Author: Geekmandem

Patch 26.10 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

The 26.10 patch preview for League of Legends is out. With Season 2 now out, this first patch aims to make a few changes to some of the early pain points. While only nine champions are being directly buffed or nerfed, there are lots of changes to other champions, systems, and much more. From @RiotPhroxon on X Source

Champion Changes

Zed and Naafiri

We have to talk about Zed and Naafiri if talking about Cyclosword.

As 2 of the AD Assassins with a functional poke pattern, these champs were always going to benefit from Cyclosword’s new passive in the same way that if there was no AD Sheen item and we added one, it would be disproportionately powerful on those users.

We’re taking care not to overly nerf these two champions, but they’re also too strong with Cyclosword.

We’re giving a small nerf to both champions, but they will still likely be strong after the nerfs, as it seems reasonably likely that we’ll need to adjust Cyclosword in the future as its true balance state becomes more known (and we don’t want to Riot special these champions).

-Last patch, the R changes, which we think are good for the champ long term, ended up being a pretty moderate sized nerf
-We’re restoring a bunch of power back to her now that we know the power level more clearly
-We’re opting not to restore power in any of her mobility capabilities and instead increasing the throughput of each ability cast
-These changes are targeted at nerfing Anivia in non-mid roles, especially Top lane where her trading patterns are a bit more oppressive to play against
– This patch features some modernization changes to Lee Sin to help him feel more fluid and pull off some fancy plays without giving him more net power
– There are a few feelsbad mechanics adjustments that were added to Lee’s kit over 10 years ago (like penalizing ward hops) that don’t really make sense in the modern game anymore [I remember getting an interview question about these changes when I was just starting at Riot!]
– These changes are aimed at providing Lee more opportunities for incredible highlight moments and raising his skill ceiling, given that he’s been out so long and many players are at the top of his mastery curve
– We’ll be keeping an eye on how these changes affect Lane Lee Sin as well

Systems Changes

Probably the biggest chatter on the patch is Deathfire and Gluttonous Greaves.

Deathfire is looking a little too strong, especially in the laning case, but the audience it’s landed on has been great in giving some of these champs a keystone they’re actually happy with.

After the micropatch nerfs, the power level is in a much more reasonable spot, so just a small adjustment here. Gluttonous Greaves has picked up a nice new user base, especially Fighters and AD Assassins who might not have another offensive boot option (outside of Lucidity).

We think the boots are too strong, both in non-mid roles and in mid with the boot upgrade.

So far, Stormraider’s has landed a bit weak, so we’re giving it a bit of a tap up.

One of our goals with the Dusk and Dawn changes was to help differentiate it a bit from Lich Bane.

Small buffs to Doran’s Bow and Helm

Doran’s Bow at this tuning is the most efficient starting item, but the tradeoff to all of the others is opening yourself up to dying from ganks and all-ins.

We’re also giving a small buff to Doran’s Helm as it’s predominantly a K’Sante item at this tuning, and we think it can be broadened to more users.

In 26.11, we intend to make a change to Cleaver and its interaction stacking with Deathfire Touch to give it an internal cooldown – These changes were too risky to do on this patch, however.

Lich Bane changes are aimed at providing more differentiation to Dusk and Dawn on the Movespeed and Burst Damage aspect, however we don’t think we can go much higher than these values.

Cyclosword is looking a little strong, and so we’re giving it a nerf. At the same time, we think after these changes it will still be a bit on the stronger side, but we want to give it a bit more time to stabilise, and we can discover the shape of the optimized patterns and what users come out with.

Apex Ranked (reset regions)

Apex MMR’s settle for another patch before re-evaluating whether or not duo should be re-enabled. We have investigated several of the “Emeralds in Masters lobbies” cases, which have so far fallen into:

1. A player who didn’t play much prior to the reset, so they are still starting from Emerald (as if they were playing in the early days of 2026).

2. A person who is climbing a fresh account and has a really high winrate (and close to Masters); though a reminder that this is not faster to climb than playing on your main.

3. An Emerald (or multiple) duoing with another Emerald or Diamond player (especially Diamond player with a high MMR) – So far, I haven’t seen anything broken about these games; they are typically fair both MMR and LP wise, even if visual ranks look a bit off.

We’ll update this post with more details of the 26.10 patch as Riot releases them.

Arena’s New Keystone Augments Will Reshape Every Season 2 Draft

Posted on by Geekmandem

Since Arena was added back to League of Legends, it’s been a popular mode for players looking for something different. In recent weeks, Riot has teased some major changes to the mode, as it looks to capitalise on the popularity.

The headline change is the new Augment Levels system. Augments can now be levelled up from 1 to 3 tiers mid-match, with some reaching a Keystone effect at max level, unlocking entirely new passive abilities on top of their base kit. Over 30 augments debut with the levelling system, including fan favourites like Glass Cannon, Final Form, and Speed Demon. Once you’ve got two levelable augments, you’ll start being offered level-ups in place of new augments, fundamentally shifting how you think about the mid-game draft.

“Once you reach the maximum number of augments, you’ll only be offered augment levels or the ability to tier up an existing augment, allowing you to remove one and select another that is one tier higher.”

It’s a system that opens up a new layer of decision-making: do you spread wide with a varied augment kit, or go deep on two or three synergistic picks and push them to their Keystone potential? The answer will likely differ every game.

New Guests of Honor, maps, and a revamped schedule

Sixteen new Guests of Honor join the roster this season, including Atakhan, Kindred, Shaco, Morgana, and Taric. Each brings a unique passive effect that shapes how the entire lobby plays. Two favourites have also been reworked: Swain now rewards the last teams standing with a prismatic stat anvil at the halfway point. At the same time, Katarina now runs augment tier-ups alongside new offerings during her reign.

On the map front, the new Petricite Grove joins the rotation, a Demacian-themed arena scattered with unexploded mining bombs that roll and detonate on impact, adding an environmental hazard element to positioning. The existing Ancestral Woods and Koipond maps have also been reworked with new interactive elements.

Arena level up

The season’s event schedule is designed to keep Arena fresh well beyond launch:

  • 26.9 Arena Season 2 Launch: No event, time to learn the new systems
  • 26.10 3×6 Arena: Three players per team, six teams total, wider champion diversity
  • 26.13 Bravery: Limited champion select, embrace the random, adapt and conquer
  • 26.14 Swift Arena: Back to 2v2v2v2, faster games, familiar opponents

You can see a full breakdown in the Riot Arena patch notes.

ARAM and Mayhem Changes Come to the Bridge

While Arena is the focus for this patch, ARAM Mayhem remains the most popular mode outside of standard League of Legends. As such, it’s also getting some love in 26.9.

ARAM Changes:

ARAM’s changes in 26.9 are more focused than Arena’s but still carry a meaningful impact. Hubris has been a dominant component of assassin and snowball-heavy champions for some time. Both the Attack Damage (60 → 55) and Ability Haste (15 → 10) have been trimmed, nudging the item down a tier without gutting its identity.

ARAM Mayhem Changes:

Bard receives a quality-of-life boost to his Caretaker’s Shrine. Both the Move Speed bonus and its AP scaling have gone up, and the shrine’s ammo cooldown drops from 10 to 8 seconds, making him a more reliable and rewarding pick on a map that heavily punishes slow shrine placement. Ornn’s Living Forge passive cooldown now scales with level (90 down to 10 seconds at max), making him far more useful in ARAM’s shorter game times, where the default 120-second cooldown often felt punishing.

  • Health Relic: The AoE heal on pickup has been increased from 16% to 22% missing health and mana
  • Prom Queen: Cooldown increased from 25 to 35 seconds.
  • Grandma’s Chili Oil: Base damage per second goes up (100 → 150), while the bonus damage per burn source and all healing values are reduced.
  • Upgrade Sword of Blossoming Dawn: The 50% bonus damage to basic attacks against champions has been removed entirely

Overall, it’s a patch focused on Arena, while making meaningful changes to ARAM. The changes to Bard and Orn seem the most standout. Something that maybe needs looking at for other champions that struggle to adapt to the flow of ARAM’s quicker game time.

Mid Laners Just Got the Buff They’ve Been Begging For in League Patch 26.9

Posted on by Geekmandem

Role Quests have been a huge part of League of Legends since they were added. For Season 2 in patch 26.9, however, a number of changes are coming to the popular feature. With the aim of shaking up and improving for the new season.

Role Quests Changes in 26.9

The first key change comes in the form of the penalty for leaving the lane. This was something many players felt was a pain point of the system. “With this update, we’re lessening penalties when you just need to get out of your lane towards the end of the laning phase.”

  • Quest Point Penalty applied to CS / Turrets / Plates: -50% ⇒ -75%, decreasing down to -0% based on Quest Progress

To add to this, Riot is also changing how you earn progress for the quests. The aim is also to help improve the flow at which people earn quest rewards.

  • 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 the outermost turret, creating a minor bias towards mid lane (shorter) ⇒ Disables passive point earn entirely for 12s after recalling

To sum the changes up, Riot seems to be looking at a solution that works as follows. “For every two minutes spent in lane, you can spend one minute out of lane.” This should be good news for many laners, but it feels like mid lane and support could see the most benefit from it.

Role Quest Rewards

To improve things in the Role Quest area, the rewards for the quests are changing as well. These changes impact three lanes in particular and attempt to change the way each of the three lanes flows.

“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.”

  • Top Lane – 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.”

  • Mid Lane – Role Quest Reward: Empowered Recall (300s CD, reduced by 60s on Takedown) ⇒ +6% Bonus AD and 6% Bonus AP

“We feel like bot lane 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.”

  • Bot Lane – Bonus Takedown Gold: 50g ⇒ 40

Minion Waves Changes

The last change to laning comes in the form of alterations to minion waves. This won’t impact the early game, with Riot looking to make minions slightly more durable in the mid to late game.

“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

Season 2 looks set to be an evolution over a revolution for League of Legends. With Riot seems overall happy with the balance of the game.

Patch 26.9 Drops a Legendary Vayne Skin and a Prestige Shaco Worth $20

Posted on by Geekmandem

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.

26.9 Skins Pandemonium Annie & Kindred

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.

Why LoL Players Want Riot to Turn This Aurelion Sol Concept Into a Real Skin

Posted on by Geekmandem

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?

Rayquaza Aurelion Sol

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.

Rayquaza Aurelion Sol

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.

Posted in LoL

Arena Augments Now Level Up Mid-Match in League’s Season 2

Posted on by Geekmandem

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.

Posted in LoL

League Players Are About to Lose Every Master Rank in Patch 26.9

Posted on by Geekmandem

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.

What About Season Rewards?

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.

Patch 26.9 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

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

26.9 Closer look

– 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.

Starting Items

It’s been a long time since adding new starting items to the game!

  • 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.

League of Legends Season 2 Just Overhauled Keystones, Boots, and Starting Items

Posted on by Geekmandem

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.

Season 2 is set to drop with patch 26.9.

Posted in LoL

Riot Just Rebuilt Arena From the Ground Up for Season 2

Posted on by Geekmandem

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.