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League of Legends has given us a vibrant cast of champions to fall in love with. Runeterra is a flourishing landscape of individuals, made up of a number of species and races, from multiple planes of reality.
One of the most magical and mysterious is the yordle race, originating from the spirit realm, but have been major influences in the physical realm for millenia and this list ranks some of the smallest and cutest of them.
14 Poppy: Demacia's True Hero
Poppy is your typical goody-two-shoes, humble warrior, who just so happens to wield Orion's hammer, but as she says, "I'm no hero, just a Yordle with a hammer". Poppy helped to build Demacia alongside its founder, Orion, who pledged his weapon to the Hero of Demacia on his deathbed.
Somehow she still hasn't realized that she's the hero of this story. Maybe if she took a second to stop catapulting enemies back to their nexus she'd figure it out.
13 Corki: The Pilot from a Different Time
This yordle is 90 percent moustache, but don't underestimate him. After leaving Bandle City behind he headed for Piltover where he fell in love with the steampunk aesthetic and amazing machinery and where Heimerdinger built him his signature plane.
Flying around in his ROFL-copter, Corki conjures images of old British fighter pilots, dishing out class and Hextech Bombs in equal measure.
12 Rumble The Underdog
Rumble is the epitome of an underdog, from within his own city and among tinkerers the world over. Despite being a bit of a scrappy runt, Rumble was recommended to the Piltover Academy of Science and Progress to follow in Heimerdinger's shoes.
But he was tired of yordles being the butt of humanity's jokes and refused that path. Instead, he entered the League of Legends from within a firespitting, harpooning, rocket-throwing mechsuit named after the rambunctious Tristana. His goal is to prove yordles are superior, and this list agrees with him.
11 Tristana: Defender of the Little Guy
One rank above Rumble, Tristana is fully worthy of her fellow yordles' admiration. She began her adventures wide-eyed and awestruck by the people and places she journeyed to visit, though stuck to the secret pathways only yordles know of. That was until she witnessed the destruction of a Bandlewood Portal, one of a limited number of gateways to Bandle City.
Since that day she has adopted a military style of life, forming a brigade known as the Bandle Gunners and travelling all of Runeterra defending her people's home.
10 Lulu: Mischief Managed
Lulu is the Alice to Runeterra's Wonderland, though she's forever trying to return to that most magical place, the Glade. Her little purple friend Pix led her to the Glade a long time ago, granting her whimsical powers to use for mischief's sake! There could be no yordly-er yordle as Lulu will never take anything seriously, regularly throwing herself into chaos and danger just for a laugh.
Some of the other yordles might say she gets on their nerves (including her friend Tristana), and she admittedly did turn a group of children into toadstools for a full month, you can't deny you sometimes wonder what purple actually tastes like.
9 Ziggs: The True Mad Scientist
In the dank depths of unchallenged experiments, Ziggs laughs maniacally at his latest creation. Zaun's freedoms allowed his imagination to become reality, and with Jinx at his side it has run wild. He wasn't always living in Piltover's underbelly though, and was once a protegee of Heimerdinger, a tinkerer like many other yordles. However, the day he carried out a one-yordle prison break to save his professors from a Zaun facility was the day he came into his own.
Jinx may still be convinced that Ziggs is just a figment of her conscience, but as long as he can keep creating hexplosives neither of them really question it.
8 Fizz: The Dampest Yordle Yet
Yordles are known to have an innate magic within them, never aging and able to live secretly around other races, but Fizz is old even for a yordle. After his ancient home in the Guardian's Sea was destroyed by monsterous gigalodons, Fizz went dark, drifting in ocean currents for thousands of years.
Somehow, in spite of this macabre backstory he is still a feisty and fiendish spirit. When he washed up in Bilgewater, the local inhabitants praised him as a demi-god, showering him with tributes in hopes of a good haul or safe passage at sea. Now he prances about in the League of Legends, frustratingly just out of reach of weapons and spells, ready to summon Longtooth for a final chomp.
7 Master Kennen, The Balance of the Kinkou Order
He may look just like any other small, annoying yordle, dashing about in funny clothes, but Kennen is the longest living member of the Ionian Kinkou Order. He trained up Akali, but refused to fight the old acolyte Zed as he now led the Noxian army, putting the balance in jeopardy.
Kennen may be even older than Fizz, in fact, and works to balance Shen, the Eye of Twilight, and the Fist of Shadow, based in the First Lands. Despite being a living electric maelstrom Kennen is a pillar of calm and control.
6 You Wouldn't Like Gnar When He's Angry
A prehistoric looking yordle, Gnar wandered into Runeterra from the spirit realm around the same time as the first humans, and before Lissandra and her sisters were created by the Watchers. During the whole Freljordian fiasco poor Gnar got frozen in True Ice. He has yet to sue Lissandra for emotional damages.
Just watch out for when he doesn't get his way, as he seems to be stuck in the terrible twos (two millions that is) and will throw a full blown tantrum, magically turning into a much more ferocious beast with crazy strength. Gnar may be the oldest toddler in history.
5 Heimerdinger's Class Is In Session
Cecil B. Heimerdinger is the classic mad professor trope; brilliant but somehow always being blown up. He taught the likes of Viktor, Jayce and Ziggs, and worked side by side with Singed a long time ago. A lot of his students may have gone on to accomplish less than savoury things in Runeterra, but Heimerdinger is still a role model for precocious young inventors at the academy to this day.
Arriving in Zaun centuries ago, Heimerdinger eventually helped to found Piltover (where the series Arcane takes place) in the upper regions of the city, and despite being a bit eccentric has invented 19 weapons for himself to use in combat. His battlecries reference a lot of pop fiction scientists too, including The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy's inexplicable 42 and The Planet Of The Apes.
4 Veigar: The Cutest Little Warlord
Isn't he just the most adorable bundle of evil, and he tries so hard! But in all fairness, Veigar is only this way due to being kidnapped by Mordekaiser for decades and forced to help the Noxian regime. In his time as a captive, Veigar's sweet yordle self was tainted, and upon release during a coup realized the only true strength was in wielding insurmountable power. So he went out into the world bent on destruction and spreading evil, though he never seems to have quite gotten the hang of it.
Maybe yordles just weren't meant to cause desolation and a high death toll, and maybe Veigar's entire persona is based on a lack of self esteem. A lot of his in-game quotes reflect his need to be feared and no one really taking him seriously. Maybe the poor guy just needs a hug.
3 Kled the Small and Violent
If Kled were born into our world he'd be an army brat, following where the battle went and hardened against warfare. How he managed to convince Skaarl to tag along into every single fight is a mystery, but the Drakalops is loyal if cowardly, and Kled wouldn't be half as vicious without him. The rumour going is that Kled has acquired every military title and won every medal, and as yordles go he's definitely a tough cookie.
Now, maybe the only way to be this successful on the battlefield is to be slightly unhinged, as Kled claims. Once you've been knocked about the head that many times you don't really have much of a choice.
2 Vex: This is Lame or Whatever
In second place is the least yordly yordle, Vex, who abhors all things rosey and bright, preferring the Shadow Isles to her own home. She's a beacon of teen angst, often complaining about her mom and being made to participate in... stuff. If she didn't hate other people so much Vex and Amumu could be the best of friends, he even looks about the same size as a yordle.
Instead, she is content trudging around as a hilariously satirical emo kid talking to her own shadow.
1 Teemo: That's Gotta Sting
Marmite in mammalian form is Teemo. At the top of the list if only because of his renown (and the backlash this will receive) Teemo elicits all sorts of reactions. Whether you're on the enemy team or an ally his tactics are bound to cause immense frustration as he slowly racks up kills all while sitting in base.
He may look cute and cuddly on the outside, but behind those beady eyes who knows what war crimes replay on loop? His friend Tristana once said, "Teemo rides a thin line between chipper compatriot and unrepentant killer, but there's no one else I'd rather have as a friend".