The 2023 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational is on the way, and developer Riot Games has spent the last few patches specifically moulding the meta for the tournament. However, two of the MOBA game’s 163 unique champions won’t be making their way to London in May.
According to a statement from the LoL Esports Twitter page, both Milio and Yuumi will be disabled for League of Legends MSI 2023. The reasoning for Milio’s exclusion is standard fare for new champions – he simply hasn’t been enabled competitively yet.
For Yuumi, things are a little more complicated. Back in March’s patch 13.5, Yuumi received a midscope update which dramatically changed the way her kit works. However, Riot feels that the new Yuumi (Nuumi?) isn’t quite ready for her LAN debut. “Rather than risk having an untuned and disruptive champion,” Riot says, “she will be disabled.”
Yuumi may not have seen a lot of play back at LoL Worlds 2022, but that was for good reason – she was permanently banned. As per Games of Legends, Yuumi was the most-banned champion at Worlds, having been kicked from the draft a whopping 68 times. And the eight times she did squeak through, she won, putting her up with Yone as the only champs to record a 100% win rate with five or more games played.
For sure, there’ll be many celebrating Yuumi’s demise. But there’ll also be those upset by the loss of their favourite feline. Personally, we’re dreaming of the day we get to see Ryu ‘Keria’ Min-seok’s Yuumi attached to Mun ‘Oner’ Hyeon-jun’s Talon again.