Cover-Credits:
The League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) 2023 is right around the corner and Riot Games is taking the competition to London, United Kingdom this time. Thirteen teams in total will participate in the tournament which is being hosted at the Copper Box Arena in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Additionally, this competition will introduce Riot Games’ newest format for MSI with a two-stage format.
Ahead of MSI 2023, Riot Games released a statement talking about the status of two support champions, putting minds at ease. The biggest question for the last few days has been whether or not Milio and Yuumi would be available at the tournament. On 19th April, Riot Games released a short update regarding champion restrictions, revealing that Milio and Yuumi will not be enabled during the course of the competition.
Notably, MSI 2023 will be played on LoL Patch 13.8.
Support Champions Yuumi and Milio Disabled at MSI 2023
Balancing Yuumi has always been a daunting task for the developer and at the end of 2022, Riot Games announced that it would be completely reworking League of Legends’ most hated champion, Yuumi. The cat champion was released in 2019 and the developers hold Yuumi in a special place since she allowed new players to learn the game quickly and experience League of Legends swiftly. However, her never-ending heals, shields, and scaling became a huge menace and a problem to balance. As a result, the champion was reworked through a mid-scope update and introduced again in LoL Patch 13.5.
In its statement, Riot Games said, “Yuumi's mid-scope isn't quite ready for pro play yet, so rather than risk having an untuned and disruptive champion, she will be disabled.”
Meanwhile, Milio is the latest champion who joined the ever-expanding roster of League of Legends. The champion was released only a couple of patches earlier in LoL Patch 13.6. Talking about Milio, Riot said, “Milio has yet to be enabled competitively, so he will not be playable during MSI.”
Notably, in the Spring Split across different regions of League of Legends esports, Milio has remained disabled and the players and teams do not have experience playing the champion in tournaments.
As a result, both the champions will be enabled in pro play likely after the conclusion of MSI 2023.
The MSI 2023 will set the tone for the rest of the year and shall give the audience a glimpse of what can be expected in the World Championship later in the year. The tournament kicks off on 2nd May with the grand final scheduled to take place on 21st May.
