Everything You Need to Know About League of Legends' Newest Champion: Mel Medarda, The Soul's Reflection

Arcane is officially over as of last year, where fans got to witness Season 2's finale and the conclusion of the Piltover story that we unravelled. With this came several reveals, including that the Riot Games show would be fully canonical in the League of Legends universe and that we would be getting a few champions joining Summoner's Rift.

It wasn't long before we got Ambessa Medarda to join the fray, but more than that, many fans speculated and anticipated the release of Mel Medarda, who was announced shortly after during the first League of Legends dev blog of 2025. Now, previous councilor Mel has arrived to the rift with new-found magic powers after the events of the show.

Basic Information

Mel, The Soul's Reflection is a high-damage, medium-CC champion that League of Legends classifies as a 2/3 difficulty champion. Best fit to conquer the mid lane, she carries a fair bit of AoE in her kit, giving her great escape and chase opportunities when given the chance.

Her release skin is Arcane Councilor Mel, reminiscent of her Season 1 look, she wears white and gold on her otherwise red and gold appearance in her base skin, and notably, she's holding a Hextech Gem in her hand on the splash art. The skin goes for 1350 RP, or £10.99.

Lore

Spoilers ahead for Arcane Season 1 and Season 2

After the events that transpired in Arcane's finale, Mel's new found Black Rose powers led her to defeating her mother, Ambessa Medarda (and Arcane's antagonist), in a 2v1 alongside Caitlyn. Following that, we got a look at Mel's first cinematic in League of Legends, as she returns to Noxus for the first time in 10 years.

Her champion lore is a letter to her late mother as she recalls the events that brought her here, from the truth about her father to her official return to Noxus as part of one of the land's most substantial houses. She has harnessed the fourth seat of power her mother so vehemently mentioned: sacrifice.

Mel returns to Noxus in search of the truth about her past as she sets off to uncover the Deceiver (LeBlanc). In her own words:

It may not be in the way you intended… but I'm coming home, Mother.

And I will make a difference here.

Until my heart no longer beats,

Your daughter, Mel

Mel speaks about becoming the Wolf after killing her mother (a metaphor for taking a life and becoming a fierce warrior) alongside having embraced the Fox (who she had become in Piltover, as she slowly took over the city through political means). She'll likely be joining Noxus in political warfare against the Black Rose, who we expect to be the main focus on Welcome to Noxus: Act 2, as we have already received information about LeBlanc's upcoming update.

Abilities Overview

So, we've gone over who Mel, The Soul's Reflection was and who she is becoming, but now we're going to look at who she is as a champion. As mentioned at the beginning, she has moderate CC and high AoE damage that she can take advantage of in a teamfight, bringing down her foes.

Let's look at the kit more closely to learn her place in the League of Legends meta.

Searing Brilliance

Passive

Her passive is a two-parter (courtesy of 200 years of experience), so we'll be going each one individually to help understand better what it does (especially as in-game, it can be a bit confusing from the tooltip itself).

The first part of her passive is the quintessential "Sheen" proc. Upon casting any of her abilities, Mel stores three bonus projectiles for her next basic attack, stacking up to a maximum of nine. By casting three of her abilities, she'll be able to shoot a foe with nine projectiles with her next attack, which can be done to either weave bulks of three attacks across several champions or attempt to burst one.

This ties in with her passive, which will become the prominent part of her kit: Overwhelm. Whenever Mel does damage to an enemy champion she applies a stack of Overwhelm, an infinitely-stackable resource. If the amount of stacks of Overwhelm exceeds a champion's health and shield, Mel instantly executes them.

Radiant Volley

Q

Her Q is an area skillshot, where she'll shoot a volley of orbs to that location, dealing damage to the enemies there. Best paired with a CC ability, she'll get the opportunity to damage enemies rapidly and gather a few stacks of Overwhelm.

Rebuttal

W

This is Mel's bread-and-butter ability, and it has become the next subject of the "200 years of experience" meme that plagues oh-so-many champions. Rebuttal introduces an all-new mechanic we got to see in Arcane Season 2: spell reflection, and the capability to throw items back at enemies.

Essentially, this skill lets Mel return any ability that has a traversal range back in the direction of the enemy. Set as a shield around herself, anything that interacts with her becomes an ally projectile, flying in the direction aimed at the opponent, accounting for their travel speed and location, forcing foes to dodge and change their course of action.

Rebuttal is a mixture of Yasuo's Wind Wall (W) and Samira's Blade Whirl (W), as it is a mobile projectile blocker (in this case, return), so anything that interacts with these two abilities will be returned as part of Mel's Rebuttal, giving you a good idea on what sort of abilities Mel can block. This works for targeted and skill shots, meaning that so long as it is a traveling projectile, it can be returned to sender.

It's also worth noting that items that cannot be returned are still blocked, giving her brief invulnerability in all damaging abilities except for Tower shots. With this, she should have a great protection option against abilities that would otherwise damage her, even if there is nothing worth returning in the enemy team.

Solar Snare

E

Mel's Solar Snare is very similar to Flash Frost (Q), where she fires a straight-line skill shot with an orb at the centre. Enemies hit from the orb at the centre of her ability will be rooted, whilst those hit by the outer layer will be slowed, instead.

This is Mel's combo starter, and it works great in tandem with Radiant Volley, as it gives her a still target to deal damage to whenever she lands the snare. It can also be used as a tool for escape, giving you enough distance (alongside Rebuttal's projectile return and movement speed) to return to the safety of your tower.

Golden Eclipse

R

Her Searing Brilliance (passive) makes a return for her ultimate, where Mel auto-fires at enemies who have been marked by a stack of Overwhelm, dealing damage depending on the amount of stacks that have been placed.

Golden Eclipse is a versatile ability that gives her numerous approaches. Either by stacking a vast amount of Overwhelm on a single target or dealing damage to multiple, this gives her the capability to choose between a broad AoE attack or a single-target ability to deal massive damage.

This is where Searing Brilliance's first part comes into play, too: with each round of her auto attack, she increases the amount of damage dealt by Golden Eclipse. Whether you stack nine of the auto attacks or weave in three attacks between all targets, it'll give you a versatile approach to team fights, ensuring that you can do what's best for any given encounter.

Golden Eclipse doesn't spend the Overwhelm stacks, either. While it does more damage depending on how many stacks are present, it doesn't use them, which means that she can still take advantage of the execute opportunity from it once her ultimate has been cast, making her pretty deadly in a teamfight pre- and post-ultimate.