Four new skins come to the Rift in Patch 26.9, as Pandemonium Annie & Kindred, Demoncursed Vayne, and Prestige Pandemonium Shaco hit the store. As the legendary skin, Demoncursed Vayne also comes with a set of Chromas, while Prestige Pandemonium Shaco also gets an alternative look.
Patch 26.9 Skins
Demoncursed Vayne is the main skin of the patch, coming in as the legendary offering. The skin is expected to cost 1,820 RP, which is around $15 or around $20 if purchased with the bundle.
Pandemonium Annie & Kindred join as Epic skins, both will cost 1350, which is around $10.
Prestige Pandemonium Shaco is the final of the four skins and will be the Battle Pass skin for the upcoming season. The skin will feature one alternative look.
Patch 26.9 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)
Patch Highlights
Systems
Quest Progression
To kick things off for Season 2, we have a set of changes to Role Quests that are aimed at making them generally more understandable and less punishing.
With this update, we’re lessening penalties when you just need to get out of your lane towards the end of laning phase.
Quest Point Penalty applied to CS / Turrets / Plates: -50% ⇒ -75% , decreasing down to -0% based on Quest Progress
We’ve also adjusted the bounds in which you earn Role Quest progress. Previously, it was heavily tied to being around your lane’s outer most turret, but now it’ll be more broad to allow for responding to proxying and roaming. Gone are the days of having to stick to your wave so you don’t fall behind, rejoice assassin mains!
Passive Point Progression: 0.333 per second, increased to 1.6 per second while they are “in the quest lane” ⇒ 0.333/s, increased to 1.5/s while you are “in the quest lane”
“In the quest lane”: Defined as near or past the lane’s outermost turret ⇒ Defined as anywhere in the lane, outside of your base
Recall Penalty to Passive Point Earn: Functionally exists because passive point gain was reduced until at outermost turret, creating a minor bias towards mid lane (shorter) ⇒ Disables passive point earn entirely for 12s after recalling
Passive point progression now also allows for a moderate degree of roaming. After level 3, you’ll now start banking roaming time while "in the quest lane,"getting up to 60 seconds after spending 120 seconds in lane. For every second banked, you’ll earn the increased Passive Point Progression as though you’re still "in the quest lane" even if you’re not.
Functionally, every 2 minutes you spend in lane, you can spend 1 minute roaming without penalizing your quest progress
Quest Rewards
Finally, we have some adjustments to quest rewards. For top, we’re doing a minor nerf to overall experience gain and adjusting the experience bonus to distinguish between champion and non-champion sources. Effectively, this will help out top laners who prefer scrappy teamfights over split pushing. We’re also ensuring that we avoid top lane experience creep situations where top laners who end up repeatedly killing each other scale their own level and experience rewards.
XP Increase: +12.5% from all sources ⇒ +80 flat XP on champion takedown; +11% from all other sources
For mid, we’re replacing the empowered recall effect with a percent-based increase to bonus AD and AP. We’ve felt that mid has lost some of its carry and scaling fantasy compared to top and bot’s rewards, which get more levels and XP or more gold and items. We’re hoping this change provides an edge over other lanes to spike harder on item purchases.
Role Quest Reward: Empowered Recall (300s CD, reduced by 60s on Takedown) ⇒ +6% Bonus AD and 6% Bonus AP
We feel like bot is a little too strong and snowballs a little too hard given their late game fantasy. So we’re giving a minor nerf to their bonus takedown gold.
Bonus Takedown Gold: 50g ⇒ 40g
Minion Waves
We’re moderately increasing minion wave durability, mostly around mid and late laning phase, to help increase minion action. This should also have a minor impact on opening up roaming windows as well as slightly increase wave stacking effects, allowing teams to spend a bit more time outside of the lane while a wave builds up.
Melee Minion Health: 440 (+25 every 90s; then +35 after this has happened 5 times)⇒ 430 (+35 every 90s)
Minion Slayer (Minion Damage Bonus to other Minions): +[2 Melee | 4 Ranged | 6 Siege]% Current HP On Hit ⇒ +[2 Melee | 3.5 Ranged | 5 Siege]% Current HP On Hit
Ambessa has carried the Medarda legacy a bit too well. Her brutality and fantasy has resonated with her mains, but we believe her ult has felt slightly fast to the point that players hit by it often don’t have clarity on what happened. We’re extending her cast time to open up clearer counterplay, and will be keeping a watchful eye on opportunities for follow-up work.
Briar has one of the steepest mastery curves in League. However, as time has gone on, more and more players have ended up at the high end of that curve and have been finding a lot of success. So we’re looking to nerf a bit of her survivability, but keep her ability to kill a target.
We want to bring back some playstyles that have been lost to the sands of time. First up on that list is AP Ezreal. Bring out your global snipes—there’s a lot of good mages out there but none of them are this skillful!
Gragas top is most impacted by the removal of Phase Rush, and only time will tell whether Grasp or Comet comes out on top. As we wait to see how his laning shakes out, this change should let Gragas players better frontline for their teams, and have a bigger impact in the late-game where they struggle most.
Our second lost playstyle is AD Kennen. In this case, we’re adding critical strike synergy to Kennen’s W and E. While a more attack speed focused on-hit hybrid build may stand out as a more intuitive choice for an auto-attack focused Kennen, we actually think it would spill over too hard into his standard AP builds and want to avoid adjustments to his typical playstyle just to enable this one.
W – Electrical Surge
[NEW]Passive: When ready, now applies the passive effect to the entire attack as an On-Hit, rather than just the first On-Hit trigger
[NEW]Passive Damage: Can now Critically Strike for 140% (+40% of Bonus Critical Strike Damage)
E – Lightning Rush
[NEW]Attack Speed Buff: Critical Strikes now extend the duration of Lightning Rush’s Attack Speed buff by 1 second, up to the initial duration of 4s. This can happen any number of times.
With Shyvana having been out for a few patches, we’ve taken stock of where she’s landed and identified two areas to address: broadening bruiser item viability and sharpening the distinction between AD and AP builds.
On the bruiser side, we’ve reduced the emphasis on pure dps items like Kraken Slayer. Adjustments to her base stats, Q and W create more room for Sheen, ability haste, and health to meaningfully contribute to her kit.
For build differentiation, AD Shyvana looks to engage in more sustained combat through auto attacks followed by big Q hits, using her W for sustain and sticking power and E for supplementary chase power. AP Shyvana, by contrast, centers damage around R and E, with W existing as a way to weave in and out of combat.
Base Stats
Attack Speed: 0.625 ⇒ 0.638
Attack Speed Ratio: 0.69 ⇒ 0.638
Attack Damage Growth: 3 ⇒ 4
Q – Emberstrike
Passive: 1% (+ 1.1% per 100 bonus AD) (+ 1.1% per 100 AP) of target’s maximum health ⇒ 1% (+ 1.1% per 100 bonus AD)
Dragon Form Heal: 75 – 214.71 (based on level) (+ 10% bonus AD) (+ 5% AP), increased by 0% – 100% (based on her missing health) for a maximum heal of 150 – 429.41 (based on level) (+ 20% bonus AD) (+ 10% AP) ⇒ 60 – 100 + 4-8% missing health (based on level)
Last patch’s adjustment last patch ended up a very slight nerf (less than .5%) for both top and support. So we’re making some support-focused improvements to compensate.
E – Thick Skin
Grey Health to HP conversion: 45 – 100% (Level 1 – 18) ⇒ 60 – 100% (Level 1 – 18)
R – Devour
Move Speed On Ally Devour: 40% for 3 seconds ⇒ 60% for 3 seconds
Taliyah is in the same spot as Gragas (RIP Phase Rush), except she was also taken down a notch from the pro mid meta in her last nerf. We don’t expect her to be able to utilize the changes as well as a lot of her competition, so we’re walking back our last hit to her, while also making sure she doesn’t approach sub-2:30 clears.
Our third lost playstyle—On-hit-focused Teemo builds have slowly fallen out of vogue as he’s been tuned around Malignance and Liandries. We are adding bonus AD ratios to Teemo’s E to open up itemization options for auto-attack builds featuring hybrid items like rageblade and the reworked Statikk Shiv.
E – Toxic Shot
[NEW]Initial Damage Bonus AD Ratio: 10% Bonus AD
[NEW]DoT Damage Bonus AD Ratio: 30% Bonus AD over 4 seconds
Currently, we feel that Udyr’s AD Q builds are extremely one note—which makes sense when you look at their scaling. We want to broaden his AD Q bruiser builds by shifting some of his AD ratios out of his Q and into W and E so the stance swapper has more than one stance.
Q – Wilding Claw
Bonus Damage on First 2 Attacks: 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% (+4% per 100 bonus AD) of the target’s Max Health ⇒ 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% (+3.5% per 100 bonus AD) of the target’s Max Health
Awakened Bonus Damage on First 2 Attacks: An additional 2 – 4% (based on level) (+3% per 100 bonus AD) of the target’s Max Health ⇒ An additional 2 – 4% (based on level) (+1.5% per 100 bonus AD) (+1% per 1000 bonus HP of the target’s Max Health)
Awakened Chain Lightning Damage Per Bounce: 1.5 – 3% (based on level) (+.8% per 100 AP) ⇒ 1.5 – 3% (based on level) (+.6% per 100 AP)
W – Iron Mantle
[NEW]Shield AD Ratio: 50% bonus AD
[NEW]Awakened Shield AD Ratio: 100% bonus AD
[NEW]Awakened Heal AD Ratio: 50% bonus AD
E – Blazing Stampede
[NEW]Move Speed AD Ratio: 5% move speed per 100 bonus AD
[NEW]Awakened Move Speed AD Ratio: 10% move speed per 100 bonus AD
Our favorite wolf-boy Warwick has been struggling to find his place over game time. We are looking to soften the blow of his transition into the late game by bringing up some of his scaling.
Our fourth lost playstyle is centered around Xin Zhao—particularly attack speed and AP Xin Zhao. Over the years Xin has moved off of auto attack builds solidly into bruiser AD-caster builds buying items like Sundered Sky or Black Cleaver. We think more attack speed-centric Xin Zhao builds offered an enjoyable melee fighter experience, and we want to bring it back. Whether it’s full AP builds revolving around drain tanking, heavy attack speed on-hit carry builds, or just some minor pivots into Stridebreaker, Titanic Hydra, and Triforce, we want to see a bit more build options.
Passive – Determination
Healing: 3 / 4 / 5% Max HP (+65% AP) (levels 1 / 6 / 11) ⇒ 3 / 4 / 5% Max HP (+50 / 65 / 90% AP) (levels 1 / 6 / 11)
W – Wind Becomes Lightning
Slow On Thrust: 50% for 1.5 seconds ⇒ 50% for 1.5 (+.5 per 100 AP) seconds
Zeri’s changes have pushed her over time to become more of a bursty assassin than the fantasy that initially called to many of her players. By moving power from her burst and late-game DPS towards her mobility and early laning, these changes should allow Zeri to shine once again as the zappy, speedy legend she is (while still doing ADC damage!)
Refunds 16 / 19.5 / 23 / 26.5 / 30% of cooldown when hitting an enemy champion
Items
Axiom Arc
Last year, we adjusted Axiom Arc to have a higher base refund on its ultimate effect with less scaling. We think this was a mistake, as offering an item early in the game that reduces ultimate cooldowns to this degree on high burst lethality champions can lead to very narrow windows of opportunity for opponents to act.
Flux: On takedown, refund 15% (+.15% per lethality) of your ultimate’s total cooldown ⇒ 10% (+.25% per lethality)
[NEW] Doran’s Bow
We’re looking to give more starting item options to auto attack-focused champions. Doran’s Bow offers a high risk, high reward fantasy that will reward those who are able to sneak in extra autos and come out on top even without the additional health.
Attack Damage: 6
Attack Speed: 12%
Omnivamp: 1.5%
[NEW] Doran’s Helm
We wanted to give more starting item options to champions who want to stack resistances. When it comes to the fantasy of being unkillable, current items assume a losing position. Though champions who want resistances tend to start on the back foot, we want to reward players who take advantage of the opportunity to come out even or ahead in laning phase with an item that pays off in valuable stats throughout the rest of the game.
Health: 100
Armor: 10
Magic Resist: 10
Helping Hand: 5 on-hit vs minions
Dusk And Dawn
One of the standout items for the season so far, we continue to feel it overlaps with Lichbane a bit too much. We want to encourage Dusk and Dawn users to stick around for multiple triggers, and empower them to do just that.
[NEW]Spellblade: Now also heals the user for (10% AP) (+3% Bonus HP)
Health: 350 ⇒ 300
Ability Power: 70 ⇒ 60
Attack Speed: 25% ⇒ 20%
Endless Hunger
Melee AD Fighters face major trade offs when considering this item against building other more durability focused items. We do want them to consider Endless Hunger however, for those pop off games when they get to play greedy, so we’re giving it a minor buff for melee champs.
In addition to new starting items, we’re adding new boots to the game that provide omnivamp. We’ve felt that many fighters and casters are limited in their boot selection, with only Ionian Boots as a real offensive option, and when they do pick something else, it’s purely defensive, which isn’t exactly exciting. These boots should fit a nice middle ground of aggressive and defensive, offering sustain through combat.
Build Path: Boots (300g) + 650g
Move Speed: 45
Omnivamp: 4%
Unique Passive – Slay: On champion takedown, gain 1% Omnivamp permanently, stacking up to 6 times
Tier 3 Immortal Path – Bonus Unique Passive – Now and Forever: While above half health, deal 5% increased damage. While below half health, receive +15% healing, shielding, and regeneration.
Hubris
Hubris cost buffs put it in line with a lot of other 1st slot lethality items, but in its current state feels like it’s crowding out other options by providing both scaling and immediate power. These changes should differentiate Hubris more from immediate powerspikes like Youmuu’s, while making it even stronger than before if you get rolling.
Base AD: 60 ⇒ 55
Passive AD per Stack: +2 ⇒ +3
Bonus AD: +15 ⇒ +12
[REMOVED] Opportunity
We feel that Opportunity has always overlapped a bit too much with Youmuu’s, even after we tried to push them apart a year and half ago, and in its current iteration sits in between Youmuus for mobility and Voltaic for upfront trade power.
Staff of Flowing Water
In the past, Staff’s unique effect granted ability haste, and then we changed that to move speed, and then we removed the move speed. We are re-adding the ability haste, as we believe only granting ability power has made the item too narrow and granting move speed made it too generic.
Unique Passive – Rapids: Healing or Shielding other ally champions grants both you and them +45 Ability Power for 6s ⇒ Healing or Shielding other ally champions grants both you and them +40 Ability Power and +15 Ability Haste for 6s
Ability Haste: 15 ⇒ 10
[REWORKED] Statikk Shiv
We’ve been unhappy with Shiv sitting as a pure waveclear first item purchase for a while now. With so much power in deleting the wave, it removes a lot of the space for back and forth lane trading. So instead, we’re taking this opportunity to move it into a scaling purchase for on-hit builds, a build path that has been missing some itemization since we opened up the 7th item slot for bot laners.
This new version of Shiv allows on-hit builds to apply their effects to multiple enemies at once, creating cool combos and helping them scale into teamfighting.
Unique Passive – Electrospark: Your Energized trigger fires a chain of lightning, dealing 60 (increased to 90 for minions and monsters) bonus magic damage to up to (4 – 8, scaling with level) targets. Applies on-hit effects to secondary bounce targets.
Unique Passive – Electroshock: Basic attacks grant an additional +9 Energize stacks
[REMOVED] Trailblazer
Similar to the reason we removed Opportunity, Trailblazer is sitting between two other tanky mobility options (Bandlepipes and Deadman’s Plate). In this case, we feel not only is its output overlapping with similar effects in the space, it also had the highest complexity unique effect—asking allies to pay attention to a wispy trail which simply seemed over in terms of visual noise.
[REWORKED] Voltaic Cyclosword
Voltaic Cyclosword brings some cool Energized options to AD casters, but we think we can make it even broader by allowing it to open up the strict auto-attack gate that stops many melees from being good with it. We also don’t love the slow effect, as it tended to trivialize a lot of the combat once players did manage to get into melee. With Opportunity removed, Voltaic should also be able to stand as the premier “upfront burst” item for AD casters.
Unique Passive – Galvanize: Damaging enemy champions with abilities will trigger Energized if it is ready
Unique Passive – Firmament: Your Energized trigger grants you [15 Melee | 12 Ranged] Lethality for 4s and deals bonus physical damage equal to [9% Melee | 7% Ranged] of the target’s current health. This bonus damage is capped to 200 against non-champions.
Cost: 3000g ⇒ 2900g
Lethality: 18 ⇒ 10
Runes
[NEW] Deathfire Touch
Damage over time and sustained damage casters don’t have a keystone made specifically for them. This gap has previously been partially covered by other keystones like Comet and Aery, but we’re re-adding Deathfire Touch from the old keystone mastery system to ensure that these champions are fully supported by the runes system, and making adjustments to other keystones to compensate.
Sorcery Tree Keystone: Damaging a champion with an ability burns them for (4s singletarget / 2s AoE / 1s DoT). The burn deals 4-12 (level scaling) + 8% bonus AD + 3% AP adaptive damage per second. After the burn has been on a target for 3s, the damage of the burn increases by 100%.
[REMOVED] Phase Rush
Phase Rush has historically been a problematic rune for enabling some champions to subvert intended early lane gameplay. But we know that we need a mobility-based rune, so fear not…
[NEW] Stormraider’s Surge
Since Stormraider’s Surge asks the user to commit to dealing a lot of damage and generally ends up having its input scale well over game time, it is able to support much of the same pattern as Phase Rush in a healthier and more exciting way for the intended users.
[NEW]Sorcery Tree Keystone: Dealing 25% of a champion’s maximum health within 3s grants a movespeed and slow resistance for 3s. 20-10s cooldown, scales based on level.
[NEW]Speed: 40%; 75% for ranged champs
[NEW]Slow Resist: 50%
Arcane Comet
Previously, Comet was given a cooldown refund mechanic for damage over time and sustained damage casters. Now that Deathfire Touch exists, Comet no longer needs it, and can now better serve its original intended audience of control mages and artillery mages with a damage-per-distance mechanic that should be exciting for those subclasses to play with.
[REMOVED]Cooldown Refund: Removed
[NEW]Damage: Now deals up to 100% increased damage based on distance from the target, max damage bonus at 750 range away
Damage: 30 – 130 (based on level) + 10% bonus AD + 5% AP ⇒ 15 – 100 (based on level) + 10% bonus AD + 5% AP
Hail Of Blades
Hail of Blades has become an extremely niche keystone that gives an eye popping amount of attack speed and basically nothing else. In other words, these blades are too sharp! We’re shifting some of the attack speed power budget into a new bonus damage effect so we can tune it more comfortably for a broader variety of champions.
Attack Speed: [160% Melee || 80% Ranged] for 3 attacks, increased by +1 attack if you cast an ability that resets your auto attack ⇒ [120% Melee || 60% Ranged] for 3 attacks, increased by +1 attack if you cast an ability that resets your auto attack up to +2 attacks
New: Attacks empowered by Hail of Blades deal 4 – 20 (+8% bonus AD) (+6% AP) bonus true damage
Bugfixes: Fixed various Attack Reset abilities not properly granting bonus attacks (Bel’Veth Q, Kai’Sa R, K’Sante Q3, Gwen E, Quinn E, Rell Remount W, Riven Q)
SR Ranked Season 2
SR Ranked Season 2 will start at 12:00:00 noon, April 29, local server time.
For Apex (Master, Grandmaster, Challenger) players in NA, EUW, EUN, LAN, BR, TR, their rank status will be reset to Master, 0 LP. For all other players, nothing will change. If you want to read more about why we’re resetting Apex in some regions, check out the dev blog to learn more.
For all regions and all players, Victorious Ranked Mission (15 ranked game won) will be reset with Season 2 start.
End of Season 1 Ranked rewards will be distributed shortly after 26.09 is live, shard transfer service will be temporarily disabled until rewards are fully granted.
A fan-made Aurelion Sol skin inspired by legendary Pokémon Rayquaza has been turning heads on social media. Many fans have taken to social media to beg the Riot Games Skin team for similar concepts in future. Could we see a branded skin line come to LoL in future?
The skin, created by artist Nyth and shared via Runeforge, reimagines Aurelion Sol with Rayquaza’s iconic green serpentine design, complete with fiery orange energy trails. The skin echoes the sky dragon’s Delta Stream aesthetic. The thematic fit is hard to argue with. Both are ancient, godlike dragons that rule the skies, and that overlap gives the concept a natural home in Aurelion Sol’s skin catalogue.
The timing of the concept is interesting, given recent comments from Stephanie Leung, Lead for League of Legends Cosmetics, who confirmed in an interview that fan ideas genuinely do make it into the game. “Some of our more successful skins over the last year or so were ideas born from the community,” Leung said, pointing to Train Conductor Ornn as a recent example. She added that Riot tries to take the core idea and fantasy and reimagine it through their own lens rather than lifting a concept wholesale.
Aurelion Sol is also exactly the kind of champion Leung described as a priority for getting the right skin. For champions with longer gaps between releases, the team aims to make sure whatever skin they receive next feels worth the wait. Whether this particular concept ever finds its way onto Riot’s mood boards remains to be seen, but as fan pitches go, this one makes a strong case for itself.
Note that custom skins are not banned by Riot Games, with some streamers using them. However, if Riot Vanguard notices it, it can trigger a ban. In that case, it’s unlikely you will get the ban undone.
League of Legends Arena is a huge part of the game now, and the game mode is about to get a level up in the next patch. More specifically, the augments will get a level up while you play, giving you new options to improve in Arena.
Level up Augments
Augments can now level up, with stats scaling at each level. The cards display the current stat value, upgrading to the new value (shown as X > Y). At level 3, these Augments will take on a final form, gaining a new trait.
You can see an example below with the Lazer Eyes Augment:
Laser Eyes:
Base: Fires a continuous magic damage laser in the direction you’re facing
Lv.2 (2 stars): Laser Length 600.00 >> 800.00
Lv.3 (3 stars): Laser Length 630.00 >> 1000.00, and at max level gains a new passive – deals 1% increased damage every 0.5 seconds the enemy stays in your sights
Riot also shared a few other updates, though not as specific, which were:
Quantum Computing: Causes your auto cast augments to multicast
Magical Girl: Drops more stars on your enemies during your magical transformation
Other Arena Changes
Season 2 will see a number of big changes to the arena, alongside the new level-up feature.
Events
A new rotating Events system introduces limited-time format variations each patch. Season 2 launches with four of them: No Event (standard format, giving players time to adjust to the new changes), 3×6 (three players per team across six teams total, opening up comps that struggle in the traditional 2v2 format), Bravery (random champion mode with a curated pool option for those who want some choice), and Swift Arena (two teams of four with faster rounds and more consistent matchups against the same opponents).
Two Map Changes
Petricite Grove is a brand new map set on the outskirts of Demacia. It features larger walls, more hiding spots, and scattered mining bombs that players can knock into enemies for heavy damage. Immobilising effects detonate them instantly, creating burst combo potential for CC-heavy champions.
Ancestral Woods has been reworked. It keeps its identity as the smallest map but drops the single central Power Flower in favor of perimeter Power Flowers and a new Bulwark Blossom in the centre. Last-hitting the Bulwark Blossom grants a heal and shield that scales up when your team is outnumbered.
New Augments
Over 30 new augments are being added this season. Some highlights include Transmute, which immediately fills your remaining augment slots with Silver augments on selection; Wild Fire, an auto-cast fireball that bounces between enemies and bounces endlessly at max level; Scavenger, which lets you steal a defeated opponent’s augment after each elimination but locks your future offerings to level-ups only; and Magical Girl, which summons a falling star at the start of each combat that knocks back nearby enemies before raining stars down on opponents.
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.
Hey folks. As a result of the volatility since January, we’re doing a Ranked reset for Apex players (Master+) in NA, EUW, EUNE, BR, LAN, and TR. Affected players will have their visible rank and MMR reset to Master 0LP when Patch 26.9 goes live.
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.
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
– After being out for almost a year and a half, we’ve learnt a lot about Ambessa’s power curves, strengths and weaknesses, good and bad matchups, etc.
– One area we feel has slightly less counterplay than we think is long term healthy is Ambessa’s ult warning
– Given its long cast range, it often feels more missable (burden is on the caster) than dodgeable (counterplay for user)
– We played around with several timings and think this timing strikes the best balance between dodgeability, requirement to combo CC and still satisfaction for the Ambessa player
– The goals of these changes are to increase differentiation between the AP and AD builds
– Create satisfying incentives for Shyv players who want to be more of a durable Dragon, rather than a squishy burst champion
– It’s also been a common pain point that Shyv’s shield is both easily popped and having the Movespeed tied to that makes her play pattern quite binary and unsatisfying in the moment, so we’re making the Movespeed from W more consistent and available
– In the AD build, we’re looking to have the Q + W pattern be more supported, as she needs to stick onto targets more and be more durable (W cooldown should help here)
– In this build, we’re looking to balance the satisfaction of Q button presses and repeatedly attacking
– We’ve also added more incentives for her Sheen synergies with Trinity Force in particular by buffing her AD growth
– While she’s lost a few incentives to build AD overall, we intend to support the AD Bruiser oriented build as best as we can
– In the AP build, we’re looking to create stronger incentives for E to be maxed and play around E + W
– More of a fireball oriented in and out pattern
– We’ll continue to followup to ensure that Shyvana’s tuning supports her builds as they play out
– While Zeri has been statistically balanced in her more bursty form, especially across ranks, her satisfaction and identity have taken a hit
– These changes are aimed at trading off some of her damage output to re-emphasize her speed outputs (some of the main reasons players play her)
– Along with this are some feelsgood changes (like E refunding on attacks vs everything)
– While we’re increasing some of the speed on her ultimate, we’ll keep an eye on the stack dropoff duration to ensure it strikes the right balance of fantasy fulfilment and balanceability
– We overnerfed Tahm Kench last patch; we intended to buff TK support overall and these buffs are more skewed there, though they will overall affect both roles
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
