A Look at Locke’s Win Rate Three Months on

Posted on by Geekmandem

Locke has been out for nearly four months now, but has Locke’s win rate improved and has he finally found his place in the meta?

We first looked at Locke just after he was released, and his win rate was… terrible, to say the least. He was brought in as a mid laner, but his kit seemed to struggle at first. When it came to other lanes and roles, it also felt like he wasn’t an ideal fit.

Riot did a number of tweaks, buffs, and targeted nerfs, and now, four months on, how is Locke doing?

Locke Win Rate

Locke sits at 30/59 of the mid lane picks when it comes to win rate. It’s a pretty large jump from his awful win rate a few weeks after release. It’s a combination of the character finding a place, plus players are now starting to learn how to play as him. That is leveled off by the other players learning to counter, and a just over 50% win rate is probably about fair.

Locke also comes in at S+ in our Tier List, and he has over 22,000 matches worth of data in patch 26.19, placing him 9th among mid laners. Not much has changed this patch, either; his win rate was the same in 26.18, so it looks like he has found a place.

So, as it stands, Locke is in a good place in the mid lane. We might see changes to get that win rate up to 51%, but right now he seems to be in a good place.

Locke Win Rate Outside of Mid Lane

Locke was made to play in mid lane, and his win rate in other roles reflects that. So let’s look at an overview from patch 26.19.

Patch 26.19

  • Top Lane: 46%
  • Jungle: 47%
  • ADC: 47%
  • Support: 43%

It’s pretty clear that Locke is a mid laner, and probably not much more than that. Jungle: There is some potential, and top lane is one of those roles where there is always a place for something different. But Locke looks to have found his place in mid lane, and that seems to be what Riot Games wants.

Locke in Pro Play

Hall of Legends Caps
Credit – Jens Stentoft

With Worlds coming up very soon, Locke is well placed to go into the major event as a key pick. We have a few months of data on him now, so how is he performing at the very top level of League of Legends?

As of publication, Locke has been picked 75 times in pro-level games in the mid lane, and three times as an ADC. We will just focus on the mid lane picks for this article. Overall, his win rate sits at 52%, which is pretty solid and mirrors his solo queue win rate.

A few pro players have had some serious success on Locke. Tangyuan (LGD Gaming), Cracker (HLE), and Quid (Team Liquid), all have 100% win rates with more than one game. Tangyuan has played and won four times with him.

Some notable pro players have played him to varied levels of success. Recent Hall of Legends inductee Caps has a 0% win rate in two games on Locke. While Chovy sits at 100% with one game, Faker has played him three times, winning twice.

Worlds is up next, and as the most recent Champion to come to League of Legends. It will be interesting to see how much we see of Locke on the biggest stage.

ARAM: Mayhem and Arena 26.19 patch notes: Arena Gets the Focus

Posted on by Geekmandem

In a twist from the usual, the LoL Patch 26.19 ARAM Mayhem and Arena updates mostly focus on Arena, with Mayhem taking a major backseat.

ARAM Mayhem has been incredibly popular since it launched, and it may stay as a permanent spot. But this week, the focus is on Arena, so let’s take a look.

ARAM: Mayhem

One of the biggest changes is that High Roller is getting nerfed again. Riot reckons it still snowballs way too hard if you grab it early, so its drop rate has been cut further. This should mean it shows up as a first augment way less frequently.

Mad Scientist is one of the notable bug fixes: it was meant to give you 30% Adaptive Force but was handing out 30% AD and 30% AP at the same time. That’s been fixed, so if it felt suspiciously strong on hybrid champs, now you know why.

Removing Upgrade Ravenous no longer leaves you with negative Life Steal on all your items, which is a sentence that should never have needed writing. Bel’Veth players with Ultimate Awakening will be happy to hear her Q now resets properly after ulting, too.

Arena

Guests of Honor

Three new Guests have shown up, and all of them change how rounds play out:

  • Ivern spawns brush wherever a team is standing when they lose a round, and it stays for the whole game. Expect the map to get very leafy by the late rounds.
  • Senna opens three portals to the Death Realm that anyone can hop into, then pop out of any portal to get back.
  • Thresh lets downed players throw a lantern to allies every 8 seconds. It shields anyone nearby, and clicking it pulls you to your downed teammate.

New Augments

Twelve new Augments join Arena in patch 26.19. Ten are Mayhem imports (Hellbent, Surge Field, Sonata, Shark Bait and friends), so if you’ve been playing ARAM lately, you’ll recognise plenty of these. Shark Bait is a good one for pure chaos: you die, turn into a zombie for 3.5 seconds, then a giant shark bursts out of the ground and knocks everyone up. At max level, your whole team goes shark on death.

The other two are brand new and were made with VestionOCE and SoyJamiie, winners of the For The Win Creator Invitational:

  • Death Dealer replaces Flee. Pop it on an enemy to drag you both into the Death Realm, with 2 seconds of invisibility on entry. At max level, killing your target gives your team another revive and delays theirs.
  • Got That Dog In Em spawns a hot dog every 3 seconds that makes whoever eats it breathe fire. Anyone can pick them up, enemies included, and if an enemy eats one, they can damage their own team. Die while breathing fire, and you explode. We are going to see some absolutely unhinged teamfights.

Champion changes

The headline nerf is Bel’Veth. Her R passive bonus AD ratio drops from 3 to 1, and her E on-hit effectiveness is cut to 8 – 16 (from 12 – 24). It’s a pretty major nerf, so you should see her a little less often.

The stackers are getting reined in too. Veigar drops from 12 to 10 passive stacks per round with a longer E cooldown, and Sion goes from 133 to 111 stacks per round. Zed, Rell, Ornn, Dr. Mundo, Lillia and Rammus all take smaller nerfs.

On the buffs side, Elise is the big winner with her E cooldown slashed from 12 – 10s to 8 – 6s and W down to 10s. Neeko’s Q secondary-hit AP ratio doubles to 50%, Locke’s passive damage goes up across the board, and Aphelios gets a proper stat bump to his health and AD growth. Lee Sin’s W shield also scales much harder with AP now (80% to 120%), so AP Lee enjoyers, your time has come.

Augment balance

Scavenger doubles from 500 to 1,000 gold, which makes it a genuine pick now. Spellcraft gets a shorter cooldown and more base damage, while Giant Slayer takes a 5-point nerf at every rank. Chroma Flux has also been demoted from Prismatic to Gold.

One sneaky systems change: bonus Energy regen based on missing health now caps at 400% (up from 100%). Energy champs like Zed, Lee Sin and Kennen will barely run dry when they’re low.

Patch 26.19 Notes – League of Legends

Posted on by U.GG

Patch 26.19 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)

Champions

We think The Darkin Blade has lost a fair bit of power with Sundered Sky nerfs that were aimed more at opening up the jungle meta, so we are giving him a bump so he remains a world-ending threat.

W – Infernal Chains

Cooldown: 20 / 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 seconds ⇒ 18 / 16.5 / 15 / 13.5 / 12 seconds

E – Umbral Dash

Health Heal Ratio: 1.1% per 100 bonus health ⇒ 1.3% per 100 bonus health
Aphelios has been kiting the spotlight for a while now, even though he’s a hypercarry in an enchanter meta that should favor him, so we’re looking to give him a little boost to encourage him to get out of his comfort zone.

Q – Weapon Abilites

Calibrum

Moonshot Damage: 70 – 160 (+42 – 60% bonus AD) (+100% AP) ⇒ 80 – 170 (+42 – 60% bonus AD) (+100% AP)

Severum

Healing: 2 – 7.1%, increased to 5 – 17.75% ⇒ 2 – 8%, increased to 5 – 20%

Gravitum

Slow: 30% for 2.5 seconds, decaying to 10% after 0.7 seconds ⇒ 30% for 2.5 seconds, decaying to 15% after 0.7 seconds

Infernum

Duskwave Cooldown: 9 / 8.25 / 7.5 / 6.75 / 6 seconds ⇒ 8 / 7.25 / 6.5 / 5.75 / 5 seconds

Crescendum

Mini-Crescendum Damage: 15% AD, decreasing by 1.5% AD to a minimum of 5% AD for the 8th+ chakram ⇒ 16% AD, decreasing by 1.5% AD to a minimum of 5% AD for the 9th+ chakram
Despite not receiving any changes since last year, Aurora has fallen off as we’ve had to nerf Rocketbelt into a fairer state. We’re giving our favorite Bryni a bit more power in her waveclear and outplay potential with her ultimate.

E – The Weirding

Base Damage: 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 ⇒ 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240

R – Between Worlds

Rift Duration: 1.75 / 2.5 / 3.25 seconds ⇒ 2.25 / 2.75 / 3.25 seconds
Since all bot laners received significantly increased gold income thanks to role quests, Draven’s potential to gain a gold advantage through his Adoration stacks has lost some of its impact. We’re giving him a helping hand (axe?) by tapping up his early game damage.
Base Stats
Attack Damage: 62 ⇒ 64
This year started strong for AP junglers that could use Dusk and Dawn, but others like Elise have been in a weak spot for a while, so we are helping out our friendly neighborhood spider with clear speed and damage.

Passive – Spider Queen

Passive Magic Damage On-Hit: 12 / 22 / 32 / 42 ⇒ 14 / 24 / 34 / 44

W – Skittering Frenzy

Bonus Attack Speed: 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 / 120% ⇒ 70 / 85 / 100 / 115 / 130%
Our Grand Duelist has room to shine a bit more when she succeeds after finding her opening, without giving her sharper 1v1 tools.
Base Stats
Health Growth: 99 ⇒ 105

R – Grand Challenge

Heal Range: 550 ⇒ 600
Heal Per Tick: 18.75 / 25 / 31.25 (+15% bonus AD) ⇒ 20 / 26.25 / 32.5 (+17.5% bonus AD)
Maximum Heal: 375 / 500 / 625 (+300% bonus AD) ⇒ 400 / 525 / 650 (+350% bonus AD)
Kha’Zix has been on the fringe of the meta now that the jungle is no longer dominated by Sundered Sky users. We are taking this opportunity to buff some of his weaker evolves to give him the flexibility to adapt and overcome.

Passive – Unseen Threat

Damage: 17 – 136 (+50% bonus AD) ⇒ 22 – 141 (+50% bonus AD)

W – Void Spike

Evolved Slow Duration: 2 seconds ⇒ 2.25 seconds

E – Leap

Evolved Range Bonus: +200 ⇒ +300
Lillia is on the edge of being viable at higher levels of play and we believe her current pattern requires her to get in danger’s way, so we’re helping her durability. We also want to give Lillia opportunities to really be a playmaker so we’re making the enemies she lullabies a little extra sleepy.
Base Stats
Armor: 22 ⇒ 24

R – Lilting Lullaby

Sleep Duration: 2 seconds ⇒ 2.5 seconds
Years ago, we added the Vigilance Passive so Lucian bot players didn’t feel like their champ was being nerfed because of mid laners, which ended up being super effective. We think now is a good opportunity to adjust the tuning of the passive and strike a balance between both roles.

Passive – Vigilance

Empowered On-Hit Damage: 15 (+20% AD) ⇒ 5 (+15% AD)

Q – Piercing Light

Base Damage: 80 / 115 / 150 / 185 / 220 (+100% bonus AD) ⇒ 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 / 250 (+100% bonus AD)
Somewhat overdue, but because Duskblade was removed a while ago, we’re removing the Ability Haste penalty we had to apply to his Q CDR mechanic. This should have minimal impact on Summoner’s Rift, but we see you Mayhem and Arena!

Q – Alpha Strike

Cooldown Refund on Hit: -1 second, scaling down with Ability Haste ⇒ 1 second
Nasus is difficult to keep down these days, and part of that is how quickly getting his early stacks leads to more reliable stacking. These higher highs will be compensated with some lower lows through some more vulnerability early on with lower damage and lifesteal lane sustain values off of that, and a bit longer before he really comes online.

Q – Siphoning Strike

Bonus Damage: 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 ⇒ 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110
Nocturne has been a popular and powerful jungler in both pro and solo-queue for a while, so we’re hitting the map presence and dueling power he benefits from through his ultimate.

R – Paranoia

Cooldown: 140 / 115 / 90 seconds ⇒ 160 / 130 / 100 seconds
Poppy’s flex potential and jungle presence has been a bit problematic, suppressing many champions across the board as a strong counterpick. For this change, we’re targeting her flexibility by reverting a previous buff to jungle clear.

Q – Hammer Shock

Minion/Monster Maximum Health Cap: 85 / 120 / 155 / 190 / 225 ⇒ 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210
At higher levels of play, we’ve seen Rumble continue to take over games, even after our changes earlier this year designed to hit his power in lane. Here, we’re making some modifications to his passive that’s much more elite-skewed, while giving Rumble in the Jungle some compensation.

Passive – Junkyard Titan

Overheat Attack Speed: 50 – 130% ⇒ 30 – 100%
Monster Cap: 65 – 150 ⇒ 90 – 175
Between strong itemization options and best-in-class skirmish and roam potential demonstrated by his most skilled players, it’s high time we put some restraints on the archmage, while giving him some help with bad solo queue matchups.
Base Stats
Armor Growth: 4.2 ⇒ 4.7

Q – Overload

Flux Bonus Damage: 25 / 50 / 75 / 100% increased damage ⇒ 15 / 40 / 65 / 90% increased damage

E – Spell Flux

Mana Cost: 35 / 45 / 55 / 65 / 75 ⇒ 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80
Vi has been a meta staple for the entire year, and now that Sundered Sky is in a better spot, we’re going after her durability and early clear speed to make her a riskier pick who can still bring the pain if you are willing to build for it.
Base Stats
Attack Damage: 63 + 3.5/Level ⇒ 61 + 3.9/Level

Passive – Blast Shield

Shield: 12% Maximum Health ⇒ 10% Maximum Health
This year we’ve been carefully buffing up AD Volibear, but he remains on the weak side even with his very unique AP build. We’re tuning him up to help him out across both the fringe AD build and his core AP build.

Passive – The Relentless Storm

Attack Speed per Stack: 5% (+3% per 100 AP) ⇒ 5% (+4% per 100 AP)
Lightning On-Hit Damage: 11 – 60 (Levels 1-18) (+45% AP) ⇒ 11 – 60 (Levels 1-18) (+45% AP) (+20% bonus AD)

World Atlas

We think melee supports have too much of their power in roaming and all-ins and are too weak in sustained laning. In response, we’re shifting the flat health to health regen on World Atlas and Runic Compass, which will benefit them more due to their higher base health regen values.
Health: 30 / 100 / 200 ⇒ 0 / 60 / 200
Health Regeneration: 25% / 50% / 75% ⇒ 50% / 75% / 75%

Teleport

As the meta has continued to adjust to role quests, it’s become clear that top lane is slightly weak, especially for split pushing. We’re in turn buffing the cooldown of both the free role quest Teleport and upgraded Unleashed Teleport to promote those alternative strategies.
Top Role Quest’s Free Teleport Cooldown: 420 seconds ⇒ 390 seconds
Top Role Quest’s Upgraded Unleashed Teleport Cooldown: 330 – 240 seconds ⇒ 300 – 210 seconds
Non-Top Unleashed Teleport Cooldown: 330 – 240 seconds ⇒ Unchanged

Classic Patch Notes

We’ve got our third big champion “drop” this patch (get it? They’re water-themed) with four fresh faces and the highlight is a long-lost favorite, Graves! We’ve also got our first set of actions from the previous Council poll. Welcome back, Cloak and Dagger, Moonflair Spellblade, and Zz’Rot Portal. 

Our fourth patch for Classic also contains more bugfixing, balance changes, and client quality. Check out those sweet new rune effects when you socket them in!

Champions

NEWFizz

Fizz came out back in 2011 and was finally reworked in late 2016. Though many of you remember all his buttons being in the same place, he’s got a missing HP bleed on his W passive, so maybe build a Sunfire Cape or two?
Passive – Nimble Fighter
Fizz can move through units and takes reduced damage from basic attacks.
Q – Urchin Strike
Fizz dashes a fixed distance through an enemy, damaging them and applying on-hit effects.
W – Seastone Trident
Passive: Fizz’s basic attacks deal additional damage over time, scaling with his target’s missing health.
Active: For the next few seconds, Fizz’s basic attacks deal bonus damage on-hit and apply Grievous Wounds for a few seconds, reducing healing by 50%.
E – Playful/Trickster
First cast: Fizz hops up on his trident, becoming untargetable. After a short delay, he will crash down, damaging and slowing enemies around him.
Second cast: Fizz can hop off the trident early to dash farther but deal damage in a smaller area and doesn’t slow.
R – Chum the Waters
Fizz throws out bait that clings onto the first enemy champion it hits. After a short delay, a mighty shark stalks its prey, dealing tons of damage, knocking up, and slowing enemies in the area.

NEWGraves

Welcome back, pre-rework Graves! This version from 2011-2015 is a true-to-live bot lane ADC, rewarded for long duration fights and deadly burst damage against short-range enemies. Careful though, his bonus resists take time to stack up, so assassins can still jump you in the jungle.
Passive – True Grit
While in combat, Graves gains stacking Armor and Magic Resist every second, up to a cap.
Q – Buckshot
Graves fires out three bullets that damage all enemies in a line. Multiple hits on the same target deal reduced damage.
W – Smokescreen
Graves launches a smoke grenade that damages, slows, and nearsights enemies in an area.
E – Quickdraw
Graves dashes a short distance and gains bonus attack speed for several seconds. Basic attacks reduce Quickdraw’s cooldown.
R – Collateral Damage
Graves fires an explosive shell that damages enemies in a line. It explodes on the first enemy champion hit, dealing reduced damage in a cone behind them.

NEWNami

Nami is back in action and not much has changed since her release in 2013. For those of you coming right from the modern game, her E buff is attack-only, so the modern Nami-Karthus synergy is gone.
Passive – Surging Tides
Allies struck by Nami’s abilities briefly gain bonus move speed.
Q – Aqua Prison
Nami lobs a bubble that damages and stuns enemies where it lands.
W – Ebb and Flow
Nami unleashes a stream of water that bounces, alternating between enemies and allies. Enemies take damage while allies are healed. Each bounce is less effective than the hit before it.
E – Tidecaller’s Blessing
Nami empowers an ally, causing their next three attacks to deal bonus damage and slow their target.
R – Tidal Wave
Nami unleashes a massive tidal wave that damages, knocks up, and slows all enemies it crashes into.
NEW Nautilus
Nautilus came out back in 2012 and as with Nami, his kit has stood the test of time. Remember that you can buy multiple Doran’s Rings if you want your laning phase to work out, and he used to be quite the jungler back in the day. The biggest difference you’ll find is that his ultimate is much less disruptive to targets hit by the traveling portion.
Passive – Staggering Blow
Nautilus’s basic attacks deal bonus damage and root their enemies. Each enemy can only be Staggered once every few seconds.
Q – Dredge Line
Nautilus throws out his anchor, colliding with the first enemy or piece of terrain it hits. Enemies are damaged and pulled in, while Nautilus pulls himself to his target. Hitting terrain refunds part of Dredge Line’s cooldown.
W – Titan’s Wrath
Nautilus gains a shield. While it holds, his attacks deal damage over time to enemies in the area.
E – Riptide
Nautilus slams the ground, sending out cascading shockwaves that damage and slow enemies. Enemies may be hit by multiple shockwaves, taking reduced damage for subsequent hits.
R – Depth Charge
Nautilus fires a shockwave into the earth that damages and knocks up enemies in its path. When it reaches his target, it damages, knocks up, and stuns all enemies in the immediate area.

NEWNautilus

Nautilus came out back in 2012 and as with Nami, his kit has stood the test of time. Remember that you can buy multiple Doran’s Rings if you want your laning phase to work out, and he used to be quite the jungler back in the day. The biggest difference you’ll find is that his ultimate is much less disruptive to targets hit by the traveling portion.
Passive – Staggering Blow
Nautilus’s basic attacks deal bonus damage and root their enemies. Each enemy can only be Staggered once every few seconds.
Q – Dredge Line
Nautilus throws out his anchor, colliding with the first enemy or piece of terrain it hits. Enemies are damaged and pulled in, while Nautilus pulls himself to his target. Hitting terrain refunds part of Dredge Line’s cooldown.
W – Titan’s Wrath
Nautilus gains a shield. While it holds, his attacks deal damage over time to enemies in the area.
E – Riptide
Nautilus slams the ground, sending out cascading shockwaves that damage and slow enemies. Enemies may be hit by multiple shockwaves, taking reduced damage for subsequent hits.
R – Depth Charge
Nautilus fires a shockwave into the earth that damages and knocks up enemies in its path. When it reaches his target, it damages, knocks up, and stuns all enemies in the immediate area.

Akali

As the dust has settled, Akali appears weak, so we’re swinging by for some buffs. Crescent Slash can feel like it’s a waste of energy, so we’re both improving its late-game energy efficiency and its overall DPS, which are buffs from 2012 and 2015, respectively.
E – Crescent Slash
Energy Cost: 60 / 60 / 60 / 60 / 60 ⇒ 60 / 55 / 50 / 45 / 40
Cooldown: 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3s ⇒ 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1s
Ability Power Ratio: 30% ⇒ 40%

Fiora

Fiora is doing far too well, so it’s nerf time. First up, we’re fixing several bugs and implementation mismatches compared to her 3.11 version, which is why you’re seeing some low-impact changes here. For her balance, we’re pulling in an adjustment from 2014 and reverting a buff from 2012. The change to her ultimate will deal similar damage to a single isolated target but weaken her AoE teamfighting.
W – Riposte
Bugfix: Fixed a bug where the reflected damage could be blocked by enemies in the way.
R – Blade Waltz
Damage: 160 / 330 / 500 (+115% bonus AD) ⇒ 125 / 255 / 385 (+85% bonus AD)
Maximum Single Target Damage: 320 / 660 / 1000 (+230% bonus AD) ⇒ 325 / 663 / 1001 (+221% bonus AD)
Cooldown: 130 / 120 / 110s ⇒ 150 / 130 / 110s
Damage Timing: Starts dealing damage 0.25s later into the animation.
Target Prioritization: Now always tries to prioritize unstruck enemies if possible.
Maximum Return Range: 1500 ⇒ 2500
Bugfix: Fixed a bug where Fiora could be locked out of attacking or moving for 2 seconds if her target immediately became untargetable.

Galio

While Fiora landed as pretty much the strongest champion in the game, Galio is arguably the weakest. We’re delivering a huge swath of buffs and some bugfixes for his initial state.
W – Bulwark
Bugfix: Fixed a bug where the first heal was receiving the -20% heal reduction.
E – Righteous Gust
Cast Time: 0.4s ⇒ 0.25s
Missile Speed: 1200 ⇒ 1300
Missile Width: 60 ⇒ 160
Missile Range: 1100 ⇒ 1175
Bugfix: Fixed a bug where it was dealing 15 more damage than it should have.
Bugfix: Fixed a bug where it was applying the wrong VFX on its target.

Kassadin

As we’ve buffed up the bottom end of the mid lane pool, Kassadin has wound up as the actual worst-performing mid laner. Our primary buff is increasing his Riftwalk range. Instead of using his formerly Dominion-only 600 max range, he’s regaining his full Summoner’s Rift 700 range Riftwalk. We’re also shipping adjustments that adhere more closely to his tuning during Worlds 2013.
Q – Null Sphere
Ability Power Ratio: 60% ⇒ 70%
E – Force Pulse
Damage: 60 / 120 / 180 / 240 / 300 (+80% AP) ⇒ 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+70% AP)
Slow: 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60% ⇒ 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50%
R – Riftwalk
Range: 600 ⇒ 700

Malphite

We’ve got a few historical-accuracy changes and bugfixes for Malphite this patch. Crit AD Malphite now has sweet AoE damage and he no longer halves Dragon’s attack speed. Infinity Edge is calling to you.
W – Brutal Strikes
Splash Damage: Now crits if the main attack does.
Activation: No longer interrupts Malphite’s attack mid-swing.
E – Ground Slam
Bugfix: Fixed a bug where it could slow Epic Monster attack speed.
R – Unstoppable Force
Bugfix: Fixed a bug where Malphite could get locked out of casting Flash for too long.

Morgana

Morgana is one of the strongest mid laners in the game and is a little too good in support as well, so we’re pushing in some mid-skewed nerfs by reverting some of her 2010-2012 era buffs and adjustments.
W – Tormented Soil
Mana Cost: 70 / 85 / 100 / 115 / 130 ⇒ 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 / 160
Cooldown: 10s ⇒ 12s
E – Black Shield
Shield: 95 / 160 / 225 / 290 / 355 ⇒ 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 / 300
R – Soul Shackles
Cooldown: 120 / 110 / 100s ⇒ 120 / 120 / 120s

Nidalee

We’re putting in a few more historical-accuracy changes for Nidalee this patch. There won’t be a huge power gain here, but it will allow oldschool expert Nidalee players to activate their old combos.
W – Bushwhack
Vision: Now gives 250u of vision for 0.5s when cast.
Damage Duration: 4s ⇒ 2.5s. Total damage unchanged.
R – Aspect of the Cougar
Attack Timer: Now resets Nidalee’s basic attack timer.

Poppy

Poppy re-released fairly balanced but had a few bugs and oversights in her scripts. Both of these changes represent period-accurate power to Season Three and constitute small buffs.
Q – Devastating Blow
Critical Strike: Now crits her total AD ratio if she crits.
Spellblade Damage: Now converts all Spellblade damage to magic.
Tooltip: Updated to clarify crit damage, damage cap, and the Spellblade interaction.

Shyvana

Shyvana isn’t doing too hot, so it’s time for buffs. We’re leading with a revert of some nerfs from 2012, which should help her stay in step with her opponents.
W – Burnout
Maximum Duration Extension: 4 ⇒ 6
R – Dragon’s Descent
Bonus Resistances: 10 / 15 / 20 ⇒ 15 / 20 / 25, still doubled during dragon form.

Twisted Fate

Twisted Fate is too good in both mid and support, so it’s nerf time. As support is the better-performing role, we’re lowering his map-wide omnipresence and frontloading the nerfs. These nerfs come in the form of patch 3.7’s Destiny cooldown and 1.0.0.75’s Gate cooldown, the last time it was ever its own spell. We’re also matching his passive’s behavior with other global passives: It’s disabled while he’s dead.
Passive – Loaded Dice
Bonus Gold While Dead: Allies no longer gain bonus gold while Twisted Fate is dead.
E – Gate
Cooldown: 120 / 105 / 90 / 75 / 60s ⇒ 135 / 120 / 105 / 90 / 75s
R – Destiny
Cooldown: 130 / 110 / 90s ⇒ 180 / 150 / 120s
Mana Cost: 150 ⇒ 150 / 125 / 100

Zilean

Zilean has some small anachronisms in his cast paradigms and ability functionality, which we’re fixing this patch.
Passive – Heightened Learning
Bonus Experience While Dead: No longer grants bonus XP while Zilean is dead.
Q – Time Bomb
Cast Visibility: Casting the spell now reveals Zilean if cast from fog of war.
E – Time Warp
Cast Range: 550 edge to edge (around 650 in practical use) ⇒ 700 center to center

Items

Cloak and Dagger

  • Recipe: Cloak of Agility + Dagger. 1130 total cost.
  • Attack Speed: 20%
  • Critical Strike Chance: 20%
  • Unique Passive: 35% Tenacity, shared with Mercury’s Treads, Zephyr, and Moonflair Spellblade.


  NEW   Moonflair Spellblade

  • Recipe: Seeker’s Armguard + Negatron Cloak. 2300 total cost.
  • Ability Power: 50
  • Armor: 50
  • Magic Resistance: 50
  • Unique Passive: 35% Tenacity, shared with Mercury’s Treads, Zephyr, and Cloak and Dagger.


  NEW   Zz’Rot Portal

  • Recipe: Chain Vest + Negatron Cloak + Rejuvenation Bead. 2700 total cost.
  • Armor: 50
  • Magic Resistance: 50
  • Health Regeneration: 5 per 5 seconds
  • Active: Place down a void gate for 150 seconds. Voidlings with decaying health periodically spawn and march down the nearest lane, damaging enemies in their path. 150-second cooldown.

Systems

Council Vote

Welcome to our second League Classic community poll! This time around, we want your feedback on six specific areas, including which champion’s kit we prioritize restoring next. Head over to “The Council” tab in the League client to cast your votes! Voting will be open for seven days and you’re free to update your answers while the poll is active. And keep an eye out, as poll results will be published in the next Patch Notes. 

In case you missed it, we previously posted the results of our inaugural Council vote in the Patch 26.18 Notes, and some of those results are starting to go to live, including the three items you voted to revive in this patch!

Miscellaneous

  • Added more in-game negative behavior detections.
  • Updated in-game pings to use oldschool art.
  • Updated start-of-champion select visuals to make team and position more apparent.
  • Updated the loading screen to look more classic.
  • Improved visual clarity in The Council voting.
  • Added a new “Recommended” sort in the Runes store, making it easier for new players to identify good early-account runes.

Posted in LoL

G2 Esports Claims LEC Summer Title Once Again – Domestic Golden Road Completed

Posted on by Geekmandem

G2 Esports have done it again, to the surprise of no one. The side swept Movistar KOI 3-0 at the LEC 2026 Summer Grand Final.

G2 Esports’ latest LEC title is their fourth consecutive LEC championship, matching their previous record. The LEC Summer victory completes the Domestic Golden Road, having previously won the LEC Versus and LEC Spring Splits.

G2 Esports Claims LEC Summer

Overall, this is G2 Esports hitting yet another peak as a LoL organisation. This is their 20th LEC championship, once again pushing them well ahead of any other Western side in terms of domestic achievement.

The victory was also a big moment for Rasmus “Caps” Winther, who recently was honored in the Hall of Legends. This was his 18th LEC Championship to go alongside his mural in Copenhagen.

While Caps is often the one to get the praise, it was not an MVP series for him this time. It was, in fact, the chance for a support to make it under the lights. Labros “Labrov” Papoutsakis claimed the MVP after three strong series, going deathless in two of the games. It’s not common to see a support take a series MVP, but it gives you an idea of just how good he was.

As for G2 Esports, it’s time to prepare for Worlds. LoL Patch 26.19 is the first of two Worlds patches, as the game starts to prepare for the biggest event in League of Legends Esports.

The victory was also the first title victory for Luka “Perkz” Perković, who took up the role of head coach at G2 Esports after MSI. Perkz is no stranger to winning titles with G2, having been a part of a dominant G2 side in the late 2010’s.

Patch 26.19 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

The League of Legends Patch 26.19 Preview is here. It’s the first of two pre-Worlds patches that will be deployed. Worlds will be played on the next patch, 26.20. Riot Phroxzon on X with the Patch 26.18 Preview.

Role Changes

Support HP Regen

After Support roaming was nerfed in 26.16, pre grub spawn Support roaming is all the way back down again, especially in Pro Play which is what we were after.
That said, Enchanters and Ranged supports are now dominating the meta again.
So we’re making some targeted adjustments to melee supports so that they are able to engage and withstand some poke, rather than get poked out and not be able to engage again.
Overall, this isn’t going to be a giant swing, but hopefully enough of a nudge up for Melee Supports that players think about dynamics of the lane a bit differently.

Top Role Quest

For quite a while now, in some regions, especially at higher skilled play, Top has been a decent amount weaker than Bot (who are the natural counterparts).
That said, Top in regular play is both very popular and very powerful, and we’re not looking to change the dynamic very much (and also why we’re not nerfing bot lane overall).
So we’re giving a targeted adjustment to the more skill skewed aspect of Top lane, through the Teleport and upgraded Teleports from the Role Quest, which are typically used more effective in skilled play (where Top needs the help).
That should allow Top to exert its influence on the map more reliably, especially in split push scenarios.

Ranged Top

We hear a lot of the complaints about Ranged Top laners and agree that when these champs get too powerful it leads to pretty degraded “low gameplay states”. That said we do think it’s reasonable for Ranged Top laners to be a thing you can play there viably, it just needs to be at the appropriate power level with the appropriate power curves.
We don’t feel comfortable taking a large swing here, especially before Worlds, but just wanted to let y’all know that we’re working on some small changes to make it a bit more tolerable for melee champions.
This will hopefully allow us to also buff some of the ranged champions that are normally played bot who were nerfed due to their top lane performance (eg. Vayne), but we won’t be able to do this until this set of systems changes is released.

Class Changes

Simple Champions & Nasus

In the post the other day about simple champions, I mentioned that we think it’s good to have simple champions be strong at all levels of play. Not all of them, but some.
This can often be frustrating, especially when in moment-to-moment combat, their play patterns are very straightforward and feel lower counterplay if they can meet their success condition.
Our philosophy is that if a simple champion is overpowered and causing frustration, then that might be a cause for nerf.
However, if a champion is frustrating and simple, but not overpowered, if it doesn’t have an unintended design flaw, we’re likely to leave it as it is (eg. Viktor).
Viktor is strong in lane, but he’s also easy to gank and weak in early skirmishes; we think this is a reasonable strength and weakness profile and also, over the last few years, we’ve taken (imo) too much power out of early game trading from many champions, which has caused the laning phase to lose texture broadly across the game.
Nasus however, has been strong according to this principle, even when accounting for his mastery curve and he has more sharp success conditions now with Q 4 stacks; in lanes where he can stack freely he becomes more of a threat, while in lanes where he’s contested, he’s easier to keep down.
This often means when you run into Nasus in a good matchup, he’s often scaled without much holistic counterplay for the team (only his lane opponent).
So while we think this shape of Nasus is broadly correct, it does warrant sitting at a slightly lower resting power level due to these considerations.
There was a lot of discussion about Lucian when the notes were revealed yesterday.
Our current approach is to make Lucian’s reliance on specific supports much less tightly bound.
Lucian Mid and Top are also at extremely low power levels (high 30’s/low 40’s) which would be considered borderline griefing if picked.
So we’re trying to make the lives of Solo Q Lucian pairings more pleasant, while also trying to keep the list power neutral overall for Bot Lucian.
This change is better framed as an adjustment, rather than the nerf that was listed yesterday.
For a long time (even after we removed Duskblade, which caused us to put this functionality in in the first place), Master Yi’s Q Cooldown has scaled negatively with ability haste.
Now that Duskblade isn’t in the game we don’t think this functionality is necessary anymore.

Patch 26.18 Notes – League of Legends

Posted on by U.GG

Patch 26.18 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)

Champions

Bard has been a meta staple for much of the year. Earlier we toned his damage down to what we think are reasonable levels, so this time we are going to target his durability which has also stood out as high given his mobility and long range ultimate utility.
Base Stats
Armor: 34 + 5/Level ⇒ 32 + 4.7/Level
Cassio has always scaled with skill, but this year has propelled her to new heights of pro play dominance despite being weaker for average players. These adjustments should tap down her laning power, especially in pro where defensive purchases are valued more than raw AP, while giving her back some scaling power. It will still be critical to use empowered E’s, but raising her floor lets us be a bit more flexible with tuning.

Passive – Serpentine Grace

Move Speed Bonus: 6% – 40% (based on level) ⇒ 5% – 36% (based on level)

Q – Noxious Blast

Damage: 75 / 110 / 145 / 180 / 215 ⇒ 65 / 100 / 135 / 170 / 205
Ability Power Ratio: 65% ⇒ 75%

E – Twin Fang

Mana Cost: 40 ⇒ 45
Base Ability Power Ratio: 10% ⇒ 20%
Enhanced Ability Power Ratio: 55% ⇒ 45%
Total Ability Power Ratio: 65% ⇒ 65%
Damage: 52 – 120 ⇒ 50 – 120

R – Petrifying Gaze

Damage: 150 / 250 / 350 ⇒ 125 / 225 / 325
Ability Power Ratio: 50% ⇒ 75%
As one of our assassins that offer opponents a wider mix of gameplay options, Ekko has found a slightly weak steady state since Dusk & Dawn’s update mid year. We believe he has some room for power, especially in mid where he scales slightly worse, without buffing his Hail of Blades pattern.

Q – Timewinder

Mana Cost: 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 ⇒ 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80
Return Damage Ability Power Ratio: 60% ⇒ 70%
Kassadin had a strong start to 2026 but hasn’t regained his…footing…since our earlier nerfs. His Q should feel more punchy with his scaling, and we’re aiming to provide more early agency through good Riftwalk usage without touching his late game fantasy.

Q – Null Sphere

Ability Power Ratio: 70% AP ⇒ 80% AP

R – Riftwalk

Base Damage: 70 / 90 / 110 ⇒ 80 / 95 / 110
Yi drew the short end of the stick on the Rageblade bugfix from earlier this year due to his double strike interactions. While the actual impact for most Rageblade users was minor (and we are compensating Rageblade as well for that this patch), he was impacted harder than the other users. He’s also just been unable to scale as well as a melee carry compared to his normal power level, so we are also giving him a buff up.
Base Stats
Armor Growth: 33 + 4.5/Level ⇒ 33 + 5/Level

R – Highlander

Move Speed: 35 / 45 / 55% ⇒ 40 / 50 / 60%
Nautilus has been sitting near the top of the meta for the entire year, even before our work to bring other tank supports up in power, and we feel nerfing him will open up room for a more variety. That said, we know a lot of his value is in being able to lock down champions effectively, and that’ll remain a core strength.
Base Stats
Attack Damage: 61 + 3.3/Level ⇒ 58 + 3.3/Level

Q – Dredge Line

Damage: 85 / 130 / 175 / 220 / 265 (+90% AP) ⇒ 85 / 125 / 165 / 205 / 245 (+90% AP)
Seraphine bot has been a source of frustration for opponents for some time, despite a minor nerf a few patches ago. We are nerfing her E’s rank up to target this head on, as support Seraphine usually maxes it last (which basically means she never has it maxed as a support.)

E – Beat Drop

Cooldown: 11 / 10.5 / 10 / 9.5 / 9s ⇒ 11s
Our MSI changes were effective at pulling her to the forefront of pro play for the first time in years, but unfortunately she’s too performant in specific solo queue settings. Our data shows that W damage is a meaningfully larger share of damage in the tiers where she’s stronger than desired, so this should help tap her down while still preserving her core fantasies. Her passive is also now better breakpointed to increase reliance on Lost Chapter in early-mid levels, nerfing her higher winrate builds that make do with less mana investment.

Passive – Transcendent

Splinter Mana: 20 – 255 ⇒ 20 – 199

W – Force of Will

Cooldown: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8s ⇒ 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9s
Viego’s winrate has been on a downward trend recently, and his players have noticed and begun dropping him. He has a fair bit of room to bring up, both just generally and for the viability of his more bruisery alt build.
Base Stats
Attack Damage Growth: 3.5 ⇒ 4

Passive – Sovereign’s Domination

Heal: 2% (+…. ) ⇒ 2% (+ 2.5% per 100 bonus AD) (+ 2% per 100 AP) (+ 5% per 100% bonus attack speed) (+ 2% per 500 bonus HP) of the target’s maximum health
We’re using a QoL change here as an opportunity to give Zaahen some love! This might read as a nerf, but Zaahen’s Q lined up with his passive in such a way that it meant he always left his resurrection (and GA, Zilean R) with Q on CD, so now he’s always happier. His Q2 is also a clean double of his Q1 base damage now.

Q – The Darkin Glaive

NEW Cooldown Behavior: If Q is active, it is now placed on Cooldown immediately upon being put in Resurrection
Q2 Damage: 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 (+20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% bonus AD) ⇒ 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% bonus AD)
Zeri has been slowly climbing in winrate with the recent Runaan’s Hurricane and Yun Tal Wildarrows buffs. She now sits very high in winrate compared to her historical resting, which is worrying for a champ that is so skill intensive. As she has also begun showing up in pro, we expect she has a high chance of becoming meta dominant, so we are pulling some power out of her burst and waveclear.

W – Ultrashock Laser

Damage: 30 / 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 (+120% tAD) ⇒ 30 / 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 (+100% tAD)
Wall Damage: 45 / 105 / 165 / 225 / 285 (+180% tAD) ⇒ 45 / 105 / 165 / 225 / 285 (+150% tAD)
Critical Strike: 150% (+15% IE)

Items

Guinsoo’s Rageblade

In light of the bugfix nerfing rageblade by a minor amount by pushing back when the first double hit triggers, we are compensating with a similarly minor QoL buff to help players get it stacked up and keep it stacked.
Seething Strike Stack Duration: 3s ⇒ 4s

Classic Patch Notes

Our third League Classic patch has our biggest content drop to date: Five brand new old champions! Do you want to remove as much gameplay as possible with Poppy’s Diplomatic Immunity? Untargetably Blade Waltz the entire enemy team as Fiora? Deliver taunt explosions as Galio? Experience the fabled early Xin Zhao kit (he’s been nerfed, don’t worry)? Shyvana’s also here.

We’ve got a smaller balance patch than before, as we’re in a much better state balance-wise. Some of our bugfixes had substantial winrate impact, so we’re returning some power we took away in a few cases. Otherwise, we’re just addressing the game’s biggest outliers.

Champions

NEWFiora

Welcome back Classic Fiora, who existed from 2012-2015. Fiora is a deadly duelist, poised to deal tons of damage to isolated targets while also excelling in short trades by Riposting their strikes back at them. You’ll probably want a Ravenous Hydra to have access to wave clear. Some things never change.
Passive – Duelist
Fiora regenerates health whenever she damages enemies. This regeneration can stack when hitting champions.
Q – Lunge
Fiora dashes to strike a nearby enemy. Lunge can be cast a second time at no additional cost..
W – Riposte
Passive: Fiora gain bonus Attack Damage
Active: Fiora parries the next attack within a short time, dealing damage back to her attacker.
E – Burst of Speed
Fiora gains Attack Speed for a few seconds. Attacks and Lunges during this time grant her a stacking Move Speed bonus.
R – Blade Waltz
This is why you’re really here. Fiora becomes untargetable and dashes around the battlefield, striking nearby enemies for (say it with me) tons of damage. All strikes apply on-hit effects and repeated hits on the same target deal reduced damage.

NEWGalio

Classic Galio existed from 2010-2017 and was one part mage, one part AP bruiser, one part tank, one part support. He still wants to build Magic Resist to scale his offense, but almost everything about him is different from the modern-day champion.
Passive – Runic Skin
Galio gains a portion of his Magic Resist as Ability Power. Hooray for one-sentence passives!
Q – Resolute Smite
Galio fires a concussive blast from his eyes that damages and slows enemies where it lands.
W – Bulwark
Galio gives a nearby allied champion bonus Armor and Magic Resist. While buffed, whenever they take damage, Galio is healed.
E – Righteous Gust
Galio unleashes a gust of wind that damages enemies in a line and leaves behind a directional draft, which gives all allies movement speed as long as they’re moving with the current.
Hwei stole this ability. What a jerk.
R – Idol of Durand
Galio channels to taunt all nearby enemies, taking reduced damage in the process. After channeling, Galio damages all enemies caught in the area, increasing based on how many times he was hit while channeling.

NEWPoppy

Do you think League of Legends has too much gameplay? Do you want your opponents to literally have no counterplay to you? No damage, no CC, nothing? We have the Demacian for you. Initially available from 2010-2015, Classic Poppy is a single-target terror with the option to become completely immune to all enemies but one.
Passive – Valiant Fighter
All damage to Poppy beyond 10% of her current health is reduced by 50%
Just in case you thought she was too easy to kill already
Q – Devastating Blow
Poppy’s next attack deals bonus damage based on her target’s max HP
W – Paragon of Demacia
Passive: Poppy gains Armor and Attack Damage (up to a cap) whenever she deals or takes Attacks herself.
Active: Immediately gain max stacks of Paragon of Demacia and gain increased Move Speed for several seconds
E – Heroic Charge
Poppy charges at an enemy, damaging and knocking this back. If they collide with a wall, they take more damage and are stunned.
R – Diplomatic Immunity
Poppy picks an enemy. For the next few seconds no one else can do anything to her and she deals bonus damage to them.
Don’t be fooled by the bonus damage. Ult Soraka and then kill the enemy ADC. There’s no counter-play.
I can’t believe they got rid of this spell during her rework.

NEWShyvana

We chose 2011-2013 for Classic Shyvana, so this is a true blast from the past. Our biggest pro tip for you is Frozen Mallet. If they’re slowed, they can’t run away.
Passive – Fury of the Dragonborn
Shyvana’s basic attacks enhance each of her basic abilities. They reduce Q’s cooldown, increase W’s duration, deal a fraction of E’s initial damage, and generate Fury for her ultimate.
Q – Twin Bite
Shyvana’s next attack strikes her target twice, dealing bonus damage.
In dragon form, Twin Bite deals damage in a cone in front of her.
W – Burnout
Shyvana gains Move Speed and continually damages enemies around her.
In dragon form, Burnout leaves a trail of fire that damages enemies who stand on it.
E – Flame Breath
Shyvana unleashes a fireball that damages the first enemy hit and reduces their armor
In dragon form, she unleashes a cone of fireballs, hitting more enemies.
R – Dragon’s Descent
Passive: Shyvana gains bonus Armor and Magic Resist. This bonus is doubled while in dragon form.
Shyvana transforms into a dragon, flying forward to damage and knock back all enemies encountered during her flight.

NEWXin Zhao

Classic Xin Zhao takes on his kit from 2012-2017. If you’re looking for some straightforward right click until they’re dead gameplay, look no further!
Passive – Challenge
Xin Zhao Challenges his most recent attack target, reducing their Armor.
Q – Three Talon Strike
Xin Zhao’s next three basic attacks deal bonus damage and reduce his other cooldowns by 1 second. The third attack knocks up his target.
W – Battle Cry
Passive: Every third basic attack heals Xin Zhao.
Active: Xin Zhao gains bonus Attack Speed for several seconds.
E – Audacious Charge
Xin Zhao dashes an enemy, Challenging them. Nearby enemies, including the target, take damage and are slowed.
R – Crescent Sweep
Xin Zhao sweeps all enemies around him, dealing damage and gaining Armor and Magic Resist for each enemy struck. Every enemy except his Challenge target are knocked back.

Anivia

Anivia is our single top performer in mid lane, so she’s been slated for nerfs. We’ve got several changes this patch, all of which are re-tuning her numbers back to 2013 accuracy.
Q – Flash Frost
Missile Speed: 950 ⇒ 850
Manual Detonation Stun Duration: 1s ⇒ 0.75s
Manual Detonation Radius: 230 ⇒ 210
Minimum Delay for Recast: 0 ⇒ 0.25s

Gangplank

Gangplank is performing worst of all conventional top laners and is deserving of a large buff. As with many of our changes on Classic, we’re reverting old nerfs from 2011 and 2012. We’re playing up his dreams of being a banker and sharing the wealth when it’s time to go all in.
Q – Parrrley
Bonus Gold on Kill: 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 ⇒ 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 / 12
E – Raise Morale
Active Attack Damage: 12 / 19 / 26 / 33 / 40 ⇒ 14 / 22 / 30 / 38 / 46
Active Move Speed: 8 / 11 / 14 / 17 / 20% ⇒ 10 / 14 / 18 / 22 / 26%
Ally Bonus: Allies still gain 50% of Gangplank’s bonuses

Heimerdinger

Heimerdinger’s bugfix last patch ended up being a massive hit to his power, well above what we expected. So we’re buffing him back up, partially reverting some of our previous nerfs. Because the double damage turret bugfix was significantly top lane skewed, we’re looking to buff his performance in top lane most of all and fix a couple of minor mismatches that escaped his release.
Base Stats
Base Health Regeneration: 4.5 ⇒ 5.05
Q – H-28G Evolution Turret
Base Damage: 28 / 36 / 44 / 52 / 60 ⇒ 30 / 38 / 46 / 54 / 62
W – Hextech Micro-Rockets
Mana Cost: 65 / 85 / 105 / 125 / 145 ⇒ 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 / 120
E – CH-1 Concussion Grenade
Cooldown: 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10s ⇒ 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9s
Cast Range: 920 ⇒ 925

Kayle

Kayle isn’t performing too well in her most popular role of top lane, so we’re here to lend her a wing. We’ve got a large change to her passive, which is a boost of functionally 17-32 ability power. All in all, this should result in a Kayle with more damage, more healing, more everything.
Passive – Holy Fervor
Ability Power Gained: 30% bonus AD ⇒ 30% total AD

Malzahar

Malzahar is one of our best-performing mid laners, primarily as an AP threat, and is due for a small nerf. We completed a pass of minor differences from his 2013 form and have some changes to Voidlings as a result, which should skew toward making AD Malzahar better without affecting AP Malzahar much. Continuing on the trend of AD Malzahar, we’re raising his overall attack speed, so that he can use those potential AD items better. Meanwhile, on the AP nerf front, we have a meaningful bugfix to R, which will reduce its damage in several circumstances, plus an AP ratio nerf to bring him in line.
Base Stats
Attack Speed Growth: 1.36% ⇒ 3%
Attack Speed Ratio: 0.625 ⇒ 0.658
Passive – Summon Voidling
Movement Speed: 400 ⇒ 460
Attack Cast Frame: 12 ⇒ 9
Gold on Kill: 2 ⇒ 12
Q – Call of the Void
Ability Power Ratio: 80% ⇒ 70%
R – Nether Grasp
Bugfix: R no longer continues to deal damage if the channel stops.

Nasus

Nasus is the top dog of top lane and it’s by a lot. Thankfully, we’ve got some substantial bugfixes that should put his bark and his bite on more equal footing. First, we’re fixing a bug where his Q stacks could crit, which means for all you Trinity Force enjoyers, that’s a big hit to Q damage about 10% of the time. For Wither, there are two bugs worth noting and a single change for period-accuracy. The slow now updates every 1 second (affected by tenacity) instead of every 0.5 seconds, unaffected. So now Tenacity won’t cut off the top-end of his slow. However, it was also bugged to use the per-second update every 0.5 seconds, meaning the maximum slow was much higher than it should have been. Fixing both bugs should net out to an appropriate nerf for the ability.
Q – Siphoning Strike
Bonus Damage from stacks can no longer critically strike
W – Wither
Slow ramps every: 0.5s ⇒ 1.0s, affected by Tenacity
Bugfix: The slow no longer ramps up twice as hard as it should

Warwick

Warwick is the top dog of the jungle and it’s by a lot. With Feral Flare’s build path turning back into attack speed, Warwick’s doing even better than he ever has. Accordingly, we’re pulling back even further on how much auto-attack power he gets, mostly from historic changes in his past. We’re also pulling in part of a nerf from 4.21. He was a real terror back in the patch before then…
Base Stats
Attack Speed: 0.644 ⇒ 0.625
Passive – Eternal Thirst
Base Damage: 3 – 16, linear scaling ⇒ 3 + 0.5 per level until level 9, then +1 per level
W – Hunter’s Call
Cooldown: 24 / 22 / 20 / 18 / 16s ⇒ 30 / 27 / 24 / 21 / 18s
R – Infinite Duress
Damage: 250 / 335 / 420 + 200% bonus AD ⇒ 180 / 300 / 420 + 200% bonus AD
Cast Indicator: Updated the cast indicator to better reflect its cast range

Classic Systems

We’ve made some changes around Classic Skin Chromas and their distribution. Instead of directly selling Classic Skin Chromas, we’re unifying this product with their associated Base Skin. We’re hoping this simplifies things and removes some edge cases (where players could effectively pay double if they purchased the Classic Chroma and then the Base Skin).

For those players who have only purchased the Classic Chroma, we’ll be granting the associated Base Skin for free!

Baron Rammus will be going into the vault in 26.20. You can acquire him at a discounted price until then!”

Posted in LoL

Team Voice is Finally Coming to League of Legends, but not Everyone will get it

Posted on by Geekmandem

Team Voice is finally coming to League of Legends in 2026, though the limited rollout will see the feature skip certain regions.

We first talked about Team Voice back in March 2026, and it’s finally coming. The feature will drop with Patch 26.20, alongside the usual changes.

The news dropped in the latest Dev Update, which was shorter than normal but included a number of other bits of news.

Team Voice Comes to North America and Oceania

Sadly for fans not in those regions, you will have to wait a little longer. For now, Riot is testing the feature in its home region, and its closest other English-language counterpart. The feature will be active for anyone who has an Honor Level of three and above.

The feature itself allows the five players on a team to communicate by voice, rather than the usual text chat. Interestingly, the feature will also launch with the ability for players to modify their voice.

After Riot’s recent push to have the Valorant-style “instant punish” system, voice chat will be the latest addition to take advantage of it.

As a note, anyone on the team can listen to voice chat, even if they don’t opt in, or if they are under Honor Level 3. Korea, Latin America, and Brazil will follow “soon”. Riot noted that EU regions will get the feature later due to the system requiring more work for voice detection in the region. We assume due to the vast array of languages and dialects.

Riot Games on Moderating Team Voice?

Here is what Riot Games had to say on Team Voice:

“We’re listening to your concerns…. So we’re going to extensively work, test, and iterate to make this a feature worthy of your trust. Some of this work includes meeting with players around the globe to get feedback on their concerns and making sure Team Voice meets their expectations. Other options we’re exploring to ensure quality include rolling this feature out one language/region at a time, making it great in each one before introducing it to the next. Additionally, no matter what, players will have to be in good standing in order to access Team Voice. We’re working through the exact criteria for evaluating that now, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated.”

Posted in LoL

Caps mural painted in Copenhagen honours his Hall of Legends inclusion

Posted on by Geekmandem

Artist Jens Stentoft has honored Caps with a mural dedicated to him after his Hall of Legends inclusion.

Rasmus “Caps” Winther now has a five-storey tribute in his home country. It is exactly as incredible as that sounds. To mark his Hall of Legends induction, artist Jens Stentoft painted a towering mural of the G2 midlaner onto the side of a building at Amerikavej, Vesterbro, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The mural was completed in just four days, and there’s a very cool timelapse of the process on Jens Stentoft’s Instagram. The mural depicts both Caps and his two skins included in the new Hall of Legend pass and the Caps Signature edition.

Caps Enters Hall of Legend

Hall of Legends Caps
Credit – Jens Stentoft

Caps is in the Hall of Legends, the third player ever to get there and the first from the West. For anyone who’s watched European League since the early days, you’ll be no stranger to Caps. It would be unfair to the rest of the region to say Caps has carried the region, but he’s been a mainstay on G2 since he joined, and they’ve won a fair few trophies in that time.

The seventeen LEC titles tell one side of Caps’ story. But it’s the 2019 MSI run that cemented the legacy. G2 looked genuinely untouchable, and Caps was the one pulling the strings. Whether that elusive Worlds trophy ever turns up remains to be seen. Caps hasn’t shown signs of slowing down, and G2 continue to look stronger.

The ceremony went down on 18 August, then the in-game celebration opens on 10 September with the Transcendent Tristana skin.

Stop Alt-Tabbing Between Pulls. U.GG Stats Now Load Inside WoW

Posted on by Stan

We’re proud to announce that the U.GG Desktop app now includes retail World of Warcraft! The app is free and brings U.GG data directly into the game through the Class Codex addon.

How to Install

To get started, download the app and locate your World of Warcraft folder to install the Class Codex addon. The app is available on Windows and macOS, with Retail supported at launch. The Desktop app lets you browse Icy Veins guides as you would in a browser. You can subscribe to U.GG PLUS for an ad-free experience.

Download the U.GG Desktop App

What You Get

Once you launch the game and enable the Class Codex addon, you will see talent builds, best-in-slot gear, stat priorities, and rotations inside the game, which means no alt-tabbing mid-pull or scrolling to find what you need between wipes.

Two sources are available for you to choose from: U.GG data or Icy Veins guides. In the following example, we’ve opened the Talents tab, where by clicking on the Class Codex icon, you get to choose the source, content, and difficulty to get the best build for each context.

Class Codex Addon in World of Warcraft

Is It Safe?

Yes, the app is safe. Millions of users have been using the U.GG app for League of Legends and the Class Codex addon is compliant with Blizzard’s End User’s Licence Agreement, so using both won’t get you banned.

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Feedback, negative or positive, we want to hear it! If you have any questions or suggestions tied to the app and WoW support, please send us an e-mail.

Posted in LoL

The World Star Challengers Invitational, Riot’s first global Tier 2 Tournament, is coming

Posted on by Geekmandem

Riot and TJ Sports (The same crew behind the LPL) have announced the World Star Challengers Invitational, or WSCI if you’d rather not say the whole thing every time. It’s a first of its kind: a global tournament built entirely around Tier 2 teams. It runs from 20 September to 2 October, with 16 sides coming out of China, Korea, APAC, the Americas and EMEA. For a lot of these players, it’s the first time they’ll ever line up against academy talent from outside their own region.

Think of it as the Asia Masters. Growing up and going international. Riot’s calling it a pilot, which is basically a polite way of saying it’s a test run to see whether stitching the regional Tier 2 scenes together actually holds up.

16 teams, five regions

Every region sends three teams, though how they earn those spots changes depending on where you’re from. 15 slots accounted for, and the last one goes to the reigning Asia Masters champions. This year that’s DK Challengers, Dplus KIA’s academy side, who saw off T1 Esports Academy back in June to take the 2026 title.

Right now China is the only region with its lineup locked in, having run its qualifier at the end of August. The three heading through are BLG Junior (BLG’s academy roster), EDG Youth Team and ZSK. The other four regions will fill in over the coming weeks, so there’s plenty still to be confirmed.

WSCI 2026 at a glance

  • Dates – 20 September – 2 October
  • Teams -16 across 5 regions
  • Four Groups of Four
  • Group stage – 20–25 Sep · double round-robin · Bo1
  • Bracket – 27 Sep – 2 Oct · single elimination · Bo5
  • Final – 2 October

How the seeding works

Before the group draw, the 16 teams get split across three seeding pools. Each group then ends up with one team from Pool 1, one from Pool 2, and a pair from Pool 3.

There are a couple of guardrails to stop the groups getting samey. Pool 1 and Pool 2 teams from the same region can’t land in the same group, and no group can hold more than two teams from any single region. So you won’t end up watching one region’s academy scene basically run a domestic scrim with a fancy overlay.

Format and schedule

The group stage kicks off on 20 September and runs six days. Teams play a double round-robin inside their group, all best-of-one, so there’s no easing into a series to find your footing. Eight games go down each match day, and the top two from every group move on.

From there it’s a straight single-elimination bracket, 27 September to 2 October. Everything from the quarters onward is best-of-five, seven series in total. The whole thing wraps up with the final on 2 October. Lose once in the bracket, and you’re out. So the room for a bad day vanishes the second the groups end.

How to watch WSCI 2026

Riot hasn’t dropped the full broadcast schedule yet. You’ll be able to follow along through the regional Tier 2 social channels, with regional co-streamers picking up the action for their own audiences. So keep an eye on whichever region you already follow rather than sitting around waiting on one big central stream.

It’s great to see Riot Games doing something for Tier 2, and we’re fascinated to see what this does for Tier 2 esports.

Posted in LoL