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.

Patch 26.7 Notes – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

Patch 26.7 notes for League of Legends are here, including nerfs to Nami and Graves, as well as buffs to Kalista and adjustments to Shyvana. (Source) There are also a number of ARAM-specific changes for 26.7, including lots of April Fool’s fun.

Patch Highlights

Champion Buffs

We’re looking to give some mid-favored love to Cass, who hasn’t found her… uh… footing in the new season. By bumping up her base mana and empowered E scaling, she should feel a bit more freedom to angle for trades as well as be more rewarded when she finds them.
  • – Base Mana: 450 ⇒ 480

E – Twin Fang

  • Bonus Magic Damage: 20 / 43 / 66 / 89 / 112 ⇒ 20 / 45 / 70 / 95 / 120
  • In addition to our nerfs to Karma and Nami,, we’re buffing one of our tank supports. Our hope here is to provide our favorite iron steed rider with a buff that drives excitement during her high points, so we’re making the horse go fast and further rewarding her clutch engages.

E – Ferromancy: Mount Up

  • Move Speed: 3s of 10%, increased to 25% when facing the empowered ally or a visible enemy champion ⇒ 15%, increased to 30%

R – Full Tilt

  • Damage: 120 / 200 / 280 (+110% AP) ⇒ 150 / 200 / 350 (+110% AP)
Kalista and her players have been patiently awaiting buffs, and we’re also ready to see her unleash her wrath once again. This change is aimed at making her hit harder when she finds an opening to stack up her spears.

E – Rend

  • Total AD scaling on bonus damage per additional stack: (+ 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% AD) ⇒ (+ 20 / 27.5 / 35 / 42.5 / 50% AD)

Champion Nerfs

Graves has seen a ton of play since his True Grit buffs, and even though he’s found pretty solid success with more durable builds, players are understandably still chasing those high roll crits to great results. Rather than rolling back his E buffs or pushing him further towards one build, we figured the best thing we can do is make his early clear and skirmishing a bit less consistent by dusting off an old wrench we haven’t used in half a decade, though we are keeping an eye on his 4-digit autos!
Base Stats
  • Base attack damage: 68⇒ 66
  • Karma has been a force to be reckoned with in high-skill support play for some time now. We think Karma’s strong early game is healthy, but we’re tuning down her midgame shields to be less inspiring, as it’s the only ability actually worth empowering and her enchanter builds far outperform her mage ones. This change should bring her Mantra options closer to equilibrium!

R – Renewal

  • Empowered E – Defiance Bonus Primary / Secondary Target Shield : 50 / 100 / 150 / 200 (+45% AP) ⇒ 45 / 85 / 125 / 165 (+45% AP)
  • We’re nerfing another one of the most powerful supports to bring her in line with other options. Nami often excels in extremely aggressive early lanes, utilizing W self cast to bounce damage to enemies and getting high value out of both effects in a single cast. Now she will need to be more intentional about whether she wants the heal or the damage more.

W – Ebb and Flow

  • Bounce Modifier: -10% (+10% per 100 AP) effect per bounce ⇒ -20% (+15% per 100 AP) effect per bounce
  • Ornn has been a standout among top lane tanks across all player skill levels, helped by the new top lane role quest accelerating his access to Masterworks. We believe he has an appropriate amount of CC and durability, but we’re lowering his personal damage threat, especially against other high health champions.

W – Volcanic Rupture

  • Brittle Proc Damage: 10-18% (Levels 1-18) ⇒ 9-17% (Levels 1-18)
Singed has been a big winner this season with free teleport, experience, Protoplasm, homeguards, weaker grubs…the list is almost as long as the number of ingredients in his Insanity Potion! Instead of making his early game even more vulnerable, we want to make Singed a bit more reliant on his own accumulated gold rather than his experience and free stats, especially now that he’s also doing a better job tanking damage.

R – Insanity Potion

  • Bonus Stats: 25 / 60 / 95 ⇒ 25 / 55/ 85
Veigar has often been at the threshold of being considered overpowered in bot lane, and he’s been maintaining enough of a play rate there that it’s time to step in. One thing different between bot Veigar and mid Veigar is his scaling nature. In bot, he’s actually even more of a snowball champion than in mid where his win rate steadily climbs over game time. So we’re blunting that early-mid spike with a cooldown nerf that his mid players aren’t as reliant upon and can more easily outscale.

R – Primordial Burst

  • Cooldown: 100 / 80 / 60 ⇒ 120 / 90 / 60
Ultimate haste no longer provides passive 0.015 passive fury generation per second but instead amplifies all fury generation by 1% per 1 ultimate haste. This should make ultimate haste function for Shyvana more similarly to how ability haste does for normal abilities. We also micropatched some Sylas interactions last week. He was dealing too much damage when stealing Shyvana’s Q by applying her on-hit damage twice and essentially double-dipping on his total attack damage vs. his primary target.

Systems

Support

After last patch where we weakened this mechanic, we’re now completely disabling the reduction in gold that used to kick in when support players killed too many minions in quick succession. This was added back when it was optimal to run two or more support items in the game, but now that it’s impossible to do so in competitive environments, we feel this extra restriction is unwarranted. We’ll be keeping an eye on support and bot laner dynamics around who farms the waves after this lands. We don’t expect much will change but supports who have to catch some farm here and there shouldn’t feel bad about it now.

Ranked

“When disruptive behavior like AFKing or trolling is detected in a match, full LP refunds will be given to negatively impacted players instead of partial refunds.”

Patch 26.7 Skins

Lots of new skins are coming for April Fools’ Day.

Posted in LoL

Phreak’s Final League of Legends Patch Preview Hints at a Secret Riot Project

Posted on by Geekmandem

David ‘Phreak’ Turley, best known as Riot Phreak, or the voice of almost every League of Legends Champion Reveal trailer, is stepping down from his role as live designer on League of Legends.

In the latest “Patch 26.07 Preview“, Phreak started it off by explaining he was set to leave League of Legends, and move on to another project at Riot Games.

Phreak has done this series of videos since he was a Shoutcaster on the North American LoL Esports scene. As he moved up to become a designer, he continued the series, but went into more depth on the subject.

“Late last year or early this year I was asked if I wanted to work on a different project within League of Legends. I said yes, and then I built a plan for offboarding onto the project and off of live design, and so that’s been happening over the last several months.

“Ultimately, although there are no details to share. I am still a game designer on League of Legends. I wanted to move over. I think it’s a very, very cool project. I think a lot of you will really love it. I’m very excited about this overall. But yeah, this is my last patch as a live designer for, I guess, quite a while. All I can really say here.”

Phreak then went on to talk about why the preview videos were stopping, after all, he did them prior to being a designer so why stop?

“Why am I not going to do any more of these videos?. If we go back to the history of it when I was a shoutcaster, I was just some guy, sure, I worked at Riot, but I was just some guy on the outside giving my opinions on stuff. That felt reasonable to do as just like, a highly-engaged League player. Then I became a game designer and I gave my opinions. But as a designer still working on League but not directly involved with the stuff, that just feels weird. I don’t want to critique other peoples’ work publicly when it’s not my job to do so. I think it’s just way easier to not talk about these anymore.”

What Phreak’s next project is, we don’t know. Riot Games continues to work on an MMO in the background, which is still expected to be released by 2030; however, it seems unlikely Phreak would work on that. It’s more likely some new project within Riot Games, though likely League of Legends related.

We’ve heard many rumours over the years, with the “action RPG” being the one that seemed to have the most legs. For now, we don’t have any more information, but we’ll update it once we have it.

Patch 26.7 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

The 26.7 patch preview for League of Legends is out, with another handful of champion buffs and nerfs. From @RiotPhroxon on X Source

26.7 Buffs

Cassiopeia

See Highest Win Rate Cassiopeia Builds
– Buffs to 2 areas that Cassiopeia thrives in; her initial mana pool for early all-ins when she tags with Q
– Her maxed E, to reinforce her sustained DPS identity

Kalista

See Highest Win Rate Kalista Builds
Kalista has fallen off significantly in priority in Pro Play, which means we can buff her for regular play!
– We’re focusing the power in the core area where people play her; her E damage

Rell

See Highest Win Rate Rell Builds
-Similarly, Rell has fallen off pretty significantly as well
– Her initial Ult damage will increase her threat in early all-ins, while her E will allow her to fulfil more of her mobile horse identity

26.7 Nerfs

Ornn

See Highest Win Rate Ornn Builds
– Ornn is just a little bit strong, especially given that he has a relatively steep mastery curve

Singed

See Highest Win Rate Singed Builds
– Singed is looking a bit too strong in especially normal play
– While this nerf looks like a bit of a meme, we expect it matters more than expected on paper just due to the number of stats impacted when ult is active

Veigar

See Highest Win Rate Veigar Builds
– Veigar is in a slightly strong spot for regular play midlane, but is really rocking the bot lane a bit too hard, especially in regular play
– The nerfs are targeted at R which sits at Rank 1 in bot lane for quite a lot longer than in solo lanes

Shyvana

Shyvana

See Highest Win Rate Shyvana Builds
We’re still working on a larger set of changes for Shyvana, but they haven’t been finalized yet (I mentioned the direction of
some of the changes yesterday)
For this patch, just a change to make Ultimate Haste interactions and also the Sylas interaction nerf from previously

Shyvana definitely initially landed a bit strong, and her hotfix put her in a decent spot after that. She has a bit of an unintended interaction with Sylas that we will be micropatching out tomorrow; essentially, he benefits double from her auto attacks’ passive (with Sylas’s passive) that makes his attacks do pretty eye-popping values.

We’re still taking our time to evaluate role viability for Top Shyvana and whether it’s reasonably supportable without destroying Jungle role satisfaction. We’ve also been working on some changes to increase the satisfaction of Passive, reduce MMR skew, increase counterplay and satisfaction of E

First Stand

The First Stand meta ended up being quite good; there was significant diversity in every role between classes. One notable gap was AP junglers and AD mids (related), and so we’ll see what we can do to enable some more of those picks heading into the Season. Was especially happy with the Bot meta; Lethality Varus had a 14% winrate, and there was a good mix of Casters, Hypercarries and Utility as well as many fringe picks like Zeri, Kog, etc.

Ranged Supports are really starting to get away from the rest of the pack now, with laning being a much larger focus due to role quests. Not necessarily a bad thing, though, given that we’ve been in Melee supp meta for many years. Game pacing overall felt good (or at least I thought so), and the lack of lane swaps really allowed each role to shine, with GigaBin showcasing the power of an unleashed Top lane role. It really did seem like every lane could carry and balance of objectives vs splitting felt pretty appropriate

Support Quest

A few patches ago, we talked about reducing the negative impact of the support quest to reduce complexity – We’re going to pull this all the way this patch. This may result in some farming support shenanigans, but then you’re also denying your bot carry their quest progression; we’re giving it a go to see if anything breaks

Posted in LoL

BLG Takes First Stand 2026 Victory in Historic Best-of-Five

Posted on by Geekmandem

After a week of action, BLG has secured victory at the First Stand 2026 event in Brazil. The event took place over just one week of action, and we’ve seen some banger series during that time. For European fans, a notable win came when they dominated Gen.G in the semi-finals, setting them up for the Grand Final with BLG.

The rest of the event went mostly as expected to, though the Grand Final series was the banger of a series fans globally would have wanted it to be. G2 took a massive early lead in the series, coming out of the traps as if the Gen.G series was still going on. However, the LEC side couldn’t keep the momentum going as BLG secured the win to claim their first international victory.

BLG vs G2

BLG win First Stand

Game 1

For EU fans going into the series off the back of what happened yesterday, Game 1 felt like more of the same. G2 looked clean and dominant throughout, with clean plays, and a big end. While it looked like they might be able to turn that into another series dominance, it wasn’t to be in Game 2.

Game 2

BLG decided to draft an “Avengers” draft, focusing on a comp that protected Bin with four global ultimates. Galio, Shen, Pantheon, and Ezreal, all in play to protect Gwen. Not only that, but BLG looked to go all-in on level 1, making G2’s life even harder. While G2 had moments, Game 2 was always going to BLG once they took a lead, as the series was tied up.

Game 3

Game 3 was a much calmer start, with both teams clearly aware that a loss would set them on an uphill battle. The slow start played into how BLG wanted to play, as G2 never found a way in. They did get one moment with a forced Baron play, leading to four kills, but overall, it was just too much for them to do. BLG took a match point, as G2 needed something special to win the series.

Game 4

Another early lead for BLG in Game 4, with two kills on the Cassiopeia, looked like it could set G2 back. G2, however, found a moment, with a huge fight turnaround in their own top jungle, G2 managed to get a few kills and close the gold lead, bringing the game back to an even footing.

Despite such an amazing middle period, BLG managed to win the series after punishing G2 on a Dragon take. The series ended with a bit of a whimper, but BLG won an incredible win.

League of Legends Patch 26.6 Flipped the Meta and These Champions Benefit Most

Posted on by Stan

The latest League of Legends patch 26.6 has been live for a while now and we’ve gathered enough data to see how the meta evolved compared to 26.5.

Disclaimer

We’re updating this tier list daily, check back often for updates.

Biggest Movers

Here are the biggest movers in patch 26.5 so far.

Top RisersRoleRankChangeWin Rate
Gwen GwenJungle#245 ▲ #49+196+4.11%
Sylas SylasJungle#192 ▲ #17+175+3.09%
Tryndamere TryndamereTop#218 ▲ #65+153+2.49%
Nidalee NidaleeJungle#149 ▲ #15+134+2.48%
Renata Glasc Renata GlascSupport#202 ▲ #69+133+2.09%
Top FallersRoleRankChangeWin Rate
Cassiopeia CassiopeiaTop#14 ▼ #208-194-3.28%
Seraphine SeraphineADC#11 ▼ #185-174-2.9%
Zaahen ZaahenJungle#58 ▼ #203-145-1.88%
Quinn QuinnTop#32 ▼ #168-136-1.69%
Pantheon PantheonMid#57 ▼ #175-118-1.37%

League of Legends Patch 26.6 Tier List

Here’s a tier list with the top 50 champions in the 26.6 ranked league right now. You can use the filters to sort by role.

All Roles Top Jungle Mid ADC Support
Rank Champion Role Tier Win Rate Pick Rate Ban Rate Matches
▲ 1 (was 4) Brand Brand ADC S (A→S) 55.15% (+1.9%) 1% 2% 1,924
▲ 2 (was 24) Nilah Nilah ADC S+ (S→S+) 53.96% (+2.17%) 1.5% 3.4% 2,802
▲ 3 (was 19) Vel'Koz Vel'Koz ADC A 53.86% (+1.94%) 0.8% 1.5% 1,465
4 NEW Karthus Karthus ADC A 53.2% 0.6% 1.6% 1,188
▲ 5 (was 12) Sion Sion Mid A 52.9% (+0.46%) 1% 1.1% 1,917
▲ 6 (was 20) Aurelion Sol Aurelion Sol ADC A 52.86% (+0.94%) 0.8% 1.3% 1,468
▲ 7 (was 76) Olaf Olaf Top S (A→S) 52.77% (+1.89%) 2.7% 2.4% 5,073
▼ 8 (was 6) Rek'Sai Rek'Sai Jungle A (S→A) 52.7% (-0.22%) 2.3% 2.3% 4,300
▲ 9 (was 13) Singed Singed Top S 52.61% (+0.23%) 2.8% 1.3% 5,282
▼ 10 (was 2) Hwei Hwei ADC A 52.61% (-0.94%) 0.5% 1.4% 1,017
▲ 11 (was 114) Swain Swain Mid A 52.6% (+2.14%) 1.1% 2.7% 2,137
▲ 12 (was 53) Udyr Udyr Jungle A 52.56% (+1.47%) 1.7% 1.1% 3,164
▼ 13 (was 9) Kayle Kayle Top S+ 52.54% (-0.1%) 3.3% 6.9% 6,163
▲ 14 (was 38) Bel'Veth Bel'Veth Jungle S 52.5% (+1.14%) 1.7% 4.3% 3,221
▲ 15 (was 149) Nidalee Nidalee Jungle A (B→A) 52.45% (+2.48%) 1.9% 1.3% 3,470
▲ 16 (was 41) Ashe Ashe ADC S+ 52.45% (+1.16%) 9.5% 2.1% 17,850
▲ 17 (was 192) Sylas Sylas Jungle S (C→S) 52.39% (+3.09%) 4.6% 10% 8,648
▼ 18 (was 8) Nasus Nasus Jungle A (S→A) 52.39% (-0.32%) 0.9% 4.9% 1,756
▲ 19 (was 145) Jayce Jayce Mid A (B→A) 52.34% (+2.35%) 0.7% 4.3% 1,366
▲ 20 (was 55) Annie Annie Mid S (A→S) 52.32% (+1.24%) 2.2% 0.5% 4,161
▲ 21 (was 23) Nunu & Willump Nunu & Willump Jungle A (S→A) 52.3% (+0.44%) 2.5% 1.1% 4,658
▲ 22 (was 35) Rammus Rammus Jungle A (S→A) 52.29% (+0.9%) 1.3% 2.3% 2,467
▲ 23 (was 49) Kled Kled Top S (A→S) 52.27% (+1.08%) 1.8% 0.9% 3,342
▲ 24 (was 25) Zyra Zyra Jungle A 52.22% (+0.5%) 1.2% 3.3% 2,229
▼ 25 (was 5) Yasuo Yasuo ADC S 52.19% (-0.85%) 1.4% 17.7% 2,585
▲ 26 (was 28) Ornn Ornn Top S+ 52.18% (+0.48%) 5.5% 1.1% 10,309
▲ 27 (was 48) Anivia Anivia Mid S+ (S→S+) 52.18% (+0.99%) 3.6% 3.6% 6,641
▼ 28 (was 3) Veigar Veigar ADC A (S→A) 52% (-1.38%) 1.9% 1.7% 3,469
▲ 29 (was 82) Evelynn Evelynn Jungle A (S→A) 51.86% (+1.06%) 2.2% 2.9% 4,198
▲ 30 (was 39) Sona Sona Support S 51.85% (+0.51%) 5.1% 0.9% 9,600
▲ 31 (was 164) Lissandra Lissandra Mid S (B→S) 51.82% (+2.03%) 4.3% 1.8% 8,039
▲ 32 (was 47) Aurelion Sol Aurelion Sol Mid S (A→S) 51.82% (+0.62%) 2.7% 1.3% 5,095
▲ 33 (was 34) Ivern Ivern Jungle A 51.81% (+0.31%) 1.3% 0.6% 2,403
▲ 34 (was 45) Fiddlesticks Fiddlesticks Jungle A (S→A) 51.81% (+0.59%) 2.4% 2.3% 4,507
▼ 35 (was 31) Vex Vex Mid S 51.81% (+0.25%) 2.6% 3.3% 4,870
▲ 36 (was 106) Swain Swain Top A 51.77% (+1.24%) 0.5% 2.7% 1,016
▲ 37 (was 67) Darius Darius Jungle A 51.77% (+0.77%) 0.7% 12.8% 1,244
▼ 38 (was 36) Briar Briar Jungle S (S+→S) 51.74% (+0.36%) 4.7% 9.7% 8,734
▼ 39 (was 1) Anivia Anivia Top A 51.73% (-2.27%) 0.8% 3.6% 1,417
▲ 40 (was 56) Zilean Zilean Support S (A→S) 51.71% (+0.64%) 3.1% 1.8% 5,709
▲ 41 (was 121) Vayne Vayne Top S 51.67% (+1.32%) 3.1% 10.4% 5,870
▼ 42 (was 15) Shen Shen Top S (S+→S) 51.63% (-0.46%) 4.5% 4% 8,334
▲ 43 (was 143) Elise Elise Support A (B→A) 51.62% (+1.57%) 1.5% 2.6% 2,871
▲ 44 (was 54) Senna Senna ADC A 51.61% (+0.52%) 3% 1% 5,551
▲ 45 (was 62) Aatrox Aatrox Jungle A 51.6% (+0.59%) 1.1% 6.6% 2,027
▼ 46 (was 33) Xayah Xayah ADC S 51.54% (+0.04%) 5.6% 1% 10,395
▼ 47 (was 7) Kog'Maw Kog'Maw ADC A (S→A) 51.54% (-1.25%) 1.9% 0.8% 3,539
48 NEW Olaf Olaf Jungle A 51.47% 0.6% 2.4% 1,158
▲ 49 (was 245) Gwen Gwen Jungle A (D→A) 51.46% (+4.11%) 1% 6.1% 1,889
▲ 50 (was 101) Dr. Mundo Dr. Mundo Jungle S 51.4% (+0.8%) 3.9% 10.7% 7,266

To see the full rankings of champions in the latest update, check out our full Tier List!

Posted in LoL

Shyvana Nerf – Rework Given Emergency Hotfix after 57% Win Rate

Posted on by Geekmandem

It looks like Shyvana’s Rework has come out of the oven a little hot, as Riot Games pushes out an emergency nerf. With a 57% win rate on the first day, Shyvana has been hit with a nerf bat.

Shyvana Rework Nerf

Riot August, a Lead Designer on League of Legends, gave some reasons for the nerf.

“Shyvana’s rework came out strong (57% winrate). We expect her to only get stronger as players optimize so we put together a micro patch nerf. It should be live now.”

Shyvana

See Highest Win Rate Shyvana Builds

Passive – Fury of the Dragonborn

  • Armor per Stack: 0.4 >>> 0.3
  • MR per Stack: 0.4 >>> 0.3

Q – Twin Bite

  • On-Hit Cooldown Reduction: 1.25 >>> 1

  • Passive Max Health Damage: 1% + 1.7% per 100 bonus AD + 1.3% per 100 AP >>> 1% + 1.1% per 100 bonus AD + 1.1% per 100 AP

W – Burnout

  • RW – Heal: 100-250 + 10% bonus AD + 5% AP doubled based on missing health >>> 75-200 + 10% bonus AD + 5% AP doubled based on missing health

E – Flame Breath

  • Damage: 80 + 40 per rank + 50% bonus AD + 70% AP >>> 80 + 30 per rank + 35% bonus AD + 70% AP
  • Slow Efficacy: 30% + 5% per rank >>> 20% + 5% per rank

R – Dragon’s Descent

  • Fear Duration: 1 >>> 0.75

Shyvana has come in pretty hot on our Tier List. And even with this early data, it makes sense that Riot is looking to tone down the levels of Shyvana post-rework.

These nerfs are very big, but the sort of nerfs you expected after thousands of matches of data. We personally came up against Shyvana a few times, and the results were mixed. Often, early release champions/reworks can be caught up in a mix of being overpowered and simply not being understood.

Shyvana feels like a mix of the two, but this nerf does feel big. We expect to see a few buffs in a later patch.

League of Legends Players Should Notice Fairer Matches After Autofill Fix

Posted on by Geekmandem

Riot Games has announced that the full global rollout of the matchmaking changes has happened. First tested on EUW, and later on other servers, the change looks to tackle the autofill vs autofill issue.

Over the past two weeks, EUW players have been experiencing these new changes first-hand. The idea is that autofill players will be matched more often with other autofilled players. These are now live alongside patch 26.6.

Autofill Matchmaking Rollout

The autofill issues were a huge pain point for many since the start of the 2026 season of ranked League of Legends. Many players felt that matchmaking seemed more unfair than usual. With EUW tests going well, the rollout has now been expanded.

Thanks to Lead Gameplay Designer Matt Leung-Harrison, we have confirmation of the rollout.

“We’re rolling out improved Autofill vs Autofill Matchmaking in each region (should be complete in each region as of this morning). We had a small hiccup where this was accidentally reverted for 1 day in EUW on roughly the 12th March, but turned back on after that”

The changes have been a success in EUW. While we’ve not noticed much ourselves (mostly due to maining Support), anecdotally, people have expressed having a better time in autofilled matches. The changes will also address the Apex LP gains issues.

The changes were first revealed in February, with EUW the testing ground for the changes. Riot needed to use a large region to test the changes, with EUW chosen due to its having such a diverse range of players and skills.

“We’re aware of the reports of mismatched LP gains in Apex and investigating. Wanted to acknowledge these are painful experiences for folks; it’s a hard space, not going to overpromise that we’ll be able to fully fix it, but will convene with the team and have an update later today”

We will update this post with any changes or if there are any delays. Overall, the rollout in Europe seemed to be well-received, with very few issues being noted. However, a lot of these “issues” don’t come to light until some time after anyway.

As with any Ranked Matchmaking changes, there will likely be outlying issues, especially now that it has been pushed to even more major regions.

League of Legends’ New Warhound Skins Turn Champions Into Bikers

Posted on by Geekmandem

Patch 26.6 will add a new Warhound skin line. One of the new skins, Warhound Senna, will also offer up a small share of the proceeds of the skin’s sales to First Stand 2026 Esports participants.

The new skin line focuses on skins for Senna, Naafiri, and Warwick. These skins will also come with a full set of Chromas. Though only the Warhound Senna skin is part of the First Stand esports share programme.

New Warhound Skin Line

The Warhound skin line is based on the idea of a biker gang. As this is a new skin line, it will be interesting to see how it does. There is certainly a lot of potential in the theme, which is fairly unique. While Naafiri and Warwick are “hounds” themselves, Senna firmly plants the skin as not being a skin for dogs… instead, leaning into the biker gang aesthetic.

All of the skins have a very unique and bright aesthetic. As is often the way with Senna, her skin turns her gun into a mount. With the theme being a biker gang, this time her gun turns into a bike. As for Warwick, he effectively becomes a bike, with an engine spawning from his back. For Naafiri, she instead turns into a wheel.

All three skins lean heavily into the theme, so we look forward to future skins in this line.

Warhound Senna, Chromas, and Border

Unlike the other two skins, Warhound Senna will share 30% of the skin’s sales with the organisations currently competing at the First Stand 2026 event in Brazil. This is the first international esports event of the year.

Warhound Naafiri, Chromas, and Border

Warhound Warwick, Chromas, and Border

Shyvana Gets the First Exclusive Augment in League of Legends Arena

Posted on by Geekmandem

Arena has been out for a week, and the game is getting a few changes with Patch 26.6. Alongside the full release of Shyvana, Riot is adding an exclusive Augment for the half dragon.

Arena has been a popular mode since it was added back to the game. With Riot Games is clearly looking to have the “Fortnite” style of “keep them playing” mentality. With normal Draft, Ranked, quick play, ARAM, ARAM Mayhem, and now Arena, LoL has become a one-stop shop for people.

Now, with Patch 26.6, we get our first set of changes to Arena since it was released.

Arena Changes – Shyvana Gains Exclusive Augment

First up is Shyvana, who is getting the first exclusive character augment in Arena. Arena is due to last until April 28th, so this celebration of Shyvana’s rework is a great excuse to try the game out. Plus, Arena is a “fun mode” meaning you can pre-pick Shyvana before the game starts.

Shyvana

See Highest Win Rate Shyvana Builds
Big Dragon Energy
“We wanted to celebrate Shyvana’s new style with her own new augment. “
– Shyvana gains maximum fury and does not decay. Dragon Form’s final recast of (Q) Emberstrike does 200% damage.

Omnivamp Shard

  • Omnivamp: 25 (melee)/12.5% (ranged) ⇒ 25 (melee)/15% (ranged)

ITEMS

Fiendhunter Bolts

  • Cooldown: 60s ⇒ 20s

Zeke’s Convergence

  • Cooldown: 30s ⇒ 20s

Crown of the Shattered Queen

  • Damage reduction: 50% ⇒ 90%
  • Linger duration: 3s ⇒ 1.25s

Divine Sunderer

  • Melee max health damage: 4% ⇒ 6%
  • Ranged max health damage: 3 ⇒ 4%
  • Pre-mitigation healing: 55% ⇒ 70%

Diamond-Tipped Spear

  • Max damage range: 1000 ⇒ 800
  • Ability damage max multiplier: 40% ⇒ 50%

Goredrinker

  • Heal base AD ratio: 20% ⇒ 35%
  • Missing HP heal: 15% ⇒ 18%

Night Harvest

  • Damage: 125(+15% AP) ⇒ 160(+40% AP)