League of Legends Patch 26.12 Notes

A spicy start to Season 2 Act 2
Game Updates
Riot Cashmiir, sternest

 

We've got some more changes to follow up the recent Season 2 & support meta with a nerf to AP Xin Zhao and buff to Yuumi, as well as preparation with an eye towards MSI on the patch after this one through creating opportunities for some diversity in champion picks in the tournament. While some of these changes are specifically pro-oriented (sorry, Varus), most of them should be pretty applicable across all levels of play, like Lee Sin and Nocturne being less menacing in the jungle. We'll be continuing this approach for one more patch before going back to business as usual.

Looking for more information on all things League of Legends? Check out our community-run wiki here!

Wrong patch notes? You can find the TFT patch notes here!

Erika "Riot Cashmiir" Haas
Steven "Riot sternest" Earnest

Patch Highlights

Prestige Sinful Shores LeBlanc, Sinful Shores Brand, and Sinful Shores Hwei will be available June 10, 2026.

Normal Draft Queue Availability

We are happy to open up Normal Draft availability for ME, OC and SG from windowed time to 24/7, as we've seen meaningful queue time improvement across regions since late 2025.

Apex Duo Restrictions

Apex duo restriction was turned on with S2 start in some regions where the Apex players also got a reset. We are actively monitoring the health of those top tier matches to build confidence and understand what match quality improvements we need to make to re-enable duo for Apex players in those regions, but don't currently feel comfortable in flipping the switch without making some improvements. We will let you know when we're in a state to re-enable.

Honor in Social Panel

We are introducing Honor and active penalty information to your social panel so you can easily track your standing, view your progress towards redemption, and see how your behavior impacts your games. The panel will display current Honor, restrictions, and actions you must take to restore standing, serving as a constant reminder of the positive community we are building together.

Champions

Aatrox

We're looking to give Aatrox some love as he's been sitting on the sidelines for some time now, even though signs point to the Darkin being a solid pick in the current meta. We're putting more power into his Q sweet spot to reward him for his core skill check and make him a real threat against lumbering tanks and squishies alike.

Q - The Darkin Blade

  • Sweet Spot Bonus Damage: 70 ⇒ 75

Gwen

Gwen has been cut out of the meta for quite some time across all skill brackets. She lost some power with 26.09's minor rework to Dusk and Dawn, so we're giving her some of that power back in the early game. She'll remain a scaling pick, but a weaker first item spike has cost her early game a bit too much. These changes should help Gwen players live that snip and skip fantasy at all stages!

Q - Snip Snip!

  • Base Damage Per Snip: 10/13.5/17/20.5/24 ⇒ 10/14/18/22/26

E -Skip 'n Slash

  • Bonus Attack Speed: 20/35/50/65/80% ⇒ 30/42.5/55/67.5/80%

Hwei

Hwei's 26.08 changes to how his ability slows stack and interact with other sources of slows had a larger negative impact than expected. While we had put in a compensation buff along with that change, it's clear after a few patches that he has ended up worse off from the change, so we are giving him some power spread between his Q and E to keep all his abilities feeling relevant.

Q - Subject: Disaster

  • QQ Damage: 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 (+70% AP) (+3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7% Target Max HP) ⇒ 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 (+80% AP) (+3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7% Target Max HP)
  • QW Damage: 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+25% AP), increased to up to 120 / 201.875 / 302.5 / 421.875 / 560 (+50 / 59.375 / 68.75 / 78.125 / 87.5% AP) ⇒ 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+30% AP), increased to up to 120 / 201.875 / 302.5 / 421.875 / 560 (+60 / 71.25 / 82.5 / 93.75 / 105% AP)
  • QE Slow: 30% ⇒ 35%

E - Subject: Torment

  • Cooldown: 13 / 12.5 / 12 / 11.5 / 11s ⇒ 12 / 11.5 / 11 / 10.5 / 10s

Jax

Our favorite Grandmaster at Angling has been patiently waiting for his time to strike. Jax is meant to be a high-damage threat who ramps up in fights, but currently he's been a (fish)bait pick against durable opponents. These changes should help with that, without pushing him over the (fishing) line.

Q - Leap Strike

  • Mana Cost: 65 ⇒ 50

E - Counter Strike

  • Target Max Health Damage: 3.5% minimum damage / 7% maximum damage ⇒ 4% minimum damage / 8% maximum damage

Lee Sin

The recent changes taking away some of Lee Sin's kit restrictions have been cool for Lee players, but he's clearly just too powerful now. With more outplay potential, we are nerfing his raw damage to balance him out.

Base Stats

  • AD Growth: 3.7 ⇒ 3.4

Q1 - Sonic Wave

  • Damage: 65 / 95 / 125 / 155 / 185 (+95% bonus AD) ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+90% bonus AD)

Q2 - Resonating Strike

  • Damage: 65 / 95 / 125 / 155 / 185 (+95% bonus AD) ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+90% bonus AD)

Nocturne

Nocturne has been in quite a strong spot for a while, especially in the higher echelons of play. We like how distinct he feels to play with his relatively low ultimate cooldown, but that means we are going to pull power out of his 1v1 and farming since he has such strong tools to quickly create unequal fights.

Q - Duskbringer

  • Damage: 65 / 110 / 155 / 200 / 245 ⇒ 65 / 105 / 145 / 185 / 225

Orianna

Often called League's "perfect champ," Orianna in recent years has been doing it all and more: dominating lane, protecting allies, and outputting extremely reliable damage in teamfights. As the highest pro priority in recent patches, we feel like too much of her power is in early lane dominance. She should still show up - just more situationally and for 3k elo shockwaves rather than early game bullying.

Base Stats

  • Base Health: 585 ⇒ 565

Passive - Clockwork Windup

  • Damage Increase Per Stack: 20% ⇒ 15%

R - Command: Shockwave

  • Damage: 250/400/550 (+95% AP) ⇒ 225/350/475 (+110% AP)

Ryze

Ryze's early game trading has only gotten stronger with Deathfire Touch. For a champion known as a scaling combo mage, we feel his laning has gotten too unassailable. So like Orianna, we're tuning down his early game a bit to keep his power budget in the late game as he's intended to be.

Base Stats

  • Base Health: 645 ⇒ 620
  • Base AD: 58 ⇒ 55

Sylas

Sylas is one of the champions who has come out worse for wear since the start of Season 2. We think he is still a powerful early lane bully, but he's lost enough power that his scaling is critically low to the point he's completely one note, so we are helping him out there.

Q - Chain Lash

  • Initial Damage: 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 (+40% AP) ⇒ 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 (+45% AP)

W - Kingslayer

  • Heal Amount: 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (+20% AP) (+5% Sylas' Bonus HP), increased by up to 100% based on Sylas' missing health ⇒ 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (+30% AP) (+5% Sylas' Bonus HP), increased by up to 100% based on Sylas' missing health

Syndra

Pass the ball, Ori! Syndra has had some of her more reliable damage stripped away recently in W and R, so we want to give her the tools to start pushing for that scaling fantasy with Dark Sphere, her highest variance bread and butter ability. We're hoping this mix of exciting and functional buffs gets players across skill brackets interested in her untapped power.

Base Stats

  • Base Health: 563 ⇒ 583

Q - Dark Sphere

  • Damage: 80-220 (+65% AP) ⇒ 90-230 (+70% AP)

Tristana

it's been two years since we've seen marksmen run over the mid meta, and while we absolutely don't want to go back to that world, we do feel like some marksmen in mid make for an interesting flavor of game. Tristana makes for a good candidate as she's been absent since we added mana costs to her Q in a couple seasons back. We'll be pulling back on some of those nerfs here and improving her level scaling generally.

Base Stats

  • AD Growth: 2.9⇒ 3.4

Q - Rapid Fire

  • Mana: 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50⇒ 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35

Varus

Varus has steadily become the highest priority ADC & top laner over the course of the year among the top tiers of gameplay. While the changes to Experimental Hexplate should help alleviate his dominance in top lane, in bot lane, we're looking to further disincentivize oppressive early game focused lethality builds, while being relatively less impactful to the most common on-hit builds and helping them scale a bit better.

Passive - Living Vengeance

 

  • On Non-Champ Kill AD and AP: 10% of his Total AS ⇒ 11% of his Total AS
  • On Champ Kill AD and AP: 25% of his Total AS ⇒ 33% of his Total AS
  • On Non-Champ Kill AS: +50% AS ⇒ +30% AS

Q - Piercing Arrow

  • Damage: 53.33 / 100 / 146.67 / 193.33 / 240 (+100% bonus AD) to 80 / 150 / 220 / 290 / 360 (+150% bonus AD) ⇒ 53.33 / 100 / 146.67 / 193.33 / 240 (+80% bonus AD) to 80 / 150 / 220 / 290 / 360 (+120% bonus AD)

W - Blighted Quiver

  • On-Hit Damage: 8 / 17 / 26 / 35 / 44 (+15% bonus AD) (+25% AP) ⇒ 4 / 13 / 22 / 31 / 40 (+15% bonus AD) (+25% AP)

Xin Zhao

AP Xin Zhao continues being far too strong in mid lane. We are following up last patch's adjustment with a straight nerf this time to his ability to sustain both his health and mana in lane.

Passive - Determination

 

  • Healing: 3 / 4 / 5% Max HP (+45 / 55 / 80% AP) ⇒ 2 / 3.5 / 5% Max HP (+40 / 50 / 70% AP)

W - Wind Becomes Lightning

  • Mana Cost: 60 / 55 / 50 / 45 / 40 ⇒ 60

E - Audacious Charge

  • Mana Cost: 50 ⇒ 60

Yuumi

As the only champion in the game with built in Heal/Shield power, Yuumi was hit hardest by the Moonstone Renewer mechanics changes in 26.09. We are giving her AP ratios a compensation buff to help keep enchanter items optimal for her.

Passive - Feline Friendship

  • Heal Amount: 20 - 110 (+25% AP) (Levels 1 - 18) ⇒ 20 - 110 (+30% AP) (Levels 1 - 18)

E - Zoomies

  • Shield Amount: 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 / 165 (+30% AP) ⇒ 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 / 165 (+40% AP)

Systems

Teleport

You get teleport, you get teleport, everyone gets teleport! In a post-rolequest world, we're still monitoring how top laners that don't want to use combat summoners can have their gameplay fantasies furthered by Enhanced Teleport.

The current state of top lane TP Shields is not incentivizing the kind of action or tradeoffs we like, and it's pretty clear that expectations are being broken by a 30 second shield, so we're making an adjustment here that we hope encourages more immediate crossmap action.

  • Max Health Shield: 30% for 30 seconds ⇒ 35% for 10 seconds

ARAM: Mayhem

Hello ARAMers, we're bringing even more chaos to the Bridge this patch. We've detailed these changes in a recent dev blog, which you can check out here for all the details, but TL;DR: we've added Ability Augments, Quest Augments, and removed Augment Traits. Let's dive in!

What are Ability and Quest Augments?

Ability Augments are Augments that directly upgrade one of your champion's abilities. You'll only ever receive Ability Augments that are usable for your champion.

  • For example: Quick Step – Casting your self-targeted AoE ability makes you dash forward (Yes, Garen E and Kennen R are very happy about this!)

Quest Augments are Augments that grow stronger as you complete specific objectives during the game.

  • Previously, Quest Augments only had a single unlock threshold, but in this update we're introducing multi-tier Quest Augments that can evolve multiple times into even stronger versions. Older Quest Augments, like Quest: Steel Your Heart, have also been updated with clearer visuals and requirement tracking in the UI.

And yes, an Augment can be both a Quest Augment and an Ability Augment! Want your Blitzcrank Q to fire three hooks after powering it up? Good luck escaping that!

What happened to the Trait System?

We're removing the Trait System for this season.

Earlier this year, we explored how Traits affected player choice and build variety. While some Trait effects, like High Roller and Archmage were very popular, the system also reduced variety in Augment decisions. To preserve the fun parts, we've converted some Trait bonuses into standalone Augments so you can still enjoy their fantasies without being locked into a full Trait.

  • Archmage - Gold
  • High Roller - Prismatic
  • Snowday - silver
  • Make it Rain >>> Yowch, My Coins! - Gold
  • Wee Woo Wee Woo - Gold
  • Stackosaurus Rex - Silver

What about other Augments?

This time around, we're giving extra attention to fighters and tanks. We've added more combat-focused Prismatic Augments to help them survive longer and move through fights more aggressively.

Having trouble surviving after getting a kill? HellBent lets you revive if you stack it high enough. Looking for a Bel'Veth-style reset fantasy? Rite of Ascension refreshes your cooldowns and heals you on takedowns.

We've also removed some older Augments that no longer delivered on their gameplay fantasy. Our goal is to rotate the pool to focus more on champion abilities, and make sure every Augment feels exciting to select.

Overall, our goal with each update is to keep Mayhem feeling fresh, experimental, and full of new discoveries. We wish you the utmost Mayhem and see you on the bridge!

Removed Augments

  • ???
  • Buff Buddies
  • Cerberus
  • Cheating
  • Crack Open That Egg
  • Demon's Dance
  • Executioner
  • Feel the Burn
  • Frost Wraith
  • Gash
  • Grandma Chili Oil
  • Hat on a Hat
  • Holy Fire
  • im a baby kitty
  • Keystone Conjurer
  • Laser Heal
  • Lightning Strikes
  • Poro Blaster
  • Poro King
  • Rabble Rousing
  • Red Envelopes
  • Repulsor
  • Restless Restoration
  • Self Destruct
  • Slow and Steady
  • Snowball Roulette
  • Speed Demon
  • The Brutalizer
  • Tormentor
  • Trailblazer
  • Trueshot Prodigy
  • Twice Thrice
  • Upgrade Cutlass
  • Upgrade Hubris
  • Upgrade Mikaels
  • Upgrade Thornmail
  • Void Rift
  • Watch Out! Cupcake!
  • Weighted Popoffs
  • Wind beneath blade

New Augments

Silver Augments

  • Adaptive Ward
  • Don't Change the Channel
  • Double Defense
  • Forged By The Master
  • It's Go Time
  • Pursuit of Power
  • Quest: Support Main
  • Siphon
  • Snowday
  • Stackosaurus Rex
  • Stay Resolute
  • Trusty Weapon


 

Gold Augments

  • Archmage
  • BONK!
  • Combusting Interest
  • Endless Decimation
  • From Downtown
  • Hide on Bush
  • Lil' Extra Help
  • Mercy's Strike
  • Nature is Healing
  • Our Healing
  • Overextender
  • Pat On The Back
  • Porcupine
  • Pressure Cooker
  • Pursuit of Haste
  • Ravenous Bind
  • Rejuvenation
  • Shark Bait
  • Shark Tempest
  • Snowblast
  • Terrain'd
  • Tooth Fairy
  • Void Dash
  • Warlock Juicebox
  • Wee Woo Wee Woo
  • Yowch, My Coins!


 

Prismatic Augments

  • Chain Reaction
  • Dimension Shift
  • DropBear
  • Echo Cast
  • En Passant
  • Hellbent
  • High Roller
  • Multishot
  • One Trick Pony
  • Overloaded
  • Pin Cushion
  • Poro Stampede
  • Quickstep
  • Rite of Ascension
  • Spellsplit
  • Spirit Bomb
  • Squishy Slappy Grab
  • Surge Field
  • Terror
  • Titan's Resolve
  • Tripleshot

Augment Adjustments

Blade Waltz

Will now attempt to re-target the initial target for the final attack so player will be able to land near the initial target

Draw Your Sword

  • AD: 30% bonus increased up to 30% based on Attack Range (500-650) ⇒ 24% bonus increased up to 100% based on Attack Range (500-650)
  • AS: 25% bonus increased up to 30% based on Attack Range (500-650) ⇒ 20% bonus increased up to 100% based on Attack Range (500-650)
  • HP: 30% bonus increased up to 30% based on Attack Range (500-650) ⇒ 24% bonus increased up to 100% based on Attack Range (500-650)
  • MS: 25% bonus increased up to 30% based on Attack Range (500-650) ⇒ 20% bonus increased up to 100% based on Attack Range (500-650)


Spin Me Right Round

  • Grants 400 minimum attack range for those below it

Arena

Arena 3x6 has been going strong and we've seen how much you all are loving it! We feel like the game is generally in a good state, and want to focus on buffing some under performers, particularly AD assassins who have always struggled to find success in Arena. 

Among other changes, we're making some adjustments to help in "last player standing" situations, tweaking some Guests of Honor, and making some changes to petricite bombs.

Champions

Akali

  • R AP Ratio: 30% ⇒ 40%
  • R Cooldown: 120/90/60 ⇒ 90/75/60


Brand

  • Q Stun Duration: 1.75s ⇒ 1.5s
  • W Cooldown: 10s-8s ⇒ 12-10s


Karthus

  • Q (reverted to match SR) Base Damage: 60-140 ⇒ 40-116
  • Q Ability Power Ratio: 45% ⇒ 35%


Lillia

  • Q Movement Speed Per Stack: 3%-7% ⇒ 2%-6%


Nocturne

  • Passive Cooldown: 12 ⇒ 9s
  • W Cooldown: 20s-12s ⇒ 18-10s


Pyke

  • W Cooldown: 14s-10s ⇒ 12s-8s


Quinn

  • W Attack Speed: 30%-70% ⇒ 28-80%
  • W Cooldown: 20s-10s ⇒ 14s-10s


Talon

  • E Per Wall Cooldown: 26s-6s ⇒ 16s-0s

Items

Banshee's Veil

  • Cooldown: 40s ⇒ 20s


Decapitator

  • Stack generation now has a melee/ranged split.
  • Basic Attack: Melee - 2, Ranged - 1
  • Spell cast: Melee - 4, Ranged 3


Guardian Angel, Zhonya's Hourglass, Wooglet's Witchcap

These no longer share a lockout, allowing you to buy Guardian Angel with a Stasis item.

Eclipse

  • Melee Shield Base Value: 250 ⇒ 300
  • Ranged Shield Base Value: 125 ⇒ 150


Edge of Night

  • Cooldown: 20s ⇒ 10s


Iceborn Gauntlet

  • Slow Amount: 25% ⇒ 30%
  • AoE Radius: Increased from 300 ⇒ 400
  • Ability Haste: 10 ⇒ 15


Imperial Mandate

  • Matches the SR version


Kaenic Rookern

  • Out of Combat Timer: 15s ⇒ 10s


Maw of Malmortius

  • Cooldown: 30s ⇒ 20s


Seraph's Embrace

  • Cooldown: 45s ⇒ 30s


Opportunity

  • Out of Combat Timer: 4s ⇒ 3s


Profane Hydra

  • Cleave Melee Ratio: 40% ⇒ 60%
  • Cleave Ranged Ratio: 20% ⇒ 30%


Youmus's Ghostblade

  • Cooldown: 20s ⇒ 10s


Prowler's Claw

  • Cooldown: 25s ⇒ 15s


Serylda's Grudge

  • Attack Damage: 40 ⇒ 50
  • Ability Haste: 10 ⇒ 15
  • Slow Amount: 30% ⇒ 50%


Spectral Cutlass

  • Attack Damage: 55 ⇒ 60
  • Cooldown: 15s ⇒ 5s


Sterak's Gage

  • Cooldown: 30s ⇒ 20s


Trinity Force

  • Health: 333 ⇒ 375
  • Attack Damage: 35 ⇒ 40


Voltaic Cyclosword

  • Attack Damage: 55 ⇒ 60
  • Lethality: 18 ⇒ 20


Zeke's Convergence

  • Cooldown: 20s ⇒ 15s

Augments

Clown College

  • On-death True Damage is now Magic Damage


Dual Wield

  • On-Attack Damage Applied: 40% ⇒ 40%/50%/60%


Ethereal Weapon

  • Max level increased from 2 ⇒ 3
  • On hits at each level 1/2/3


Now You See Me

  • Cooldown 10s/5s ⇒ 5s/0.5s
  • Movespeed After Blink: 50% ⇒ 50%/75%


Scopiest Weapons

  • Ranged Values Increased: 75/125/175 ⇒ 90/135/180


Self Destruct

  • Timer: 15s ⇒ 13s


Stackosaurus Rex

Now works on permanent Augments and item effects, including:

  • Phenomenal Evil
  • Infinite Recursion
  • Tank Engine
  • Heart Steel
  • Hubris
  • Yun Tal Wild Arrows


Upgrade Collector

  • Max Level Execution Threshold: 2% ⇒ 1.5%

Disabled Augments

  • ???
  • Adamant
  • Bounce of the Poro King
  • Devil on Your Shoulder
  • Donation
  • Upgrade Hubris
  • Wind Beneath Blade

Map and System Changes

Petricite Grove

  • Removed the blast cone in the center left of the map
  • Bombs are now untargetable while rolling


Revives

  • If you are in a last player standing situation (1v3), you revive allies slightly quicker.


Vote Phase

  • Reduced the time it takes before the game checks if all players have voted from: 7s ⇒ 5s

Guests of Honor

Vayne

  • NEW Swindler's Orb: Grants 40% shield reaving on all damage done


Kindred

  • Wolf: Bonus HP 10% ⇒ 15%


Evelynn

  • Health is Set to 50 ⇒ 75


Yone

  • Hunter round win gold increased from 250 to 500


Swain

  • Removed from round 2


Nilah

  • Removed from round 8

Arena Bugfixes

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing certain on-hit items from hurting the Bulwark Blossom
  • Fixed a bug where Jeweled Gauntlet was not converting Ability Power from ADAPt into Crit Chance
  • Fixed a bug where Jeweled Gauntlet was not converting Ability Power from Adaptive Force into Crit Chance
  • Fixed a bug where abilities with dashes were still retaining the bonus Ability Haste after Dashing is removed
  • Fixed a bug where Trickster Demon was not being triggered on Jhin's Lotus Trap (E)
  • Fixed a bug where Bel'Veth attack speed cap was being erroneously set when equipped with augments that are supposed to uncap attack speed
  • Fixed a bug where Jinx's attack speed was being erroneously set when equipped with augments that are supposed to uncap attack speed when she triggers her Get Excited! Passive
  • Fixed a bug where players could still purchase Sunfire Aegis and Hollow Radiance after completing Quest: Icathia's Fall
  • Contract Killer Now correctly displays its capstone effect (mark an additional target) and gold increased when leveling this up.

Bugfixes & QoL Changes

  • Fixed a bug where the Helping Hand buff from certain starting items wasn't removed when sold or undone.
  • Fixed a bug where dying before smite upgraded at 45 seconds would keep Smite at one charge.
  • Fixed a bug where Rift Herald would deal magic damage to turrets instead of true damage if the champion driving it had more AP than AD.
  • Fixed a bug where abilities that don't CC but swapped to CC spells (Elise E, Leblanc R, etc.) gained Ability Haste from Imperial Mandate's Control passive.
  • Fixed a bug where Practice Tool keybinds would fail to save when using WASD Inputs in the Options Menu.
  • Fixed a bug where Elise's human form death animation was played when she died in Spider form.
  • Fixed several cases where Neeko would not play the proper homeguard run animation when disguised as Wukong with various skins.

Upcoming Skins & Chromas

The following skins will be released in this patch:

Prestige Sinful Shores LeBlanc

Sinful Shores Brand

Sinful Shores Hwei