League of Legends Players Should Notice Fairer Matches After Autofill Fix

Posted on by Geekmandem

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

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

Autofill Matchmaking Rollout

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

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

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

Matt Leung-Harrison

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

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

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

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

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

League of Legends’ New Warhound Skins Turn Champions Into Bikers

Posted on by Geekmandem

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

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

New Warhound Skin Line

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

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

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

Warhound Senna, Chromas, and Border

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

Warhound Naafiri, Chromas, and Border

Warhound Warwick, Chromas, and Border

Shyvana Gets the First Exclusive Augment in League of Legends Arena

Posted on by Geekmandem

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

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

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

Arena Changes – Shyvana Gains Exclusive Augment

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

Shyvana

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

Omnivamp Shard

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

ITEMS

Fiendhunter Bolts

  • Cooldown: 60s ⇒ 20s

Zeke’s Convergence

  • Cooldown: 30s ⇒ 20s

Crown of the Shattered Queen

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

Divine Sunderer

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

Diamond-Tipped Spear

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

Goredrinker

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

Night Harvest

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

These ARAM Mayhem Champions Just Got Way Stronger in League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

As ARAM Mayhem continues to be a massive success for Riot Games. Patch 26.6 ARAM Mayhem changes will remove a number of the legacy ARAM nerfs to champions. Alongside those changes, Riot Games is also buffing a number of the newer Augments added in recent patches.

Patch 26.6 ARAM Mayhem Changes

There are a number of changes to the Mayhem mode, most of those are focused on removing the legacy ARAM nerfs. Alongisde those, there are also a lot of buffs to the more recent Augments.

ARAM Mayhem Champion Changes

Illaoi

See Highest Win Rate Illaoi Builds
Damage Taken: 105% ⇒ 100%
Healing: 80% ⇒ 90%

Sett

See Highest Win Rate Sett Builds
Damage Taken: 110% ⇒ 100%

Shyvana

See Highest Win Rate Shyvana Builds
Damage Taken: 105% ⇒ 100%

Sion

See Highest Win Rate Sion Builds
Damage Taken: 110% ⇒ 100%

Swain

See Highest Win Rate Swain Builds
Damage Taken: 115% ⇒ 105%
Healing: 80% ⇒ 90%
Damage Dealt: 95% ⇒ 100%

Urgot

See Highest Win Rate Urgot Builds
Damage Taken: 105% ⇒ 100%

Vladimir

See Highest Win Rate Vladimir Builds
Damage Taken: 105% ⇒ 100%
Healing: 90% ⇒ 100%
Damage Dealt: 95% ⇒ 100%

Augment ARAM Mayhem Changes

Droppybara

  • AoE Size: 550 ⇒ 650
  • Max Health True Damage: 25% ⇒ 30%
  • Slow Amount: 35% ⇒ 45%

Dual Wield

  • Attack Speed Bonus: 20% ⇒ 10%

Fire Fox

  • Bonus Movement Speed: 40% ⇒ 25%

Ice Cold

  • Flat Movement Speed Decrease: 100 ⇒ 75

Juiced

  • On-Hit Max Mana % Damage: 3.5% ⇒ 4.5%
  • Now only affects Champions

Prom Queen

  • Charm Duration: 2 ⇒ 1.5 seconds

Sonata

  • Self Movement Speed Buff: 50% ⇒ 30%
  • Ally Movement Speed Buff: 30% ⇒ 20%

Speed Demon

  • Decay Time: 1 ⇒ 0.75 seconds

Stuck In Here With Me

  • Now casts for Katarina as soon as she begins channeling her Ultimate

Triggered Inferno

  • Movement Speed per Stack: (2.75 – 3.5) ⇒ (4.25 – 5)
  • Damage per Shot: 10 – 40 (+ 0.35 AD) (+ 0.2 AP) ⇒ 20-40 (+ 0.4 AD) (+ 0.25 AP)

Watch Out Cupcake

  • Gold for Non-Holder: 15 ⇒ 50

AUGMENT SETS

Make It Rain

  • Enemies now drop coins on takedowns.
  • Level 2: Drops 6 coins
  • Level 3: Drops 12 coins
  • Dropped Coins each grant 5 gold and can only be picked up by the Augment holder and allied champions.

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

  • Red Envelopes no longer appear on the Minimap for either team
  • Final City Transit now only displays a chat message to the augment’s owner per champion hit.
  • Vampirism and Perseverance are now mutually exclusive and are no longer offered when you possess one or the other.
  • Slap Around now has an icon for its associated debuff.
  • Champion Summons, such as Naafiri’s Packmates, no longer display a chat message when they have a large amount of Hats.

There are also a large number of bug fixes, which you can find on the official patch notes.

Posted in LoL

League of Legends Support Players Can Finally Farm Minions Again

Posted on by Geekmandem

Patch 26.6 is set to revert a frustrating Support change after it was added to alter Support play. The change was designed to stop Support players “funneling” minions, with Riot now claiming they are happy with the outcome overall.

The change was first added to the game in late 2025, with the aim of pushing Support players to participate in the lane more. The idea was that if they earned less gold from last-hitting minions and more from attacking enemy champions, the bot lane would be more involved.

Support Lane Change

We first knew the change was coming in the 26.6 patch preview, with Matt Leung-Harrison, Lead Gameplay Designer – League of Legends, giving us a brief update.

“The support item minion penalty has been a pain point for support users and with role quests, the risk of funneling (why it was there in the first place) has been reduced pretty significantly, so we’re removing that drawback”

Now, with the full Patch 26.6 notes we get a look at what is actually changing.

FARMING AS SUPPORTS

“At one point in League’s history it was optimal to run several support items on the same team, which was nerfed by making these items track your income and penalize it if you killed too many minions. Now that it’s impossible to have more than one support on the team in any competitive environments, we’re heavily softening this restriction, to the joy and elation of mage support players everywhere. Look, you were just going for some harass, it’s not your fault the caster minions were nearby! I’m on your side. We’re looking into whether or not we can fully remove this mechanic, but want to make sure it’s not optimal to play “Support” role carries in bot lane and take the income from both roles, so you may see more from us here in the near future. “

  • Minion Kills Before Gold Penalty Activates (Before 5 Minutes): 7 ⇒ 24
  • Minion Kills Per 5 Minutes Before Gold Penalty Activates (After 5 minutes): 20 ⇒ 30

The intention now will be that Support players are more used to fighting in the bot lane since the change. Thus, the change being reverted won’t make Support tunnel minions again. According to Riot, they saw a huge improvement in this area. Hopefully, it remains this way, as more passive Supports were being punished more so than aggro Supports.

Posted in LoL

Patch 26.6 Notes – League of Legends

Posted on by U.GG

Patch 26.6 notes for League of Legends are here, including buffs to Ahri and Zaahen, as well as the Shyvana Update. (Source)

Patch Highlights

Champions

Shyvana Update


Shyvana’s update goes live this patch and we’re excited for all of you to try her out! Not only will she have a brand new look, she’ll also be sporting an updated kit, visual effects, voice over, and skins, all of which will come out alongside her release.

As a heads up at the time of writing she is still being fine tuned on PBE so these numbers you see below may have changed by the time you’re seeing this.

Oh, and for the real ones we’re bringing back the Leg Day bundle so make sure you drop by the shop to check it out!

Passive – Scalemail

  • Takedowns on champions, large minions, and monsters earn Shyvana stacks of Scalemail; each stack grants Shyvana permanent 0.4 Armor and 0.4 Magic Resist.
  • Large monsters and siege minions grant 1 stack.
  • Champions and Epic monsters grant 3 stacks.

Q – Emberstrike

  • Cooldown: 6 seconds
  • Passive: Shyvana’s Attacks deal 1.0% max Health magic damage On-Hit and reduce this Ability’s cooldown by 1.25 seconds.
  • Active: Shyvana’s next Attack strikes the target and the surrounding area, dealing 154 physical damage. This Ability may be Recast after an Attack or short delay within the next 4 seconds.
  • Dragon Form: Shyvana gains an additional Recast, causing her to bite the target of her next Attack, dealing 231 true damage.

W – Inferno Aegis

  • Cooldown: 12 seconds
  • Shyvana wraps herself in flames for 2.5 seconds, gaining 256 Shield, increased by 77 per nearby enemy champion, and 25% Move Speed, increased to 44% when moving towards enemy champions. When the effect ends, the shield is broken, or upon Recast, the area around her detonates, dealing 160 magic damage.
  • Dragon Form: If the detonation hits an enemy champion, Shyvana restores from 250 to 500 Health based on her missing Health.

E – Molten Burst

  • Cooldown: 10 seconds
  • Shyvana launches a fireball at the target location dealing 240 magic damage and Slowing by 50% for 2 seconds. It explodes upon striking an enemy or reaching its terminus.
  • Dragon Form: Shyvana’s fireball is larger and pierces through enemies. Upon striking a champion, large monster, or reaching its terminus it triggers a pulse of fire that deals 300 magic damage and Slows by 50% for 2 seconds. The fireball leaves behind a trail for 2 seconds that deals 25 magic damage per second.

R – Dragon’s Descent

  • Requires 100 Fury to activate.
  • Passive: Shyvana generates 1.25 Dragon Fury by striking enemies with Attacks and Abilities, increased by 200% while in Dragon Form, and reduced 75% when striking in an area against non-champions.
  • Active: Shyvana transforms into her Dragon Form, becoming Unstoppable, and flying to the target location breathing fire on enemies below dealing 350 magic damage and causing them to Flee for 1 second.
  • While transformed, Shyvana’s basic Abilities are upgraded, she gains 350 bonus Health, size, and Attack Range. Shyvana loses Dragon Fury over time and her transformation ends when she has no Dragon Fury remaining.

Ahri

See Highest Win Rate Ahri Builds
A moderate buff to Ahri back in 26.3 skyrocketed her to the top of the mid lane pool and pushed her power a bit too far. Her overall waveclear is quite powerful right now, so we’re targeting her Q’s base damage as it could stand to lose some power.

Q – Orb of Deception

  • Damager per Pass: 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 ⇒ 35 / 60 / 85 / 110 / 135

Azir

See Highest Win Rate Azir Builds
In this patch we’re looking to make Azir a bit more powerful for players at home. These changes should be pretty appreciable for all Azir players, regardless of rank.

Q – Conquering Sands

  • Damage AP Ratio: (+ 35% AP) ⇒ (+ 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55% AP)

W – Arise!

  • Damage: 0-45 (5 damage per level starting at level 10) ⇒ 0-72 (7 damage per level starting at level 10)
  • Damage AP Ratio: (+ 32.5 / 40 / 47.5 / 55 / 62.5% AP) ⇒ (+35 / 42.5 / 50 / 57.5 / 65% AP)

Cassiopeia

See Highest Win Rate Cassiopeia Builds

We’re looking to get more damage in Cassiopeia’s poison this patch, particularly when for her mid lane players. We want to give her more freedom to look for trades and to feel rewarded when she finds successful ones, so we’re bumping up her base Mana and empowered E scaling.
Base Stats
  • Base Mana: 450 ⇒ 480

E – Twin Fang

  • Bonus Magic Damage to Poisoned Targets: 20 / 43 / 66 / 89 / 112 ⇒ 20 / 45 / 70 / 90 / 120

Lissandra

See Highest Win Rate Lissandra Builds
The Queen of Ice has not ruled in a very, very long time… thankfully, a lot of her biggest problem children like Everfrost and Aftershock aren’t in her toolkit anymore, so we’re looking to give her some a chill buff. We want to do this by letting her get that 2nd Q off more reliably in those tighter combos. We think this is going to be a big power-up, so we want to make sure she’s not icing out her AD melee matchups too hard without affecting her durability in others.
Base Stats
  • Armor Growth: 4.9 ⇒ 4.2

Q – Ice Shard

  • Cooldown: 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 ⇒ 7.5 / 6.5 / 5.5 / 4.5 / 3.5

Olaf

See Highest Win Rate Olaf Builds
Olaf top is fine but he’s lagging behind in the jungle. As such, we’re improving his clear, making his ganking stronger and leaning into his identity as a risky, low health fighter. We hope to keep top lane in a fairly stable place while boosting his jungle performance.
Base Stats
  • Base Attack Speed: 0.694 ⇒ 0.72

Q – Undertow

  • Slow Amount: 25 / 30 / 40 / 45% for 1.5- 2.5 seconds (based on distance) ⇒ 30 / 40 / 45 / 50% for 1-3 seconds (based on distance)
  • Bug Fix: Enemies only struck by the Lollipop at the end of the Q are now slowed for the proper amount of time (was a fixed 30% slow).

W – Tough It Out

  • Bug Fix: If you cast W while the previous cast was still active, it now properly re-applies its effects rather than just refreshing the prior cast (you get the attack reset and the AS value is updated).

E – Reckless Swing

  • Damage to Self: 30% of Damage Dealt ⇒ 40% of Damage Dealt

Pyke

See Highest Win Rate Pyke Builds
Pyke has often toed the line around being strong enough to be worth playing in most skill brackets and being overbearing in Elite levels of play. Recently, he’s crossed that line and is due for a power reduction. We want to keep his ability to strongly punish squishy lanes and deal tons of damage at the drop of a hat, so for this patch’s nerf we’re making him more easily counter-attacked when he makes a mistake or gets caught by a well-placed engage.
Base Stats
  • Base Armor: 43 ⇒ 37

Shen

See Highest Win Rate Shen Builds
Shungle is performing better than he is in the top lane, not to mention he’s also outperforming many other junglers with one of the best clear speeds in the game, reliable ganks, and a global presence starting at level 6. Given the latter two strengths, we think it’s fair to reduce his clear speed in order to keep the other two intact. 

Q – Twilight Assault

  • Monster Damage Cap: 120 / 140 / 160 / 180 / 200 ⇒ 100 / 125 / 150 / 175 / 200

Skarner

See Highest Win Rate Skarner Builds
Our few Skarner top laners have gained tremendous empathy for their solitary Brackern, as their brethren scattered and left them to become the last of their kind. By letting him cast more freely in lane while also giving him some more trading power on his bread and butter ability, we hope some of our scorpion bros will come out of hiding in top lane (and jungle too!)

Q – Shattered Earth

  • Mana Cost: 45 ⇒ 30
  • Third Attack Target Max Health Damage: 11% ⇒ 9%

E – Ixtal’s Impact

  • Cooldown: 22 / 21 / 20 / 19 / 18 seconds ⇒ 22 / 20.5 / 19 / 17.5 / 16 seconds

Tryndamere

See Highest Win Rate Tryndamere Builds
We’re back for another Tryndamere buff as he’s still underperforming relative to other top laners. Arguably the highlight of Tryndamere is right clicking enemy champions and killing them with crits. He can already do that extremely well in the early game, so how about doing it in the late game, too?
Base Stats
  • Attack Speed Ratio: 0.694 ⇒ 0.725

Zaahen

See Highest Win Rate Zaahen Builds
Zaahen has caught on as one of the strongest top laners and junglers in the game. In our view his jungle performance is farther over the line, so we’re delivering some nerfs with a moderate jungle skew to them. His W is more core to his ganking than it is to his laning, and this E nerf is jungle-skewed and will reduce his ability to create and react to pressure early on.

W – Dreaded Return

  • Secondary Damage: 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 (+ 50% bonus AD) ⇒ 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+ 30% bonus AD)

E – Aureate Rush

  • Bonus Damage to Monsters: 75 ⇒ 50

Items

Chempunk Chainsword


Chempunk has been the weakest and least popular of the grievous wounds options for a while now. The reality is often that the AD fighters that would rely on this as their source of Grievous Wounds are also just worse at applying it and keeping it applied to key targets. As such, we are giving it a small buff so it can match up better with its Grievous peers
  • Combine Cost: 350 gold ⇒ 250 gold
  • Total Cost: 3100 ⇒ 3000 gold

Sunfire Aegis


Sunfire Aegis has felt annoying to purchase but we don’t think the item itself is underpowered, leading us to the smallest of buffs in this patch. Tanks typically can’t earn as much gold as other classes of champions, so instead of leaving them empty handed we’re smoothing out the build path!
  • Build Path: Bami’s Cinder + Chain Vest + 1000 gold ⇒ Bami’s Cinder + Chain Vest + Ruby Crystal + 600 gold

Systems

Read More Here

Posted in LoL

LoL April Fools Skins Brings Finger Licking Swain

Posted on by Geekmandem

The 2026 April Fools’ Day LoL skins have been confirmed, and there isn’t long to wait. Releasing on April 1st, during the 26.7 patch, so we have just one more patch to go with 26.6, due to release on March 19th.

For 2026, six April Fools skins will release, with five heading to the store, including a new Legendary Swain skin.

LoL April Fools Skins 2026

We got a first look at the LoL April Fools skins in the recent PBE drop. Now, with that in mind, we have the full splash art for each skin, alongside the reveal of two new ones we had not seen before.

First up are the four we did know about. Pug Trainer Sejuani, Bubble Bash Blitzcrank, Surprise Party Vex, and Choncc Kench.

LoL April Fools Skins 2026
LoL April Fools Skins 2026
LoL April Fools Skins 2026
LoL April Fools Skins 2026

Next up are two skins we did not see in the preview. We get a new Legendary skin for LoL April Fools Skins 2026 with Fried Chicken King Swain and a Prestige Money Miser Mordekaiser.

LoL April Fools Skins 2026
LoL April Fools Skins 2026

April Fools Skins 2026 Pricing

Expected prices for the new LoL April Fools skins are as follows:

Pug Trainer Sejuani – 1350 RP ($10)

Bubble Bash Blitzcrank – 1350 RP ($10)

Surprise Party Vex – 1350 RP ($10)

Choncc Kench – 1350 RP ($10)

Fried Chicken King Swain – 1820 RP ($15)

Prestige Money Miser Mordekaiser – Likely in the Battle Pass and for 150 Mythic Essence after

Previous April Fools Skins

Also note that all previous April Fools skins will also be made available during this time

Urf the Manatee – 5000 RP ($35)

Urfrider Corki – 975 RP ($7.50)

Fisherman Fizz – 975 RP ($7.50)

Surprise Party Amumu – 975 RP ($7.50)

Urf the Nami-tee – 750 RP ($6)

Archduke Nasus – 750 RP ($6)

Order of the Banana Soraka – 750 RP ($6)

Definitely Not Udyr – 975 RP ($7.50)

Meowkai – 1350 RP ($10)

Urf Kench – 1350 RP ($10)

Definitely Not Vel’Koz – 1350 RP ($10)

Moo Cow Alistar – 975 RP ($7.50)

Super Kennen – 750 RP ($6)

Pug’Maw – 975 RP ($7.50)

Renektoy – 750 RP ($6)

Birdio – 975 RP ($7.50)

Pizza Delivery Sivir – 1350 RP ($10)

Corgi Corki – 1350 RP ($10)

Fuzz Fizz – 1350 RP ($10)

Pretty Kitty Rengar – 1350 RP ($10)

Meowrick – 1350 RP ($10)

Pengu Cosplay Tristana – 1350 RP ($10)

Furyhorn Cosplay Veigar – 1350 RP ($10)

Pajama Guardian Cosplay Urgot – 1350 RP ($10)

Space Groove Blitz & Crank – 1820 RP (£15)

Space Groove Lulu – 1350 RP ($10)

Space Groove Lux – 1350 RP ($10)

Space Groove Nasus – 1350 RP ($10)

Space Groove Nunu – 1350 RP ($10)

Space Groove Rumble – 1350 RP ($10)

Space Groove Samira – 1350 RP ($10)

Space Groove Gwen – 1350 RP ($10)

Battle Cat Jinx – 1350 RP ($10)

Battle Bunny Miss Fortune – 1820 RP (£15)

Battle Bunny Prime Riven – 1820 RP (£15)

Battle Wolf Sylas – 1350 RP ($10)

Battle Bat Vayne – 1350 RP ($10)

Woof and Lamb Kindred – 1350 RP ($10)

Kibble-Head Kled – 1350 RP ($10)

Kittalee – 1350 RP ($10)

Shiba Yuumi – 1350 RP ($10)

Toy Terror Cho’Gath – 1350 RP ($10)

Choo-Choo Ornn – 1350 RP ($10)

Durian Defender Rammus – 1350 RP ($10)

Cheddar Chief Twitch – 1350 RP ($10)

Zesty Dip Zac – 1350 RP ($10)

“Mute All” Just Got a Buff: Team Voice is Coming to League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

Riot Games has officially confirmed that Team Voice is coming to League of Legends. We first knew about Team Voice coming to League of Legends a few weeks ago. Following weeks of speculation. Alongside the announcement, the developers shared their philosophy on communication and competitive integrity.

Team Voice: A New Era for League of Legends?

The addition of Team Voice chat is going to add a new layer of communication to the game, for better or worse. While multiplayer games thrive on coordination, is voice what the Rift actually needs?

Riot Games is clearly aware of the potential for in-game toxicity:

“As a team-based game with the potential to be hyper-competitive, it’s something we have heard many of you have felt was missing from League. The text chat and ping system have served you all well for years (and will continue to for years to come), but we want to provide Team Voice for those of you who want to communicate seamlessly with your teammates. We think when done well, team voice chat opens up the doors for enhanced teamwork and coordination, and has the potential to improve the overall gameplay experience for players that would like to use it.”

Voice chat is finally coming to League of Legends

“When done well” is how this feature will live or die. The issue isn’t just technical; it’s the League of Legends community. A good example of this is the “missing” ping. Represented as a “?” the intention is to let people know that your laner is not here. What it has become is a “why did you do that” ping to spam on someone who does something stupid. But how do you fix that? You can limit the use, or punish the abuse, but you still need it in the game because most of the time it’s used for good.

Can Riot Actually Moderate Voice Comms?

Team Voice, however, opens up another can of worms for Riot Games to deal with. Monitoring voice coms:

“We’re listening to your concerns…. So we’re going to extensively work, test, and iterate to make this a feature worthy of your trust. Some of this work includes meeting with players around the globe to get feedback on their concerns and making sure Team Voice meets their expectations. Other options we’re exploring to ensure quality include rolling this feature out one language/region at a time, making it great in each one before introducing it to the next. Additionally, no matter what, players will have to be in good standing in order to access Team Voice. We’re working through the exact criteria for evaluating that now, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated.”

There is no official release date for League Team Voice yet, as Riot plans to roll it out region-by-region to ensure quality.

We don’t have exact timelines right now because doing this the right way will take a lot of work and we aren’t yet ready to share concrete details, but you can expect to hear more from us on Team Voice later this year in a future Dev Update.

Why Now?

Riot stated the timing is finally right because their AI technology to identify “bad actors” has finally met their standards for safety:

“We didn’t pursue team voice chat earlier because it couldn’t meet our standards for safety and reliability. But that’s changed based on advances in our technology to identify bad actors”

Time will tell how this goes down. For the most part, Valorant, Counter-Strike 2, and Overwatch, etc, have it down ok. People will always abuse it, but in theory, people want to win. There is an argument that speaking an insult to someone is a lot harder than typing it. You hear the person; this can open another can of worms for Riot, especially in very mixed regions such as EUW.

Overall, the feature sounds promising, but whether it is used or not will remain to be seen. It feels like something high ELO players might get the best use out of. I’m not sure I want to talk to the type of people I play with in Platinum and Emerald.

First Stand 2026: Schedule, Teams, Format, and How to Get Drops

Posted on by Geekmandem

It’s almost time for the first international League of Legends event of 2026. First Stand 2026 will bring the most elite rosters from global LoL to São Paulo, Brazil.

First Stand 2026 Schedule & Venue

The event will run from March 16 to March 22 at the Riot Games Arena in São Paulo. The event is split into three parts, starting with the Group Stage. The Knockout Stage will follow, as teams have one chance to advance. Every game is being played in a best-of-five format.

  • Group Stage: March 16 – March 20
  • Knockout Stage: March 21
  • Knockout Stage Finals: – March 22
  • Start Times: All matches begin at 8 am to 1 pm PDT (14:00 and 19:00 CET)

Participating Teams

  • Group A: Gen.G, LYON, LOUD and JDG Intel Esports Club
  • Group B: Bilibili Gaming DreamSmart, G2 Esports, Team Secret Whales, and BNK FEARX

The format will see the top two teams advance to Stage two, with all matches played on a best-of-five. Both groups are in a double elimination. The knockout stage is single elimination.

Day one matches will begin with the following:

  • G2 Esports vs Team Secret Whales – March 16th
  • Bilibili Gaming DreamSmart vs BNK FEARX – March 16th
  • Gen.G vs JDG Intel Esports Club – March 17th
  • LYON vs LOUD – March 17th

For fans in the West, it does mean we won’t see an NA vs EU match in the first stage.

Prize on the Line

  • $1 million prize pool
  • $250,000 for first place
  • The winning region will receive a bye directly into the MSI 2026 Bracket Stage, skipping Play-Ins

How to Earn First Stand 2026 Drops & Rewards

First Stand 2026 twitch

Final Stand 2026 will once again bring rewards for watching live on Twitch. Fans watching live can earn exclusive in-game loot by following these steps:

  1. Log in to Lolesports.com with your Riot ID
  2. Watch live matches to trigger random Drops
  3. Grand Final Exclusive: Watch the finals to unlock a limited-edition Evelynn emote

The event will also support co-streaming, as with all LoL events in recent memory. A full list of those is expected on March 11th, but all the usual faces are likely to be co-streaming the event.

Patch 26.6 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

The 26.6 full patch preview for League of Legends is out, with another handful of champion buffs and nerfs. From @RiotPhroxon on X Source

Patch 26.6 Preview

Another push has been made to the LP gains in Apex. The plan is for this to be the final fix.

Note: The Xerath changes are a joke

Patch 26.6 Nerfs

Shen

See Highest Win Rate Shen Builds
Shen Jungle has really started to take off recently, which is really awesome to see! That said, he is a tad strong, especially in lower levels of play

Zaahen

See Highest Win Rate Zaahen Builds
We’re really happy to see Zaahen picking up a sizeable audience in both Top and Jungle, but now that regular players, in addition to experienced players are starting to demonstrate that top end mastery performance, he’s looking too strong across the board. Currently, we think his Jungle is a bit stronger than Top, so the nerfs are mostly focused there

Patch 26.6 Buffs

Skarner

See Highest Win Rate Skarner Builds
Skarner has been out of the spotlight for a while and since we’ve tapped down a few of the things that were causing him to be overbearing in Top (especially W max and the E point blank kidnaps), we think he can get a bit more power there

Olaf

See Highest Win Rate Olaf Builds
– These changes are targeted at Jungle, which has been languishing a bit
– Top is a little bit weak, so he will be getting buffed there a bit too

Azir

See Highest Win Rate Azir Builds
We’re buffing Azir to distribute some of his power back into regular play capabilities through scaling power that Azir players hopefully will appreciate

Lissandra

See Highest Win Rate Lissandra Builds
– Lissandra hasn’t really felt the same since her Q cooldown was nerfed in Season 9
– Times have really changed since then and her perma priority waveclear + aftershock taking days and in the vein of making champions feel better to play, we’re seeing if she can sustain having this cooldown again

Systems

  • Chempunk Chainsword has been one of the weaker Grievous items for a while. While we don’t want Grievous items to become too commonplace, as it subtly degrades champion kits when too common, it is still just a bit weak for even that purpose
  • The support item minion penalty has been a pain point for support users, and with role quests, the risk of funnelling (why it was there in the first place) has been reduced pretty significantly, so we’re removing that drawback
  • Sunfire’s build cost (1000g) has long been cited as a pretty painful experience with the item. While we think having some painful build paths is valuable for the long term value of League, we think this one is a bit too painful

EUW/VN Matchmaking

  • We’ve had about a week and a half now of autofill vs autofill matchmaking being Live and we’re seeing excellent results
  • In regions like Vietnam with a high autofill rate, we’re seeing autofill vs autofill go from ~25% of games to 75% of games
  • In EUW, regular play was already good (90% of the time autofill vs autofill), but in high MMR, we went from 30% to 85%
  • We will continue to roll out to more regions over the coming patches as we’re seeing positive results here

Apex LP

  • So far, so good on Apex LP fix resolving most of the issues. The fix looks to be good and is holding
  • >98% of players should be between 19 and 21 in terms of LP gains, calibrating up and down in small amounts (+19/-21 or +21/-19 or +20/-20)
  • We have one small fix coming in 26.6 to make this even more consistent