Ok, curious about the community's opinions on this one. Im lvl 20, so ive gotten to lvl 3 runes. I have a pretty decent idea of what i'm doing, for the most part. I do tend to be too aggressive at times, but as Yi, its hard not to. (see section 13. Yi Main Syndrome , on this guide:http://leaguecraft.com/strategies/gu...aster-yi.xhtml) So, I mainly lane, while running through jungles here and there to get buffs/extra cash/let my lane partner get solo xp/and to gank. Obviously, everyone says get the razors, but ive seen some people that don't. Now, obviously for serious jungling/they have a jungler, razers->wriggles is pretty sweet. And even when not jungling, especially if they dont have a super tank, i dont bother with blood razor, and will get wriggles early(ish) for the extra stats and the ward (i mainly play pubs and who the hell wards?). But A lot of the time, by mid-late game, I usually wish I had something else. I generally run with some combo of boots(usually mercs), stark's (always), youmuus, IE, zeal/PD(or trinity instead if i get a real lucky run), black cleaver, sometimes a def item (big fan of force of nature for crazy magic res, crazy hp regen, and MS is my true love :-) ) Any ideas what would/will be helpful instead of razors for a lane build, and how to start (i normally start witht he damage and a potion)

Thanks for your time!! :-)

I am not even at your level yet, but like you I play a lot of solo queue. I go wriggles - mercs - tri - bv - black cleaver - ie in most games. I read a lot and tried a lot of different things and this seems to work best for me (note I am not taking credit for this build). I tend to go side lane and then move into jungle anywhere from lvl 5-7. The free ward is great as I can push top or bot with relative safety (people at my lvl are very obvious with ganks when you have ward). Bottom line I get razor on yi every game and 9/10 times finish it to wriggles.

before I got to level 30 alot of people would tell me that razor is a MUST on jungle Yi. But I just wanted nothing to do with it.

For 1000 gold you get some attack damage, and some armor, with a passive gicing you a chance to deal 500 dmg to minions.

Attack damage obviously add's damage to each hit you make, but it does not affect your passive. AS help's you proc your passive more often and if done properly, you can save your double strike's for attacking enemy champs.
Armor only effect's you while your taking hit's. Something you can't control, and something you tend to avoid anyway. In term's of jungling you are facing a set ammount of units at each camp anyway. Why stay there longer taking more hit's, when you can build to take them out faster?
And as I've pointed out, the passive is only effective against minions. Which will randomly take out jungle creep's faster, but this is really only usefull against golem, dragon, and lizard. So who cares?

The advantage of jungling is to create a solo lane for your team to take advantage of. Putting a hero in a 1v2 situation will actually level them faster than his 2 opponent's, and this player will be as high a level as mid lane. To stay competitive you have to be able to level as fast as the player's that are 2v2, but if you could actually maintain a high a level as mid lane, you now have 3 player's on your team with XP advantage.

Alot of jungler's will start out with cloth armor and 5 pots, I start out with dagger and 1 pot. This alone will give me enough to get through 2-3 camps, and JUST under level 3. After hitting these few camps you will have to head back to base to heal. Which is something that the cloth/pot combo wouldn't have to do, but you can now purchase as many potions as you need. All you actually need at this point is 3, so grab those.
Now that you are just about to hit level 3, you can approach red or blue buff and alpha on a smaller minion. Kill the smaller minions first as this will give you level 3 and let you get level 2 Wuju, which gives you additional attack damage that is benefitting from your AS and double strikes. Smite the Buff, and use wuju when you know you will finish off the unit while wuju is still active. Remember that wuju's passive is lost when it is on cooldown.
After you have this buff you can recall and can afford zerker's greave's.

I MUCH prefer this start because with zerker's greaves you now have movespeed and attack speed which benefit your jungle game more than AD and armor. This movespeed will get you between each creep camp faster, allowing you to level faster than madred's would. The AS will proc your double strike more often, and you can rely on your AD to come from wuju's passive, only activating it when Alpha does not deal alot of damage.

If you consider Madred's vs zerker greaves when it comes to ganking, greave's is a better choice.
All you need is redbuff, and your good to go. You can rush towards your target and use exhaust as soon as you can. This will allow you to close the gap and land the redbuff on them while you hack away with active wuju landing those double strike's. If they flash, or ghost, or create a gap in anyway you can alpha on them dealing that mgc damage and keeping redbuff on them.
Madred's may offer some damage that zerker's doesn't, but it does not help you close that gap. As soon as you appear they will run back and you wont even get your hit's in.

Now that you have zerker's it only cost's you 450 for vamp scepter, and you will now no longer take any damage from jungle creep's for the rest of the game. And you are now free to build anything you want. Total cost < 1400 gold.
If you go for madred's first, not only do you lack the bonuses that greave's offer, but it will cost you a total of 1350 just to have madreds and first tier boot's, without any lifesteal. Which as Yi, your only heal in jungle would be to use meditate which will not only destroy your small mana pool, but not heal you enough.

Madreds isn't a great item. Wriggles is a much better alternative.
Youmous + SOTD are boss on Master Yi

Masterie's are 21/0/9

summoner skills are smite and exhaust. In that order.
While you are jungling, you are moe relaxed, and it's no problem hitting D to activate smite. In a fight situation I find it easier to use F for exhaust, and R is used just once, usually before exhaust so your index finger can just slide down comfortably without messing up hand position.

Masterie's improve exhaust, smite, critcal chance, critical damage, attack speed, any points that you "have" to put in to get to 21 should be put into armor pierce, and cooldown reduction.
CDR is not very important on Master Yi.
The 9 in utility should go to improved hp and mana regen's to support early jungle..
a point into dead hands, 4 points in exp gain (which get's you to level 3 faster allowing you to grab buff's) and of course, help maintain XP with solo lane's.
your 9'th point will go into increased %15 of buff duration. Where blue buff is used to maintain jungle, and redbuff is used for gank's.

Rune's are very important on Yi.
Mark's I go a mixture of critical damage, Apen, AS. All three affect champion killing, AS and APen will affect early jungle.
Seal's are a mix or armor and HP. Giving you that slight bit of survive in early jungle.
Glyph's I have a couple flat CDR, and a couple scaling CDR. Beyond this I'm still experimenting.

I did say CDR is useless on Yi, but I'll explain.
As you level up a single skill, it's cooldown will decrease as you level it.
I do not get Meditate until I am level 13. By doing this I maximize my offensive output, by creating a higher boost sooner, rather than later.
As you roam between jungle camps, your alpha will ALWAYS CD before you reach next camp. And as for wuju, you can either wait a couple second's, or just initiate and it will CD and become active while you are fighting, doesn't make much difference.
By the time you hit level 18 Alpha will be on 9 second cooldown, med on roughly 25, and wuju on 30, highlander on 60.
By using alpha as an initiate to close a gap, you now have to wait a full 9 second's before you give yourself another leap to close a gap. If you rush in with alpha You lose all utility from this skill. By saving alpha for when you need it you will secure the kill, which since your will be on highlander anyway, your CD will reset. If you went full CDR glyph's, you would really only shave a second or two off alpha, which would still not make a difference.
This goes the same for meditate and wuju. With such a long cooldown, saving a few second's will not help you in battle as much as having some MR per level would.

Regarding youmous and SOTD, I would advise against this. Giving yourself all this AS is overkill as you will too easily Cap at 2.5, and the gold spent towards these item's is better spent getting IE sooner. With 5 crit dmg mark's you can land %260 damage per critical. So maximizing this with PD + IE give's you +%50 crit chance and added movespeed to keep that gap closed. Rushing in with highlander and redbuff allow's you to save Alpha to either leap, or dodge a skill. Notice that when you use Alpha, you actually dissappear from the minimap.

My 3 base item's on Yi are PD IE and Stark's. In lategame (after 5 items) Zerker greaves can be traded in for a second PD which will give you almost the same movement speed, but will now give you a slight bit more AS, and an additional %30 crit.
When you land a %260 critical %80 of the time with Apen from stark's, you can devastate a squishy before they have time to react. With such a high damage output you can rely on %20 vamp opposed to armor's and HP allowing you to stay offensive rather than defensive.
The stronger your offense is, the more pressure the enemy has to build defensive, thus ignoring their own offense.

You even said your Dagger start can't finish a route, that's bad.

Madred's Razor is an amazing item on Yi. Bloodrazor and Wriggles are both awesome on him.