Patch 26.19

Champions

Welcome back Classic Fiora, who existed from 2012-2015. Fiora is a deadly duelist, poised to deal tons of damage to isolated targets while also excelling in short trades by Riposting their strikes back at them. You'll probably want a Ravenous Hydra to have access to wave clear. Some things never change.

Classic Galio existed from 2010-2017 and was one part mage, one part AP bruiser, one part tank, one part support. He still wants to build Magic Resist to scale his offense, but almost everything about him is different from the modern-day champion.

Do you think League of Legends has too much gameplay? Do you want your opponents to literally have no counterplay to you? No damage, no CC, nothing? We have the Demacian for you. Initially available from 2010-2015, Classic Poppy is a single-target terror with the option to become completely immune to all enemies but one.

We chose 2011-2013 for Classic Shyvana, so this is a true blast from the past. Our biggest pro tip for you is Frozen Mallet. If they're slowed, they can't run away.

Classic Xin Zhao takes on his kit from 2012-2017. If you're looking for some straightforward right click until they're dead gameplay, look no further!

Anivia is our single top performer in mid lane, so she's been slated for nerfs. We've got several changes this patch, all of which are re-tuning her numbers back to 2013 accuracy.

Gangplank is performing worst of all conventional top laners and is deserving of a large buff. As with many of our changes on Classic, we're reverting old nerfs from 2011 and 2012. We're playing up his dreams of being a banker and sharing the wealth when it's time to go all in.

Heimerdinger's bugfix last patch ended up being a massive hit to his power, well above what we expected. So we're buffing him back up, partially reverting some of our previous nerfs. Because the double damage turret bugfix was significantly top lane skewed, we're looking to buff his performance in top lane most of all and fix a couple of minor mismatches that escaped his release.

Kayle isn't performing too well in her most popular role of top lane, so we're here to lend her a wing. We've got a large change to her passive, which is a boost of functionally 17-32 ability power. All in all, this should result in a Kayle with more damage, more healing, more everything.

Malzahar is one of our best-performing mid laners, primarily as an AP threat, and is due for a small nerf. We completed a pass of minor differences from his 2013 form and have some changes to Voidlings as a result, which should skew toward making AD Malzahar better without affecting AP Malzahar much. Continuing on the trend of AD Malzahar, we're raising his overall attack speed, so that he can use those potential AD items better. Meanwhile, on the AP nerf front, we have a meaningful bugfix to R, which will reduce its damage in several circumstances, plus an AP ratio nerf to bring him in line.

Nasus is the top dog of top lane and it's by a lot. Thankfully, we've got some substantial bugfixes that should put his bark and his bite on more equal footing. First, we're fixing a bug where his Q stacks could crit, which means for all you Trinity Force enjoyers, that's a big hit to Q damage about 10% of the time. For Wither, there are two bugs worth noting and a single change for period-accuracy. The slow now updates every 1 second (affected by tenacity) instead of every 0.5 seconds, unaffected. So now Tenacity won't cut off the top-end of his slow. However, it was also bugged to use the per-second update every 0.5 seconds, meaning the maximum slow was much higher than it should have been. Fixing both bugs should net out to an appropriate nerf for the ability.

Warwick is the top dog of the jungle and it's by a lot. With Feral Flare's build path turning back into attack speed, Warwick's doing even better than he ever has. Accordingly, we're pulling back even further on how much auto-attack power he gets, mostly from historic changes in his past. We're also pulling in part of a nerf from 4.21. He was a real terror back in the patch before then...

Systems

We've made some changes around Classic Skin Chromas and their distribution. Instead of directly selling Classic Skin Chromas, we're unifying this product with their associated Base Skin. We're hoping this simplifies things and removes some edge cases (where players could effectively pay double if they purchased the Classic Chroma and then the Base Skin).For those players who have only purchased the Classic Chroma, we'll be granting the associated Base Skin for free!Baron Rammus will be going into the vault in 26.20. You can acquire him at a discounted price until then!"

Bugfixes & QoL

Champions

Ahri is extremely safe, has good sustain, good wave clear, and the ability to all-in her opponents at a moment's notice. She’s also overpowered. We want to trim some of her extraneous early safety and reduce how frequently she can pressure her opposition.

Annie is our second weakest mid laner behind Lux, so we’re driving on some buffs. We’re first reverting some damage nerfs from July 2011 and otherwise ensuring her offensive threat is up to snuff.

As a supportive ADC, Ashe is performing below average. She’s not massively underpowered, but weak enough to deserve a buff. To do that, we’re reverting a 2010 Volley nerf, letting her succeed more while playing at long ranges, poking and suppressing her opponents from afar.

Blitzcrank is due for much larger nerfs than they got last patch, so we’re back to bring the highest agency support in the game down to size. We’re continuing to revisit old patches to return older, weaker tuning. We’re also fixing a few bugs and oversights to bring their power down further. Our one unique contribution is a rank 1 and 2 nerf to Static Field’s active. Combined with the cooldown nerf, we hope that Blitzcrank players will occasionally choose to keep the R in its passive form, playing for a more sustained damage threat.

Dr. Mundo’s still in need of some extra healthcare even after last patch’s buffs as one of the worst top laners and junglers in the game. We’re back with further increases to his durability, in hopes of making him the biggest meat wall you’ve ever seen. His health buffs come from reverts to nerfs in April of 2011. We’re also handing him some extra early game attack speed, which is meant to disproportionately buff his jungling, where he currently performs worse than in top lane.

Evelynn is one of the best-performing junglers in Classic and is gaining more win rate over time as players learn how to optimize her. As such, she’s due for a nerf. We’re pulling a mix of reverted buffs from her initial release and nerfs from 2013’s future. We're making Dark Frenzy worse when just spammed to get across the map, reducing her mid-late jungle clear speed, and making her consider her mana costs more, just like other AP junglers.

As players have sanded off the rust, Ezreal has moved to the top of the pile as the most picked bot laner by far and too strong a performer considering his high degree of safety. As this dominance is driven by AD Ezreal, we’re delivering some compensation changes to keep AP Ezreal afloat as well. Our nerfs are a tour of changes from back in June of 2010, picking up two Q nerfs and reverting an R nerf from 16 years ago.

We were conservative with many of our changes last patch, which has left Garen still in a very weak position. We’re back to deliver much stronger buffs with the goal of bringing him up to speed. We have two primary goals with our buffs. The first is to ensure that spin-to-win always feels rewarding, especially early game. The other is to ensure that he feels good about all his item purchases, whether scaling his damage or durability.

Gragas is extremely safe, very bursty, and overall just overperforms in mid lane. Our nerfs are aimed at making him less safe as a laner and make him consider his openings more carefully without reducing his burst damage by much.

Heimerdinger is on the strong side, even after last patch’s nerfs. He’s got a meaningful bugfix this patch, so we wanted to call it out directly.

Jax is receiving a few bug fixes this patch, and while he’s pretty balanced, they’re important enough changes to warrant being called out on their own.

When we launched Kayle in League Classic, we chose one of her earliest kits, which included gaining bonus AD from AP and vice versa. This version of the kit never allowed her to remain permanently ranged with enough CDR, as that buff only came in with her next rework. Ultimately, we like this version of the kit but think she should be able to be permanently ranged if she builds for it, so we’re buffing E’s cooldown. You’ll need at least 38% CDR at rank 5 to hit that breakpoint, so enjoy your build goals!

Lux is still performing worse than she ought to so we’re back with some more buffs. We’re increasing Lucent Singularity’s radius to its old wide self as another callback to the past. We’re also bringing in some modern touches (or, farther back in the past depending on how you look at it), including some bug fixes. We’re letting her use summoner spells and detonate her E during her R cast. Flashing will not change the hit location, but you can dodge an Ashe arrow if you need to. We’re also giving her better defensive immediacy. It’s important that League is responsive to your inputs, and “Shield me!” is about as immediate a need as it gets. This is one modernization that we think is very important to give Lux even in this older version of the game. We’re also starting our adventure into new territory here. One of Classic’s biggest strengths is the wide-open space for build experimentation. We’d like if Lux could be part of that space. For anyone playing a more conventional AP Lux playstyle, this attack speed should still help her to last hit minions or pop Illumination stacks between spells more quickly. Or… You could be adventurous and try AD Lux, or maybe AP on-hit Lux with a Malady and a Nashor’s Tooth. You know you want to.

Miss Fortune’s buffs last patch didn’t go nearly far enough, so we’re back for more. Once again we’re digging up changes of old, undoing almost every nerf she received since her launch and fixing several bugs that could cause her ultimate to not deliver on expectations. We’re also delivering one novel change to make E’s mana cost respect its rank, so it’ll be cheaper at low investment and more expensive (and more powerful) when maxed.

Sivir currently lacks a strong strategic niche or high point to her experience. Toggled Ricochet is meant to be an extremely potent output that Sivir players should feel great about, so we’re reverting some nerfs to it from back in January 2011.

Tristana is clearly a peak performer in bot lane while mid lane AP Tristana in mid is doing just fine, so we’re taking aim at AD-specific Tristana nerfs to her attack speed. Her mana growth compensation is meant to mostly compensate mid Tristana for the small amount of collateral damage she’s receiving.

Tryndamere is still doing exceptionally well. After calibrating how impactful our changes would be in the first patch, we’re back to put him where he belongs. Somehow, he has even more buffs from back in 2010 that we can revert, so we’re back to make things tougher on him. We’re also doing some unique changes, namely reducing his early resilience to losing lane. The primary nerf, however, is in reducing his top-end crit chance. For those with at least 3 crit items, Tryndamere will still be able to reach 100% crit chance at low health, but in the early and mid game, he won’t crit as often.

Twitch’s nerfs from last patch didn’t do enough to dethrone him from the top spot. We’re taking out a mix of damage and durability, ultimately trying to make sure that his damage output is readable when exiting out of stealth.

Items

When we remade Innervating Locket in Classic, we preemptively nerfed it, as it had been removed from the game for being unbalanceable. Well, it turns out, it’s possible to make it too weak to be used. So we’re here for some meaningful buffs aimed at making it shine for those who want it. We want to make sure it’s an appealing support option, restoring many of the stats it used to have and buffing its unique effect. Innervating Lockets do stack across multiple players, by the way, so if all five of you buy one, you can put a lot of healing onto your most injured teammate.

When we built out the items in League Classic, we knew there’d be some conflicts. We had items coexisting who never coexisted before, or were placed into a game that didn’t quite fit. One of these conflicts was with jungle items: We have monster tuning from 2013 (plus the Wight), but have the 2014 item Feral Flare. When we launched, we simply took the 2013 version of Madred’s Razors and Wriggle’s Lantern, and simply updated Feral Flare to fit the same stat profile. We’re changing that now. We’re reshaping Wriggle’s Lantern and Feral Flare to be Attack Speed items instead of Attack Damage ones but keeping all the other stats the same. This change helps them stand out against Spirit of the Elder Lizard, and preserves Hunter’s Machete and Madred’s Razors as they were. These new items do overlap with Madred’s Bloodrazor a bit, but you’re still welcome to buy them both.

Runes

We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear about how slow it feels to gain access to runes, games with stakes, and more. So in this patch we have large sweeping buffs to several systems that should have you building out extra rune pages and gaining SP in no time!

Systems

You can now swap champions and roles during Champion Select! So now your first pick mid laner can grab Blitzcrank for you, you can grab AP Shaco for your bot laner, and you can successfully make your opponents rage quit instead of having to dodge..

The Council goes live with this patch! Vote on the game’s future inside the game client. You will be able to vote on multiple topics during the active voting period and we’ll be back to share the results once voting closes.

Art

A few of our artists got together and updated several aspects of Summoner’s Rift to make it look more like the original.

Bugfixes & QoL

Champions

Akali is flying in with invisibility, targeted dashes, invisibility, and tons of damage. Better buy a Pink Ward!

Kennen makes his return in a somewhat familiar form, ready to dive-bomb into enemy teams with Slicing Maelstrom or play it cool as an AD auto-attacker.

Shen subscribes to the philosophy that one can hide in plain sight. He's still the same dashing, taunting ninja he's always been, but has the added benefit of providing healing for himself and his allies.

Alistar's pretty decent in both solo lanes, whether played as AP burst or as a Headbutt-autoattacker. However, he's quite weak at support, so we're looking for some support-skewed buffs.

Amumu is performing worse than he ought to, so we're looking to return him back to normalcy. We're reverting some nerfs from 2012-2013, ensuring he has a strong strategic niche of helping AP teams destroy squishy targets

Blitzcrank is the #1 support in the game right now, topping all three of win rate, pick rate, and ban rate. So yeah, it's time for some nerfs to pull him down. We're digging up the history books and reverting some of their “recent” buffs from 2011-2012. We're targeting early pressure and overall cooldowns, due to how impactful their abilities can be. If a hook attempt misses, their opponents should have plenty of time to punish.

Dr. Mundo's faring even worse than his patients, and that's saying something! He's receiving a suite of buffs to both damage and durability to allow him to soak up as much punishment as possible while still dishing out the pain. These buffs manifest as reverts to nerfs from early 2012.

Garen's doing quite poorly at the moment, so we're here to buff him up to snuff. We want him to feel advantaged in early laning, so we're buffing his early regeneration to enable more aggressive trading and allowing him more frequent access to his rank 1 ultimate to let him convert those fights into kills.

Heimerdinger is the single best-performing mid laner, and he's way up there in top lane, too. We expect him to do well for now, considering how rusty the average player is, and how strong his turrets are, but he's still outperforming our expectations. We want to make him more vulnerable early in his turret fortress and create a larger window without his pocket crowd control. For the rockets, they simply lack the early game counter-play required for a base damage this high.

Janna is the second of our support nerfs this patch as she's performing a little better than she ought to, so we're dropping some small nerfs. We want her high impact ultimate to have high a impact mana cost and want to make sure that she isn't just using her strong safety tools to bully her enemies out of the lane.

Jarvan is one of the game's strongest junglers and deserving of a nerf. Considering how good the reliably Flag and Drag combo is, we're leaving that intact. Instead, we're swinging for his late game to ensure he isn't the best at all points in time.

Katarina is performing much better than she ought to, especially for a difficult champion whom no one has played for approximately a decade. We always want high-mastery champions to be worth mastering, but if rookies are winning this much without practice, something's wrong. Ultimately we're fixing our own bug here: She's supposed to be throwing 10 daggers over 2.5 seconds, not 12, so both the DPS and maximum damage of her ultimate is being reduced.

Lux is our single worst mid laner AND support right now, so she's due for some very real buffs. We're going back on a move speed and ult CD nerf from early in 2013, as well as an AP ratio nerf from 2011, with the hopes that Lux can keep up with all the mobility these “modern” (released after 2010) champions have.

Miss Fortune is performing the worst of all conventional bot laners, so we're delivering some buffs. To start, we're improving both her sustained auto-attack damage and her spell casting ult playstyle, partially or fully reverting changes from patches 3.1 and 3.7.

Nasus is performing better than he ought to, even for a champion with a shallow learning curve and a playstyle that hasn't changed much over the years. We still want his infinitely-stacking late game bonking to be his biggest strength, which means pulling out power elsewhere. We're reverting a few buffs from the Skarner launch patch in 2011, making his early game weaker and making him think more carefully about using Wither.

Skarner has been one of the weakest junglers so we're here to buff him back up. We've got a small bugfix to his E's missile radius, which made it harder to hit than it should have been. Otherwise, we're reverting a few nerfs that Skarner received early in his release.

Soraka is one of our weakest supports at the moment, and while she performs better in solo lanes, she's not strong there either. As a result we're looking for some meaningful support-skewed buffs and it's fine if she gets a little stronger in top lane or mid lane. As support Soraka maxes her W first while solo lane Soraka does not, this should be a meaningful buff for where she's played most.

Tryndamere has wound up as the single most performant champion in the game, both in top lane and jungle, which means he's up for some substantial nerfs. We want to retain his late game big crit fantasy but he should take longer to get there and be more peelable when he does. As with many of our nerfs, these are reverts of buffs from back when Lux launched in 2010.

Twitch is the strongest bot laner in the game right now. To start, our nerfs are going to be reverting his buffs from 1.0.0.144 and 1.0.0.146, both from 2012. Because his late game can be so potent, we're doubling down on his scaling archetype and making his laning phase even more difficult.

Veigar is one of the very worst mid laners in the game, so it's time for some buffs. Due to how core Q-spamming on every minion is to his playstyle, we want to make sure it feels supported, while still requiring him to buy some mana items to keep up.

Warwick is the best-performing jungler in the game right now, and while his resilience in the face of a dangerous jungle is likely a contributor, he's performing above our expectations for such a straightforward jungler. We're reverting an attack speed buff from early 2012, as he has access to much better on-hit itemization than he used to.

Runes

We're increasing the default stat value of the placeholder rune slots in Classic to be 80% of the equivalent rune rather than 66%.

Systems

League Classic has higher stakes and is generally more snowbally than Season 2026 and that's intentional. We also want players to have a fighting chance at comebacks without adding systems like Objective Bounties that players have to identify and play around. We also don't want to inflate total gold in the game too heavily.So we're raising the floor on passive gold income and reducing the income of those who farm the best. As a whole, these changes will result in all champions having about 215 more gold passively, with the average laner roughly treading water.

We want the early game to have high stakes but that doesn't mean a single kill should spell doom for the next 30 minutes straight. As a result, there's a careful balance to strike between properly rewarding the victor for an early kill and helping losing players have something to look forward to. One of our attempts to strike that balance was early game Homeguards, which shipped with Classic last patch. This moderate 10% move speed buff should only shave a second or two off of someone's walk back to lane but your feedback that it feels too modern has been heard. We're keeping the mid-game version of Homeguard, which exists to help winning teams cross the map and continue sieging, but the early game one is being removed. In its place, we're reducing early game death timers by a couple seconds. No new mechanics to learn and winners still get ahead, but losers can get back in there and earn XP and gold to look for their comeback.

When porting over jungle monsters to modern systems, we miscalculated how durable regular jungle monsters would become in the mid and late game. This global health scaling buff will make camps more closely match their histories. Your first clear won't be affected at all, and non-epic monsters will scale up to 5-25% more health than they had before.

Despite having the same effective HP they had in 2013, player feedback has been overwhelming that turrets feel too squishy. And they're certainly much frailer than 2026's norms. As we want turrets to matter and feel important, we agree that they could stand to hold up better, so we're buffing their health by around 15% across the board and nerfing the AP ratio to on-hit damage conversion against towers.

Bugfixes & QoL

Classic cosmetics

Miss Fortune and all three of our new old ninja champions have updated base classic skins, as well as new looks for Akali and Shen that can be selected as chromas for players who own the skins: