit scaling) on hero hit; 1 on hit, +30% melee damage for 4s 2 on hero hit, additional +6% max health heal 5 -10s cooldown and increased scaling .- Your edge
- Silver has more sustained damage than Yamato, so longer fights favour you.
- Buy
Divine Barrier Divine Barrier +55s Cooldown +0.2s Cast Delay +1.5 Out of Combat Regen +6s Buff Duration +600 Barrier +10% Ability Range +10% Radius Buy it against Yamato's Flying Slash.
The full plan for Yamato, phase by phase, is below. Silver's side in full →
What should I do right now?
Do
- Plan for Knockdown Knockdown +35s Cooldown +0.1s Cast Delay +2s Stun Delay +0.5s Stun Duration +75 Bonus Health +5% Ability Range +5% Radius — know which tier it sits in so you are not improvising at the shop.
- Know what Entangling Bola looks like. It is the cooldown this lane revolves around.
Avoid
- Walking to lane on the same path every wave against a hero with Silver's engage range.
Do
- Only 5.1 damage per bullet — her poke is chip, not pressure, and a healer on the other side erases it
- 7-round clip means her burst is entirely gated on Slam Fire's 25s cooldown
- Power Slash charged from behind cover pokes for 145 with a 32% slow at T1, from further away than her gun hits hard
Avoid
- 813 m/s bullet velocity with falloff only starting at 17m lets her win the early poke war against any close-range laner
- Slam Fire's bonus damage against troopers and Haunts Haunts Lanes and Districts across the map Haunts replace the old neutral camps. They are not a reskin: each type behaves differently, and the health bar now shows a camp's soul value and how hard it is, so you can decide whether a camp is worth your time before you start shooting. Three eye colours mark the tier — teal for tier I, yellow for tier II, red for tier III. Souls 4168181 souls tier I / II / III a creep +0.44 / +0.73 / +1.95 a minute makes last-hitting and denying comfortable, and the 0.30s reload means almost no downtime
Do
- Their first real spike is ult unlock — respect it from that point, not before.
- Your spike is Flying Slash T1 (-18s cooldown): 18s gap-close turns her from an occasional ganker into a constant roaming threat
Avoid
- Taking an even fight against Silver on their spike timing when you could take the same fight ten minutes later on yours.
Do
- Watch for
Lycan Curse Lycan Curse Damaging enemies passively fills a bloodlust meter, filling faster at low health. Crowd Control No CC on the cast itself. Damage Sources disagree on the exact bonuses. Mobility Bonus move speed while transformed, plus Mauling Leap replacing Boot Kick as… 1 Upgrade tiers scale the transformation's bonuses (health, fire rate, move speed and… . Track the bloodlust meter, not the transformation animation — by the time she is a wolf it is too late. She builds it faster at low health, so hurting her without killing her accelerates it - Watch the bloodlust meter and disengage before it fills. Damaging her without killing her builds it faster, so a half-committed trade hands her the transformation
Avoid
- Spending your own escape before Entangling Bola is on cooldown.
Silver’s abilities
- Lycan Curse Ultimate
The cooldown that decides the fight. The transformed Tail Whack applies a 2.5s Disarm and a -30% movement slow in an area around her.
- Track the bloodlust meter, not the transformation animation — by the time she is a wolf it is too late. She builds it faster at low health, so hurting her without killing her accelerates it
- Disengage when she transforms rather than trading: the transformed kit is melee-range, so the counter to a wolf is distance, and the form has a limited duration
- Buy healing reduction before she transforms; 40% Lifesteal on Go For The Throat and 30%-missing-health on the transformation are the whole reason she survives the melee window
- Entangling Bola Ability 3
A second source of hard control: slow plus a complete lockout on movement abilities, stamina use and jumping for ~1.5s.
- The debuff is short at base (~1.5s) — the correct response is to hold your dash and stamina rather than burning them into the lockout and getting nothing
- It is a thrown projectile: strafe it, or put a trooper wave between you (it can no longer be consumed by troopers since the patch, but geometry still blocks it)
- Air-mobility heroes must not be mid-flight when it lands; the patch made it interrupt flying abilities and add gravity, so commit airborne movement only after it is on cooldown
- Boot Kick Ability 2
Her mobility, her disengage and her damage amplifier in one button. The self-knockback means she engages and retreats with a single cast, which is how a rifle hero survives being approached.
- The mark lasts only 3 seconds — break line of sight immediately after being kicked and the follow-up shot never lands
- Since the patch it only hits heroes and objectives, so standing behind a trooper wave no longer eats the kick but also means the dash passes straight through to you
- Deny the 2 AP stamina refund by not letting her connect on a hero: dodge the dash and it is a 21s (15s at 1 AP) cooldown with no refund
- 1 Entangling Bola
Entangling Bola first. It is her setup for everything, it is her only answer to a diver, and at 23s base (15s at 2 AP) an empty bola is the window to commit a dash-based engage that she cannot stop
- 2 Boot Kick
Then Boot Kick. It is both her mark and her escape; a Silver who has kicked cannot disengage from your frontliner for 21s (15s at 1 AP), and dodging it denies the 2 AP stamina refund
- 3 Slam Fire
Slam Fire is worth draining in lane specifically: force her to use it on a wave and her burst is gone for 25 seconds
The matchup in detail
- The automatic transformation takes timing out of her hands and can strand her in melee form at range or at the wrong moment Strong evidence
- Base form has zero healing and only one escape on a 21s cooldown Strong evidence
- Slam Fire's accuracy penalty forces her closer than her falloff band wants Strong evidence
- Neither of you deletes the other, so this matchup is decided by multipliers rather than damage. Resists stack multiplicatively, which means your fourth resist item buys much less percentage than your first; shred is subtracted from the total afterward, which means it is worth more the tankier they get; and healing reduction stacks multiplicatively too, so a second anti-heal source on top of a first is worth far less than the first. The efficient build against Silver is one anti-heal, one shred, and damage after that. Strong evidence
- Entangling Bola into Boot Kick into Slam Fire: the bola removes your dash, stamina and jump for ~1.5s, the kick marks you, and Slam Fire empties 3 boosted shots into a target that cannot strafe Strong evidence
- Slam Fire deals 4% of your current health per shot, so being at full health does not make you safe from it — high-HP frontliners take the most from it, not the least Strong evidence
- Transformed Tail Whack disarms everyone around her for 2.5s; if your gun carry is inside that radius the fight is over before it starts Strong evidence
- Mauling Leap applies reduced Bullet Resist for ~6s, which amplifies her entire team's weapon damage onto whoever she lands on Strong evidence
- Post-patch the bola increases gravity and interrupts flying abilities, so air-mobility escapes are simply deleted mid-flight Strong evidence
- Go For The Throat at 40% Lifesteal means trading damage into a transformed Silver actively heals her Strong evidence
- Your mobility is a real advantage here, and Silver's slows exist to delete it. Note that Debuff Resist barely helps against short hard slows because it only trims duration — spacing and cover do more than an item will. Strong evidence
- Watch the bloodlust meter and disengage before it fills. Damaging her without killing her builds it faster, so a half-committed trade hands her the transformation Strong evidence
- Fight the wolf at range. The transformed kit is melee — Go For The Throat and Tail Whack both require adjacency, and Mauling Leap is a single committed gap-closer on a cooldown Strong evidence
- Buy healing reduction before the transformation window. 40% Lifesteal plus missing-health healing is the only sustain she has, and anti-heal removes it entirely Strong evidence
- Hold your dash and stamina through Entangling Bola's ~1.5s lockout rather than burning them into it, or cleanse it to restore movement immediately Strong evidence
- Break line of sight within 3 seconds of being Boot Kicked — the mark expires and the bonus Spirit Damage never lands Strong evidence
- Stay past ~25m during Slam Fire; the accuracy penalty means the boosted shots scatter, and the ability is only 3 shots long regardless Strong evidence
- You have an immunity window and Silver has a burst combo, which makes this a timing matchup rather than a damage one. Their combo has a commit point; your window has to cover that point rather than open before it. Using it early is the same as not having it. Strategic
- Entangling Bola on cooldown (23s base) — she has no way to stop a dash-in and her only escape is a single 21s Boot Kick Strong evidence
- Immediately after Boot Kick connects and pushes her backward: the dash is spent, and she is committed to whichever direction the recoil put her Strong evidence
- After the third Slam Fire shot — the boosted window ends on shot count, not on a timer, so count the shots rather than waiting out a duration Strong evidence
- The moment the transformation ends: she reverts to a 7-round rifle with no sustain, no Lifesteal and whatever cooldowns the wolf form did not restore Strong evidence
- Transformed but with Mauling Leap spent — a melee wolf with no gap-closer is a free kite, especially given the 17-42m falloff on the form she just left Strong evidence
- Early lane before the 1 AP cooldown cuts, when Boot Kick (21s) and Entangling Bola (23s) are both at base and she cannot kick off troopers since the 09-16-2026 patch Strong evidence
- Parry is your best tool against Silver's arrival and it is now a commitment rather than a hedge. Since 09-16-2026, parrying during a dash cancels the dash and its momentum, so you cannot both reposition and hold F. The cooldown maths makes the decision for you: a successful parry costs 0.5 seconds and stuns them for 3 with no Debuff Resist reduction possible, while a whiff costs 4.5 seconds — against a hero who arrives on a cooldown, that whiff is the entire window they needed. Documented
- Confirming and denying a soul orb is a hit-check, not a damage-check — one bullet or one pellet takes it regardless of how much damage it does. That is good news for you in the abstract and bad news against Silver specifically, because their bullets fly more than twice as fast as yours. On the contested floating orb you have to pre-fire: start the shot before the trooper dies and lead the orb's spawn point, because if you both react at the same instant their bullet arrives first. Strong evidence
- You have to close distance to do anything and Silver exists to stop that, so the lane is about approach geometry. Move between cover on their reload or their cooldown rather than in a straight line, and treat every open crossing as something you only do with a purpose. Trading chip damage at their range is a losing exchange you never have to accept. Strong evidence
- Play this lane looser than the guides say. The 09-16-2026 patch cut nearly all movement slows by about 20% and ground-dash slows by about 10%, so the distance Silver takes off you per application is meaningfully smaller than it was. With mobility as your main advantage, that shifts the break-even point on walking up: exchanges you used to refuse because one slow meant death are now survivable. Test it early rather than assuming the old spacing. Documented
- 813 m/s bullet velocity with falloff only starting at 17m lets her win the early poke war against any close-range laner Strong evidence
- Slam Fire's bonus damage against troopers and Haunts Haunts Lanes and Districts across the map Haunts replace the old neutral camps. They are not a reskin: each type behaves differently, and the health bar now shows a camp's soul value and how hard it is, so you can decide whether a camp is worth your time before you start shooting. Three eye colours mark the tier — teal for tier I, yellow for tier II, red for tier III. Souls 4168181 souls tier I / II / III a creep +0.44 / +0.73 / +1.95 a minute makes last-hitting and denying comfortable, and the 0.30s reload means almost no downtime Strong evidence
- Only 5.1 damage per bullet — her poke is chip, not pressure, and a healer on the other side erases it Strong evidence
- 7-round clip means her burst is entirely gated on Slam Fire's 25s cooldown Strong evidence
- Power Slash charged from behind cover pokes for 145 with a 32% slow at T1, from further away than her gun hits hard Strong evidence
- Lycan Curse unlock — Adds a second kit with sustain, a leap and a 2.5s AoE Disarm, and the bloodlust passive starts building from the first damage she deals Strong evidence
- 1 AP into Boot Kick — -6s cooldown (21s to 15s) makes her escape-and-mark loop available nearly every skirmish Strong evidence
- 2 AP into Entangling Bola — -8s cooldown (23s to 15s) turns the movement lockout from a situational catch into a reliable opener Strong evidence
- Late 35min+ with Lifesteal items — Transformed Go For The Throat at 40% Lifesteal plus item Lifesteal makes the wolf window genuinely hard to burn down Strong evidence
- Flying Slash T1 (-18s cooldown) — 18s gap-close turns her from an occasional ganker into a constant roaming threat Strong evidence
- Shadow Transformation unlock — Gives her an ability refresh, status immunity and an invincible window, which is her first true all-in Strong evidence
- You deal Spirit Damage, so
Healbane Healbane +8s Duration +7 Spirit Power -35% Incoming Healing is the cheaper and more reliable anti-heal against Silver — it lands off your abilities at T2 rather than asking you to sustain gunfire you are not built for. Strong evidence - Knockdown (spirit T3) — Buy whenever an enemy fights from the sky — it answers flying and airborne heroes and channelled aerial ultimates. Relevant here because of Silver. Documented
-
Phantom Strike Phantom Strike +35s Cooldown +0.35s Cast Delay +8 Spirit Power +15% Weapon Damage +40% Move Speed +3s Slow Duration (vitality T4) — Buy to catch flying or long-range heroes who otherwise never enter your range, and to Disarm a gun carry mid-burst. Relevant here because of Silver. Documented -
High-Velocity Rounds High-Velocity Rounds +45% Bullet Velocity +8% Weapon Damage (weapon T1) — Buy on heroes with slow bullets (under 275 m/s) fighting mobile or long-range opponents, where the extra Bullet Velocity cuts how far ahead each shot has to be led. Relevant here because of Silver. Strong evidence
- The usual error against Silver is treating Lycan Curse as something to react to rather than something to pre-empt. By the time it is on you, the decision has already been made. Strategic
Next
Yamato’s other hard matchups
All of Silver
Who beats Silver, the items that shut Silver down, and every ability.
Facing more than Silver?
Add the other five enemies: who to focus first and what to buy against the whole team.
Sources and method for this page
Everything on this page is generated for Deadlock patch 10-30-2026 from Silver's current kit, measured match results and a mechanics rule base. Each line carries its own confidence label.
Data-supported Measured: you win 50.2% of these, which is 3.0% above your overall win rate (42,777 matches). The kit-based model reads this as moderate instead — treat the measured number as primary and the gap as a sign this matchup is more about execution than kit.
Silver's kit and counterplay were compiled from 7 sources, cross-checked for patch 10-30-2026. Threat ratings compare this pairing against Yamato's own baseline win rate rather than a flat 50%, because ranking by raw win rate produces the wrong answer for heroes whose overall win rate is not 50%.