For most preteens, an adventure can be as simple as zooming around the neighborhood on your bike with the mandate to be home for dinner, being moody and broody at the local mall, or just checking to see if your duo is home for a little post-school grind. The stakes aren’t all that high.

But for Milio the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Accompanied by his adorable fire buddies (fuemigos), enormous backpack (furnasita), and natural magical gifts, Milio is setting off on the adventure of a lifetime to restore his family’s honor. And his journey might just change the course of Ixtal’s future.

Master of the Fire Axiom

At just 12 years old, Milio has impressive control over the fire axiom, possessing rare abilities for any citizen of Ixtal, much less someone his age. Where most Ixtali study for a lifetime to understand the Axiomata—an intricate, rigid, near-mathematical system of elemental magic—Milio has an inherent understanding of his powers, and that he must use them for good.

Fire as a power source typically calls to mind offensive spells that burn and scorch. But the soft glow of Milio’s healing flame is a far cry from the aggressive fireballs of champions like Brand or Annie.

Milio’s kit is all about using fire to heal and empower his allies, with help from the giant, bulbous fuemigo that’s cozied up in his backpack.

“The goal was to make an enchanter that felt like they fit in with the rest of the enchanter roster and didn't stick out like a sore thumb. But still someone who brought something new to the role so enchanter players would have a new and interesting gameplay experience,” explains game designer Myles “Riot Emizery” Salholm.

At first glance Milio is a classic enchanter. He’s smol, cute, and sweet. But he’s a HE. While players have plenty of enchanters to choose from in the game, they’re all ethereal ladies, or girlbosses, or universally beloved cats. Over the years we’ve tried to diversify our portfolio of champs to appeal to everyone. Plus we’ve long heard your requests for a new male enchanter. Even though Taric wields the supreme power of Targon with sparkle and finesse, it’s high time for another lad on the roster.

And there’s an obvious difference between our existing enchanters and Milio: he’s 12 years old. The game design team wanted to make sure Milio’s playful, youthful energy was clear in his kit. Beyond locking in spell names like Cozy Campfire and Ultra Mega Fire Kick, there’s a sense of fast-paced exuberance in his playstyle.

“One: he’s high energy. I wanted to try to make it feel like there's a lot of movement and a lot of excitement in his actions. But two is making him feel kind of annoying like a bratty younger brother to some degree. The way that he ends up interacting with you in lane is that he's not going to outright kill you, but he'll keep annoying you until you get so fed up that you try and kill him,” says Riot Emizery.

Like the classic enchanter he is, Milio is always looking for ways to help his teammates secure kills or get out of sticky situations. He increases ally damage with his passive, kicks fuemigos (don’t worry, they love it) at his enemies, and heals allies and extends their attack range with a campfire zone.

He also has a two-charge shield that both shields and increases move speed for allies or himself. And his ultimate is a wash of purifying flames, cleansing crowd control effects and healing all nearby allies. Amumu’s tears are falling a little bit harder these days.

“It's basically Cleanse the Summoner spell on steroids,” laughs Riot Emizery.

But interestingly enough, Milio didn’t always have a heal in his kit outside of his ultimate.

“Milio’s W originally gave attack speed and made him this hyper-aggressive enchanter, so your ally basically needed to go in every time that you pressed W. But based off of the storyline that we were giving him, his personality, and also what enchanter players prefer, I felt like there was a heal that was missing outside of his ultimate,” explains Riot Emizery.

“Because his ultimate is so powerful, it's also a long cooldown. So if you're only healing with your ultimate, you're rarely ever healing throughout the game. So we ended up putting heal into his campfire move, but I wrestled for a long time on whether to keep the heal, get rid of the attack speed, keep both, or do something else entirely. Ultimately we made a shot call that because he is using healing fire and protective flames, it makes sense for him to have a heal over time.”

And for any ADC mains out there reading this, fear not; There are ways to counter this formidable tween.

Milio’s range extension buffs, for instance, can seem a little scary, but countering an aggressive lane like Milio and Cait or Kog'Maw with a hook champ like Thresh or Pyke can be really effective. And just like a pesky Soraka, if Milio is hanging out in the back of a teamfight and the enemy team just won’t die, target him in the back and get rid of the enemy’s sustain.

Just don’t let this kid venture too far into the late game. “He scales really powerfully, kind of like Sona,” says Riot Emizery. “In the late game he's gonna do a lot of healing that will make his team really strong, so don't let him get to that point.”

Beyond the Walls of Ixaocan

Where most of Ixtal sees magic as intricate and precise, Milio’s innate gifts come from his unique view of the world. He’s earnest, heroic, and capital-g Good. Having grown up in a remote village far from the capital city of Ixaocan, his entire world is very different from that of someone like Qiyana, who sits at the top of Ixtal’s social hierarchy.

When creating Milio’s character and story, narrative writer Elyse “Riot apothecarie” Lemoine wanted to ensure that his warmth and ease with magic were pillars of his personality.

“He's very playful, very fun, and very intuitive, which is the opposite of the way Ixtal does magic. To them, elemental magic is science and it's approached in a very rigid and formulaic way. Milio has a little bit more flexibility because he tends to just figure things out on his own rather than sticking to a rigid formula. He just has no patience for learning,” Riot apothecarie laughs.

“Milio is like an unwitting genius. He's really smart. He's discovered a new axiom—a whole new magic ability that no one else has. He just has no idea that he's smart because he intuits stuff and then is like, ‘Oh that's easy.’”

Milio’s grandmother, Lupé, sees her grandson’s effortless brilliance as a gateway for him to become Yun Tal, masters of elemental magic and Ixtal’s ruling caste. Once Yun Tal herself but now exiled, Milio’s grandmother desperately hopes he will restore his family’s former honor and station. And Milio will do everything he can for his omele, because she knows best…right?

“Having Milio be this optimistic, fun-loving 12-year-old who sees the good in everything really positions him as someone who can break that cycle of generational trauma and help heal his family,” says Riot apothecarie.

To become Yun Tal, students of elemental magic must undergo a test before the Vidalion, a massive, magical loom that weaves robes for Ixtal’s highest caste. Brought in believing their magical abilities will be tested, those who face the Vidalion are shown a bitter truth that’s been hidden from the Ixtali people: Ixtal is not the only civilization that survived the Rune Wars and Runeterra beyond Ixtal’s borders is no unpopulated wasteland. How you react to this truth is the ultimate test.

If you pass, the Vidalion will weave a unique set of magic-infused robes that mark you as an elemental master.

The Vidalion
The Vidalion weaves shimmering robes in dark, rich colors for the Yun Tal.

For Milio, family is everything—he’d go to the ends of Runeterra to make his family proud.

So he’s now preparing to face the Vidalion. And if he succeeds, he’d unseat Qiyana as the youngest person ever to join the Yun Tal.

Until then, Milio spends his time writing letters home about his (slightly exaggerated) experiences and talking with his fuemigos, even though they can’t actually talk back. Although he is far from his small village, his heart is never far from his family.

Milio’s youth and heroism are pillars of his champion theme, as are his Ixtali origins, inspired by Latin American cultures. Though Ixtal draws inspiration from countries in Latin America, it was important to composer J.D. “Riot Zibarr0” Spears that the theme sounded unique to Runeterra.

“I knew I wanted to bring in some really unique and less common instruments from those regions. Anytime I'm doing something like that, I feel like I need to lean on people who are experts in those areas,” says Riot Zibarr0.

And experts he found. When it came time to record, the music team brought in legendary musicians to add their own flair and cultural twist to the track, including percussionist Alex Acuña and flautist Pedro Eustache (yes, you heard right, Flute Guy from the Game Awards).

“We knocked out all of the written material pretty quickly at the sessions. But ultimately, the musicians brought so much of their own performance… they brought so much character to the piece that did not exist before,” says Riot Zibarr0. “These are world-class musicians, and they became a part of Milio’s theme in a way that I could not have planned for. Aside from the core melodic material, a lot of what you hear on the track are things that they did in the moment.”

Though Milio’s musical theme begins with a soft, meandering melody, by the end it has built into a bold chorus of instruments bursting with power and fearlessness. Just like our sweet boy.

The Gentle Flame

The art team spent a lot of time figuring out how to differentiate Milio from League’s other fire-based champions. Since Milio is a healer and a helper, they wanted to make sure his spells looked warm and cozy instead of harsh and aggressive.

“We said ‘How do we convey a character that's not aggressive and has this kind of healing, soft flame?’” recalls concept artist Nancy “Sojyoo” Kim. “We decided to use a lot of round shapes and made sure that there weren’t any spikes or things like that coming out of him.”

Milio’s fuemigos are round and bouncy, with a soft glow. And his visual effects feel more like gentle, warming flames than angry, fiery bursts of energy.

Since Milio is one of League’s few child champions, his art development came with some interesting challenges. While we all might think we know what a 12 year old looks like, there’s a lot of hidden precision that goes into drawing age accurately.

“​​Honing in on Milio’s age proved to be a process in itself. Even if you change the slightest features, a character can look a lot older,” explains Sojyoo. “So trying to find the exact age we were going for was a little difficult. We could show somebody a portrait and they'd be like, ‘Oh, I think they're 13’ and another person might say they look 11 or 14. It’s dependent on their own experiences with children.”

On top of creating a literal child, the Champions team wanted to bring another dimension of representation into Milio’s character.

From the beginning of development, a major goal was to create a male enchanter that brought Latino representation to League. In champion development and worldbuilding, there’s a delicate balance to strike between relatable, authentic representation for players and creating something unique and fantastical for Runeterra.

For Milio, Riot Unidos (our Employee Resource Group for Latin-American Rioters) was brought in early to participate in playtests and give feedback on everything from his name to dance selection, to voiceover lines. On the art side of things, Sojyoo worked closely with Riot Unidos to gather feedback on each new version of Milio’s concept art. When she had a new piece ready, she’d share it to gather feedback and personal experiences to guide everything from his nose shape to the color of his clothing to how curly his hair texture should be.

For QA engineer Riot Pehrek, getting involved with Milio’s feedback process through Riot Unidos was a bit of a side project—until he made his way onto the champions team.

“They were asking for people from Riot Unidos to give feedback for a new champion who had no name at the time. So I decided to help out and I got very passionate and involved in the character,” Riot Pehrek says. “Eventually I applied to the Champions team and when I was interviewing, I told them ‘I would love to work on Milio. I'm already involved on the project and I would love to actually see him through.’”

Now, as Milio’s QA engineer, he’s been in charge of protecting the player experience for Milio throughout the development process, finding bugs and issues and finding the right people to work on them. And of course he and the rest of the team make sure Riot Unidos is involved in every step of the dev process.

“I really hope that there’s a good balance between players that enjoy playing a support character and players who enjoy playing a character for their representation,” says Riot Pehrek.

“I want there to be those players that when they play Milio they think ‘he sounds just like me when I'm talking to my grandma.’ Or when I'm going through this troublesome part of my life, his dialogue reflects how I'm trying to be brave in front of the strange new things that I'm gonna have to challenge and face.”

Milio, the gentle flame, is excited to make friends on the Rift right away! We knew going into his design that we wanted a back-to-basics male enchanter that fit comfortably into the larger enchanter roster and used fire in an unconventional way to protect his allies. Over time, that built into the kit we have today which focuses on buffing, protecting, healing, and inspiring allies with rapid casting.

Establishing Milio’s Niche

While we knew we wanted Milio to be an enchanter player’s enchanter, we also wanted his kit to be distinct and offer something new.

Game designer Blake “Squad5” Smith came up with two unique core gameplay hooks—namely the attack range extension buff on Milio’s W and cleansing allies with his ultimate ability. These created tons of buzz and excitement around the office for a few reasons. Let’s talk about those particular spells and then get into our thinking behind the rest of his kit.

Breath of Life

In creating Milio’s ultimate, we recognized that Mikael's Blessing is powerful, but it’s niche—enchanters don’t often buy it. For players that just want to chill and support friends, an active item might be one too many keystrokes. And when you compound the need to click your ally while they’re still controlled by an enemy, it starts to skew things towards players that feel comfortable facerolling their keyboards.

But what if you didn’t need to click anyone? Just press the button and your friends are instantly released. That was the dream, and wow, was it fun.

People were loving the ability to free their friends up to dominate their enemies. Nothing is more satisfying for a Milio player than making Amumu cry by instantly cleansing when he hits a 4-man ultimate.

But should Milio be able to deny Amumu his ultimate in every fight? That felt wrong. After all, mummies need moments, too. That’s why we decided that if Milio loses the ability to cast, say from a stun or silence, he shouldn’t get to break the rules and provide that cleanse. We also gave Breath of Life a long cooldown so there’s breathing room between fights and everyone feels like they get to play.

Cozy Campfire

Milio’s W - Cozy Campfire introduces bonus attack range to the enchanter roster. This unlocks allies to target enemies at unexpected and sometimes ridiculous ranges, making both Milio and his friend feel powerful. Rioters began theory crafting: Caitlyn Snipes? Kog'Maw Spittle? Jinx Rockets? Aphelios Calibrium to the moon?!

Early on, Cozy Campfire only gave attack speed and attack range. Caitlyn sure loved it but it wasn’t as satisfying for Milio’s mage buddies. So it felt natural to introduce healing to the mix, especially because the visuals on the spell always looked warm and encouraging.

By then, the spell was doing a lot, which sparked many tests and debates over what should stay. Eventually, to decouple him from ADCs a bit and make him a friend to all, we kept the healing and got rid of his attack speed buff.

Not only was it hot to have a HoT (heal over time) on Cozy Campfire, but enchanter items like Ardent Censer and Staff of Flowing Waters became clearly great purchases for Milio.

Fired Up!

Milio’s Passive - Fired Up! lets him buff allies across the board. Just like how Lulu or Nami's spells cast on allies grant unique boons, we knew Milio needed his own boons to give. Burns felt right given he’s a fire enchanter, and giving Milio a strong relationship with ADCs through their target-based attack damage scaling made him better friends with others and a bit less powerful as an independent damage dealer.

At first this passive was integrated directly into his targeted support spell, E - Warm Hugs, as the ability has two charges. But fire spreads; It sticks to everything it touches. It’s relentless! So we added it to Cozy Campfire… and then Breath of Life… and why stop there? We added it to his Q, Ultra Mega Fire Kick too so that if you blast through an ally they also get the buff.

A lot of effort went into making sure Fired Up! feels powerful without it becoming overpowered. Giving Milio so many options to apply his passive—and on so many people—meant we chose carefully how much damage it could deliver in team fights.

Dividing the damage into two parts, AD scaling burst damage and his own AP scaling burn damage, allowed us to reduce the group efficacy by removing burn stacking. It’s surely better on more people, but the damage falls off a little from burns being replaced instead of piled on.

Ultra Mega Fire Kick

We wanted to give Milio a fun spell (with a fun name) that had a kid’s energy imbued. His Q came to be as a way to include both a control spell that saves allies and a fun, bouncy spell that annoys enemies.

Milio’s flying fuemigos are an extension of himself. Knocking back enemies made great sense as a defensive caster but we had concerns early on that it might be too strong. Let’s just say Milio’s Q was called the ‘Ixtal Death Ball’ in development.

Fortunately for his opponents, we spent a lot of time figuring out how often Milio could cast Q and gave him some reasons to cast it in lane for aggression, leaving an opening for the opponent to run in after. This led to his shorter attack range and letting the knockback fly extra far back against minions.

And just like that, Milio had a fun way to poke enemies while also giving them an opening to charge in.

Warm Hugs

Milio’s E - Warm Hugs is a two-charge shield that temporarily increases an ally’s movement speed. We loved the rapid cast feeling and overall as a design team prefer using shields over heals when appropriate. Too much sustain can be really annoying to fight against and temporary health has more gameplay and timing involved.

Punishing The Punk

Milio does have his weaknesses. He can feel like one of the most slippery champions on the Rift—but that’s intentional. He’s easy to execute if you can get your hands on him, but good luck catching that kid without slows on your team.

Milio’s movement speed doesn’t come for free. His resists and health pool are intentionally low and if he’s casting to save himself, his team isn’t getting buffed. We found in internal testing that oftentimes a single champion can keep Milio off his team long enough to win a fight.

Milio’s spell and attack ranges are intentionally a bit shorter than we would normally give to an enchanter. Sure, he loves to sit in the back and dole out buffs to his friends while being ignored, but that feels a bit unfair. We made it so Milio has to step into the fray a little bit to buff his front line and risk getting caught.

Milio’s backline shenanigans can be frustrating, but don’t fret—there are some strong counters to his style of play.

Hook and Line that Stinker

Milio’s a mid- to late-game champion, so shutting down his lane early and snowballing is a great strategy to prevent him from coming online. Now, that’s easier said than done, and typical engage champions may struggle to get on top of him and his ally, while some poke champions are stalled out by his healing and shielding.

Bringing hook champions is a great solution for countering Milio’s laning phase. If he wants to poke with his ally using Cozy Campfire they’re both grabbable as they walk past the wave to harass. Milio gets popped quickly, so a single grab can easily shut him down.

Jungle ganks are also a massive contributor to preventing his strength from accumulating. Milio’s great at disengaging against a single enemy, but if more than one jumps on him or an ally there’s only so much he can do about it with his Ultra Mega Fire Kick.

Keep the pressure high and he’ll be stuck on the ground while his Nexus craters.

Easy to Learn, Hard to Master

A big goal in making an enchanter that feels like it fits in with their audience is to make sure they’re accessible. A lot of people like to duo with their skilled friends and just empower them and let them go wild.

Every spell on Milio’s kit is meant to have easy execution in some form or another:

• Q - Ultra Mega Fire Kick is very reliable at close ranges and can hit with auto-targeting using minions
• W - Cozy Campfire is a set it and forget it spell, even outside of combat, providing healing to friends in need. And if the wrong target was chosen it can be recast to follow a new friend
• E - Warm Hugs has two charges so even if he messes up the first one he’s got another fuemigo in the backpack ready to go
• R- Breath of Life heals, cleanses, and applies a tenacity buff, so as long as it’s used in combat he’s likely to get some successful result

Just by casting spells normally, Milio makes allies Fired Up! with his unique passive

We don’t expect anyone to pick up this champion and mess up so much they ruin their friends’ games to the point they don’t want to play together anymore. Milio’s here to build bridges, not burn them down.

Depth of the Furnacita

While that’s great, League of Legends is about skill expression and mastery. Once you’ve nailed the basics, we want depth of gameplay to keep you playing a champion. That’s why we applied a critical success model to Milio’s spells.

Each spell has a high ceiling of best use cases that can be daunting to decipher on paper. Making Fired Up! apply with Ultra Mega Fire Kick was a big part of supporting this model, giving him interesting ways to line up shots and hit goals on allies and enemies alike.

What’s better than just heals or attack range? Both! How about a bunch of teammates? How about you sweep that field through your whole team and give everyone your passive buff? Recasting Cozy Campfire to drag it through the team can be a powerful tool against elite monsters.

No matter what’s going on there’s a high chance Milio will find a way to contribute meaningfully, but if you want to truly master the fire enchanter it’ll take some time and practice to reach new heights. But rest assured, this is a champion we want players new and old to climb with.

Fun With Friends (And Fuemigos)

At the end of the day, Milio’s goal is to make his friends feel like they have superpowers. Just being there with your team and casting spells will already bring a lot to the table, but if you want to maximize your win rate then you’ll need to choose who you follow carefully. I’ll leave you with a couple of tips to maximize your firepower.

During the lane phase, focus on staying alive and annoying your enemy by casting Cozy Campfire to secure opportune poke damage. When it’s safe, throw out an Ultra Mega Fire Kick to harass the enemy, and combine it with Warm Hugs to give your ADC movement speed and shields. Then they’ll be able to poke with their scaling attack damage thanks to Fired Up! A well-layered spell combo can get out 5 procs in 6 seconds and force enemies to retreat.

In teamfights, try to drop his Cozy Campfire at the right time to give your ADC bonus attack range and safety in the backline. Keep enemies off them with your Ultra Mega Fire Kick, and when the enemy blows their big teamfight ultimate, turn the tables with Breath of Life.

Get your allies in and out of the fight using Warm Hugs for movement speed and protection, doubling up if they really need the movement speed stacks. But be careful about overstepping, or your flame is likely to be snuffed out!

Thanks for reading and we wish you the best of luck bringing the heat out on the rift!