The League of Legends Patch 26.23 Preview is here. Riot Phroxzon on X has the usual post in a week that only really sees champion changes coming to the game. We are a week into Mel’s rework, with buffs on the way.
– Yi and Syndra continue to be champions that rate highly on our frustration surveys.
– Yi for regular play and Syndra and Leblanc for the higher levels of play.
– Syndra got a nerf a few patches ago and it was not super heavy by intention, so as to not go further than we need to, but we think she could use another tap down this patch.
– So far, Mel has landed in a pretty stable spot, with a decently low banrate (touch wood).
– That said, at this power level, we aren’t really able to test our hypothesis of whether she is less frustrating when she’s at a power level, so we’re giving her some buffs to let her sit at a normal power level for a champion of her type of shape and mastery curve.
– She shows a bit of a bot skew, similar to many other mages that have been inhabiting bot lane recently.
– This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but just something to watch.
Gen.G and Bilibili Gaming will meet in the Worlds 2026 grand final on Saturday 14 November at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Both are chasing something long overdue. Gen.G haven’t lifted the Summoner’s Cup since 2017, when the roster still played as Samsung Galaxy. BLG have never won it, and they lost the 2024 final to T1.
The semifinals set this up nicely. Gen.G swept Invictus Gaming 3-0 in Allen, Texas. A day later, BLG beat T1, champions for three years running, 3-1. Whatever happens on Saturday, T1’s run is over, and someone else lifts the cup.
When is the Worlds 2026 final?
The grand final is a best-of-five on Saturday, 14 November 2026, starting at 19:00 UTC. It’s at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, which holds about 19,000. It’s the first Worlds final on the US East Coast.
Region
Start time
US Pacific (PT)
11:00, Saturday
US Eastern (ET)
14:00, Saturday
UK (GMT)
19:00, Saturday
Central Europe (CET)
20:00, Saturday
China (CST)
03:00, Sunday
Korea (KST)
04:00, Sunday
You can watch on the LoL Esports Twitch and YouTube channels, or at lolesports.com, where you can earn viewer drops if your Riot account is linked. The winners take US$1,000,000 from the US$5,000,000 prize pool, and the runners-up get US$800,000.
If you’re in New York, the Worlds Fan Fest runs at Pier 36 in Lower Manhattan from 12 to 14 November.
Gen.G have dropped one game in the whole tournament. They came in as the LCK’s top seed and went 3-0 in the Swiss stage, beating IG, Hanwha Life and LYON. LYON took game one off them in that Bo3, which is still the only game Gen.G has lost.
In the quarterfinal, they swept LYON, then did the same to IG in the semis. Games one and two were tidy. In game three, IG led 6-0 in kills and by over 4,000 gold, but Gen.G picked off the right targets around the objective and turned it around. Going 3-0 after a start like that is about as convincing as it gets. This is also Gen.G’s first Worlds final since 2017. They’d finished in the top four in four of their last five Worlds without getting past the semis, so breaking that streak matters.
BLG’s road to the final
BLG made it the hard way. They came in as the LPL’s second seed and went 3-2 in the Swiss stage. They lost to Movistar KOI in round one and to Top Esports later on, so they needed to beat Hanwha Life in the final round to go through.
They’ve been a different team since. BLG swept Dplus KIA in the quarterfinal, then beat T1 3-1 in the semis. T1 levelled the series in game two, but BLG won games three comfortably but game four wasn’t so easy, especially with Faker reducing the gold deficit solo. T1 had won all 13 of their previous Worlds best-of-fives against LPL teams, so it’s a big result.
It’s also BLG’s third international final of the year. They won First Stand in March, beating G2 in the final, and lost the MSI final 3-2 to Hanwha Life in July.
Rosters and key matchups
Role
Gen.G
BLG
Top
Kiin
Bin
Jungle
Canyon
Xun
Mid
Chovy
Knight
ADC
Ruler
Viper
Support
Duro
ON
Head coach
Ryu
Daeny
Gen.G haven’t changed their roster all year. All five have played together since Ruler and Duro joined in 2025. BLG brought in Xun and Viper over the 2025-26 winter and have tried a few players in top lane, with Flandre on the bench.
Mid lane is the matchup everyone will watch. Chovy and Knight are two of the best mids in the world, and neither has won Worlds. One of them will on Saturday.
The bot lane matters just as much, and both ADCs have won Worlds. Ruler did it with Samsung Galaxy in 2017, so he’s the one link to the organisation’s last title. Viper won it with EDG in 2021. Watch how Duro and ON handle that two-on-two, because an early lead there opens the map for both junglers.
Top could swing it. Bin is one of the best performers in international history, and Kiin is one of the most consistent tops in the LCK. If Bin gets ahead and takes over the side lanes, that’s BLG’s best way to win.
Prediction: Gen.G 3-2
I’m going with Gen.G in five. They’ve lost one game all tournament, they have the same five players they’ve had all year, and the IG comeback showed they don’t panic when they go behind. Chovy and Ruler, with a week to prepare, are a scary combination. Plus, I backed Gen.G since day one, so why not keep that up?
BLG are the team to watch if it goes long, though. They lost twice in Swiss and have improved every series since, and they’ve already reached three international finals this year. If Bin and Knight get the early leads they found against T1, this goes the distance, and BLG could win it.
Choosing the right augment in ARAM Mayhem is a split-second decision. And it isn’t easy.
There are over 200 augments in ARAM Mayhem, and understanding which ones to choose requires a deep knowledge of the game and how each augment synergizes with your champion.
Patch 26.22 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)
TFT Standalone Client
Hooray! TFT is all grown up! They’re officially moving to their own standalone client starting on November 4th, 2026. To accommodate their new home, you can expect this patch to be larger than usual. We are making sure that it’s as easy as clicking a button to swap between League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics whenever you want.
Despite this upcoming separation, all existing Teamfight Tactics cosmetics will remain usable in League. The first batch of TFT-only Little Legends will arrive on December 1st, with December 15th marking the date of full separation for TFT cosmetics including emotes and icons.
After this patch, you’ll be able to fully opt out of TFT downloads in League patches. To make this possible, 26.22 will be a larger download than usual. For more information, read more here and we’ll see (some of) you on the Convergence!
The majority of Aurelion Sol players have made it pretty clear that they would much rather rank up his Singularity (E) second over his Astral Flight (W) even though it’s a much weaker second max. We agree that his (E) is a very cool signature spell, so we’re giving him a buff there to help make doing the intuitive fun thing the right thing.
We’ve seen Kayle’s relevance decrease steadily from earlier this year as the game’s moved past the top lane shake up from role quests. We’re giving her a small bump to help out her early laning since we believe that top lane could use some more scaling options.
While Locke’s performance in general is within reason, he’s proven to be a much deeper champion than we initially expected and players who have reached that level of Locke play have shown him to still be clearly too strong, especially early game.
Maokai has remained a very still tree this year, and has been almost entirely stuck in support. We’re buffing him in a way that helps out his top and jungle more.
This patch, Mel is getting a midscope adjustment. You can read more about it here. For the spark notes version, she is having some power moved from early game to scaling, her W is being reworked into an Area-of-Effect missile destruction that retaliates rather than reflects effects, and her Q and R are getting adjustments to lower their cooldowns later on in the game so she can stack her passive to ever higher amounts.
Missile Speed: 3800 ⇒ 3200 (takes .047s longer to travel to max range)
W – Rebuttal – Reworked
Unleashes a nova that expands to 400u Radius over 0.75 seconds. The nova destroys enemy projectiles and shields and grants move speed to Mel and Allies within. Destroyed missiles are retaliated against at the end of the nova.
Retaliation Damage: 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 (+10% AP), reduced to 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 (+5% AP) for subsequent hits against the same enemy, up to 7 retaliations per enemy for a total of 65 – 205 (+40% AP)
After a series of nerfs earlier this year, Naafiri has largely fallen out of mid lane entirely and has been pretty mediocre in the jungle. We’re giving her a buff that should primarily help out her mid, bringing her role power closer to parity.
Similar to Corki, Rumble was tuned for pro play. This change should help out the average rumble a bit more than pros when they catch back up to the patch cycle.
Along with Maokai, Shen jungle has been pushed too far out of the meta. We were watching to see if some of the previous patches’ changes to help jungle tanks would bring him back up, but now we’re confident we can just buff him .
Our buffs a few patches ago landed a bit softer than we expected, but he’s ended up with a good balance between his Crit and Caster builds, so we’re giving him a more generic buff this time. We also expect the Doran’s Bow nerf in this patch to help him out a bit.
Last patch’s nerf to Viktor hit him harder than we expected – but we are happy about the impact it had on his early game bullying, so we are buffing him back in scaling.
We were on the fence last patch with whether Yasuo would also need a nerf like Yone, but he’s also continued growing in winrate as players migrate to crit builds and banrate reflecting that so he’s getting the same treatment.
Zaahen is living up to his scaling fantasies, but hasn’t had enough to do in lane. This should make his early scrapping and skirmishing much more satisfying.
Q – The Darkin Glaive
Cooldown: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6s
⇒ 8 / 7.5 / 7 / 6.5 / 6s
Items
Doran’s Bow
We’re nerfing Doran’s Bow by a minor amount, as it’s settled into a spot that is slightly but clearly too strong, resulting in marksmen that we expect to be leaning towards Doran’s Blade instead being almost purely Doran’s Bow users.
Attack Damage: 8 ⇒ 7
Overlord’s Bloodmail
Overlord’s should be one of the premier juggernaut capstone items, but outside of Sett hasn’t been able to carry enough power to justify greeding for. We are adjusting Overlords in a way that should be a net buff for most other users while hopefully not ballooning its power level too far on Sett, who benefits the most from the Retribution passive because of synergy with his Haymaker (W).
Attack Damage: 30 ⇒ 40
Retribution: +0 – 12% total AD, based on % Missing Health ⇒ +0 – 10% total AD, based on % Missing Health
Classic Patch Notes
Our penultimate content patch arrives with three new old champions to play. Up first, winner of Council Vote #2, Volibear! Run down your enemies, fear nearby minions, and take a bite out of crime. Swain also makes his re-entrance, full of bird-fueled mayhem. And finally, Elise, while not particularly different, has a lot of single-target damage with which to lay waste to her opposition.
We’ve also got a bigger balance patch than usual, taking aim at some of the game’s largest outliers on both the top and bottom end. Yes, Janna, your time has come.
NEWVolibear
This version of Volibear was active from 2011 to 2018, before his E got the knock-back and anti-dash synergy. He’s a tanky melee fighter who excels in sustained combat before finally dealing a significant burst of damage to low-health enemies.
Passive – Chosen of the Storm: When reduced to low health, Volibear heals for a portion of his maximum health over time. This effect has a long cooldown.
Q – Rolling Thunder: Volibear gains bonus movement speed, increased while running toward enemy champions. His next attack deals bonus damage and flips his target over his head.
W – Frenzy: Volibear passively gains stacking bonus attack speed on-attack. While at max stacks, Frenzy can be activated to deal high single-target damage, increased based on their missing health.
E – Majestic Roar: Volibear damages and slows nearby enemies. Minions and monsters are additionally feared.
R – Thunder Claws: Volibear harnesses the power of the storm for several seconds, causing all basic attacks to inflict chain lightning.
NEWSwain
This version of Swain was active from 2010-2016, where he received a minor rework. If you never experienced the glory of the Laser Bird, now is your time!
Passive – Carrion Renewal: Swain recoups some mana every time he kills an enemy.
Q – Decrepify: Swain sics his raven on a target enemy, slowing and dealing damage over time while they remain in range.
W – Nevermove: After a brief delay, Swain damages and roots all enemies in a small area.
E – Torment: Swain afflicts an enemy with Torment, dealing damage over time and causing them to take increased damage from him. Unlike most other damage amps, this also impacts true damage, like Ignite.
R – Ravenous Flock: Swain transforms into a giant raven, consuming increasing amounts of mana while transformed. In this state, he releases lesser ravens to damage enemies and return to heal Swain based on the damage they dealt.
NEWElise
Elise hasn’t changed too much over the years, but this older version put a lot more power into her Q spells. She is seriously bursty and an incredibly potent top laner with all her health-based damage. Make sure to stack some magic pen!
Passive – Spider Swarm: While in human form, abilities that hit enemies store a Spiderling, up to a cap. In spider form, Elise releases these Spiderlings to attack nearby enemies.
Q – Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite: In human form, Elise spits neurotoxin that deals bonus damage based on her target’s current health. In spider form, Elise and her Spiderlings lunge at an enemy and deal bonus damage based on their target’s missing health.
W – Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy: In human form, Elise releases a volatile spiderling that explodes on the first enemy it hits, dealing damage in an area. In spider form, Elise and her Spiderlings gain bonus attack speed and heal Elise on-hit.
E – Cocoon / Rappel: In human form, Elise fires a cocoon that stuns the first enemy it hits. In spider form, Elise and her Spiderlings rappel into the air, becoming untargetable. She can then re-cast Rappel to descend upon her choice of target.
R – Human Form / Spider Form: Elise transforms back and forth between human form and spider form. In human form she’s ranged. In spider form, she is melee and deals bonus damage on-hit.
Aatrox
We didn’t update Aatrox’s passive cooldown properly in the last patch and an unrelated bug slipped in that prevented him from doing anything with his ultimate-empowered attacks. We fixed the auto-attack bug with a day-1 micropatch but the cooldown change was tooltip only until now.
P – Blood Well
Cooldown: 225 ⇒ 225/200/175/150 (for real this time)
Q – Dark Flight
Failure to Land: Fixed a bug from 2013 where the ability would occasionally fail to affect enemies after max-range casts.
R – Massacre
Attacks: Fixed a bug where Aatrox’s basic attacks did nothing during his ultimate. (Fixed in a day-1 micropatch)
Amumu
With bug fixes and balance changes combined, Amumu has wound up as one of the game’s strongest junglers. We’re here to tap him back down to where a straightforward fast-farming jungler is meant to rest. We’re reverting some of our earlier buffs and pulling another one from history to bring down his team-wiping AoE power.
Evelynn has fallen off as time went on and now looks like one of the weaker junglers, so we’re here to give her a boost. We’re undoing her Hate Spike damage nerf to ensure she can keep up with everyone else.
AP Ezreal has never quite hit the mark so it’s time for buffs. As AD Ezreal is doing just fine, we’re delivering simple AP ratio buffs and playing up his healer alternate playstyle since it’s so unique to this version of the champion.
W – Essence Flux
Ability Power Ratio: 60% ⇒ 80%
Healing Effectiveness: 50% ⇒ 70%
E – Arcane Shift
Ability Power Ratio: 75% ⇒ 80%
Fiddlesticks
Fiddlesticks, like any good scarecrow, is outstanding in his field. Well, fields. He’s a great jungler and support, so we’re going to prune some power from both. With how much his E’s mana cost goes up with rank, we want to make sure ranking it is valuable, but he otherwise outputs too much damage too quickly.
E – Dark Wind
Damage per Bounce: 65 / 85 / 105 / 125 / 145 + 45% AP ⇒ 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 + 45% AP
Gangplank
Gangplank is still one of the game’s weakest top laners and junglers, so we’re back for more buffs. While some of these may feel a little scattershot, they’re all period-accurate buffs and reverted-nerfs from before his subsequent 2015 rework. The only novel changes here are to his base stats, where we hope to make him more resilient and allow him to play bruiser builds in addition to crit burst.
Janna has been an extreme top performer for a while so it’s time to bring her down to size. We aim to keep her global passive intact, but want to make sure it’s not so dominant that it crushes other lanes’ interactions.
Passive – Tailwind
Global Bonus Movement Speed: 3% ⇒ 2%
Mordekaiser
Mordekaiser had a few bugs when he came out last patch, and while we fixed many of them in a micropatch, some of them took a while. Here’s a full recounting of bugfixes from our micropatches and the ones coming out today.
Base Stats
Attack Timing: Attacks now come out approximately 70% faster. This was fixed about 1 week after his release
R – Children of the Grave
Pet Bonus Attack Damage: 75% of the target’s Attack Damage ⇒ 75% of Mordekaiser’s Attack Damage
Structure Crits: Pets no longer can critically strike structures.
Bonus Damage to Inhibitors and the Nexus: 75% (This was true in 2013, too!) ⇒ 0%
Nami
Nami didn’t make the cut for buffs in her initial patch but as time has gone on, she’s floundering. She doesn’t have any historical buffs or nerfs to key into before the Preseason Four support update, so we’re creating some novel changes. In the interest of experimentation, we’re playing up her ability to deal a lot of damage if she can land everything and optimize for it. And hey, how about Mid Nami?
Damage Reduction per Bounce: 30% ⇒ 15% (Healing reduction unchanged at 15%)
Olaf
Olaf hasn’t quite kept up with other top laners or junglers so we want to play up his strong sustained damage. As with most of our balance changes, we’re digging up changes from his 2011 and 2012 history.
Rammus is the third of the top-performing junglers, so we’re digging up his past to bring him down to size. The armor nerf should do most of the heavy lifting here, as it impacts both his attack damage and W return damage.
Base Stats
Base Armor: 28.8 ⇒ 25
Attack Damage per Level: 3.5 ⇒ 2.75
Items
Health and Mana Potions
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Health and Mana Potions had no buff text.
Shushei’s Mana Jug
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Shushei’s Mana Jug triggered on Clone takedown.
Statikk Shiv
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Statikk Shiv no longer procced for Kayle after using Righteous Fury (E).
Wit’s End
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Wit’s End failed to maintain 4 stacks.
Eight teams are left at Worlds 2026, and two of them are flying the flag for the West. LYON are the last LCS side standing, Karmine Corp are the last LEC side standing, and both have been handed the sort of quarterfinal draw that you’d rather avoid at this stage: Gen.G for LYON, T1 for KC.
The rest of the West didn’t make it. Day 7 of the Swiss stage was brutal, with LØS knocking out Team Liquid and Hanwha Life ending G2’s run on the same day. That left LYON and KC to scrap through on the final day, and both did, finishing 3-2.
So can either of them actually pull it off? Here’s how we see both series going.
Gen.G vs LYON prediction
Image Riot Games
Wednesday 4 November, 23:00 CET
LYON’s Swiss run was a proper rollercoaster. They opened 2-0 with wins over Team Secret Whales and Karmine Corp, then dropped two on the bounce to Gen.G and Invictus Gaming. That left them in a do-or-die series against LØS on the final day.
And it nearly went wrong. LØS took Game 1 comfortably, and LYON won Game 2 without holding a gold lead at any point, not even when the Nexus went down. Then in Game 3 they threw away a lead of almost 3K gold and still clawed it back late.
The problem is who’s waiting. Gen.G went through the Swiss stage undefeated, and one of their three wins was a 2-1 over LYON in Round 3. So this is a rematch, and LYON already know what losing it feels like.
The good news for NA is that 2-1 isn’t a stomp. LYON took a game off Gen.G in a Bo3, and a Bo5 gives them more room to find a draft that works. The bad news is that LYON’s best moments at this tournament have come from coming back, and Gen.G don’t usually give you much to come back from.
Our call: Gen.G 3-1. LYON nick a game, probably off a scrappy late-game fight, but Gen.G are too clean to let a series slip twice.
T1 vs KC prediction
Image Riot Games
Friday 6 November, 23:00 CET
KC took the long way round, and they’ve made it to the final stage. They dropped back-to-back series to LYON and Bilibili Gaming in the middle of the Swiss stage, which had the Blue Wall sweating. Then they flipped it, beating CTBC Flying Oyster and Movistar KOI 2-0 each to book their place.
The MKOI series was the one that showed what this team can do under pressure. Though the two sides have become somewhat of an LEC rivalry of late, and KC have been the better of the two overall.
T1 are T1. They went 3-1 through the Swiss stage, and their only loss came against Dplus KIA, who also went unbeaten. They’re the team nobody wants in a Bo5, and they’ve got a long history of making Western teams look silly on the big stage.
Still, this KC team has more upset potential than LYON. Caliste and Yike just won a must-win series between them, and a team that’s spent a week playing elimination games won’t be fazed by the stakes.
Our call: T1 3-2. KC take this further than most people expect, but T1 in a deciding game is still the scariest thing in League.
Worlds 2026 quarterfinals schedule
All four quarterfinals are best-of-five at the Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, Texas, starting at 23:00 CET (17:00 ET).
Date
Match
Tuesday 3 November
Top Esports vs Invictus Gaming
Wednesday 4 November
Gen.G vs LYON
Thursday 5 November
Dplus KIA vs Bilibili Gaming
Friday 6 November
T1 vs Karmine Corp
The semifinals follow on 7 and 8 November in Allen, then the final moves to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on 14 November.
Mel’s W is about to lose the one thing everyone hates about it. Patch 26.22 lands on November 4, and Riot is ripping the projectile reflect off Rebuttal for good. After nearly two years of trying to make it work.
So how did we get here? Mel has been under the microscope since she was released, but this next change will be the most impactful yet.
Launch week: nerfed before she settled on the Rift
Mel arrived in Patch 25.S1.2 in January 2025, fresh from Arcane and someone fans couldn’t wait to get to play. Riot reckoned she was a bit too strong and hotfixed her on January 25. Three days after release, cutting the AP ratio on her Overwhelm passive from 25% to 10% and trimming her execute ult.
Patch 25.4 followed with shorter W uptime and a weaker E root, then 25.8 handed back some base health as a little apology.
Most banned, rarely picked
Mel spent most of 2026 as one of the weakest mids in the game while sitting near the top of the ban list. Riot’s 26.3 rework in February sped up her autos and stopped her reflecting area spells that weren’t aimed at her. Patch 26.8 in April went again, cutting her Q’s first hit to a max of 160 and pushing W’s cooldown out to 38 to 26 seconds.
By Patch 26.17, u.gg had her as a D-tier mid with a 45.07% win rate, 56th of 57 mid laners, and still banned in 20.1% of games. That ban rate was pure spite, honestly. Nobody wanted their Jhin Q fired straight back into their own face.
What Patch 26.22 changes
The new W still deletes incoming projectiles. But now it pops a nova that shields Mel and nearby allies, gives them a burst of movement speed and pings attackers for a bit of damage. Riot is also moving power out of her laning phase and into her late game, and reckons ditching the reflect lets them balance her at a higher baseline.
Translation: less lane bully, more teamfight mage. Her win rate will wobble for the first few days while everyone works her out, so check the Mel build once 26.22 goes live. Still getting bullied by her? Her counters page has you covered, and the tier list will show whether the midscope actually drags her out of D tier.
The League of Legends Patch 26.22 Preview is here. With Worlds now fully underway, LoL continues to move on with buffs and nerfs. Riot Phroxzon on X with the Patch 26.22 Preview. The key focus of this patch is Mel, who will get the start of a rework in Patch 26.22.
When we released Mel, we intentionally went for a new ability that was pretty ambitious; we like to try to push the boundaries with new champions and mechanics to give players new puzzles to solve with each release.
After being on Live for a while, it’s clear that many players feel that Mel’s reflect was too frustrating to play against.
There are things in League that are allowed to be frustrating, as that can create a feeling of triumph when overcoming it and challenging players to grow, but there are some things that are too frustrating even given those upsides.
Realistically, every champion should have something that they do uniquely that other players might feel is frustrating.
So we’re reworking Mel’s W to keep the feeling of destroying projectiles, but not have it hard counter some subsets of the roster.
We tried many versions of Mel’s W that tried to retain the reflect, but we couldn’t find one that would hit the mark for Mel players and would be satisfactory for opponents.
We know this is disappointing for Mel players and we’re sorry we couldn’t uphold this end of the contract with you all.
That said, we hope this will allow Mel to be balanced at relatively higher resting power levels and be more effective for Mel players.
Viktor’s nerfs last patch overshot a bit, but we’re happy with the power redistribution to make his mobility (base movespeed) a bit worse.
This emphasizes his weakness of walking around the map unassisted, but in return, pays for the power budget of his strong laning and good scaling.
As a result, we’re not looking to revert either of his patches from last patch but give him power back in some of that scaling power.
Locke
We’ve been trying to fine tune Locke’s strengths and weaknesses post release and don’t think it’s too far off.
One place we think is a bit off though is how much damage he gets, especially early from his Q, so there’s a decently sized nerf here (keep in mind that this stacks up to 3x and is increased by 40% for 3 stacks to be ~30 dmg nerf at max).
The other place that we think is a bit off is Locke’s W Movespeed.
This nerf will make the spell a bit more windowed while trying to retain satisfaction while it’s active and making it a bit more costly to spam while running around the map.
Rumble has been one of the strongest champs in Pro Play, but now that Pro Play patches are done, we’re giving him a bit of power, as it’s not like he’s overly strong in Elite play either.
There are a few Aurelion Sol players who enjoy maxing W second, but most ASol players max E second, even though it’s weaker.
This is mostly the intuitive thing to do, but is quite a bit weaker than the alternative.
In an ideal world, these would be balanced against each other so both playstyles feel powerful.
Systems
Overlord’s Bloodmail
Overlord’s Bloodmail has been pretty weak overall and it’s pretty hard bound to Sett as currently tuned.
We’re looking to try to buff this for other users who should be interested in an item that converts Health to Damage (Mundo, Sion), but some aspects of the item make it too Sett skewed [eg. the missing HP portion].
Doran’s Bow
Doran’s Bow has been a bit too strong relative to Doran’s Blade, especially at higher levels of play.
So we’re looking to balance out the relative tradeoffs of the items a bit.
We’re overall happy wtih the direction of how the tradeoffs are playing out though! Just that the magnitude is a bit off.
Heartsteel, True Damage, Pentakill and K/DA each have their own global chat badge up for grabs, plus there’s a Worlds Supporter badge and an in-game goodie for anyone willing to part with a sub.
Watch any channel streaming in the League of Legends category for 30 minutes during each band’s window, and the badge is yours. It doesn’t need to be an official broadcast either, so any official co-streamer counts, the Worlds Broadcast or someone trying to get out of Iron at 3am.
Band badge schedule
Heartsteel: 15 October to 27 October
True Damage: 28 October to 6 November
Pentakill: 7 November to 12 November
K/DA: 13 November to 14 November
Heartsteel has been live since 15 October, so if you’ve had League on in the background at any point this week while watching Worlds, you likely have it. K/DA is the one to watch out for. It’s a two-day window, so you have the least amount of time to claim it.
Worlds 2026 Supporter badge
Grab a new recurring sub or gift sub on the official LoL Esports channels, or on any participating co-streamer or broadcast partner, between 15 October and 14 November, and you’ll get the Worlds 2026 Supporter badge. Prime subs don’t count, so you are going to need to actually throw money at the broadcast.
That same sub also unlocks the first Worlds sub drop, an emote called Flex On Em. You’ll need your Riot account connected to Twitch, so sort that out before you sub rather than after. It’s labelled Part 1 as well, which suggests Riot has more sub drops lined up for later in the event.
Drops only progress on one stream at a time, so opening five League streams in separate tabs won’t speed anything up. Badges claim automatically once you’ve hit the requirement, and you can check your progress on the Drops Inventory page. After that, head into your Twitch chat settings to equip whichever badge you fancy flexing.
The Play-Ins are done, Karmine Corp is through, and Worlds 2026 moves to Allen, Texas, for the Swiss Stage. That means it’s time to lock in another set of Pick’Ems before the first game on October 23rd.
We can’t promise you a perfect card, but if there’s a matchup you keep flip-flopping on, maybe our picks can help settle it.
Worlds 2026 Pick’Ems dates
October 18th: Swiss predictions start.
October 23rd: Swiss predictions end (before the first match, so don’t leave it until the evening).
October 31st: Knockout predictions start.
November 3rd: Knockout predictions end.
November 14th: Worlds ends at the Barclays Center, and rewards are given out.
How the Swiss Stage works
Sixteen teams, up to five rounds. Win three, and you’re into the Knockouts; lose three, and you’re on the flight home. Round 1 is all Bo1s, and once a team is one win from qualifying or one loss from elimination, it turns into a Bo3.
No team plays the same opponent twice, and teams from the same region couldn’t meet in Round 1. After that, it’s anyone’s game.
Worlds 2026 Swiss Stage Round 1 matchups
Gen.G vs Invictus Gaming
Team Liquid vs CTBC Flying Oyster
Anyone’s Legend vs Karmine Corp
G2 Esports vs Dplus KIA
Hanwha Life Esports vs Top Esports
LOS vs T1
Team Secret Whales vs LYON
Bilibili Gaming vs Movistar KOI
Some interesting matches for sure, with the home region, North America, getting a nice start. For those in Europe, it was not so good. KC face AL, G2 Esports play Dplus Kia, and MKOI play Bilibili Gaming. So, any one of those winning in Round 1 would be a good look.
Our Swiss Stage picks
We have a few different picks to look for here. We need to select one side that will go through with a specific score (3-0, 3-1, 3-2); doing some correctly will net us bonus points. We then need to pick five other sides that will advance, regardless of score.
Matchups will be key for who goes through, but we think some wildcards could make it. Gen.G we think, are a good pick for 3-0, while AG.AL at 3-1 also feels safe. G2 at 3-2 is risky, but if they go through, that is the likely score, so why not.
Team Liquid, Lyon, KCorp, and MKOI could all make it, but it will come down to the literal luck of the draw. Invictus Gaming and Secrey Whales could also cause an upset. If we wanted to let our bias come forward, we would knock Liquid off and include KCorp. If there was ever a time for North America to do something, it would be on home soil. But, it would also be peak NA to totally collapse like Cloud9 already did.
Check back for the Knockout Stage pickems once the Swiss Stage concludes.
Patch 26.21 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)
Replay Download Limits
Starting during Patch 26.21, replay downloads will be limited to 10 per hour. You will still be able to download your own replays, as well as replays from your friends and other players.
This change is necessary to prevent large-scale abuse of downloaded replays by bad actors using vibecoded apps to scrape thousands upon thousands of replays. We opted for a time-based limit to still allow creators to make content, while preventing mass exploitative downloads. We’ll continue to monitor how many replays are downloaded to ensure players have access to this important feature while preventing clear misuse.
We’ve kept the Emperor of the Sands’ mana pool pretty dry to make sure he needs to use soldier attacks properly for lane control early instead of just spamming [Q] Conquering Sands, but this is overly restrictive now that there are strong rank up incentives on his [W] Arise! We’re buffing his Mana Growth so he can more freely use his abilities to contest lane.
Caitlyn’s been at a very high pick and ban rate for most players for months now despite adjustments to other marksmen and the bot meta, so it’s time to nerf her. We have felt that her late-game scaling has been too strong for a while now, so we’re moving some of her power from her eyepopping full build headshots into her early game Q damage to rebalance her power curve.
Passive – Headshot
Damage: 60 – 100% AD (+1% AD per 1% per Crit Chance) (+1% AD per 1% Bonus Crit Damage) ⇒ 60 – 80% AD (+0.8% AD per 1% per Crit Chance) (+0.8% AD per 1% Bonus Crit Damage)
Darius has moved a bit too far away from being a persistently durable damage threat that needs to be kited to more of a one shot combo playstyle. Since he has some room for power, we’re giving him a slight boost so he can swing that axe more often in sustained fights.
Like her best friend Caitlyn, Jinx has been similarly dominant in the meta, even with the Hurricane nerf last patch. We’re slowing her roll to make it a tad harder to get her snowballing.
Lee Sin has continued to be extremely popular since his adjustments to how his [W] Safeguard cooldown works with allies. While we like the extra flexibility that has given him, it’s a bit too much power, so we’re nerfing the cooldown a bit along with a minor bug fix to how his E reveal works against invisible enemies and another small nerf to his [R] Dragon’s Rage damage.
W – Safeguard
Cooldown: 7s ⇒ 8s
E – Tempest
Bugfix: No longer reveals invisible enemies if they stealth after being hit by Tempest.
Locke’s been out for long enough now that we have a better picture of where he’s overly excelling and where he’s falling a bit short. Some of those areas are his extremely generous mana tuning and ability to shrug off harass, and we’re also refining his power curve by improving his scaling damage slightly, because he falls off a bit too fast if he’s not able to close out games early.
Base Stats
Mana Growth: 70 ⇒ 60
Q – Ritual Nails
Unused Charge Refund: 20 – 35% mana and cooldown refund ⇒ 10 – 40% mana and cooldown refund
Miss Fortune has been in a relatively decent place throughout the year, but with the Hubris nerf this patch, we’re looking to compensate with a couple buffs to her damage output.
Our favorite huntress has been sitting at an extremely high winrate in high skill brackets, toeing the line into overpowered territory for some time now, even if she’s not currently meta. Now that we’re bringing down the power of some other powerful meta junglers like Lee Sin, we’re giving Nidalee a minor nerf to prevent her from getting out of paw.
The boy and his yeti lost some power when we nerfed Hextech Rocketbelt earlier this year so that ranged mages weren’t just buying it for a dash to safety, so we’re restoring some of that damage elsewhere.
We’re tapping up Orianna’s scalings to help her chunk a bit harder with her bread-and-butter combo in the late game without giving too much additional power to her laning phase.
While Nidalee’s winrate has been borderline overpowered in the high skill levels, Rammus has been rolling over pretty much everyone else, so he’s getting a light nerf too, ok?
Our favorite unstoppable juggernaut is looking rather stoppable in recent patches. We’re giving him some buffs to his baseline durability and rewarding him when he succeeds at using his ult to GET IN THERE rather than run away.
Base Stats
Health: 655 + 87/Level ⇒ 655 + 95/Level
R – Unstoppable Onslaught
Damage Increase over the First 3s of Channeling: +0 – 166.67% Base Damage, 0 – 100% Ratio Damage ⇒ +0 – 200%
Bugfix: Tooltip now displays the correct minimum and maximum bonus AD ratios (40-120%). It displayed an incorrect Bonus AD Scaling (60%-120%). It was never actually changed in patch 25.16 beyond the tooltip.
Taliyah is one of a handful of mage junglers, and we think she can be better supported for meta diversity. We’re buffing her [E] Unraveled Earth damage to make it more satisfying to land her CC combo.
We’re smoothing out some of the rough edges in Taric’s kit to allow him to shine a bit more. Way back in the day, Taric’s W was adjusted to combat the popular Master Yi + Taric funnel strats. A consequence of this was that his spells would fizzle if they were cast at the same time that his bound ally became untargetable. We believe this harsh restriction to how his abilities function is no longer necessary given the existence of Role Quests, so we’re partially reverting this change so that spells now work on untargetable allies, though we are still keeping an existing exemption on [E] Dazzle for champions that disappear on screen because the gameplay is too unclear (sorry, Master Yi).
Q – Starlight’s Touch
Cast Behavior: Q casts when allies are untargetable will now successfully fire.
E – Dazzle
Cast Behavior: E casts when allies are untargetable will now successfully fire.
Tooltip: Updated to include “Dazzle will not cast from Vanished allies”.
R – Cosmic Radiance
Cast Behavior: R casts when allies are untargetable will now successfully fire.
Tristana’s early laning has devolved a bit into “Level 1 press [Q] and just auto attack to take complete control of the lane”, which is a pretty low gameplay and off flavor way for her to succeed. We’re hitting her early [Q] attack speed so she’ll have to work a bit harder before jumping on her foes.
Alongside the Taric QoL changes, we’re giving Twisted Fate’s R the same treatment so he can reveal champs even if they’re untargetable at the time of activation.
In this set of changes, we’re mainly looking to snipe top lane Varus, where he tends to max W, unlike the more common Q max in bot. This won’t bring his [Q] Piercing Arrow back up to prior Lethality Varus levels of power, but we believe it will help a lot with our ability to tune him for bot lane. As a maxed ability, it also offers more gameplay to Varus and his opponents to interact with than some more passive damage on W.
Q – Piercing Arrow
Damage Calculation: Max Damage scaling, 53.33 – 240 (+80% bonus AD) to 80 – 360 (+120% bonus AD) ⇒ Min Damage scaling, 50 – 230 (+80% bonus AD) to 85 – 391 (+136% bonus AD)
Damage Increase over Channel Time: Up to 50% ⇒ Up to 70%
Vel’Koz has been a fairly quiet pick this year, having little presence or meta impact in mid and support. We’re looking to give him a little bit of help by rewarding him for landing his combos.
It’s time for the Glorious…Devolution. It seems Viktor has evolved past the point of exploitable weaknesses, so we’re opening that up a bit by making him slightly more vulnerable in early game skirmishes and across the board.
Like Lee and Qiyana, Wukong has been a meta staple whirlwind of a force in the jungle for a while now. We’re looking to tap down his strength in the jungle while compensating for lane Wukong.
Base Stats
Health Regeneration: 3.5 + 0.65/Level ⇒ 5.5 + 0.65/Level
Passive – Stone Skin
Armor per Stack: 6 – 10 (based on Champion Level) ⇒ 4.5 – 10 (based on Champion Level)
Following Sundered Sky’s nerfs, we feel like Xin Zhao has room for buffs to both his AD Bruiser and AS focused builds, so we’re helping out his scalings.
The last changes to Yone successfully got him to start considering crit in his first item purchases, but also put him at a somewhat unsustainable power level. We are giving him a moderate nerf to bring him down a bit.
Like Vel’koz, Zyra has had relatively little impact in the meta as tanks and enchanter supports have reigned supreme. We’re giving Zyra a greener thumb this patch to help her combat the forces trampling over her plants.
Bastion Breaker was buffed into being a bit of a generic stat stick in order to give it a proper swing in the meta. Now, we’re nerfing that generic power with a QoL improvement to keep it a satisfying item in its niche.
Sabotage Duration Context: This is how long you have to use the bonus damage against objectives.
Dawncore
Dawncore is the enchanter capstone that isn’t, and currently only Soraka picks it up. Even when other supports get to full build, they often prefer other purchases. We’re buffing its AP value to make it less purely bound to Healing and Shielding.
Ability Power per 100% Base Mana Regeneration: 10 ⇒ 15
Gluttonous Greaves
The greaves are overperforming for marksmen, even when getting very few stacks, so we’re hitting it with a nerf to its cost to delay early acquisitions from getting too much value.
Total Cost: 1000g ⇒ 1100g
Hubris
While Hubris has been a bit weak for melee champions, it’s clearly been overperforming for ranged users. We’re delineating between the two now to encourage melees and disincentivize ranged users from building it.
Mordekaiser is back with his kit from 2010-2015! Would you like to eat every single possible minion wave, plus both your and your enemy’s Wraith camps? Mordekaiser is the champion for you. All his abilities cost health, but damaging enemies generates a shield, so you can keep fighting no matter how low you go. And when it’s time to win a fight, your ultimate can turn it into a 6v4. Beat them with their own AD Carry!
Passive – Iron Man
Mordekaiser converts damage dealt by his abilities into a decaying shield.
Q – Mace of Spades
Mordekaiser’s next attack damages multiple nearby enemies. If his target is isolated, he deals extra damage to them.
W – Creeping Death
Mordekaiser buffs an ally with a swarm of shrapnel that grants bonus armor and MR and damages nearby enemies over time.
E – Siphon of Destruction
Mordekaiser deals magic damage to enemies in a cone. That’s it. That’s the tooltip.
R – Children of the Grave
Mordekaiser curses an enemy champion, dealing damage over time and stealing their stats. If the target dies while cursed, Mordekaiser raises their spirit as a controllable ghost.
NEWYorick
Ghostman yannik cannot compete to mojo style master yu, but he can do the babushka trick to make him double the champion and unleash omen of smell and omen of battle. If that didn’t make any sense to you, you missed out on an all-timer of a forum post. Yorick is back to his original version from 2011-2016, summoning ghouls with every ability he casts and cloning or temporarily reviving his teammates. If you want a quick jumpstart to playing Yorick to his frustratingly immovable best, consider maxing Omen of Famine and getting an early Chalice of Harmony so that you’ll never run out of mana as you constantly drain your opponents and heal while doing so.
Passive – Unholy Covenant
Yorick takes reduced damage and his attacks deal bonus damage for every summon he has active. This counts his Q, W, E, and R.
Q – Omen of War
Yorick’s next attack deals bonus damage and summons a Spectral Ghoul. Spectral Ghouls have bonus attack damage and movement speed, and give Yorick bonus movement speed while they live.
W – Omen of Pestilence
Yorick summons a Decaying Ghoul in an explosion that damages and slows all nearby enemies. Decaying Ghouls continue to slow enemies around them.
E – Omen of Famine
Yorick summons a Ravenous Ghoul, damaging an enemy and healing himself in the process. Ravenous Ghouls heal Yorick every time they attack an enemy.
R – Omen of Death
Yorick conjured the revenant of an allied champion, who can attack for a portion of their total attack damage. If the ally dies while the revenant is active, they are temporarily revived to fight at full power.
NEWHecarim
Hecarim was released in 2012 and hasn’t changed that much over the years, only undergoing some minor mechanical updates to his Q and W. Overall, he goes fast, dives in, and has strong sustained damage while galloping alongside his foes.
Passive – Warpath
Hecarim is ghosted and gains Attack Damage based on his bonus Move Speed.
Q – Rampage
Hecarim cleaves nearby enemies. If he hits an enemy with it, the cooldown of the next cast will be reduced.
W – Spirit of Dread
Hecarim damages nearby enemies over time and heals based on damage dealt to enemies in the area.
E – Devastating Charge
Hecarim gains Move Speed and causes his next attack to deal bonus damage and knock the target back.
R – Onslaught of Shadows
Hecarim charges forward, summoning spectral riders that damage enemies they hit. Hecarim inflicts fear on all nearby enemies when ending his charge.
NEWLucian
Lucian is the newest champion to grace League Classic, as he was released in the back half of 2013, but we couldn’t release a bunch of Shadow Isles champions without having our old pal back to keep them in check. There are a few small differences to Lucian here compared to the one you may have played recently. Most notably, he has 550 attack range, which makes him an extremely potent laner.
Passive – Lightslinger
After casting an ability, Lucian’s next attack fires twice.
Q – Piercing Light
Lucian fires a piercing shot that damages enemies in a line.
W – Ardent Blaze
Lucian fires a cross-shaped missile that damages and marks enemies. Damaging marked enemies gives Lucian bonus move speed.
E – Relentless Pursuit
Lucian dashes and removes all slows affecting him. Unlike the modern version of this spell, it doesn’t reset his attack timer and its cooldown is only refreshed by champion kills during his R.
R – The Culling
Lucian rapidly fires shots in a straight line. He can move and cast Relentless Pursuit while firing.
Aatrox
Aatrox isn’t doing so well, especially in top lane, so we’re delivering some level-scaling buffs and overall tankiness buffs to help top lane more than jungle. These are buffs from 2014 and 2015, before his first minor rework in 2017.
Say it with me now, “Better nerf Irelia!” Indeed, she’s come out too powerful, so we’re here to bring her down to size. We’re making her weaker by reverting some buffs from back in 2012, making her less outright durable and forcing her to rely on her high mobility and clever target selection. We’re also adjusting her passive to stack with Mercury Treads like it used to, which is a nerf whenever she builds Tenacity items.
Base Stats
Base Health: 546 ⇒ 515
Health Regeneration: 8.15 ⇒ 6.5
Passive – Ionian Fervor
Stacking with Tenacity Items: Additive ⇒ Multiplicative
Karma
Karma is doing poorly, especially in support. As we want her to be viable in both of her primary roles in mid and support, we’re delivering buffs especially skewed toward her low-income role. We’re also delivering a large buff to Spirit Bond, as it can be rather hard to use on teammates.
Kassadin has continued to be one of the more-banned champions but at this point, it’s clear he just isn’t his old 90% ban rate self. So we’re reverting every nerf we gave him ahead of launch. Go forth and enjoy your full power self! Make your enemies regret leaving him up!
