TL;DW: Pandemonium, Arena & More Dev Update

Hey everyone, Pabro and Meddler here with a quick TL;DW of today’s dev update:

• For Season 2 of 2026 we’ll be heading to the outskirts of Demacia where we’ll be following Vayne as she hunts down demons, learning a bit more about her past along the way.
• We’ll have motion comics for Vayne coming out later this Season.
• This Season will be a shorter one, lasting a total of 6 patches instead of the usual 8 to make room for a longer season later this year.
• We’ve also got some changes to the Battle Pass so that the amount of time it takes relative to the length of the Season feels roughly the same.
• As many of you have requested, we’re also making the non-Prestige seasonal Pass skins direct purchase, replacing those slots with Fiendish Mystery Skin loot orbs that will drop a demon themed Epic skin instead.
• The next Prestige skins will be Shaco and LeBlanc, followed by Veigar in Season 3.
• Other skins coming this Season include Rain Shepherd Ivern, PROJECT: Quinn, Breadsticks Irelia, and Spaghetti alla Vel’Koz.

• In terms of gameplay, this Season we’re making some quality of life adjustments to role quests, starting work to expand build diversity for champions, bringing back some familiar Runes, removing some old items, and adding some new ones.
• We updated where you get progress for your role quest in top and mid, and how forgiving it is when you roam. You’ll still need to come to lane to progress on your role quest, but you won’t be actively penalized for doing the things your champions want to do like roaming or proxying.
• Additionally, we’ve adjusted the rewards for top to provide more experience for teamfighting, and swapped the mid-lane empowered recall for a 6% bonus AD and AP.
• Our goal with these changes is to better reward the variety of classes and champions that get played in these roles, rather than mainly rewarding split pushers in top lane, or non-roaming champions in mid, and to provide some more scaling rewards for mid laners as well.
• We’re also starting to invest more into supporting alternate builds for champions to better reward creativity and strategy; think things like AP Ezreal, ADC Kennen, or attack speed Xin Zhao.
• Deathfire Touch and Stormraider’s Surge are coming back this Season, with Stormraider’s Surge replacing Phase Rush as an alternative movement speed rune.
• We also have a variety of item adjustments to items including Dusk and Dawn, two new starting items, new omnivamp boots, and the removal of Trailblazer and Opportunity.
• Our next champion will be a mid-lane, AP assassin.
• Arena will be getting a big update in Season 2!
• Standard Arena games will be getting replaced with Events which are new twists that change how Arena is played.
• The three Events we have planned throughout Season 2 are 3x6 (where the lobby is composed of six teams of three), Bravery (where your only options are Bravery or a Crowd Favorite), and Swift Arena (where there are only four teams of two and games are faster).
• We’re also adding a new map to Arena, the Petricite Grove, and making some changes to the Ancestral Woods.

• Another new feature coming to Arena is Augment Levels which let you supercharge your favorite augments by making them stronger or adding new effects, like Fan the Hammer firing more missiles.
• We also have over 20 new and reworked guests of honor coming throughout this Season. Some of which include Nocturne who will create dark zones around the map or Shaco who will create chaos and make all of your augment rolls random tiers.
• There are also over 30 new-to-Arena Augments, some being ported over from ARAM Mayhem and some brand new to League!
• After extensive testing, analysis, and adjustments, we’ve gotten to a point where WASD has reached a similar performance level as Point and Click controls. There's still a small delta in the win-rates between the control schemes, with Point and Click having a minor advantage
• As a result, WASD is finally ready for Ranked and will be going live in patch 26.9.
• We’re also adding champion specific keybinds to the game this patch, so you’ll be able to configure different keybinds for all of your mains.
• Later this season we’re adding a feature where you’ll be given an option to vote to end the game early when game ruining behavior is detected.
• Players on the allied team will be LP neutral, players on the enemy team will receive full LP as though they had won, and the offending player and their premade party will all lose LP. And of course the offending player will also receive a punishment.
• We’re beginning to roll out a new Discord integration with the League client, starting with a beta in the US, Canada, and Brazil. In short, you’ll be able to link your Discord and Riot accounts to easily invite your Discord friends to in-game parties, see who’s playing, and join League lobbies via party links.
• Your Shop is coming back on May 5th.
• The Blue Essence Emporium will be coming out the following week on May 13th.
• Check out the full video for some amazing community highlights!