League Players Are About to Lose Every Master Rank in Patch 26.9

Posted on by Geekmandem

Riot Games has announced a hard-ranked reset for all Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger players in NA, EUW, EUNE, BR, LAN, and TR when Patch 26.9 goes live at the start of Season 2.


Every player currently sitting in Master tier or above in those regions will have their visible rank and MMR wiped back to Master 0 LP. No LP will be carried over.

Why Is Riot Doing This?

Since the start of season one, and to Riot Games’ own admission, they made a series of mistakes configuring the Ranked system at the start of the 2026 season, and the resulting patch-to-patch instability meant LP gains were inconsistent enough to undermine ladder integrity. Players were bouncing between +10/-30 LP and +/-20 LP depending purely on which patch they played on.

Riot has stated that the underlying matchmaking issues have since been resolved as of Patch 26.6, but the existing ranked ladder no longer reflects player skill. As a result, and with no other option available, they are taking drastic action.

When surveyed, Apex-tier players in the affected regions said they prioritised ladder integrity above everything else, even at the cost of fair matchmaking in the short term. A hard reset was the result.

What Changes With the Reset?

Beyond wiping ranks back to Master 0 LP, Riot is also adjusting LP gains and cutoffs:

  • Baseline LP gains and losses move to +/-30 LP
  • Expected range sits between +35/-25 LP and +25/-35 LP
  • Challenger minimum LP cutoff increases to 800 LP
  • Grandmaster minimum LP cutoff increases to 400 LP

Riot is clear that matchmaking quality will take a hit in the short term. With no memory of previous ranks in the system, you could see five ex-Challengers matched against five ex-Masters and have it register as a fair game. That shakeout period is expected to last several months.

What About Season Rewards?

Because the reset lands mid-year and shortens the effective Season 2 climb, Riot is adjusting how rewards work. Season 1 rewards will be distributed as normal, with the changes not affecting them, as this was Riot’s mistake. Season 2 rewards for Apex-tier players in the affected regions will be reconciled at the end of Season 3. The higher of your Season 2 or Season 3 peak rank counts for both.


Patch 26.9 does not yet have a confirmed release date, but it falls in the standard two-week patch cycle.

Patch 26.9 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

The 26.9 patch preview for League of Legends is out. It’s a bigger patch this time around, as the game prepares for Season 2. While only six champions are being directly buffed or nerfed, there are lots of changes to other champions, systems, and much more. From @RiotPhroxon on X Source

Season 2 at a glance

When approaching 26.9, we were thinking a lot about systems and champion spaces that needed satisfaction, strategic distinction and also opportunities to create surface area for excitement and dreaming of what’s possible.

The first place we were looking was in enabling certain types of systemic gameplay patterns, where they were a little under the mark.

Starting Items

It’s been a long time since adding new starting items to the game!

  • Doran’s Bow is an option in greedy lanes where you trade off health (and are more susceptible to burst), but if you have high uptime on an opponent
  • Doran’s Helm is intended to be a situational choice (though some might be hardbound) for champions who don’t need the sustain from Doran’s Shield in lane
  • We’re hoping that these changes allow players to eke out even more advantages in certain lanes and add a little more depth to laning interactions

Major Item Changes

Statikk Shiv

AD On-Hits have been languishing for a while and Statikk Shiv presented an opportunity to take an item that not many champions used and add some spice to it (the lightning applying on-hits)
Since some of the more eye-popping examples, we’ve made some changes to remove Staikk Shiv’s on-hit lightning also impacting the primary target (so it will only apply off th einitial attack
While it’s possible this may not be sustainable in the long term, pushing the frontier of innovation also carries some risk, so we want to see where it goes
We’re excited to see some interesting cooking and new builds!

Deathfire Touch, Stormraiders and Comet

  • This philosophy also presented an opportunity within the keystone mastery system.
  • Comet has been overloaded for a while, serving the DoT mage class, albeit poorly, and it also tries to compete with Aery on this axis.
  • We saw an opportunity to bring back an old favorite in Deathfire Touch, and this archetype of poke champion is no longer so oppressive in the modern game.
  • This allowed us to make a change to Comet to make it more about long-range poke, while also opening up Deathfire Touch as a more sustained option.
  • We hope this differentiation allows the Keystones to play a more differentiated role.
  • At the same time, Phase Rush has been hard to balance, especially for Control Mages who often use a few low-damage spell instances to run away and play a spacing game.
  • We felt that the Design of Stormraider’s Surge was just superior to Phase Rush and represented the right level of commitment to allow the Movespeed to be powerful.
  • Historically, we had to overly nerf Phase Rush to the point of being unsatisfying for the majority of the roster, while still being too good on the champs that could proc it too freely.

League of Legends Season 2 Just Overhauled Keystones, Boots, and Starting Items

Posted on by Geekmandem

Season 2 brings a wave of new items across keystones, boots, and starter choices. Here’s a breakdown of everything coming to the Rift.

Keystones

Stormraider’s Surge
Dealing 25% of a champion’s maximum health within 3s grants 40% Move Speed and 50% Slow Resistance for 3s. Move Speed is 75% effective for ranged champions. Cooldown: 20s – 10s

Deathfire Touch
Damaging a champion with an ability burns them for 1–10 based on level (+0.03 AP)(+0.08 bonus AD) adaptive damage per second. After burning for 3 seconds, the burn damage increases by 100% while they remain on fire.

4s SingleTarget – 2sArea of Effect – 1sDamage over Time

Starting Items

Doran’s Bow – 400g – Fast Auto Attack Item

+6 Attack Damage
+15% Attack Speed
+1.5% Omnivamp

Doran’s Helm – 450g – Resistances

+110 Health
+10 Armor
+10 Magic Resist

Helping Hand – Attacks deal 5 bonus physical damage to minions.

Boots

Gluttonous Greaves – 950g – Stacking Omnivamp

+45 Move Speed
+4% Omnivamp
Slay – Gain 1% Omnivamp on Champion takedown, stacking up to 6 times.

Immortal Path – 950g – Drain Tank

(Only Mid Lane) Locked until Quest is Completed

+45 Move Speed
+4% Omnivamp
Slay – Gain 1% Omnivamp on Champion takedown, stacking up to 6 times.

Now and Forever – While above half Health, deal 5% increased damage. While below half Health, gain 15% increased healing, shielding, and regeneration.

Season 2 is set to drop with patch 26.9.

Posted in LoL

Riot Just Rebuilt Arena From the Ground Up for Season 2

Posted on by Geekmandem

Riot is overhauling Arena for Season 2 with a new map, a reworked map, a brand new Augment leveling system, rotating game mode Events, and over 20 new Guests of Honor. Here’s everything coming to the mode.

Events: A Rotating Twist Each Patch

The headline addition this season is Events, limited-time variations that replace the standard eight teams of two format and shake up how Arena plays. Season 2 will have four of them.

No Event kicks things off. The first patch is intentionally left vanilla so players can adjust to the new map, augments, and Guests of Honor before the chaos begins.

3×6 swaps to three players per team across six total teams. The goal is champion diversity. A lot of champions that struggle in the traditional 2v2 format get significantly more viable when you can build around them properly. Whether that’s a Kog’Maw comp with a real frontliner or a full deathball of bruisers.

Bravery is the random-champion mode players have been requesting since Arena launched. In champ select, you get a random champion button and a small pool of curated options if full random isn’t your thing. It rewards adaptability and flexibility over champion mastery.

Swift Arena goes back to two teams of four but compresses the time commitment. Rounds come faster, and because you fight the same teams more consistently, reading your opponents becomes a bigger part of the game.

Two Map Changes

Petricite Grove (New)

A brand new map set on the outskirts of Demacia. The grove has larger walls with more hiding spots, and its defining feature is scattered mining bombs that can be knocked into enemies for heavy damage. Hit one with an immobilizing effect, and it detonates instantly, which opens up some creative burst combos for champions with CC.

Ancestral Woods (Reworked)

Ancestral Woods keeps its identity as the smallest Arena map, but loses the single central Power Flower setup. Riot acknowledged this wasn’t a great design. The rework adds Power Flowers around the perimeter of the map and places a new Bulwark Blossom in the centre. Last-hitting the Bulwark Blossom grants a large heal and shield, with the effect scaling up when your team is outnumbered. New brush and terrain around the sides also create more room for cat-and-mouse play while waiting for a teammate to respawn.

Augment Levels

The biggest systemic change to Arena this season is the introduction of Augment Levels. After selecting two levelable augments, future augment offerings will include the option to level an existing augment rather than take a new one. Leveling augments makes them stronger and, in some cases, unlocks entirely new effects.

Augments will now be offered more frequently overall, giving you the choice between taking something new, leveling something you already have, or replacing an augment with a higher-tier version. You can still only hold four augments at a time in most situations.

Round 8 also introduces a new Crafting Round, where you can either gain an extra augment slot or remove an augment to level one of your remaining ones. This gives you a mid-to-late game pivot point to reshape your build around what’s actually working.

New Augments

Over 30 new augments are coming to Arena this season. A few highlights:

Transmute: Silver fills all your remaining augment slots with Silver augments immediately on selection. Taking it early is a strong setup for the leveling system since you get a head start on stacking augments to level up while others are still building their kits.

Wild Fire: Autocasts a fireball that bounces between nearby enemy champions. Leveling it increases the number of bounces, and at the max level, it bounces endlessly. It works as both a burn source and an auto-cast trigger, bridging two separate build archetypes.

Scavenger: lets you steal one of your defeated opponent’s augments each time you eliminate a team. The trade-off is that your future augment offerings are locked to level-ups only, so you are committing to whatever you pick up along the way.

Magical Girl: summons a falling star at the start of each combat. Catching it knocks back nearby enemies during a transformation animation, then empowers you and rains stars down on opponents. Pure fun.

Arena is set for some big changes in Season 2, with Riot Games clearly looking to double down on the amount of other things League of Legends players can do.

The New Master Yi Mythic Skin Skips What Players Actually Wanted 

Posted on by Geekmandem

Patch 26.8 is set to add a number of new skins to the game with PsyOps Vladimir, PROJECT: Sivir, Space Groove Zac and the special, PROJECT: Command Line Master Yi. The first three will also all get a selection of chromas for the new skins.

Patch 26.8 Skins

PsyOps Vladimir

PROJECT: Sivir

Space Groove Zac

PROJECT: Command Line Master Yi

The new Yi skins take the classic Legendary skin and make it a Mythic skin. However, it will not get a full refresh in terms of animations.

Old:

  • Yi Idle
  • Sylas Project recall
  • Project Pyke “Snake”
  • PROJECT Yi auto attack
  • No double strike crit animation

New:

  • Some new auto attacks
  • Unique Ultimate movement
  • New Icon
  • Sword changes after each double strike
  • A few audio changes

Victorious Braum

Players that get 15 ranked wins during season 1 will also get the new Victorious Braum.

Posted in LoL

League of Legends Players Can Finally Use WASD in Ranked After Months of Testing

Posted on by Geekmandem

After months of playtesting and refinement, Riot Games is finally bringing WASD controls to Ranked play with the launch of Season 2 in patch 26.9. Here’s a full breakdown of what’s changing, what’s been tuned, and what new options are available to all players

WASD Is Ranked-Ready

The two benchmarks Riot set for themselves were simple. WASD shouldn’t be overpowered, and win-rate differences between control schemes should be minimal. According to the dev team, both criteria have been met. Point and Click still holds a slight advantage in win-rate, but the gap is narrow enough that Riot is comfortable with the rollout, and they expect it to close further as players develop WASD mastery.

WASD ranked


To back up the numbers, Riot also ran blind sentiment surveys, asking players to rate their lane opponent’s skill level and guess what control scheme they were using. The result? Players were largely unable to tell the difference. That’s a strong signal that WASD isn’t producing obviously robotic or exploitable movement patterns at the competitive level.

WASD ranked

What Got Polished Before Ranked

Pathfinding Near Walls

One of the biggest friction points with WASD is walking directly into terrain. Unlike Point and Click, where your champion automatically routes around obstacles, WASD movement is immediate and directional. Riot spent significant time calibrating how champions slide along curves versus stop at hard walls.

A key quality-of-life fix: when your camera is panned away from your champion, WASD pathfinding now automatically routes around all walls rather than letting you clip and get stuck. No more thinking you’re en route to a gank only to find your jungler wedged in the blue buff alcove.

Auto-Attack Follow-Up Logic

Some abilities, like Tristana’s Explosive Charge, are designed to automatically queue an auto-attack afterwards. With WASD, that “locked-in” auto can feel punishing since attacks can’t be cancelled mid-animation. Riot went through dozens of champion abilities and toggled this behaviour on or off per ability when WASD is active. This was based on what felt right in practice.

Champion-Specific Keybinds (Live in Patch 26.8)

A long-requested feature is finally arriving: you can now set different keybinds on a per-champion basis, for both Point and Click and WASD. This includes ability hotkeys, smart cast toggles, and more. Rumble and Viktor players, especially, will want to head into the Practice Tool before their next game.

New Accessibility Options

The input system overhaul opened the door to several new accessibility features:

  • Move the cursor with custom inputs: the most-requested accessibility feature is now live for everyone.
  • Joystick support: WASD can be remapped to joystick inputs for accessibility-oriented controllers. Full controller support is still not planned, but this covers the gap for many players.
  • Rotate WASD with map orientation: pressing W will now move you up-right, and S will move you down-left along the lane direction. Handy for laptop players with limited simultaneous key inputs.
  • Expanded keybinding freedom: MB1 (left mouse button) can now be freely rebound inside League’s options menu, and all keyboard keys except Delete and Escape are available.
  • Split mouse interaction options: Select Object, Interact with Object, Auto Attack, and Cast Ability are now separate, individually bindable actions instead of one shared input.

Bugs Worth Knowing About (Now Fixed)

A few memorable ones from development: Syndra was pathfinding around her own orbiting spheres, causing a subtle wiggle on straight-line movement. Aphelios could auto-attack an enemy exactly once while dead, if Infernum was equipped and specific conditions were met. And Warwick could drift in arbitrary directions mid-Jaws of the Beast dash if a directional input was held. All have been resolved.

You can check out lots of cool images and GIFs on the official Riot Games post that goes over the WASD changes.

Patch 26.8 Notes – League of Legends

Posted on by U.GG

Patch 26.8 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)

Patch Highlights

Systems

Ranked Season 1 End

The Summoner’s Rift Ranked Season 1 will end on the last day of patch 26.08 cycle, so if you’ve got ranked goals for this season make sure you hit them this patch! Good luck!
Date and Time: Regional local server time midnight (23:59:59) on April 28.
Summoner’s Rift Ranked Season 2 will start on the first day of patch 26.09 cycle.
Date and Time: Regional local server time noon (12:00:00) on April 29.
A few additional things to keep in mind as we wrap up this season:
For all regions, Ranked mission (win 15 ranked games) will be reset with the Season 2 start.
End of S1 ranked reward will be granted on 26.09.
Shard transfer services will be temporarily disabled during season transition until the reward grant is completed.
Champion Specific Keybinds

Champion specific keybinds have arrived! This long awaited player request will go live this patch and will now allow for champion specific overrides to be set for most keybinds. Rumble and Viktor players rejoice, smartcast options can also be toggled on a per-champion basis.

As a heads up, you won’t be able to do this out of game, so make sure you go into practice tool and set them up before jumping into ranked!

Discord Integration

We’re partnering with Discord to make it easier to get into your next League of Legends game with your friends. Linking your accounts unlocks new social features:

  • Invite Discord friends straight to your party, no alt-tabbing needed!
  • Copy a party link and share it in your favorite server, no more manually inviting friends one by one.
  • See which of your friends play other Riot games and jump into parties faster.

Learn more here!

We’ll be running a Beta across US, Canada and Brazil starting on April 14th. We will continue to test and refine the experience and plan on expanding to additional regions in a few patches.

Champions

Dr. Mundo has been able to more consistently reach his high points in the jungle where he is less concerned about his slow early game. We are looking to curb some of his clear speed to make sure he can’t go where he pleases too quickly and requires some more time to scale up.

Q – Infected Bonesaw

Monster Damage Cap: 300 / 375 / 450 / 525 / 600 ⇒ 250 / 325 / 400 / 475 / 550

E – Blunt Force Trauma

Monster Damage Cap:: 200%⇒ 140%
Hwei has remained on the weaker side since the nerfs to his waveclear last year, and we are fixing a bug that we expect to be a further minor nerf. We still believe those waveclear nerfs to be correct as we want Hwei League’s coolest combo mage, not just a walking waveclear machine. Therefore, we’re buffing his combo casting output up through his passive.

Passive – Signature of the Visionary

Base Damage: 35 – 230 (Levels 1 – 18) ⇒ 40 – 285 (Levels 1 – 18)
Comboing Slows: Slows from Hwei’s abilities now stack with diminishing values.
Bugfix: Slows from Hwei’s QE and R abilities no longer stack with slows from other champions / items.
Last patch we made some changes to Karma to reduce how generically powerful she was by reducing her midgame shield strength. Unfortunately those weren’t as effective as we had intended so we’re taking another swing at Karma by directly targeting her E power and reducing her base stats a tad so she is more reliant on skillful and intentional ability usage.
Base Stats
Base AD: 51 ⇒ 49
AD Growth: 3.3 ⇒ 3.0

E – Inspire

Mana Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 ⇒ 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80
Our favorite bouncing deer has been a bit less than enthusiastic to prance from camp to camp as of late, it’s a scary jungle out there. We’re hoping to give Lillia players some more courage to bring her into the jungle by increasing her ability to have her high move speed translate into a faster clear.

Passive – Dream-Laden Bough

Monster Damage Cap: 65 ⇒ 70-180 (based on level)
Lucian has a unique role as an AD Carry that dashes in, out of, and around fights which is why many of his players enjoy him. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been doing that as effectively recently so we’re looking to remedy that. To get there, we’re lowering both the cooldown and mana cost of his dashes.

E – Relentless Pursuit

Cooldown: 18 / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14 ⇒ 16 / 15.5 / 15 / 14.5 / 14
Mana Cost: 40 / 30 / 20 / 10 / 0 ⇒ 32 / 24 / 16 / 8 / 0
Since our recent adjustments to Mel, she’s been hitting too hard with her initial Q missile whether ahead or behind, even as opponents dodge the rest of the spell, so we’re looking to take her damage down a notch. We’re also aiming to reduce how frustrating her W can be by lowering the bonus mobility she gets and the spell’s uptime, with the movespeed now matching her shield and reflect duration.

Q – Radiant Volley

Initial Explosion Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 60% AP) ⇒ 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+ 55% AP)

W – Rebuttal

Cooldown: 35 / 32 / 29 / 26 / 23 ⇒ 38 / 35 / 32 / 29 / 26 seconds
Bonus Movement Speed Duration: 1.5 ⇒ 0.75 seconds
As a champ in both Top and Support, Tahm Kench requires periodic maintenance as the meta shifts to ensure both roles of his roles are equally supported. In this case, Dusk and Dawn’s addition to the game this season has shifted this balance in favor of top lane, so we’re adjusting how his passive scales to help balance him out.

Passive – An Acquired Taste

Damage: 6 – 48 (Levels 1 – 11) (+1.5% AP per 100 Bonus HP) (+4.5% Bonus HP) ⇒ 5 – 60 (Levels 1 – 12) (+1.25% AP per 100 Bonus HP) (+4% Bonus HP)
We’re implementing a couple bugfixes to Yuumi’s ultimate, one of which will sometimes result in the magical cat outputting significantly more healing than she may have grown used to. As such, we’re throwing her a FISH by increasing her base healing and best friend healing to provide a stronger baseline effect.

R – Final Chapter

Heal Per Wave: 30 / 40 / 50 (+10% AP) ⇒ 30 / 50 / 70 (+12% AP)
Best Friend Enhanced Heal: 30% More Healing ⇒ 30 – 60% More Healing (Levels 6 – 12)
Bugfix: The attached ally is no longer healed an additional time whenever Final Chapter heals another ally
Bugfix: Final Chapter’s overhealing shield now takes into account Heal/Shield power as well as Grievous Wounds
As a quality of life change we’re looking to make sure Zilean can only put points into abilities he can fully utilize level 1.

W – Rewind

W Level Up: No longer can level W at level 1.
Since the dawn of time Zyra’s have been accidentally putting a point into W and effectively doing nothing level 1. Well no more! We’re adding a small QoL change so Zyra can no longer put her first skill point into W to prevent this type of situation from being a thorn in your side and mental blooming.

W – Rampant Growth

W Level Up: No longer can level W level
Posted in LoL

League of Legends Season 2 Gets Release Date

Posted on by Geekmandem

League of Legends Season 2 is set to release with Patch 26.9. The new season will be based on the Demons of Runeterra.

League of Legends Season 2 Changes TLDR

Season 2 Theme & Story

  • The season is set on the edges of Demacia and follows Vayne on a demon-hunting journey with backstory exploration.
  • Motion comics featuring Vayne are planned for later in the season.
  • The season runs for 6 patches rather than the usual 8, freeing up space for a longer season later in the year.

Battle Pass & Cosmetics

  • Battle Pass progression has been adjusted to match the shorter season length.
  • Non-Prestige pass skins are now buyable directly; those slots are replaced with demon-themed Epic skin orbs.
  • Upcoming Prestige skins: Shaco and LeBlanc this season, then Veigar in Season 3.
  • New skins include Rain Shepherd Ivern, PROJECT: Quinn, Breadsticks Irelia, and Spaghetti alla Vel’Koz.

Gameplay Changes

  • Role quests for top and mid have been tweaked; roaming and proxying no longer punish you.
  • Top lane now rewards teamfighting more; mid lane trades the empowered recall for a 6% AD/AP bonus.
  • More support is coming for off-meta builds like AP Ezreal or attack speed Xin Zhao.
  • Deathfire Touch and Stormraider’s Surge are returning; the latter replaces Phase Rush.
  • Item changes include updates to Dusk and Dawn, two new starting items, new omnivamp boots, and the removal of Trailblazer and Opportunity.
  • The next new champion will be an AP assassin for the mid lane.

Arena

  • Standard games are being replaced by rotating Events: 3v3 with six teams, a Bravery-only mode, and a fast 2v2 format.
  • A new map called Petricite Grove is being added, plus changes to Ancestral Woods.
  • Augments can now be leveled up to become stronger or gain new effects.
  • Over 20 new or reworked guests of honor, including Nocturne and Shaco.
  • 30+ new augments arriving, some ported from ARAM Mayhem and some brand new.

Other Features

  • WASD controls are coming to Ranked in patch 26.9 after reaching near-parity with mouse controls.
  • Champion-specific keybinds are also launching that patch.
  • A vote-to-end feature is being added for games with detected disruptive behaviour; the offending player loses LP while allies are LP neutral.
  • Discord integration is launching in beta for the US, Canada, and Brazil, allowing easier friend invites and lobby sharing.
  • Your Shop returns May 5th, followed by the Blue Essence Emporium on May 13th.

League of Legends Season 2 Confirmed Skins

The new Season will feature a new Demon Vision skin line with four characters set to star:

  • Shaco as a Prestige)
  • Kindred
  • Vayne
  • Annie

Patch 26.8 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

The 26.8 patch preview for League of Legends is out. A small handful of buffs and nerfs were announced ahead of the full release next week. From @RiotPhroxon on X Source

Viego Buffs are now “delayed”

26.8 Buffs

– In line with the fantasy fulfilment I was talking about yesterday, Hwei changes are leaning into his identity as a combo mage
– It is a cool pattern and in particular, this set of changes skews him more towards being effective in mid lane compared to bot lane with the level scaling
– We’re not opposed to him being viable in bot lane, but pushing him towards midlane
– We think this makes Hwei more uniquely satisfying compared to say having his damage come from predominantly single QQ, QW or QE casts
– Lillia’s power clearing and movement speed are some of her most defining aspects
– We’re restoring some of that clear speed to better fulfil her fantasy there
– Lucian in bot lane doesn’t have a strong differentiation from Corki as a similarly early game dominant ability focused caster
– These changes are trying to put more of Lucian’s power into his early mobility and giving him more casts of it
– We’re going to monitor Lucian in solo lanes
– There’s some notable discrepancies for specifically Viego’s data in our internal data that led us to want to initially buff him
– Looking at external data however seems to be notably different
– Going to double check this data tomorrow and validate the data pipelines before determining whether or not to proceed with the buff

26.8 Nerfs

– We separated some of Mel’s damage output in 26.3 by creating a separation between her first initial hit and the subsequent hits
– We’re reducing how much value she gets from this initial Q landing and backloading the damage more to give her damage more counterplay
– We still think we need to do more work to Mel long term
– (ARAM) Another note here is that we’ve been investigating some ARAM specific changes to Mel, since her reflect can be harder to play against in that mode, given the narrowness of the play area
– Mundo rates very highly on our frustration metrics and our changes here are targeted at average play Jungle
– Not much to say here, we think top is in a more reasonable spot
– Base AD reduced from 51 to 49
– AD growth reduced from 3.3 to 3

26.8 Yuumi Changes

– We recently discovered a Yuumi bug where her ultimate was healing her attached ally each time it heals another ally
– While the number of times you’re hitting multiple people with ult are rare, it is a significant nerf to the healing in the best case
– We’re fixing this bug and compensating the ultimate (and other sources of healing)

Future Changes Philosophy

A lot of the direction of our changes in the near future are aimed at emphasizing the unique strengths/strategic differentiators of champions.Eeven if it will cost some aspect of the champion being flat in winrate across skill levels.

In many ways, a champion that has lost resonance with a core portion of their user base, even if they can sit at a higher power level may represent a downgrade in experience for players of that champion.

Expect the buffs this patch to translate more of the power budget into the area of the champions that are unique to them, and we want to be moving the power of the roster like this over time.

Watch Your Step: ARAM Mayhem Pranks Arrive in Patch 26.7

Posted on by Geekmandem

League of Legends patch 26.7 is adding the fun to ARAM Mayhem. With a number of April Fool’s Day-specific changes coming to the popular twist on ARAM. The patch will also make a number of balance changes to the game mode, though only one champion change this time around, and that’s for Shyvana.

The update will go live on April 1st, alongside patch 26.7, so strap in for a few weeks of chaos on the ARAM Mayhem bridge.

Champion Changes

Fury Generation: 1.25 ⇒ 2.5

Gameplay & Systems Updates

  • This patch focuses on reducing frustration around Augments and champion quality of life.
  • For Poro Blaster, we’ve adjusted its knockback behavior to be less punishing for melee champions. It will now only knock back once when you have 5 Poros, and we’ve reduced the respawn timer to keep the action flowing. We’ve also made a small adjustment to Void Rift to make its periodic damage less overwhelming.

Augment Changes

Poro Blaster

  •   (NEW) Knocks back enemies once only when you have 5 poros.
  • Poro respawn time: 5s ⇒ 3.5s

Void Rift

  • Added 0.75-second cooldown per target.

April Fool’s ARAM Mayhem Changes

Vengeful Poros

  • Poros now use their muscular arms to move and attack players who hoard poro snax, dealing 1 true damage repeatedly until one of them gets fed.

Cheerful Poros

  • A Poro (or Wharf Rat) will welcome players in chat at game start.

Poro Snax

  • Poro Snax now visually look like cheeseburgers.

Flash

  • Flash leaves behind an emoting afterimage.

Healthbar Scaling

  • Healthbars scale with champion size.

Turrets

  • Turrets flash Mastery when they kill a champion and use an emote when destroyed. Dying to a turret has a chance to self-ping Missing.

Dearest Karthus

  • There’s a small chance for an automatic chat message addressed to Karthus when Karthus reaches level 6.

Howling Abyss

  • There’s a small chance for Lissandra to send a message at the end of the game.

Party Favors

  • New Item, Party Favor, is in the shop. Using it starts or joins a dance party. The more the merrier!

Custom Healthbar Colors

  • New Item, Custom Healthbars, is in the shop. Purchase automatically changes the color of the buyers healthbar to the corresponding color.
LoL April Fools Skins 2026

Quality of Life Changes

  • All champion abilities that directly interact with stats (Yasuo Q Cooldown, Kai’sa Evolutions) now scale with stat anvils in Mayhem.
  • Vampirism is no longer offered if you have Warmog’s Armor.
  • Draw Your Sword is no longer offered if you have Runaan’s Hurricane.
  • Kayn no longer loses the ability to shop after choosing a form.
  • Yuumi no longer loses the ability to shop after attaching to an ally.
  • Dropkick no longer overrides a champion’s execute indicator if they have one.
  • Little Legends no longer display an icon on the minimap.

You can read the full 26.7 patch notes.