Riot Games has been hinting at a big update for a while now, and it’s finally been revealed. A modernized client has been one of the biggest wishlist items for League players, hoping to finally have the store and matchmaking experience merged with the actual game client. We’re finally getting that, alongside a major graphical overhaul, a new Summoner’s Rift “but that’s just the beginning” according to Riot Pabro.
We’re thrilled to see what Riot has planned for New Dawn, including how the new client and gameplay will feel, as well as the exciting new stats that we’ll be able to analyze at launch.
League of Legends: New Dawn has just been revealed, and the teaser trailer has a ton of new details that eagle-eyed players will be able to spot. Let’s dive right in!
Same Game, New Rift?
Before the teaser dropped, plenty of players expected a “League 2.” reveal at Worlds.
That’s not what this looks like. New Dawn feels closer to the 2014 Summoner’s Rift visual update. A new map, not a new game. We might get a few new champion models at launch. A full overhaul could come later. We’ll know more in January when Riot does the full reveal. The release is set for later in 2027.
You might have spotted this fight between two very familiar champions: Graves and Vayne. Both are still using their old models.
Speculation: Either those are placeholders in a new engine, or this is the same game on the same engine with a fresh map.
Revamped Summoner’s Rift
There’s so much to look at with the new Summoner’s Rift. These are just a few of the things that we noticed!
Minion Overhaul
Much more detail, new animations (including facial expressions!) Much better lighting on the minions as well!
Krugs Replaced
In the shot of Garen ulting Jhin, it appears to be taking place botlane on blue, between the first and second tower.
Krugs have been replaced with whatever this is. Its head looks kind of ant-like.
Botlane Overhaul
The gap between red and blue looks smaller. There’s a wall on the other side of the river bush, which looks like its bordering the new dragon pit.
The river also seems to have realtime reflections. In this shot you can see both champions and their abilities reflected back.
New Red Buff
The new red buff looks menacing! The wall leading to blue base seems to have been replaced by this crater.
Speculation: The meteor may be called down on champions walking through the crater while Red Buff is alive. The animation played in this shot seems to be Red Buff actively tracking Master Yi and calling the meteor down on him.
New Blue Buff
Blue Buff also got a makeover, though it’s a bit out-of-frame and hard to tell. We’ll have to wait for January to see this one!
New Gromp
Gromp is looking very high-poly!
New Dragon Pit, Dragon Variant
The new dragon pit seems to be centered in the middle of the river rather than the old layout where it was on blue side. The dragon itself is covered in feathers, seems to have entirely new animations, and might feature telegraphed attacks like Baron. More like a proper boss fight than a simple side objective.
And just like the current Dragon, the arena seems to change depending on the variant.
A New Void-Themed Beast
At the end of the teaser we get a close-up of this monster before the screen cuts to black.
Speculation: A new side objective, potentially a replacement for Rift Herald?
New Champion Models
This is mostly speculation. It’s unlikely that we’re getting new models, animations and vfx for all 160+ champions.
Riot took quite a bit of time showing cinematic close-ups of few of the champions in the beginning. We’re still unsure whether these are just cinematic models, or the new standard for champion models going forward.
New Animations. Models for Blitzcrank and Kha’Zix.
New Animations and Model for Garen, including this exaggerated ultimate animation.
New Leona Model, and a realtime reflection on the water! New Ult animation as well.
New Ashe and New Morgana models, as well as ult VFX.
New Master Yi Model
Speculation: Models seem to be affected by 3D lighting now. They also cast realtime reflections in the river. This is definitely a new engine, or they’ve seriously expanded the capabilities of the old engine.
Cinematic Champion Close-Ups
These could just be for the teaser cinematic, or they may be the new in-game models. When comparing the gameplay footage of the new Blitzcrank model to the close-up, they do seem to match, so this may just been an absurdly high new-quality standard for champions going forward.
Leona
Blitzcrank
Lux
Sett
Poppy
Ekko
Volibear
Ashe
Jhin
Ahri
New Abilities / Ability Modifications
It appeared in a few of the clips that some of the abilities were being affected by a new system, or perhaps the abilities have changed.
Morgana in one instance healed Ashe with her ultimate. Vayne was able to dash through a wall after ulting, and Leona’s ultimate was red for some reason.
Speculation: In the shot where Blitzcrank selects “GOD HAND”, it could be similar to keystones, or it could be a new ability modification system.
This teaser has been very exciting, and we’re looking forward to seeing what Riot has in store for us in January!
Movistar KOI roster for the 2027 LEC season is shaping up to be something special. Rather than build a superteam from scratch, Movistar KOI’s roster looks to build on the talent the roster already has with two new major additions.
The most interesting of the two is Carzzy, who heads back to KOI after three seasons with Team Vitality. Joining him is BrokenBlade, who leaves a G2 Esports side going through a major shake-up of its own for 2027.
Movistar KOI’s Reported 2027 LEC Roster
Role
Player
2026 team
What changed
Top
BrokenBlade
G2 Esports
Reported verbal agreement (Sheep Esports)
Jungle
Elyoya
Movistar KOI
Staying
Mid
Jojopyun
Movistar KOI
Staying
ADC
Carzzy
Team Vitality
Reported verbal agreement (Sheep Esports)
Support
Alvaro
Movistar KOI
Staying
Myrwn and Supa are the two leaving the roster, and with the changes, it looks like MKOI, who have been the third wheel in Europe when it comes to the international stage, might now look to step up.
The move also ends one of the more consistent rosters in the LEC. Movistar KOI has been one of the brightest rosters in the LEC in recent times, alongside KC, who have both filled the void left by Fnatic. However, G2 Esports remain the kings of Europe, so BrokenBlade making the move is an interesting roster move.
BrokenBlade joins Movistar KOI Roster
BrokenBlade is an interesting move, and a player who had a lot of options. According to SheepEsports, Fnatic and NAVI offered him a deal, but MKOI is who he has decided to join. Interestingly, reports also suggest that G2 Esports had offered him a deal, alongside the other rosters.
BrokenBlade has won almost everything at G2, having joined from Schalke 04 in 2021, with only Caps having been with the side longer. G2 won it all in 2026 in terms of EU glory, but struggled on the international stage, which is likely why they are also having a major roster shuffle.
Carzzy returns to Movistar KOI Roster
After three seasons with Team Vitality, Carzzy is set to return to Movistar KOI. The worry for Team Vitality was their lack of wins in best-of-five games, and with Carzzy having made multiple LEC All-Pro teams, his time on the roster was always on thin ice.
Fnatic were interested, but according to Team AAA, Carzzy didn’t want to wait around and chose KOI instead, where he’ll reunite with Elyoya. He was head coach Melzhet’s first choice too, ahead of Massu and Jopa.
When Will Movistar KOI Announce Their 2027 Roster?
There’s no date yet. BrokenBlade’s G2 contract runs until 16 November, so don’t expect anything before then, and Riot hasn’t confirmed when the 2027 LEC season starts. We’ll update this as soon as KOI make it official.
The League of Legends Patch 26.23 Preview is here. Riot Phroxzon on X has the usual post in a week that only really sees champion changes coming to the game. We are a week into Mel’s rework, with buffs on the way.
– Yi and Syndra continue to be champions that rate highly on our frustration surveys.
– Yi for regular play and Syndra and Leblanc for the higher levels of play.
– Syndra got a nerf a few patches ago and it was not super heavy by intention, so as to not go further than we need to, but we think she could use another tap down this patch.
– So far, Mel has landed in a pretty stable spot, with a decently low banrate (touch wood).
– That said, at this power level, we aren’t really able to test our hypothesis of whether she is less frustrating when she’s at a power level, so we’re giving her some buffs to let her sit at a normal power level for a champion of her type of shape and mastery curve.
– She shows a bit of a bot skew, similar to many other mages that have been inhabiting bot lane recently.
– This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but just something to watch.
– This set of changes is aimed at making Azir’s interactions with on-hits like Nashors/Lethal Tempo stronger.
– This is especially true because PTA is now picking up as a lot of popularity and Lethal Tempo is considered a bit weaker for many players.
– The 525 AA range on Azir also often results in him walking up and getting himself damaged, or sometimes killed (especially in laning phase) for lower mastery Azir players.
– So we’re upping this range to make him more comfortable to play.
– W is K’Sante’s second max in many cases and so we’re giving power back here, given that this ability has clearer signaling.
– W is also more regular skewed as higher skilled players are more likely to dodge K’Sante’s W’s in both forms.
Items
Voltaic Cyclosword
We considered going harder on the item here, but feel like it’s not that far off.
Items like this (especially 1st item spikes) need to be on the stronger side in order for Assassin classes to spike hard relative to some of the more scaling classes.
Gen.G and Bilibili Gaming will meet in the Worlds 2026 grand final on Saturday 14 November at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Both are chasing something long overdue. Gen.G haven’t lifted the Summoner’s Cup since 2017, when the roster still played as Samsung Galaxy. BLG have never won it, and they lost the 2024 final to T1.
The semifinals set this up nicely. Gen.G swept Invictus Gaming 3-0 in Allen, Texas. A day later, BLG beat T1, champions for three years running, 3-1. Whatever happens on Saturday, T1’s run is over, and someone else lifts the cup.
When is the Worlds 2026 final?
The grand final is a best-of-five on Saturday, 14 November 2026, starting at 19:00 UTC. It’s at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, which holds about 19,000. It’s the first Worlds final on the US East Coast.
Region
Start time
US Pacific (PT)
11:00, Saturday
US Eastern (ET)
14:00, Saturday
UK (GMT)
19:00, Saturday
Central Europe (CET)
20:00, Saturday
China (CST)
03:00, Sunday
Korea (KST)
04:00, Sunday
You can watch on the LoL Esports Twitch and YouTube channels, or at lolesports.com, where you can earn viewer drops if your Riot account is linked. The winners take US$1,000,000 from the US$5,000,000 prize pool, and the runners-up get US$800,000.
If you’re in New York, the Worlds Fan Fest runs at Pier 36 in Lower Manhattan from 12 to 14 November.
Gen.G have dropped one game in the whole tournament. They came in as the LCK’s top seed and went 3-0 in the Swiss stage, beating IG, Hanwha Life and LYON. LYON took game one off them in that Bo3, which is still the only game Gen.G has lost.
In the quarterfinal, they swept LYON, then did the same to IG in the semis. Games one and two were tidy. In game three, IG led 6-0 in kills and by over 4,000 gold, but Gen.G picked off the right targets around the objective and turned it around. Going 3-0 after a start like that is about as convincing as it gets. This is also Gen.G’s first Worlds final since 2017. They’d finished in the top four in four of their last five Worlds without getting past the semis, so breaking that streak matters.
BLG’s road to the final
BLG made it the hard way. They came in as the LPL’s second seed and went 3-2 in the Swiss stage. They lost to Movistar KOI in round one and to Top Esports later on, so they needed to beat Hanwha Life in the final round to go through.
They’ve been a different team since. BLG swept Dplus KIA in the quarterfinal, then beat T1 3-1 in the semis. T1 levelled the series in game two, but BLG won games three comfortably but game four wasn’t so easy, especially with Faker reducing the gold deficit solo. T1 had won all 13 of their previous Worlds best-of-fives against LPL teams, so it’s a big result.
It’s also BLG’s third international final of the year. They won First Stand in March, beating G2 in the final, and lost the MSI final 3-2 to Hanwha Life in July.
Rosters and key matchups
Role
Gen.G
BLG
Top
Kiin
Bin
Jungle
Canyon
Xun
Mid
Chovy
Knight
ADC
Ruler
Viper
Support
Duro
ON
Head coach
Ryu
Daeny
Gen.G haven’t changed their roster all year. All five have played together since Ruler and Duro joined in 2025. BLG brought in Xun and Viper over the 2025-26 winter and have tried a few players in top lane, with Flandre on the bench.
Mid lane is the matchup everyone will watch. Chovy and Knight are two of the best mids in the world, and neither has won Worlds. One of them will on Saturday.
The bot lane matters just as much, and both ADCs have won Worlds. Ruler did it with Samsung Galaxy in 2017, so he’s the one link to the organisation’s last title. Viper won it with EDG in 2021. Watch how Duro and ON handle that two-on-two, because an early lead there opens the map for both junglers.
Top could swing it. Bin is one of the best performers in international history, and Kiin is one of the most consistent tops in the LCK. If Bin gets ahead and takes over the side lanes, that’s BLG’s best way to win.
Prediction: Gen.G 3-2
I’m going with Gen.G in five. They’ve lost one game all tournament, they have the same five players they’ve had all year, and the IG comeback showed they don’t panic when they go behind. Chovy and Ruler, with a week to prepare, are a scary combination. Plus, I backed Gen.G since day one, so why not keep that up?
BLG are the team to watch if it goes long, though. They lost twice in Swiss and have improved every series since, and they’ve already reached three international finals this year. If Bin and Knight get the early leads they found against T1, this goes the distance, and BLG could win it.
Choosing the right augment in ARAM Mayhem is a split-second decision. And it isn’t easy.
There are over 200 augments in ARAM Mayhem, and understanding which ones to choose requires a deep knowledge of the game and how each augment synergizes with your champion.
Patch 26.22 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)
TFT Standalone Client
Hooray! TFT is all grown up! They’re officially moving to their own standalone client starting on November 4th, 2026. To accommodate their new home, you can expect this patch to be larger than usual. We are making sure that it’s as easy as clicking a button to swap between League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics whenever you want.
Despite this upcoming separation, all existing Teamfight Tactics cosmetics will remain usable in League. The first batch of TFT-only Little Legends will arrive on December 1st, with December 15th marking the date of full separation for TFT cosmetics including emotes and icons.
After this patch, you’ll be able to fully opt out of TFT downloads in League patches. To make this possible, 26.22 will be a larger download than usual. For more information, read more here and we’ll see (some of) you on the Convergence!
The majority of Aurelion Sol players have made it pretty clear that they would much rather rank up his Singularity (E) second over his Astral Flight (W) even though it’s a much weaker second max. We agree that his (E) is a very cool signature spell, so we’re giving him a buff there to help make doing the intuitive fun thing the right thing.
We’ve seen Kayle’s relevance decrease steadily from earlier this year as the game’s moved past the top lane shake up from role quests. We’re giving her a small bump to help out her early laning since we believe that top lane could use some more scaling options.
While Locke’s performance in general is within reason, he’s proven to be a much deeper champion than we initially expected and players who have reached that level of Locke play have shown him to still be clearly too strong, especially early game.
Maokai has remained a very still tree this year, and has been almost entirely stuck in support. We’re buffing him in a way that helps out his top and jungle more.
This patch, Mel is getting a midscope adjustment. You can read more about it here. For the spark notes version, she is having some power moved from early game to scaling, her W is being reworked into an Area-of-Effect missile destruction that retaliates rather than reflects effects, and her Q and R are getting adjustments to lower their cooldowns later on in the game so she can stack her passive to ever higher amounts.
Missile Speed: 3800 ⇒ 3200 (takes .047s longer to travel to max range)
W – Rebuttal – Reworked
Unleashes a nova that expands to 400u Radius over 0.75 seconds. The nova destroys enemy projectiles and shields and grants move speed to Mel and Allies within. Destroyed missiles are retaliated against at the end of the nova.
Retaliation Damage: 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 (+10% AP), reduced to 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 (+5% AP) for subsequent hits against the same enemy, up to 7 retaliations per enemy for a total of 65 – 205 (+40% AP)
After a series of nerfs earlier this year, Naafiri has largely fallen out of mid lane entirely and has been pretty mediocre in the jungle. We’re giving her a buff that should primarily help out her mid, bringing her role power closer to parity.
Similar to Corki, Rumble was tuned for pro play. This change should help out the average rumble a bit more than pros when they catch back up to the patch cycle.
Along with Maokai, Shen jungle has been pushed too far out of the meta. We were watching to see if some of the previous patches’ changes to help jungle tanks would bring him back up, but now we’re confident we can just buff him .
Our buffs a few patches ago landed a bit softer than we expected, but he’s ended up with a good balance between his Crit and Caster builds, so we’re giving him a more generic buff this time. We also expect the Doran’s Bow nerf in this patch to help him out a bit.
Last patch’s nerf to Viktor hit him harder than we expected – but we are happy about the impact it had on his early game bullying, so we are buffing him back in scaling.
We were on the fence last patch with whether Yasuo would also need a nerf like Yone, but he’s also continued growing in winrate as players migrate to crit builds and banrate reflecting that so he’s getting the same treatment.
Zaahen is living up to his scaling fantasies, but hasn’t had enough to do in lane. This should make his early scrapping and skirmishing much more satisfying.
Q – The Darkin Glaive
Cooldown: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6s
⇒ 8 / 7.5 / 7 / 6.5 / 6s
Items
Doran’s Bow
We’re nerfing Doran’s Bow by a minor amount, as it’s settled into a spot that is slightly but clearly too strong, resulting in marksmen that we expect to be leaning towards Doran’s Blade instead being almost purely Doran’s Bow users.
Attack Damage: 8 ⇒ 7
Overlord’s Bloodmail
Overlord’s should be one of the premier juggernaut capstone items, but outside of Sett hasn’t been able to carry enough power to justify greeding for. We are adjusting Overlords in a way that should be a net buff for most other users while hopefully not ballooning its power level too far on Sett, who benefits the most from the Retribution passive because of synergy with his Haymaker (W).
Attack Damage: 30 ⇒ 40
Retribution: +0 – 12% total AD, based on % Missing Health ⇒ +0 – 10% total AD, based on % Missing Health
Classic Patch Notes
Our penultimate content patch arrives with three new old champions to play. Up first, winner of Council Vote #2, Volibear! Run down your enemies, fear nearby minions, and take a bite out of crime. Swain also makes his re-entrance, full of bird-fueled mayhem. And finally, Elise, while not particularly different, has a lot of single-target damage with which to lay waste to her opposition.
We’ve also got a bigger balance patch than usual, taking aim at some of the game’s largest outliers on both the top and bottom end. Yes, Janna, your time has come.
NEWVolibear
This version of Volibear was active from 2011 to 2018, before his E got the knock-back and anti-dash synergy. He’s a tanky melee fighter who excels in sustained combat before finally dealing a significant burst of damage to low-health enemies.
Passive – Chosen of the Storm: When reduced to low health, Volibear heals for a portion of his maximum health over time. This effect has a long cooldown.
Q – Rolling Thunder: Volibear gains bonus movement speed, increased while running toward enemy champions. His next attack deals bonus damage and flips his target over his head.
W – Frenzy: Volibear passively gains stacking bonus attack speed on-attack. While at max stacks, Frenzy can be activated to deal high single-target damage, increased based on their missing health.
E – Majestic Roar: Volibear damages and slows nearby enemies. Minions and monsters are additionally feared.
R – Thunder Claws: Volibear harnesses the power of the storm for several seconds, causing all basic attacks to inflict chain lightning.
NEWSwain
This version of Swain was active from 2010-2016, where he received a minor rework. If you never experienced the glory of the Laser Bird, now is your time!
Passive – Carrion Renewal: Swain recoups some mana every time he kills an enemy.
Q – Decrepify: Swain sics his raven on a target enemy, slowing and dealing damage over time while they remain in range.
W – Nevermove: After a brief delay, Swain damages and roots all enemies in a small area.
E – Torment: Swain afflicts an enemy with Torment, dealing damage over time and causing them to take increased damage from him. Unlike most other damage amps, this also impacts true damage, like Ignite.
R – Ravenous Flock: Swain transforms into a giant raven, consuming increasing amounts of mana while transformed. In this state, he releases lesser ravens to damage enemies and return to heal Swain based on the damage they dealt.
NEWElise
Elise hasn’t changed too much over the years, but this older version put a lot more power into her Q spells. She is seriously bursty and an incredibly potent top laner with all her health-based damage. Make sure to stack some magic pen!
Passive – Spider Swarm: While in human form, abilities that hit enemies store a Spiderling, up to a cap. In spider form, Elise releases these Spiderlings to attack nearby enemies.
Q – Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite: In human form, Elise spits neurotoxin that deals bonus damage based on her target’s current health. In spider form, Elise and her Spiderlings lunge at an enemy and deal bonus damage based on their target’s missing health.
W – Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy: In human form, Elise releases a volatile spiderling that explodes on the first enemy it hits, dealing damage in an area. In spider form, Elise and her Spiderlings gain bonus attack speed and heal Elise on-hit.
E – Cocoon / Rappel: In human form, Elise fires a cocoon that stuns the first enemy it hits. In spider form, Elise and her Spiderlings rappel into the air, becoming untargetable. She can then re-cast Rappel to descend upon her choice of target.
R – Human Form / Spider Form: Elise transforms back and forth between human form and spider form. In human form she’s ranged. In spider form, she is melee and deals bonus damage on-hit.
Aatrox
We didn’t update Aatrox’s passive cooldown properly in the last patch and an unrelated bug slipped in that prevented him from doing anything with his ultimate-empowered attacks. We fixed the auto-attack bug with a day-1 micropatch but the cooldown change was tooltip only until now.
P – Blood Well
Cooldown: 225 ⇒ 225/200/175/150 (for real this time)
Q – Dark Flight
Failure to Land: Fixed a bug from 2013 where the ability would occasionally fail to affect enemies after max-range casts.
R – Massacre
Attacks: Fixed a bug where Aatrox’s basic attacks did nothing during his ultimate. (Fixed in a day-1 micropatch)
Amumu
With bug fixes and balance changes combined, Amumu has wound up as one of the game’s strongest junglers. We’re here to tap him back down to where a straightforward fast-farming jungler is meant to rest. We’re reverting some of our earlier buffs and pulling another one from history to bring down his team-wiping AoE power.
Evelynn has fallen off as time went on and now looks like one of the weaker junglers, so we’re here to give her a boost. We’re undoing her Hate Spike damage nerf to ensure she can keep up with everyone else.
AP Ezreal has never quite hit the mark so it’s time for buffs. As AD Ezreal is doing just fine, we’re delivering simple AP ratio buffs and playing up his healer alternate playstyle since it’s so unique to this version of the champion.
W – Essence Flux
Ability Power Ratio: 60% ⇒ 80%
Healing Effectiveness: 50% ⇒ 70%
E – Arcane Shift
Ability Power Ratio: 75% ⇒ 80%
Fiddlesticks
Fiddlesticks, like any good scarecrow, is outstanding in his field. Well, fields. He’s a great jungler and support, so we’re going to prune some power from both. With how much his E’s mana cost goes up with rank, we want to make sure ranking it is valuable, but he otherwise outputs too much damage too quickly.
E – Dark Wind
Damage per Bounce: 65 / 85 / 105 / 125 / 145 + 45% AP ⇒ 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 + 45% AP
Gangplank
Gangplank is still one of the game’s weakest top laners and junglers, so we’re back for more buffs. While some of these may feel a little scattershot, they’re all period-accurate buffs and reverted-nerfs from before his subsequent 2015 rework. The only novel changes here are to his base stats, where we hope to make him more resilient and allow him to play bruiser builds in addition to crit burst.
Janna has been an extreme top performer for a while so it’s time to bring her down to size. We aim to keep her global passive intact, but want to make sure it’s not so dominant that it crushes other lanes’ interactions.
Passive – Tailwind
Global Bonus Movement Speed: 3% ⇒ 2%
Mordekaiser
Mordekaiser had a few bugs when he came out last patch, and while we fixed many of them in a micropatch, some of them took a while. Here’s a full recounting of bugfixes from our micropatches and the ones coming out today.
Base Stats
Attack Timing: Attacks now come out approximately 70% faster. This was fixed about 1 week after his release
R – Children of the Grave
Pet Bonus Attack Damage: 75% of the target’s Attack Damage ⇒ 75% of Mordekaiser’s Attack Damage
Structure Crits: Pets no longer can critically strike structures.
Bonus Damage to Inhibitors and the Nexus: 75% (This was true in 2013, too!) ⇒ 0%
Nami
Nami didn’t make the cut for buffs in her initial patch but as time has gone on, she’s floundering. She doesn’t have any historical buffs or nerfs to key into before the Preseason Four support update, so we’re creating some novel changes. In the interest of experimentation, we’re playing up her ability to deal a lot of damage if she can land everything and optimize for it. And hey, how about Mid Nami?
Damage Reduction per Bounce: 30% ⇒ 15% (Healing reduction unchanged at 15%)
Olaf
Olaf hasn’t quite kept up with other top laners or junglers so we want to play up his strong sustained damage. As with most of our balance changes, we’re digging up changes from his 2011 and 2012 history.
Rammus is the third of the top-performing junglers, so we’re digging up his past to bring him down to size. The armor nerf should do most of the heavy lifting here, as it impacts both his attack damage and W return damage.
Base Stats
Base Armor: 28.8 ⇒ 25
Attack Damage per Level: 3.5 ⇒ 2.75
Items
Health and Mana Potions
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Health and Mana Potions had no buff text.
Shushei’s Mana Jug
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Shushei’s Mana Jug triggered on Clone takedown.
Statikk Shiv
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Statikk Shiv no longer procced for Kayle after using Righteous Fury (E).
Wit’s End
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Wit’s End failed to maintain 4 stacks.
Eight teams are left at Worlds 2026, and two of them are flying the flag for the West. LYON are the last LCS side standing, Karmine Corp are the last LEC side standing, and both have been handed the sort of quarterfinal draw that you’d rather avoid at this stage: Gen.G for LYON, T1 for KC.
The rest of the West didn’t make it. Day 7 of the Swiss stage was brutal, with LØS knocking out Team Liquid and Hanwha Life ending G2’s run on the same day. That left LYON and KC to scrap through on the final day, and both did, finishing 3-2.
So can either of them actually pull it off? Here’s how we see both series going.
Gen.G vs LYON prediction
Image Riot Games
Wednesday 4 November, 23:00 CET
LYON’s Swiss run was a proper rollercoaster. They opened 2-0 with wins over Team Secret Whales and Karmine Corp, then dropped two on the bounce to Gen.G and Invictus Gaming. That left them in a do-or-die series against LØS on the final day.
And it nearly went wrong. LØS took Game 1 comfortably, and LYON won Game 2 without holding a gold lead at any point, not even when the Nexus went down. Then in Game 3 they threw away a lead of almost 3K gold and still clawed it back late.
The problem is who’s waiting. Gen.G went through the Swiss stage undefeated, and one of their three wins was a 2-1 over LYON in Round 3. So this is a rematch, and LYON already know what losing it feels like.
The good news for NA is that 2-1 isn’t a stomp. LYON took a game off Gen.G in a Bo3, and a Bo5 gives them more room to find a draft that works. The bad news is that LYON’s best moments at this tournament have come from coming back, and Gen.G don’t usually give you much to come back from.
Our call: Gen.G 3-1. LYON nick a game, probably off a scrappy late-game fight, but Gen.G are too clean to let a series slip twice.
T1 vs KC prediction
Image Riot Games
Friday 6 November, 23:00 CET
KC took the long way round, and they’ve made it to the final stage. They dropped back-to-back series to LYON and Bilibili Gaming in the middle of the Swiss stage, which had the Blue Wall sweating. Then they flipped it, beating CTBC Flying Oyster and Movistar KOI 2-0 each to book their place.
The MKOI series was the one that showed what this team can do under pressure. Though the two sides have become somewhat of an LEC rivalry of late, and KC have been the better of the two overall.
T1 are T1. They went 3-1 through the Swiss stage, and their only loss came against Dplus KIA, who also went unbeaten. They’re the team nobody wants in a Bo5, and they’ve got a long history of making Western teams look silly on the big stage.
Still, this KC team has more upset potential than LYON. Caliste and Yike just won a must-win series between them, and a team that’s spent a week playing elimination games won’t be fazed by the stakes.
Our call: T1 3-2. KC take this further than most people expect, but T1 in a deciding game is still the scariest thing in League.
Worlds 2026 quarterfinals schedule
All four quarterfinals are best-of-five at the Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, Texas, starting at 23:00 CET (17:00 ET).
Date
Match
Tuesday 3 November
Top Esports vs Invictus Gaming
Wednesday 4 November
Gen.G vs LYON
Thursday 5 November
Dplus KIA vs Bilibili Gaming
Friday 6 November
T1 vs Karmine Corp
The semifinals follow on 7 and 8 November in Allen, then the final moves to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on 14 November.
Mel’s W is about to lose the one thing everyone hates about it. Patch 26.22 lands on November 4, and Riot is ripping the projectile reflect off Rebuttal for good. After nearly two years of trying to make it work.
So how did we get here? Mel has been under the microscope since she was released, but this next change will be the most impactful yet.
Launch week: nerfed before she settled on the Rift
Mel arrived in Patch 25.S1.2 in January 2025, fresh from Arcane and someone fans couldn’t wait to get to play. Riot reckoned she was a bit too strong and hotfixed her on January 25. Three days after release, cutting the AP ratio on her Overwhelm passive from 25% to 10% and trimming her execute ult.
Patch 25.4 followed with shorter W uptime and a weaker E root, then 25.8 handed back some base health as a little apology.
Most banned, rarely picked
Mel spent most of 2026 as one of the weakest mids in the game while sitting near the top of the ban list. Riot’s 26.3 rework in February sped up her autos and stopped her reflecting area spells that weren’t aimed at her. Patch 26.8 in April went again, cutting her Q’s first hit to a max of 160 and pushing W’s cooldown out to 38 to 26 seconds.
By Patch 26.17, u.gg had her as a D-tier mid with a 45.07% win rate, 56th of 57 mid laners, and still banned in 20.1% of games. That ban rate was pure spite, honestly. Nobody wanted their Jhin Q fired straight back into their own face.
What Patch 26.22 changes
The new W still deletes incoming projectiles. But now it pops a nova that shields Mel and nearby allies, gives them a burst of movement speed and pings attackers for a bit of damage. Riot is also moving power out of her laning phase and into her late game, and reckons ditching the reflect lets them balance her at a higher baseline.
Translation: less lane bully, more teamfight mage. Her win rate will wobble for the first few days while everyone works her out, so check the Mel build once 26.22 goes live. Still getting bullied by her? Her counters page has you covered, and the tier list will show whether the midscope actually drags her out of D tier.
The League of Legends Patch 26.22 Preview is here. With Worlds now fully underway, LoL continues to move on with buffs and nerfs. Riot Phroxzon on X with the Patch 26.22 Preview. The key focus of this patch is Mel, who will get the start of a rework in Patch 26.22.
When we released Mel, we intentionally went for a new ability that was pretty ambitious; we like to try to push the boundaries with new champions and mechanics to give players new puzzles to solve with each release.
After being on Live for a while, it’s clear that many players feel that Mel’s reflect was too frustrating to play against.
There are things in League that are allowed to be frustrating, as that can create a feeling of triumph when overcoming it and challenging players to grow, but there are some things that are too frustrating even given those upsides.
Realistically, every champion should have something that they do uniquely that other players might feel is frustrating.
So we’re reworking Mel’s W to keep the feeling of destroying projectiles, but not have it hard counter some subsets of the roster.
We tried many versions of Mel’s W that tried to retain the reflect, but we couldn’t find one that would hit the mark for Mel players and would be satisfactory for opponents.
We know this is disappointing for Mel players and we’re sorry we couldn’t uphold this end of the contract with you all.
That said, we hope this will allow Mel to be balanced at relatively higher resting power levels and be more effective for Mel players.
Viktor’s nerfs last patch overshot a bit, but we’re happy with the power redistribution to make his mobility (base movespeed) a bit worse.
This emphasizes his weakness of walking around the map unassisted, but in return, pays for the power budget of his strong laning and good scaling.
As a result, we’re not looking to revert either of his patches from last patch but give him power back in some of that scaling power.
Locke
We’ve been trying to fine tune Locke’s strengths and weaknesses post release and don’t think it’s too far off.
One place we think is a bit off though is how much damage he gets, especially early from his Q, so there’s a decently sized nerf here (keep in mind that this stacks up to 3x and is increased by 40% for 3 stacks to be ~30 dmg nerf at max).
The other place that we think is a bit off is Locke’s W Movespeed.
This nerf will make the spell a bit more windowed while trying to retain satisfaction while it’s active and making it a bit more costly to spam while running around the map.
Rumble has been one of the strongest champs in Pro Play, but now that Pro Play patches are done, we’re giving him a bit of power, as it’s not like he’s overly strong in Elite play either.
There are a few Aurelion Sol players who enjoy maxing W second, but most ASol players max E second, even though it’s weaker.
This is mostly the intuitive thing to do, but is quite a bit weaker than the alternative.
In an ideal world, these would be balanced against each other so both playstyles feel powerful.
Systems
Overlord’s Bloodmail
Overlord’s Bloodmail has been pretty weak overall and it’s pretty hard bound to Sett as currently tuned.
We’re looking to try to buff this for other users who should be interested in an item that converts Health to Damage (Mundo, Sion), but some aspects of the item make it too Sett skewed [eg. the missing HP portion].
Doran’s Bow
Doran’s Bow has been a bit too strong relative to Doran’s Blade, especially at higher levels of play.
So we’re looking to balance out the relative tradeoffs of the items a bit.
We’re overall happy wtih the direction of how the tradeoffs are playing out though! Just that the magnitude is a bit off.
