Riot Games has officially confirmed that Team Voice is coming to League of Legends. We first knew about Team Voice coming to League of Legends a few weeks ago. Following weeks of speculation. Alongside the announcement, the developers shared their philosophy on communication and competitive integrity.
Team Voice: A New Era for League of Legends?
The addition of Team Voice chat is going to add a new layer of communication to the game, for better or worse. While multiplayer games thrive on coordination, is voice what the Rift actually needs?
Riot Games is clearly aware of the potential for in-game toxicity:
As a team-based game with the potential to be hyper-competitive, it’s something we have heard many of you have felt was missing from League. The text chat and ping system have served you all well for years (and will continue to for years to come), but we want to provide Team Voice for those of you who want to communicate seamlessly with your teammates. We think when done well, team voice chat opens up the doors for enhanced teamwork and coordination, and has the potential to improve the overall gameplay experience for players that would like to use it.
“When done well” is how this feature will live or die. The issue isn’t just technical; it’s the League of Legends community. A good example of this is the “missing” ping. Represented as a “?” the intention is to let people know that your laner is not here. What it has become is a “why did you do that” ping to spam on someone who does something stupid. But how do you fix that? You can limit the use, or punish the abuse, but you still need it in the game because most of the time it’s used for good.
Can Riot Actually Moderate Voice Comms?
Team Voice, however, opens up another can of worms for Riot Games to deal with. Monitoring voice coms:
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.
There is no official release date for League Team Voice yet, as Riot plans to roll it out region-by-region to ensure quality.
We don’t have exact timelines right now because doing this the right way will take a lot of work and we aren’t yet ready to share concrete details, but you can expect to hear more from us on Team Voice later this year in a future Dev Update.
Why Now?
Riot stated the timing is finally right because their AI technology to identify “bad actors” has finally met their standards for safety:
We didn’t pursue team voice chat earlier because it couldn’t meet our standards for safety and reliability. But that’s changed based on advances in our technology to identify bad actors
Time will tell how this goes down. For the most part, Valorant, Counter-Strike 2, and Overwatch, etc, have it down ok. People will always abuse it, but in theory, people want to win. There is an argument that speaking an insult to someone is a lot harder than typing it. You hear the person; this can open another can of worms for Riot, especially in very mixed regions such as EUW.
Overall, the feature sounds promising, but whether it is used or not will remain to be seen. It feels like something high ELO players might get the best use out of. I’m not sure I want to talk to the type of people I play with in Platinum and Emerald.
It’s almost time for the first international League of Legends event of 2026. First Stand 2026 will bring the most elite rosters from global LoL to São Paulo, Brazil.
First Stand 2026 Schedule & Venue
The event will run from March 16 to March 22 at the Riot Games Arena in São Paulo. The event is split into three parts, starting with the Group Stage. The Knockout Stage will follow, as teams have one chance to advance. Every game is being played in a best-of-five format.
Group Stage: March 16 – March 20
Knockout Stage: March 21
Knockout Stage Finals: – March 22
Start Times: All matches begin at 8 am to 1 pm PDT (14:00 and 19:00 CET)
Participating Teams
Group A: Gen.G, LYON, LOUD and JDG Intel Esports Club
Group B: Bilibili Gaming DreamSmart, G2 Esports, Team Secret Whales, and BNK FEARX
The format will see the top two teams advance to Stage two, with all matches played on a best-of-five. Both groups are in a double elimination. The knockout stage is single elimination.
Day one matches will begin with the following:
G2 Esports vs Team Secret Whales – March 16th
Bilibili Gaming DreamSmart vs BNK FEARX – March 16th
Gen.G vs JDG Intel Esports Club – March 17th
LYON vs LOUD – March 17th
For fans in the West, it does mean we won’t see an NA vs EU match in the first stage.
Prize on the Line
$1 million prize pool
$250,000 for first place
The winning region will receive a bye directly into the MSI 2026 Bracket Stage, skipping Play-Ins
How to Earn First Stand 2026 Drops & Rewards
Final Stand 2026 will once again bring rewards for watching live on Twitch. Fans watching live can earn exclusive in-game loot by following these steps:
Log in to Lolesports.com with your Riot ID
Watch live matches to trigger random Drops
Grand Final Exclusive: Watch the finals to unlock a limited-edition Evelynn emote
The event will also support co-streaming, as with all LoL events in recent memory. A full list of those is expected on March 11th, but all the usual faces are likely to be co-streaming the event.
We’re really happy to see Zaahen picking up a sizeable audience in both Top and Jungle, but now that regular players, in addition to experienced players are starting to demonstrate that top end mastery performance, he’s looking too strong across the board. Currently, we think his Jungle is a bit stronger than Top, so the nerfs are mostly focused there
Skarner has been out of the spotlight for a while and since we’ve tapped down a few of the things that were causing him to be overbearing in Top (especially W max and the E point blank kidnaps), we think he can get a bit more power there
We’re buffing Azir to distribute some of his power back into regular play capabilities through scaling power that Azir players hopefully will appreciate
– Lissandra hasn’t really felt the same since her Q cooldown was nerfed in Season 9
– Times have really changed since then and her perma priority waveclear + aftershock taking days and in the vein of making champions feel better to play, we’re seeing if she can sustain having this cooldown again
Systems
Chempunk Chainsword has been one of the weaker Grievous items for a while. While we don’t want Grievous items to become too commonplace, as it subtly degrades champion kits when too common, it is still just a bit weak for even that purpose
The support item minion penalty has been a pain point for support users, and with role quests, the risk of funnelling (why it was there in the first place) has been reduced pretty significantly, so we’re removing that drawback
Sunfire’s build cost (1000g) has long been cited as a pretty painful experience with the item. While we think having some painful build paths is valuable for the long term value of League, we think this one is a bit too painful
EUW/VN Matchmaking
We’ve had about a week and a half now of autofill vs autofill matchmaking being Live and we’re seeing excellent results
In regions like Vietnam with a high autofill rate, we’re seeing autofill vs autofill go from ~25% of games to 75% of games
In EUW, regular play was already good (90% of the time autofill vs autofill), but in high MMR, we went from 30% to 85%
We will continue to roll out to more regions over the coming patches as we’re seeing positive results here
Apex LP
So far, so good on Apex LP fix resolving most of the issues. The fix looks to be good and is holding
>98% of players should be between 19 and 21 in terms of LP gains, calibrating up and down in small amounts (+19/-21 or +21/-19 or +20/-20)
We have one small fix coming in 26.6 to make this even more consistent
Are you wondering what the best champions are for Arena right now in League of Legends patch 26.5? Well, look no further! We’ve got you covered with our most up-to-date data with patch-by-patch differences!
Disclaimer: This tier list is updated daily using data from thousands of ranked Arena matches on U.GG.
Biggest Movers
Here is a list with the biggest movers in patch 26.5. We compared the data with the previous patch and here are the results:
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We now have enough data to look at how the ARAM tier list has changed in the latest 26.5 update compared to the previous League of Legends patch!
ARAM Tier List
The following list contains the top 100 champions in ARAM right now. The rank, tier, and win rate changes are indicated by green/red arrows as seen below.
The latest League of Legends 26.5 update is now live, and with it, we’ve started receiving new match data! Let’s check out how the ranked tier list changed compared to patch 26.4!
Disclaimer: We’re updating this tier list daily, check back often for updates!
Biggest Movers
Here are the top risers and fallers in 26.5 so far:
Announced back in 2025, the Last Hit Assist feature has made its way into the live League of Legends client. Though it has very limited use for now, it acts as a training feature for players.
Last Hit Assist is Live
After months of testing on the PBE, the Last Hit Assist feature is now live with Patch 25.5. The feature aims to help new players get to grips with the game, allowing them to see when a minion is low health and able to be “last hit.”
Any initial worries from LoL fans about it ruining the game have been put to bed, however. The feature will only work in a few modes:
Tutorials
Co-op vs AI
Custom Games
Practice Tool
Swiftplay
Rotating Game Modes on Summoner’s Rift (Brawl)
The new feature will be turned off by default, so you will need to be turned on in-game via the Settings – Interface – Show Last Hit Assist. However, new accounts will have the feature turned on by default. This will then show you a white indicator when the minion is able to be killed by you.
The visual will also show the area as you get closer to it. The area will scale as you level up and increase damage against mobs. So if you buy a Long Sword or level up an ability that impacts your base damage, it will take that into account. Things such as Sheen or Jax W won’t alter it. This is to avoid any temporary buffs to your damage, causing the bars to jump around too much.
Speaking about the feature, the developers explained:
After a very long time on PBE, we’re excited to bring Last Hit Indicators live! These are primarily aimed at players who are still learning the game (Summoner’s Rift specifically). Because let’s be real, we all used to just randomly hit minions in the hopes that it would kill them without knowing when to do it. We’re going to be letting the indicators sit in queues that newer players are mostly playing and will be monitoring how they’re going before thinking about whether we should extend them further.
The aim is to help new players, alongside such features as the “WASP” movement. The feature does not currently work for Azir (W) or Graves due to their unusual attack patterns. The feature is not likely to roll out into Ranked or Draft.
A number of new skins arrived on the League of Legends PBE. Skins for the upcoming April Fools line, alongside a number of other skins, have all landed. We also get our first look at the Season 1 Victorious Skin, which will feature Braum.
The dates for these skins vary, with the April Fools skins coming first and the rest coming later. We also get a first look at the full Shyvana Rework skin changes.
April Fools Skins 2026
Starting off is April Fools’ Day, which will arrive on the Rift on April 1st. Four skins will be availible Vex, Blitzcrank, Tahm Kench, and Sejuani. There is no theme connected to the styles of the skins outside of them being “silly.” Thanks to LeagueOfLeaks for the PBE images.
Other PBE Skins
A number of other skins have also joined the PBE that are due to drop across the next few patches. Starting off is a Mythic Variant of PROJECT: Master Yi, coming April 15th. This skin will be joined by a Space Groove Zac and PsyOps Vladimir skin coming on the same day. The skin for Vladimir has not yet been shown, but was confirmed alongside Space Groove Zac earlier in the year.
Victorious Braum
We also have our first look at the Victorious Braum skin for those who won at least 15 games during Season 1 of 2026.
Shyvana Rework Skins Updated
Shyvana’s Rework is set to release on March 18th alongside patch 26.6. Thanks to SkinSpotlight, we have a full look at all the reworked skins for Shyvana when her rework is live.
Peacemaker High Noon Yone is set to return to the game via The Sanctum gatcha mechanic in Patch 26.5. It will join the Divine Architech Porcelain Aurelion Sol skin currently on the Sanctum for the same minimum 40 Ancient Sparks.
Peacemaker High Noon Yone
As with the Sol skin, it will cost no more than $100 to unlock the new Peacemaker High Noon Yone skin. Though any bad luck protection from previous skins will carry over. As with Divine Architech Porcelain Aurelion Sol, the Yone skin will be a Mythic.
When the skin was first added to the game, it technically cost $200 due to it requiring between 100 and 150 Mythic Essence or capsules.
Patch 26.5 New Skins in Act 2 Damacian Pass
Alongside the return of the Peacemaker High Noon Yone skin, we will also get three new skins added in Patch 26.5.
The first new skins will be Corrupted Petricite Maokai and Xerath. The two skins will come included in the new Act 2 Demacian Pass, alongside the Prestige Requien Sona skin. These two Corrupted Petricite skins are an improvement on Act 1, which only had one skin, with Capsules filling in the gaps before we unlocked Morgana.
Prestige Requiem Sona and Act 2 Bundle
Prestige Requiem Sona is the final reward in the Demacia Act 2 Battle Pass. Similar to Prestige Veiled Lady Morgana from Act 1. The skin will also feature a Chroma if you purchase a higher tier of the Battle Pass, alongside borders, emotes, and icons.
The skin will feature a unique recall animation, visuals, and sound effects. As with many Sona skins, it’s incredibly detailed and full of life.
Jayce
Talon
Garen
Jinx
Maokai
Sejuani
Bel’Veth
Bard
Orianna
Renata Glasc
Xin Zhao
Zaahen
Trundle
Zilean
Olaf
Briar
Lux
Vi
Yone
Graves
Yorick
Swain
Brand
Fizz
Rumble
Fiora
Ambessa
Annie
Diana
Urgot
Blitzcrank
Jax
Lee Sin
Ahri
Vel’Koz
Tryndamere
Amumu
Shyvana
Pantheon
Singed
Nasus
Yasuo
Zyra
Sett
Nunu & Willump
Sylas
Karthus
Morgana
Cho’Gath
Malzahar
Gwen
Warwick
Corki
Evelynn
Vex
Sona
Renekton
Anivia
Tristana
Veigar
Kog'Maw
Rek'Sai
Sion
Shen
Nilah
Taric
Seraphine
Kayle
Ziggs
Xerath
Janna
Nami
Cassiopeia
Aurelion Sol
Quinn
Ornn
Ivern
Xayah
Fiddlesticks
Rammus
Draven
Twisted Fate
Ashe
Nocturne
Samira
Aatrox
Camille
Viktor
Zoe
Zac
Thresh
Poppy
Akshan
Milio
Irelia
Katarina
Master Yi
Malphite
Teemo
Kled
Soraka
Wukong
Braum
Smolder
Naafiri
Udyr
Dr. Mundo
Kindred
Elise
Pyke
Kayn
Kha’Zix
Taliyah
Vladimir
Heimerdinger
Fiddlesticks
