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.

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.

Feedback Wanted!

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

Patch 26.18 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

The League of Legends Patch 26.18 Preview is here, with a focus on champion buffs and nerfs this time around. Riot Phroxzon on X. 26.18 will also see the arrival of the Caps Hall of Legends skin line.

Champions

– Cassio has been strong, especially at the higher levels of play every since Deathfire Touch was re-released.
– Since then, she’s been one of the most present picks and Pro Play due to her strong laning ability.
– We’re looking at some power neutral adjustments to Cassio, because her regular play power level is a little on the weaker side for average players.
– We’re taking some power out of her early game power and moving it into more scaling power, so that she doesn’t win lanes so reliably, even if she’s missing Q’s.
– We still want to maintain her strong laning ability though.
– For several patches now, Seraphine has been in the Top 3 on our regular patch frustration surveys.
– She’s also one of strongest pairings in Pro Play with Ashe.
– Overall, we think a nerf here is reasonable.
– We acknowledge there are some Seraphine mains who won’t be happy about a nerf and that we can’t serve all of her audience simultaneously.
– Her Support playerbase has been the most popular, despite her power level and so that’s where we will continue to support her primarily.
– Where we can get Mid and Bot to be powerful and satisfying given ^, we will attempt to do so.
– That said, it’s very difficult to thread the needle here and we run the risk of failing to meet the needs of any of her audiences if there are too many compromises.
– I also wanted to address directly the nerf to her AP ratios on Q from several patches ago, as that’s been a pain point amongst some in the community.
– One of the ways we need to balance Seraphine in the farming roles vs her support is through her AP ratios and the Q ratio is one that drives her power and total damage output there, especially given the Q reliability adjustments made of late.
– When Seraphine is able to land her Q’s at max multiplier (which in lane is quite frequent), it can hit 1.4 AP ratio which we think is reasonable.
– The Q damage overall is higher than E and so for now, we feel comfortable with the change (this isn’t set in stone however, and there are always improvements to her to be made).
– Zeri benefitted amongst other champions from the Hurricane changes.
– The Hurricane changes landed well and it feels like a real item again.
– That said, Zeri is now broadly a bit too strong, especially in Elite given her mastery profile.
– Our principles with items are to get the items in a good spot first and then get the champions into a good spot, which is why we wouldn’t follow-up by nerfing Hurricane.

Items

Guinsoo’s Rageblade

– In 26.14, we re-scripted Rageblade and it changed the trigger for Phantom hit from 6 to 7
– We’re making a small adjustments to Rageblade itself to give a bit of power back and to some of the disproportionately affected champions (eg. Master Yi)

Five New Champions Coming to League Classic Patch 3 26.18 on September 10

Posted on by Geekmandem

League Classic Patch 2 (26.17) focused on improving the game and fixing issues. The next patch, 26.18, will be the first time we get new champions.

We had rumours when the game first released that we would get new champions, but five dropping at once was not expected. There is a theme with the first drop, with all five being Demacian champions.

You will see all five champions on our Classic League Tier List soon.

Five new Champions come to League Classic

Fiora, Galio, Poppy, Shyvana and Xin Zhao will join the roster. As this is League Classic, they are nothing like the live versions, so let’s take a look.

Fiora – Old Fiora was all about duelling and sustaining herself in fights. Her job was to be a 1v1 demon, and she was amazing at it. With high attack speed, and damage on exposed target spots, she could take down anyone.

Poppy – Old Poppy was a very different champion. Diplomatic Immunity has Poppy target an enemy champion, dealing increased damage and becoming immune to all effects done to her by any target but the one she used it on. It was a unique ultimate, and one that felt very old school.

Galio – His passive turned magic resist straight into ability power; he was basically the alternative to Malphite. His taunt remained, with the more damage he soaked up while channelling, the harder he would hit at the end. He is basically the counter-mage.

Shyvana – With Shyvana being the most recent champion to get changed in League of Legends, it’s no shock that her Classic version feels familiar. Her kit is pretty much what it is now anyway, and she’ll feel at home for anyone who played League in the last year.

Xin Zhao – Xin Zhao is another example of a champion that doesn’t feel that out of place. He’s mostly as is in League of Legends proper, just without some of the flair you’d get.

League Classic Patch 3 (26.18) is set to drop on September 10 as five new champions join the Classic rift.

K/DA New Song Watch Me Leaks Ahead of Likely Worlds 2026 Reveal

Posted on by Geekmandem

We’ve heard rumours for some time now that K/DA, the virtual League of Legends band, would be set to return soon. Now, their next song may have leaked ahead of the reveal at Worlds 2026.

We first reported the story back in July that K/DA is coming back, and now it looks even more likely. Patch 26.17 introduced a number of new skins that also go along with K/DA, well, at least musical stuff.

The new Heartsong Seraphine and Oceansong Jinx & Soraka skins are all musically themed, and while Seraphine being a part of K/DA again is not known, it at least keeps her musical.

K/DA set to return

The leak is pretty well placed, given it comes from an official registration of the songs. The source (which is now not live) showed K/DA mentioned alongside five songwriters:

  • Charles Nija Aisha-Alayja
  • Felicia Ferraro
  • Sebastien Najand
  • Ali Tamposi
  • Federico Vindver
K/DA

Sebastien Najand is the one to take note of here, as they are a composer at Riot Games. So, that includes work on K/DA, Worlds Anthems, etc. The rest are all well-known in their own right, though not directly linked to K/DA thus far:

Charles Nija Aisha-Alayja – New Jersey singer-songwriter-producer who’s written for Beyoncé, Lady Gaga (Rain on Me), Cardi B and Chris Brown (No Guidance).

Felicia Ferraro – Credits with Chris Brown, Teddy Swims, Coi Leray, BTS and Lisa.

Ali Tamposi – Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger, Camila Cabello’s Havana and Señorita, plus a load of Justin Bieber and Lisa.

Federico Vindver – Kanye, Coldplay (Higher Power), Timbaland and a pile of Latin artists.

We don’t know much else about the band members involved, though we expect the four usual members to return: Ahri, Akali, Evelynn, and Kai’Sa.

Worlds Reveal?

With Worlds 2026 just around the corner, it’s highly likely that the new song Watch Me is revealed either at or ahead of Worlds. It is, after all, where K/DA made their debut in 2018, so it would come full circle for their return.

K/DA broke free of League and became viral outside of the game, so it’s no surprise they might return. Their line of skins was also massively popular in League of Legends, and Riot does love to sell expensive skins.

Patch 26.17 ARAM, Mayhem, and Arena: Fighters and ADCs Feel the Changes

Posted on by Geekmandem

Another fortnight, and Patch 26.17 brings a new round of changes to ARAM, Mayhem, and Arena.

ARAM: Mayhem

The fighter buffs are still coming, as Riot looks to nail down how to get the best out of them. Two new Augments this patch, both aimed squarely at the “dive in and refuse to die” playstyle.

Ultra Hydra is one of the key new ones. Finish any Hydra item, and you’re handed a free Tiamat on top. Then there’s the quest: pick up Ravenous, Profane and Titanic Hydra, and you unlock Ultra Hydra as the reward.

Upgrade Death’s Dance is the other one, and slightly more chill of the two. You get 250 gold up front, a slice of incoming damage spread out over 3 seconds instead of landing all at once, and a chunky instant heal every time you score a takedown. It should give fighters that bit of extra sustain, while also stopping them from getting crushed by early burst damage.

On the nerf side, Riot’s gone after the ADC Augments so fights are getting a second buff almost. Critical Missile fires fewer missiles at the top end. Tripleshot now prioritises enemies near your main target rather than pinging off into the void. And Double Tap got shunted from Gold up to Prismatic. The effect’s untouched, but now it’s eating your Prismatic pick, so you’re paying for it in what you give up. Upgrade Infinity Edge also quietly lost its crit chance, while Upgrade Ravenous now cleaves minions and heals a touch more.

Arena

Arena’s going back to alternating patches and will land on odd-numbered ones in the future. So no balance pass every fortnight anymore; instead, the builds are going to be left to sit each month. That said, we do have one this week!

Kled’s remount cooldown drops from 12s to 5s, and Garen’s W actually hands out resists worth caring about now. LeBlanc’s R cooldown got taken down a fair whack, while Gragas, K’Sante, Renekton, Senna, Tahm Kench and Teemo all got nudged up too. Heading the other way: Ambessa eats a real nerf across her E and R, while Zilean and Vel’Koz both had their ult cooldowns pushed up.

On items, anti-tank is back on the menu. Lord Dominik’s and Mortal Reminder both got big AD bumps, and Serylda’s penetration climbed. Meanwhile, the enchanter healing items (Ardent Censer, Redemption, Staff of Flowing Water) had their Arena-specific heal and shield power stripped back to the base 10%, so sustain takes a small haircut.