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.

League Classic – Patch 26.17 Notes

Posted on by U.GG

Patch 26.17 notes for Classic League of Legends are here. (Source)

To see Patch 26.17 notes for modern League, see Patch 26.17 Notes – League of Legends.

“Our second patch for League Classic contains tons of good stuff! We’re giving everyone two additional Rune Pages, increasing Influence Points and Classic XP gains across the board, and reducing the cost of about one third of the runes. We’re updating Summoner’s Rift’s lighting, textures, and decals to bring our visual fidelity closer to the Rift of old. We’ve also got our first Council vote, so be sure to log in and make your voice heard. Remember that the more Classic you play, the more voting power you can earn! 

We’ve also got about 20 balance changes, several dozen bugfixes, and have added Champion and Role swapping to Champion Select to improve your day-to-day Classic experience.”

Champions

Ahri

Ahri is extremely safe, has good sustain, good wave clear, and the ability to all-in her opponents at a moment’s notice. She’s also overpowered. We want to trim some of her extraneous early safety and reduce how frequently she can pressure her opposition.

Base Stats

  • Base Health Regeneration: 6.1 ⇒ 4.5
  • Health Regeneration Growth: 0.6 ⇒ 0.45
  • Health: 460 ⇒ 440

R – Spirit Rush

  • Cooldown: 110 / 95 / 80 ⇒ 120 / 100 / 80

Annie

Annie is our second weakest mid laner behind Lux, so we’re driving on some buffs. We’re first reverting some damage nerfs from July 2011 and otherwise ensuring her offensive threat is up to snuff.

Passive – Pyromania

  • Stun Duration: 1.5s ⇒ 1.75s

Q – Disintegrate

  • Damage: 85 / 125 / 165 / 205 / 245 + 70% AP ⇒ 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 / 250 + 75% AP

W – Incinerate

  • Damage: 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 + 75% AP ⇒ 85 / 135 / 185 / 235 / 285 + 80% AP

E – Molten Shield

  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Molten Shield dealt too little damage
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Molten Shield could damage enemies for non-Attacks R – Summon: Tibbers!
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where AP was not applying to Tibbers’s burn damage.

Ashe

As a supportive ADC, Ashe is performing below average. She’s not massively underpowered, but weak enough to deserve a buff. To do that, we’re reverting a 2010 Volley nerf, letting her succeed more while playing at long ranges, poking and suppressing her opponents from afar.

W – Volley

  • Damage: 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 + 100% total AD ⇒ 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 / 100 + 100% total AD
  • Range: 1200 ⇒ 1300

Blitzcrank

Blitzcrank is due for much larger nerfs than they got last patch, so we’re back to bring the highest agency support in the game down to size. We’re continuing to revisit old patches to return older, weaker tuning. We’re also fixing a few bugs and oversights to bring their power down further. Our one unique contribution is a rank 1 and 2 nerf to Static Field’s active. Combined with the cooldown nerf, we hope that Blitzcrank players will occasionally choose to keep the R in its passive form, playing for a more sustained damage threat.

Passive – Mana Barrier

  • Tooltip: Clarifies that Mana Barrier only pops if Blitzcrank is below 20% Health when taking damage.
  • Shield: 50% maximum mana ⇒ 50% current mana

Q – Rocket Grab

  • Range: 1080 ⇒ 1050
  • Mana Cost: 120 ⇒ 140

E – Power Fist

  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where the cooldown was always 5 seconds, regardless of rank or Cooldown Reduction.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where the target was stunned for approximately 0.3 seconds longer than intended.

R – Static Field

  • Active Damage: 200 / 300 / 400 ⇒ 150 / 275 / 400
  • Cooldown: 30s ⇒ 40s

Dr. Mundo

Dr. Mundo’s still in need of some extra healthcare even after last patch’s buffs as one of the worst top laners and junglers in the game. We’re back with further increases to his durability, in hopes of making him the biggest meat wall you’ve ever seen. His health buffs come from reverts to nerfs in April of 2011. We’re also handing him some extra early game attack speed, which is meant to disproportionately buff his jungling, where he currently performs worse than in top lane.

Base Stats

  • Health: 522 ⇒ 560
  • Health Growth: 89 ⇒ 90
  • Level 1 Attack Speed: 0.625 ⇒ 0.658

Evelynn

Evelynn is one of the best-performing junglers in Classic and is gaining more win rate over time as players learn how to optimize her. As such, she’s due for a nerf. We’re pulling a mix of reverted buffs from her initial release and nerfs from 2013’s future. We’re making Dark Frenzy worse when just spammed to get across the map, reducing her mid-late jungle clear speed, and making her consider her mana costs more, just like other AP junglers.

Passive – Shadow Walk

  • Maximum Mana Regeneration While Camouflaged: 1% ⇒ 0.8%

Q – Hate Spike

  • Base Damage: 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 ⇒ 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 / 100
  • Missile Speed: 3000 – 800, decaying ⇒ 2000 – 800, decaying

W – Dark Frenzy

  • Mana Cost: 0 ⇒ 40
  • Cooldown: 15s ⇒ 20s

Ezreal

As players have sanded off the rust, Ezreal has moved to the top of the pile as the most picked bot laner by far and too strong a performer considering his high degree of safety. As this dominance is driven by AD Ezreal, we’re delivering some compensation changes to keep AP Ezreal afloat as well. Our nerfs are a tour of changes from back in June of 2010, picking up two Q nerfs and reverting an R nerf from 16 years ago.

Q – Mystic Shot

  • Total Attack Damage Ratio: 120% ⇒ 110%
  • Cast Range: 1200 ⇒ 1100

R – Trueshot Barrage

  • Ability Power Ratio: 70% ⇒ 100%

Garen

We were conservative with many of our changes last patch, which has left Garen still in a very weak position. We’re back to deliver much stronger buffs with the goal of bringing him up to speed. We have two primary goals with our buffs. The first is to ensure that spin-to-win always feels rewarding, especially early game. The other is to ensure that he feels good about all his item purchases, whether scaling his damage or durability.

Base Stats

  • Attack Damage: 55.5 ⇒ 60
  • Armor Growth: 2.7 ⇒ 3

W – Courage

  • Bonus Armor and Magic Resistance Increase: 20% ⇒ 30%

E – Judgment

  • Damage Per Second: 20 / 45 / 70 / 95 / 120 + 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110% total AD ⇒ 20 / 45 / 70 / 95 / 120 + 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 / 120% total AD

Gragas

Gragas is extremely safe, very bursty, and overall just overperforms in mid lane. Our nerfs are aimed at making him less safe as a laner and make him consider his openings more carefully without reducing his burst damage by much.

Q – Barrel Roll

  • Cooldown: 11.5 / 10.5 / 9.5 / 8.5 / 7.5s ⇒ 12.5 / 11.5 / 10.5 / 9.5 / 8.5s
  • Damage: 85 / 135 / 185 / 235 / 285 + 90% AP ⇒ 75 / 125 / 175 / 225 / 275 + 90% AP

W – Drunken Rage

  • Cooldown: 25s ⇒ 30s

R – Explosive Cask

  • Cooldown: 100 / 90 / 80s ⇒ 130 / 115 / 100s

Heimerdinger

Heimerdinger is on the strong side, even after last patch’s nerfs. He’s got a meaningful bugfix this patch, so we wanted to call it out directly.

W – Hextech Micro-Rockets

  • Range Display: Now accurately displays the actual missile range.

R – UPGRADE!!!

  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where R-empowered turrets dealt double damage.

Jax

Jax is receiving a few bug fixes this patch, and while he’s pretty balanced, they’re important enough changes to warrant being called out on their own.

Q – Leap Strike

  • Damage Type: Physical ⇒ Magic

R – Relentless Assault

  • Ability Name: Grandmaster’s Might ⇒ Relentless Assault
  • Spell Effects: Now applies spell effects as a single-target spell.

Kayle

When we launched Kayle in League Classic, we chose one of her earliest kits, which included gaining bonus AD from AP and vice versa. This version of the kit never allowed her to remain permanently ranged with enough CDR, as that buff only came in with her next rework. Ultimately, we like this version of the kit but think she should be able to be permanently ranged if she builds for it, so we’re buffing E’s cooldown. You’ll need at least 38% CDR at rank 5 to hit that breakpoint, so enjoy your build goals!

E – Righteous Fury

  • Cooldown: 22 / 21 / 20 / 19 / 18s ⇒ 20 / 19 / 18 / 17 / 16s

Lux

Lux is still performing worse than she ought to so we’re back with some more buffs. We’re increasing Lucent Singularity’s radius to its old wide self as another callback to the past. We’re also bringing in some modern touches (or, farther back in the past depending on how you look at it), including some bug fixes. We’re letting her use summoner spells and detonate her E during her R cast. Flashing will not change the hit location, but you can dodge an Ashe arrow if you need to. 

We’re also giving her better defensive immediacy. It’s important that League is responsive to your inputs, and “Shield me!” is about as immediate a need as it gets. This is one modernization that we think is very important to give Lux even in this older version of the game. 

We’re also starting our adventure into new territory here. One of Classic’s biggest strengths is the wide-open space for build experimentation. We’d like if Lux could be part of that space. For anyone playing a more conventional AP Lux playstyle, this attack speed should still help her to last hit minions or pop Illumination stacks between spells more quickly. Or… You could be adventurous and try AD Lux, or maybe AP on-hit Lux with a Malady and a Nashor’s Tooth. You know you want to.

Base Stats

  • Attack Speed Growth: 1.36% ⇒ 3%
  • Attack Speed Ratio: 0.625 ⇒ 0.658 (Level 1 Attack Speed unchanged)

W – Prismatic Barrier

  • Shield Timing: The shield now comes out at the start of the cast, instead of at the end. Total cast time unchanged.

E – Lucent Singularity

  • Radius: 310 ⇒ 350
  • Cast Interaction: E may now be detonated while casting R.

R – Final Spark

  • Cast Interaction: Lux may now use summoner spells and items while casting R. Flash will not change the location of the beam.
  • Cooldown: No longer goes on cooldown if Lux dies while casting it.

Miss Fortune

Miss Fortune’s buffs last patch didn’t go nearly far enough, so we’re back for more. Once again we’re digging up changes of old, undoing almost every nerf she received since her launch and fixing several bugs that could cause her ultimate to not deliver on expectations. We’re also delivering one novel change to make E’s mana cost respect its rank, so it’ll be cheaper at low investment and more expensive (and more powerful) when maxed.

Base Stats

  • Move Speed: 325 ⇒ 335

Q – Double Up

  • Damage: 25 / 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 + 75% total AD ⇒ 35 / 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 + 75% total AD. Secondary target still takes 120% of the damage.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Double Up could fail to bounce.

E – Make It Rain

  • Total Damage: 90 / 145 / 200 / 255 / 310 ⇒ 95 / 155 / 215 / 275 / 335
  • Slow Duration: 0.25s ⇒ 1s. Refresh rate unchanged.
  • Mana Cost: 80 ⇒ 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90

R – Bullet Time

  • Damage Per Wave: 65 / 95 / 125 + 40% bonus AD + 20% AP ⇒ 65 / 95 / 125 + 45% bonus AD + 30% AP
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Miss Fortune could fail to shoot all 8 waves.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Bullet Time could fail to damage an enemy all 8 times.

Sivir

Sivir currently lacks a strong strategic niche or high point to her experience. Toggled Ricochet is meant to be an extremely potent output that Sivir players should feel great about, so we’re reverting some nerfs to it from back in January 2011.

Passive – Fleet of Foot

  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where the movement speed could be gained by attacking minions.

W – Ricochet

  • Bounce Radius: 450 ⇒ 500
  • Damage Falloff: 25% ⇒ 22%

Tristana

Tristana is clearly a peak performer in bot lane while mid lane AP Tristana in mid is doing just fine, so we’re taking aim at AD-specific Tristana nerfs to her attack speed. Her mana growth compensation is meant to mostly compensate mid Tristana for the small amount of collateral damage she’s receiving.

Base Stats

  • Attack Speed Growth: 4% ⇒ 3%
  • Mana Growth: 32 ⇒ 40

Q – Rapid Fire

  • Mana Cost: 50 ⇒ 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90

Tryndamere

Tryndamere is still doing exceptionally well. After calibrating how impactful our changes would be in the first patch, we’re back to put him where he belongs. Somehow, he has even more buffs from back in 2010 that we can revert, so we’re back to make things tougher on him. We’re also doing some unique changes, namely reducing his early resilience to losing lane. The primary nerf, however, is in reducing his top-end crit chance. For those with at least 3 crit items, Tryndamere will still be able to reach 100% crit chance at low health, but in the early and mid game, he won’t crit as often.

Base Stats

  • Base Health Regeneration: 10 ⇒ 7.5
  • Health Regeneration Growth: 0.9 ⇒ 0.75

Passive – Battle Fury

  • Maximum Critical Strike Chance: 50% ⇒ 30%
  • Maximum Critical Strike Chance Reached At: 0% Health ⇒ 5% Health

R – Undying Rage

  • Cooldown: 110 / 100 / 90s ⇒ 130 / 115 / 100s

Twitch

Twitch’s nerfs from last patch didn’t do enough to dethrone him from the top spot. We’re taking out a mix of damage and durability, ultimately trying to make sure that his damage output is readable when exiting out of stealth.

Base Stats

  • Base Attack Speed: 0.679 ⇒ 0.658
  • Level 1 Attack Speed: 0.679 ⇒ 0.658
  • Health: 470 ⇒ 455

Items

Innervating Locket

When we remade Innervating Locket in Classic, we preemptively nerfed it, as it had been removed from the game for being unbalanceable. Well, it turns out, it’s possible to make it too weak to be used. So we’re here for some meaningful buffs aimed at making it shine for those who want it. We want to make sure it’s an appealing support option, restoring many of the stats it used to have and buffing its unique effect. Innervating Lockets do stack across multiple players, by the way, so if all five of you buy one, you can put a lot of healing onto your most injured teammate.

  • Combine Cost: 750g (2650g total cost) ⇒ 350g (2250g total cost)
  • Health: 430 ⇒ 500
  • Cooldown Reduction: 0% ⇒ 10%
  • Innervation Health and Mana Restored: 50 / 20 ⇒ 60 / 25

Wriggle’s Lantern and Feral Flare

When we built out the items in League Classic, we knew there’d be some conflicts. We had items coexisting who never coexisted before, or were placed into a game that didn’t quite fit. One of these conflicts was with jungle items: We have monster tuning from 2013 (plus the Wight), but have the 2014 item Feral Flare. When we launched, we simply took the 2013 version of Madred’s Razors and Wriggle’s Lantern, and simply updated Feral Flare to fit the same stat profile. 

We’re changing that now. We’re reshaping Wriggle’s Lantern and Feral Flare to be Attack Speed items instead of Attack Damage ones but keeping all the other stats the same. This change helps them stand out against Spirit of the Elder Lizard, and preserves Hunter’s Machete and Madred’s Razors as they were. These new items do overlap with Madred’s Bloodrazor a bit, but you’re still welcome to buy them both.

  • Build Path: Madred’s Razors + Vampiric Scepter ⇒ Madred’s Razors + Recurve Bow. Total cost (2000g) unchanged.
  • Attack Damage: 25 ⇒ 0
  • Attack Speed: 0% ⇒ 30%

Runes & Progression

We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear about how slow it feels to gain access to runes, games with stakes, and more. So in this patch we have large sweeping buffs to several systems that should have you building out extra rune pages and gaining SP in no time!

  • Rune Pages: Everyone has been given 2 additional Rune Pages for free
  • Influence Points: IP gained per game has more than doubled
  • Classic XP: Classic XP gained per game has doubled
  • Bug Fix: Players no longer gain party XP/IP bonuses when solo queued
  • Quintessence IP Cost: 1250 ⇒ 1000
  • Minor Rune IP Cost: 650 ⇒ 500

Quintessence of Health Regeneration

  • Health Regeneration per 5 seconds: +1.5 ⇒ +3.0

Systems

Champion Swapping

You can now swap champions and roles during Champion Select! So now your first pick mid laner can grab Blitzcrank for you, you can grab AP Shaco for your bot laner, and you can successfully make your opponents rage quit instead of having to dodge..

  •   NEW   Champion Swap: Enabled during the Loadout phase.
  •   NEW   Swap Request: Players can request to swap champions, and players can accept swap requests. Lanes stay the same.
  •   NEW   Champion Pick Order Swapping: Players can swap champion pick order.

The Inaugural Council Vote

The Council goes live with this patch! Vote on the game’s future inside the game client. You will be able to vote on multiple topics during the active voting period and we’ll be back to share the results once voting closes.

  •   NEW   Voting Topics: Players can see and vote on multiple topics during active voting.
  •   NEW   Voting Results: Players can see the results for the topics that were voted on.

Ranked Loading Screen Borders

  •   REMOVED   Modern Ranked Borders: Removed from the Classic loading screen.

Art

A few of our artists got together and updated several aspects of Summoner’s Rift to make it look more like the original.

  • Art Updates: Added missing foliage and decals, removed an unintended prop, updated decals and map details, and corrected affected walls, ground, and mesh normals.
  • Lighting Updates: Updated lighting at both spawn locations and on the purple diamond torches to look closer to the original.
Posted in LoL

Patch 26.17 Notes – League of Legends

Posted on by U.GG

Patch 26.17 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)

Read the Classic Patch Notes here.

Systems

Champions

Aurelion Sol has come out the loser of last patch’s mage adjustments, so we are giving him a buff to help him out. In particular, we are buffing his W cooldown so he can use it a bit more freely rather than only when a reset is likely. This should also make it a bit more clear to players that W is typically the stronger second skill to max, rather than E.

Q – Breath of Light

Mana Cost Per Second: 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 ⇒ 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50

W – Astral Flight

Cooldown: 22 / 20.5 / 19 / 17.5 / 16s ⇒ 22 / 20 / 18 / 16 / 14s
Cho’s early game has lost pizzazz with Hail of Blades and Hextech Rocketbelt nerfs, so we are making it up with a bit of early damage when he does get those autos off.

E – Vorpal Spikes

Base Damage (x3 attacks): 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (+30% AP) (+2.5% – 3.9% (+.5% Per Feast) Target Max HP) ⇒ 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+30% AP) (+2.5% – 3.9% (+.5% Per Feast) Target Max HP)
Graves has had a number of indirect buffs over the last few patches and this has put him in a pretty strong spot. We are looking to soften a bit of his ability to snowball the game with high AD builds.

Q – End of the Line

Initial Damage: 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+65% bonus AD) ⇒ 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+55% bonus AD)
Return Damage: 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260 (+55 / 70 / 85 / 100 / 115% bonus AD) ⇒ 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260 (+45 / 60 / 75 / 90 / 105% bonus AD)
Irelia is one of League’s highest stakes snowballing dependant skirmishers, but we feel like even when ahead she is failing to scale into a real carry threat

Q – Bladesurge

Damage: 5 / 25 / 45 / 65 / 85 (+70% AD) ⇒ 5 / 25 / 45 / 65 / 85 (+80% AD)
Additionally, we are buffing some of her AP ratios to support wacky ARAM/Arena builds. We don’t expect this to make AP Irelia suddenly good for SR.

W – Defiant Dance

Damage Reduction Ability Power Ratio: 7% per 100 AP (Halved for Magic Damage) (reduced to 75% value for Magic Damage in Arena) ⇒ 8% per 100 AP (Halved for Magic Damage) (reduced to 75% value for Magic Damage in Arena)

R – Vanguard’s Edge

Ability Power Ratio: 70% ⇒ 100% (It is already 100% in Arena, so this is standardizing the value)
With the previous version of Statikk Shiv that drove nerfing her AS ratios no longer in the game, we’re bringing these closer to a typical champion’s baseline. Simultaneously, having some room for power, we are giving her some AP ratio buffs to make sure she’s still interested primarily in AP assassination builds.
Base Stats
Attack Speed Ratio: 0.4 ⇒ 0.625
Attack Speed Growth: 2.35% ⇒ 1.5%

W – Distortion

Damage: 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+80% AP) ⇒ 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+90% AP)
RW – Mimic: Distortion
Damage: 150 / 315 / 480 (+80% AP) ⇒ 150 / 315 / 480 (+90% AP)
Nasus top has been able to benefit from the shift in his stacking paradigm. We are happy to see our favorite dog get his fill of treats, but want to make sure that we keep his power within reasonable bounds, therefore we are going to be tapping down some of Nasus’ top specific strengths, like persistently lifestealing off of minions.

Passive – Soul Eater

Life Steal: 12 / 18 / 24% ⇒ 10 / 15 / 20%
Nocturne has been sitting in a pretty strong state across skill levels for a while. We are excited about the opportunities that open up when Nocturne unlocks his ult, but want to add a bit more personal risk to him accessing that high moment.
Base Stats
Armor: 38 ⇒ 36
Health: 655 ⇒ 640
Qiyana’s play has moved out of primarily mid to jungle. While we are happy to support her as a jungler, mid is where she’s been underwhelming recently .

Q – Elemental Wrath

Damage: 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 / 190 (+85% bonus AD) ⇒ 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+90% bonus AD)
Monster Damage Modifier: 175% against Monsters ⇒ 160% against Monsters
Thresh has been quietly sitting at a high winrate and picking up playrate over the year.

E – Flay

Active Damage: 75 / 120 / 165 / 210 / 255 (+70% AP) ⇒ 65 / 110 / 155 / 200 / 245 (+60% AP)
Sometimes you just wanna club your opponents to death, and while Trundle has been a resilient utility pick for his pillar and ult, we feel his personal clubbing power has actually been a bit limp.

W – Frozen Domain

Attack Speed: 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 90% ⇒ 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110%
We believe Vayne may need larger scope work in the future to help out her bot lane, but for now are prioritizing constraining her top lane power. These changes should impact her up there more than in bot lane.
Base Stats
Health: 550 + 103/Level ⇒ 580 + 98/Level
Health Regeneration: 3.5 + .55/Level ⇒ 4 + .5/Level
Attack Speed Ratio: .658 + 3.3%/Level ⇒ .67 + 2.8%/Level

Q – Tumble

Mana Cost: 30 ⇒ 46 / 42 / 38 / 34 / 30

W – Silver Bolts

True Damage: 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10% Target Max HP ⇒ 4 / 5.5 / 7 / 8.5 / 10% Target Max HP
Minimum Damage: 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 ⇒ 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 / 100
Xerath has rested slightly high in power both mid and bot, and after last patch’s adjustments to mages has come out on top in mid lane compared to others. Given his extremely high ban rate in certain regions, he’s due a light nerf.
Base Stats
Health: 596 ⇒ 575

Q – Arcanopulse

Damage: 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+90% AP) ⇒ 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+90% AP)
While Yasuo has definitely been able to snowball and carry games, we believe that similar to Irelia, he is too reliant on snowballing rather than just being a proper scaling carry. We also want to encourage him to prioritize early crit strike builds over Blade of the Ruined King, so we are reducing his crit damage penalty which will simultaneously encourage this as well help him scale without significantly impacting his early game snowball.

Passive – Way of the Wanderer

Critical Strike Damage Reduction: -10% ⇒ -5%
Similar to Yasuo, Yone has also been an excessively snowball reliant carry, though less so. Bros stay together.

Passive – Way of the Hunter

Critical Strike Damage Reduction: -10% ⇒ -5%

Items

Items

Stormrazor

Stormrazor almost had its time in the sun earlier this year, but has ended up remaining second fiddle.

Attack Speed: 20% ⇒ 25%

Sundered Sky

Last patch’s Sundered Sky nerf was a step in the right direction, but landed a bit under-target given all of the other moving pieces of that patch.

Health: 450 ⇒ 400
Attack Damage: 45 ⇒ 40

Caps Hall of Legends Pass Rewards and Signature Tristana Skin Costing Over $400

Posted on by Geekmandem

The Hall of Legends Pass celebrating Caps’ ascent into the HoL has been fully revealed by Riot Games. Featuring rewards that reference his career, including skins, borders, emotes, and icons.

The collection is just the start; however, it will also include a special Risen Tristana Legend Collection reward for 5035 RP ($40), which will reward you with a Risen Legend Tristana SKin, Takedown Counter Taunt, the pass, and other exclusive rewards. The pass also comes in an Immortalised version for 32035 RP ($250) and a Signature edition for 58865RP ($450). This isn’t the first time Riot has done this, and the price is still utterly mind-blowing.

Caps Hall of Legends Pass Content

Caps Hall of Legends Pass

Starting with the pass itself, which is 1,950 RP ($15) for 100 levels. The headline skin is Risen Legend Orianna, border and event chroma. These also include Freljord Taliyah, Elderwood LeBlancand Empyrean Akali, all of which drop in as you climb.

Past the skins, the pass packs in 125 Mythic Essence, 11 orbs, and 15 Caps-flavoured icons and emotes, the Unkillable Demon Cactus ward, the Beacon of Hope banner, and the “Martin 1” title.

Hall of Legends Caps Tristana Skin

Caps Hall of Legends Pass

Risen (5,035 RP, around $40) is the way in: Risen Legend Tristana, a Takedown Counter taunt, the pass, and a handful of extras. Immortalised (32,035 RP, roughly $250) is where the Immortalised Legend Tristana skin lives. It includes improved VFX, a custom announcer, etc, as you’d expect.

Caps Hall of Legends Pass

Signature (58,865 RP, call it $450). On top of everything in Immortalised, you get Caps’ own signature recall for both Tristana and Orianna, a signature structure finisher on Tristana, signature splash art and borders across the pair, Paragon chromas on the pass skins, the Signature banner, an animated emote, and the “Claps” title.

The whole lot goes live 10 September, and you’ve got until 20 October to grab it (missions wrap a day earlier on the 19th). Plenty of time, then, to work out whether Caps’ career is worth roughly $450 of your own actual money.

LoL Patch 26.17 Skins, Chromas, Emotes, and More

Posted on by Geekmandem

Patch 26.17 is on the way, which means a new set of Skins, Chromas, and other ways to customise your game.

The big highlight of Patch 26.17 is the legendary Heartsong Seraphine skin (1,820RP). We also get new skins for Jinx and Soraka, alongside Chromas for all.

Lol 26.17 New Skins

A new Legendary skin for Seraphine is the big skin of the patch. The skin will cost 1,820RP, and feature a number of major overhauls to graphics and audio.

Heartsong Seraphine: When the world was cruel, Seraphine was kind. When her heart grew heavy, she chose to hope. Embracing compassion in the face of despair, Seraphine’s strength crystalized into a magical gem, held in her heart, brimming with love and light. Now she embodies the joy of music itself, using her newfound power to awaken a kinder world, one audience at a time.

Oceansong Jinx & Soraka

Sticking with the musical theme, Jinx and Soraka take to the stage in the Oceansong skins. Coming in at the Epic skin range, and costing 1,350 RP.

Ocean Song Jinx: A pyrotechnic artist of anarchy, Jinx’s musical inventions skirt the line between entertaining and life-threatening. After three years of the Ocean Song Festival “forgetting” to invite her, Jinx has invited herself, along with her latest bombastic tech. She knows just what the opening night act is missing to make it a truly unforgettable show: chaos.
Ocean Song Soraka: After years of success as a vocalist, Soraka felt too removed from the people she sang for and about. A reset was needed, and the Ocean Song Festival offered the right shakeup. Now she’s headlining the opening night and providing backup to any other artists who need it. From now on, if Soraka’s going to sing, she’s also going to help others be heard.

Patch 26.17 Emotes and Icons

Patch 26.17 also comes with a fair few new emotes and icons. Two feature the new Seraphine skin theme; we’re certain the “I can’t hear you” will get a lot of use in our support games.

I can’t Hear You
Goldfish Face

New Icons

A series of new icons are also coming in the patch

Heartsong Seraphine
Prestige Ocean Song Seraphine
Toast To Us
TFT Esports Superfan
Forward, For Demacia!
Ahri Wuvs U

LoL Patch 26.17 will release on August 26, 2026. This post will be updated with any new skins or items added ahead of its release.

Patch 26.17 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

The League of Legends Patch 26.17 Preview is here, with a large number of buffs and nerfs. Riot Phroxzon on X. For 26.17 skins and emotes, check out the dedicated guide.

Patch 26.17 Preview

Roaming Supports

For the limited number of Pro games on 26.16, we’ve been seeing good movement on roaming supports and expect it to trickle down to solo queue over time (especially as players find the strategy less effective over time)
We’ll still continue to monitor this and assess whether stronger swings are necessary, though we don’t want to over-punish regular roaming and a small amount of unconvential roaming strategies is reasonable, so long as they don’t become broadly optimal

Champions

Mages bot overall have lost some amount of win rate across the board, but not a huge amount, which is roughly about the impact expected. Seeing good skews on Poppy and Camille support with support nerfed and Top skews playing out well (in particular). Still monitoring the impact of Hail of Blades on champions more broadly, eg., Yi, Tryndamere, Shaco, etc.

As stated in previous posts/videos, while Xerath bot is a large part of the AP bot meta, we still think AP bots add to good long term variety and add a healthy frustration to the role
That said, Xerath is performing well in both Mid and Bot, especially for average play and is receiving a generic nerf across the board
Vayne top has been a strong champion in higher levels of play and also is a bit over the edge in terms of what we’d consider healthy types of available counterplay in many matchups.
Broadly, ranged tops fill a similar niche to Mage bot, which is to add long term healthy variety to the role, even though it can be frustrating in the moment and that also adds to their satisfaction when overcome.
One of the principles we hold here is that there needs to be counterplay to frustrating experiences; a combination of tactical (moment to moment) and strategic.
For Vayne top specifically, she can be a combination of tanky (with Experimental Hexplate), with a strong laning phase, while scaling well.
Overall, we think Vayne could have a bit of a weaker laning phase when played in top lane, to balance out these other attributes, but she is still going to be baseline on the frustrating side as a ranged champion that can be played top lane.
We don’t think it’s too far off though and Vayne still has a structural weakness of being vulnerable to ganks, especially when she’s pushing a lot and doesn’t provide much team utility.
This change hopefully results in her lane opponents having slightly more health in order to assist with gank attempts or trade back.
A while ago when Statikk Shiv was an extremely good one stop shop waveclear item, we had to nerf Leblanc’s Attack Speed ratio.
After we reworked Statikk Shiv to be more about on-hits, we didn’t restore this ratio to Leblanc.
So we’re restoring this and giving her a small buff as she’s not strong in any particular skill bracket.
Last patch, we made some adjustments to Nasus trying to resolve some of his skew between roles and restore some of the stacking power to Top lane where it is inherently higher risk than Jungle.
Structurally, we felt that balance was off.
While we suspected this change would be over-magnitude, we wanted to get a clean read on the magnitude of this lever for Top vs JG and follow up this patch after seeing how much impact it had.
This patch, we’re reducing some of the net total sustain he gets in Top lane to make hitting those high stack counts a bit more challenging (incidentally, this lever doesn’t affect Jungle as much).

Items

Sundered Sky

Directionally, Sundered Sky and AP Jungle changes have been good, but magnitude is still off
We’re putting another small-moderate nerf in for this patch and hoping to see more movement on AP jungles and Sundered Sky dominance in higher levels of play

Stormrazor

Outside of Stormrazor Jhin, it doesn’t have a large user base and we think it could have more power overall to broaden the user pool

Caps becomes the first Western player inducted into the LoL Hall of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

Rasmus “Caps” Winther is the next player added to the League of Legends Hall of Legends. The Danish mid laner becomes the first Western player to be included.

Caps is the most decorated player in European League of Legends history and has for many years been considered the G.O.A.T of the region.

Caps joins the Hall of Legends

There really is no other player in the West like Caps. He’s had longevity in his career, has been loyal to G2 Esports since joining and has carried his side and region more than once.

In his European career, he has picked up 17 LEC titles, and that number only looks like increasing. He was part of the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) winning G2 side, marking the first win for a European side since Fnatic at the very first Worlds.

Speaking about Caps, Riot Games said:

Caps always felt like the player you could never fully prepare for,” said Chris Greeley, Global Head of LoL Esports. “He has that rare ‘it’ factor, the ability to rise in the biggest moments through his playmaking, leadership, and calming presence under pressure. Caps has inspired an entire generation of Western players and earned the respect of fans around the world. He’s not just one of the greatest League of Legends players of all time, he exemplifies everything we hope our esports heroes can be.”

Caps is now the third player to join the Hall of Legends, joining Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok and Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao.

Hall of Legends Event

As with previous Hall of Legends awards, an in-game event will now follow. Caps will be celebrated in-game and out of the game in the coming months.

His official ceremony will take place on August 18, where he will be rewarded with the trophy. For in-game events, those start on September 10. Caps will be rewarded with the Transcendent Tristana skin. There is no confirmation of the second skin, but Sylas is speculated to be the pick.

ARAM Mayhem and Arena Patch 26.16 Highlights

Posted on by Geekmandem

If you like to spend your time playing ARAM Mayhem and Arena, then Patch 26.16 adds a fair few changes.

While some of the shine was taken off ARAM and Arena thanks to the release of League Classic, the two modes are getting plenty of love, especially Mayhem.

ARAM: Mayhem – Fighters finally get some love

Riot’s decided fighters have been getting bullied in extended fights, so there are two new Gold Augments to help them. Upgrade Ravenous Hydra makes your spells apply cleave with no cooldown and chucks in 18% lifesteal on top.

Shark Bait got a proper glow-up (base damage 120-350 now, and it eats 30% of missing health instead of 20%). Nature is Healing has been reworked so each bush has its own cooldown and heals the second you step in.

Snowbomb’s radius is 30% chunkier with a longer knockup, which is going to feel dreadful to be on the receiving end of. Locke also gets a tidy buff across the board: more damage dealt, less taken, and 20 tenacity out of nowhere. Upgrade Sundered Sky is the other new Augment. It reduces the item’s per-target cooldown to 5 seconds (down from 8), grants an extra 9% missing health healing on empowered strikes, and immediately gives you 500 gold.

On the nerf side, Critical Missile and the Skilled Sniper snipe range both got trimmed. So don’t be shocked if your old comfort picks feel a touch weaker.

Arena: Bravery Wednesdays are back

Prestige Sinful Shores LeBlanc Patch 26.12

Bravery Arena is returning, and it’s landing every Wednesday alongside Crowd Favourites. Each Wednesday, you either roll the dice with Bravery or pick from your Crowd Favourite pool (the more champs you own, the more options you’re offered).

Balance-wise, this is a “lift the strugglers” patch. Rek’Sai is the standout: her maxed tunnels now have a 0-second reuse cooldown, so she can pop in and out, plus a healthy healing buff on top. Gnar’s tired time is gone entirely, meaning you’re mega-Gnar-ing and back again constantly. LeBlanc, Volibear, Shaco, Poppy and Warwick all got meaningful bumps too, so expect to see a lot more of them.

Now You See Me got a fun upgrade as well. At level 2 it leaves a clone where you vanished from, which is exactly the kind of “wait, which one’s real” nonsense Arena lives for.

Getting tapped down, Aurelion Sol, Bel’Veth, Sona and Soraka, with Three Sacred Treasures and Nesting Doll reined in on the Augment side.

There are also a host of bug fixes across both modes, which you can read in full in the official patch notes.