TL;DW: S1 2026 Theme, Gameplay & More Dev Update

A short rundown of changes from today’s Dev Update.
Dev
Pabro, Meddler

Hey everyone, Pabro, Meddler, Phreak, Riot Endstep, Dashijador, and Riot CallMeKT here with a quick TL;DW of today’s Dev Update:

  • We’ll be kicking off next year with unity, hope, and justice with the theme of Season 1 2026 being Demacia.

  • Summoner’s Rift will be Demacia-themed with petricite, gold and blue accents, and more.

  • The annual cinematic in January will also feature Demacian champions.

  • The Battle Pass skins for Act 1 will feature some non-Demacian champions with Demacia-themed skins, and a Prestige skin for Morgana.

  • We’re focusing on old school Demacia, at a time when they’re in their golden age.

  • We have a suite of gameplay changes to Summoner’s Rift (Ranked and Normal Draft).

  • Summoner’s Rift games will start 35 seconds faster than they do now.

  • We’re adding Faelights: locations that grant temporary bonus vision to wards.

  • Atakhan, his Bloody Roses, and Feats of Strength are removed.

  • We’re adding a new mechanic called Crystalline Overgrowth, which is kinda like a universal demolish effect.

  • Demolish will be a three-hit passive.

  • Plates will remain on turrets and have been added to inner and inhibitor towers (with no increased gold added to the map).

  • We’re adding Role Quests to top, mid, and adc, which will act similar to support and jungle quests. You’ll progress by CSing, fighting, and getting towers in your lane, and helping to get objectives.

  • Top laners will get an increased level cap, more XP from all sources, and access to Teleport (which will get upgraded if you took it in Champ Select).

  • Mid laners will get free tier 3 boots and a faster recall.

  • Bot laners will get a lump sum of gold, increased gold for the rest of the game, and a seventh item slot.

  • Junglers will see Smite deal more damage, get more gold and XP from jungle camps, and bonus move speed in the jungle.

  • Supports will get discounts on control wards, more gold over time, and a new control ward slot.

  • There are a bunch of new, and returning, items.

  • Crit damage is going back to 200%.

  • For Ranked, we’re adding a climb indicator to the loading screen to show if someone’s MMR is higher than their visible rank.

  • We’re bringing Flex MMR closer to Solo/Duo MMR to make Flex games more fair.

  • We’re improving autofill to better match autofilled players by role.

  • If it can’t match by role, it’ll match the number of autofilled players.

  • We’re adding the Aegis of Valor, which will reward you for getting a mastery score of C or higher in autofilled games with either double LP for a win or a mitigation on a loss.

  • You’ll also receive the Aegis benefit if you play less-popular roles.

  • You’ll no longer be able to dodge to avoid being autofilled, and at Master+ it’ll count as a full loss.

  • Champ Select time has been lowered to get you into game faster.

  • Duoing is back at Apex-tier games.

  • Swiftplay is inheriting most of the changes from Summoner’s Rift, except Role Quests.

  • We’re also doing a variety of changes to make Swiftplay faster.

  • You’ll start at level 3 with increased gold, similar to ARAM.

  • We’re removing Grubs and Rift Herald from Swiftplay, and speeding up dragons and the Elemental Rift.

  • Sudden Death will start sooner.

  • WASD is live tomorrow!

  • Thank you to all the League creators who gave us Demacia fan art to use in the background of today’s Dev Update!