League of Legends Patch 26.02: Changes, Release Date, & More

League of Legends continues its evolution in 2026 with Patch 26.02, the second major update of the season that brings balance tweaks, new cosmetics, and quality-of-life improvements that affect both casual Summoners Rift matches and competitive play. This follow-up patch arrives hot on the heels of Patch 26.01, with Riot Games aiming to refine the gameplay experience after listening to community feedback and observing how recent changes landed on the Rift.

Patch 26.02 for League of Legends focuses on fine-tuning the early 2026 season by adjusting balance, adding new content, and improving gameplay systems. Riot Games is dialing down some of the big winners from Patch 26.01 while buffing champions who have struggled to stay relevant, especially in the jungle and bot roles. Jungle picks like Aatrox and Master Yi receive power increases to help them compete, while dominant picks such as Zed and Jayce see their monster-clear strength reduced to bring overall jungle impact closer together.

Marksmen like Sivir are also getting tuned to curb their dominance, and other champions like Ashe and Varus are strengthened to boost their effectiveness. In addition to balance tweaks, the update introduces several new skins, including Aegis Frame variants and Revenant Reign Viego, brings back ARURF mode, and implements bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements across ARAM and Clash systems.

League of Legends Patch 26.02 Full Changes:

Champions

Aatrox

 Aatrox has struggled to find a place on the Rift in the new season with split pushing on the rise and fewer chances to flex his team fighting strengths. We’re giving him some additional power this patch, primarily in the jungle, where his growing audience has been kneecapped, as well as in the top lane where he could use more ways to benefit from experience. We hope this satiates Aatrox players, especially those with Endless Hunger. 

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Passive – Deathbringer Stance

• Bonus Magic Damage based on Target Max Health: 4-8% (based on level) ⇒ 4-10% (based on level)

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Q – The Darkin Blade

• Bonus Damage to Monsters: 15 ⇒ 25

Ashe

 Ashe is underperforming in the new season so we’re here to bring her back up near her former power level. We like that she has a strong affinity for buying attack speed, so we’re just making those purchases multiply a little bit harder. 

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Base Stats

• Attack Damage Growth: 3 ⇒ 3.5

Gwen

 Gwen jungle has skyrocketed in both pickrate and winrate. While we’re excited to see her loving the new season and snipping from dusk til dawn, we need to make sure she’s not turning all opponents (especially jungle camps) into paper. 

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Passive – A Thousand Cuts

• Monster Damage Cap: 5 (+10% AP) ⇒ 3 (+5% AP)

Jayce

 Jayce jungle (AKA Jungle Jayce) has become extremely popular and is also much too strong. One of those two things is awesome and the other isn’t. We’d like to retain JJ as a viable option in the jungle, but without him dominating the competition. So we’re delivering a light nerf that’s intended to bring him more in line with other junglers. 

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Q – To the Skies / Shock Blast

• Bonus Damage to Monsters : 50 ⇒ 25

Lillia

 Lillia has been in a dream since the changes to Rift. Unfortunately we need to wake her up as it’s become a nightmare for her opponents. We want her to maintain her spot as our premier in-and-out skirmisher in the jungle, but without her prancing out of control. We are looking to nerf her ability to stay topped up as well as bring down some of her late game damage. 

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Passive – Dream-Laden Bough

• Heal Against Large Monsters: 39 (+15% AP) ⇒ 39 (+9% AP)

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Q – Blooming Blows

• AP Ratio: 35% AP ⇒ 30% AP

Malphite

 Malphite’s been a frontrunner on the Rift for a while, both in top and in the jungle. We’re actually very happy that he’s found a real audience in the jungle! That said, he’s still overperforming, so we need to bring him down now while still leaving him with two roles to play. To do that, we’re reducing some of his trading and clearing damage while retaining his high durability to physical damage and strong engage power. We’re also hitting jungle a little more as it’s meant to be slightly weaker than his top lane, as opposed to slightly stronger, which is currently the case. 

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W – Thunderclap

• Monster Damage: 2x ⇒ 1.8x

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E – Ground Slam

• Damage: 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+ 60% AP) (+ 40% armor) ⇒ 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+ 60% AP) (+ 40% armor)
• Mana Cost: 50 ⇒ 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70

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R – Unstoppable Force

• Cooldown: 130 / 105 / 80 ⇒ 130 / 115 / 100

Master Yi

 Master Yi has been struggling as a result of the changes in the new season. We’re looking to return some of his power so that he can keep up with other junglers and better live up to his full hyper carry potential. 

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Base Stats

• Armor Growth: 4.2 ⇒ 4.5

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Q – Alpha Strike

• On-Hit Damage Mod: 65% ⇒ 75%

Nunu & Willump

 Nunu & Willump are devouring the competition in the new season, so we’re here to bring them back to a fairer level of power. To do that, we’re reducing a mix of the PvP and PvE power out in their kits to give opponents a fighting chance. 

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Q – Consume

• Cooldown: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 ⇒ 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 seconds

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W – Biggest Snowball Ever!

• Maximum Damage: 180 / 225 / 270 / 315 / 360 (+ 150% AP) ⇒ 150 / 195 / 240 / 285 / 330 (+ 150% AP)

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E – Snowball Barrage

• Damage per Hit: 16 / 24 / 32 / 40 / 48 (+ 15% AP) ⇒ 14 / 21 / 28 / 35 / 42

Sivir

 Sivir has become an extremely dominant ADC pick, regardless of whether or not she buys Essence Reaver, so it’s time to bring her down a notch. Since she has very strong wave control and great damage scaling, we’re looking to bring down her top end a little. 

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Base Stats

• Attack Speed Growth: 2% ⇒ 1.6%
• Armor Growth: 4.45 ⇒ 4.0

Smolder

 As expected Smolder has become much more powerful with the new Essence Reaver and increased minion counts. Since we’ve tuned our systems to our liking for now, it’s time to take stock of individual champions, Smolder being one. We want to make sure Smolder’s strong late-game damage has durability tradeoffs, even when buying the occasional HP item. 

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Base Stats

• Armor Growth: 4.7 ⇒ 4.0

Taliyah

 Taliyah’s been missing from the jungle as of late and the gameplay changes for the new season didn’t help her, quite the opposite actually. To that end we want to get her rocking and rolling in the jungle again so we’re buffing up her mid game clear speed to help her out. 

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Q – Threaded Volley

• Bonus Damage to Monsters : 20 ⇒ 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (Note: Empowered Boulder damage is still increased by 80% to primary target.)

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E – Unraveled Earth

• Monster Damage Modifier: 190% ⇒ 225%

Varus

 Varus isn’t doing very well in the new season so we’re here to lift up his two primary builds, on-hit and AD caster. 

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Q – Piercing Arrow

• Maximum Charge Base Damage: 80 / 150 / 220 / 290 / 360 ⇒ 80 / 160 / 240 / 320 / 400

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W – Blighted Quiver

• On-Hit Base Damage: 6 / 14 / 22 / 30 / 38 ⇒ 8 / 17 / 26 / 35 / 44

Viego

 Viego is performing worse this season due to direct adjustments and overall game-wide changes. As a result he needs some power added back in, both compensating some crit scaling that he lost and generally just making him a better fighter. 

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Base Stats

• Attack Speed Growth: 2.25% ⇒ 2.75%

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Q – Blade of the Ruined King

• Percent HP On-Hit Bonus Crit Damage Mod: 50% ⇒ 70%
• Active Bonus Crit Damage Mod: 50% ⇒ 60%

Zed

 Zed’s recent jungle changes didn’t affect him as strongly as we had anticipated, and players have noticed, resulting in a resurgence of pick and ban rate. We’d like to slow his clear and lower his potency, this time with more accuracy now that we have a better understanding of how to tune him in the jungle. 

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Passive – Contempt for the Weak

• Monster Damage: 1.8x ⇒ 1.2x

Items

 In 16.1, we added nine new items. We’re mostly happy with how they landed in terms of users and use cases, but there’s definitely some balance work to be done here. This patch, we’re adjusting Bandlepipes down and Fiendhunter Bolts plus Hexoptics C44 up as we think they’re the furthest off from where we wanted them to be. At the moment we’re also keeping our eyes on some of the other items/cases like the fast powerspike offered by Dusk and Dawn or the distribution of power on Endless Hunger between damage, haste, and omnivamp. The synergy between Diadem of Songs and Echoes of Helia is very cool, but it’s something we’ll be monitoring to make sure that it doesn’t become the only way to build a champion to exist between the mage and enchanter space. 

Bandlepipes

 The pipes are sounding good on the rift but they’re crowding out other support options due to their low price point. While we’re excited for their newfound popularity, we don’t want them to completely steal the spotlight. 

• Price: 2000 ⇒ 2300 gold
• Combine Cost: 500 ⇒ 800 gold

Fiendhunter Bolts

 Fiendhunter Bolts is doing what it’s supposed to do, but it’s not quite well enough to get picked over its competition. We’re buffing up a little bit all around on the Bolts to help it hold up better against the other Zeal items. 

• Attack Speed: 40% ⇒ 45%
• Damage Multiplier for Guaranteed Critical Strikes: 75% ⇒ 80%
• Bonus True Damage for Critical Strikes: 10% ⇒ 15%

Hexoptics C44

 Hexoptics has found a place in some situational builds for longer range champions, but is a bit too niche and a little weaker than needed for it to function for most of the marksman roster, so we’re giving it a general appreciable AD buff and easing the range requirement. 

• Attack Damage: 50 ⇒ 55
• Distance Required for Max Damage Amp: 700 ⇒ 600

ARAM

Bug Fixes – ARAM & ARAM:Mayhem

• Fixed a bug where Hexgates did not allow players to teleport behind the turret.
• Fixed a bug where players were interrupted when trying to use the Portal’s in Koeshin’s Crossing Map.

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Bug Fixes – ARAM:Mayhem Only

• Fixed a bug where Glass Cannon prevented Bloodthirster from triggering.
• Fixed a bug where Smolder’s Q did not work with ReEnergize.
• Fixed a bug where Flashy and Flash 2 would cancel Fiddlesticks’s R channel.
• Fixed a bug where Empyrean Promise’s range was smaller than intended.
• Fixed a bug where Sword of the Blossoming Dawn’s passive could target the wrong ally.
• Fixed a bug where snowball damage from Snowball Upgrade and The Biggest Snowball was triggering Aurora’s and Zaahen’s passives.
• Fixed a bug where First Strike was not tracking gold correctly in From Beginning to End.

Arena

 We’re taking a swing at the Combo Breaker system with the goal of letting the CC victim break free a little sooner, while also giving the CCer a bit of a reward for triggering Combo Breaker on their opponent. This also lets us revert our previous Mystic Punch changes that we think you’ll find exciting. Last patches Zaahen nerfs were meaningful but Arena is still a bit too favorable for his kit so we’re looking to tap him down while bringing up a few others that are underperforming. 

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Systems

Combo Breaker

 We’ve heard your frustration with long CC chains, and we’re making some changes to Combo Breaker so that it will save you more often, without invalidating tanks and CC heavy comps. Our hope is that this allows the target of CC a little more of a chance to fight back, while giving those dishing out the crowd control a path to victory. 

• Reduced CC chain duration from 5 of the last 7 seconds ⇒ 4 of the last 7 seconds.
• (NEW) When combo breaker triggers you take 10% + 5% for each time this has triggered max HP true damage. This resets on death and on combat end.

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Champions

Zaahen

• E Cooldown 10-8 ⇒ 12-10
• R Armor Pen 10/20/30% ⇒ 5/15/25%

Bel’Veth

• P Stacks per round reduced from 12 ⇒ 10
• Bonus HP reduced from 250/400/550 ⇒ 250 / 350 / 450

Zyra

• Plant Duration reduced from 8s ⇒ 6s

Master Yi

• Q cooldown now starts when the spell ends (just like in URF).

Taric

• Remove P Damage mod || 12.5 – 46.5 (based on level) ⇒ 25 – 93 (based on level)

Gangplank

• P CD 15 ⇒ 10
• R CD 160/140/120 ⇒ 130/100/90

Lulu

• Q: Second bolt damage increased from 50% ⇒ 75%

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Augments

Mystic Punch

 With the above changes to Combo Breaker we feel like we can revert Mystic Punch back to its flat reduction. 

• Reverted to its old version || Now reduces the Cooldown of all abilities by 1.25s On-Hit.

Hold Very Still

• Hold delay 1.25s ⇒ 0.75s
• No longer goes into stealth when you’re unable to move, and stealth is disabled on crowd controlled.

Mad Hatter

• Adaptive Force per hat increased from 10 ⇒ 12

The Brutalizer

• Moved from Gold ⇒ Silver

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Items

Statikk Shiv

• Bounce Range reduced from 1500 ⇒ 750
• Bonus AD ratio reduced from 0.65 ⇒ 0.5

Bandle Pipes

• Attack Speed Aura increased from 30% ⇒ 45%
• MS increased from 20 ⇒ 35

ARURF

 ARURF IS BACK! Enjoy all the rapidfire casting action and gameplay your heart desires as your hop onto a version of the Rift where cooldowns barely exist and level 1 5v5s in the top lane kick off every game! 

Solo/Duo Ranked – Apex Duo Rule Improvements

 Last patch (26.1) we loosened up the Apex Duo restriction rules quite a bit for most of the regions, and we received feedback/concerns that the premade gap could be too wide. To address this, we are updating the rules to reduce the premade gap for Apex Duo, the new rules are: 

• Master can duo with D1 ⇒ GM
• Master cannot duo with D2
• GM can duo with Master ⇒ Challenger
• GM cannot duo with D1
• Challenger can duo with GM ⇒ Challenger
• Challenger cannot duo with Master
• D1 Visible cannot duo with [D1/Master Visible + GM MMR]
• D2 or below visible rank cannot duo with any Master+ MMR
• KR and CN remain unchanged as they are already on stricter rules: KR duo is allowed up to D1 and below, and CN duo is up to Master and below.
• Reminder: as part of the regular seasonal ranked operation, Apex MMR duo restriction will be turned back on in 26.2, after we temporarily disabled it in 26.1 to celebrate season start climbing.

Swiftplay

 After the changes have begun to settle we’ve seen swiftplay game length go down by roughly 6 minutes. Now, with games ending normally close to the same time you’d be able to FF, we’re going to drop the surrender time down as well. 

• Surrender Time: 15 minutes ⇒ 12 minutes

Clash – Summoner’s Rift Demacia Cup

 After a brief delay the Demacia Cup will be happening on Summoner’s Rift this patch! Grab your 5 stacks and get ready to rumble! 

• Registration Begins: January 19 @ 11:00 AM (Local Time)
• Tournament Dates: January 24 and 25 (~4-7 PM Local Time, varies by region)

 If you have any questions or you’re just looking for the full 2026 Clash schedule, make sure to check out our Clash FAQ support page. 

WASD

 We recently enabled WASD everywhere outside of ranked and have been closely monitoring it across all champions and classes. While it has remained within our overall balance expectations, melee champions on WASD have particularly struggled to perform compared to playing with Point & Click controls. As a result, we are removing the WASD specific adjustment to how fast a player can attack while holding down movement keys for all melee champions, while slightly lowering it for most non-Marksman ranged champions. The majority of Marksman champions have landed about where we wanted so we won’t be making any changes to them at this moment. We’ll continue to look at both melee and ranged champions individually to see if they need further fine tuning. 

• Attack Delay While Moving for Melee Champions: Removed
• Attack Delay While Moving for Non-Marksman Ranged Champions: Reduced
• Attack Delay While Moving for Marksman: Unchanged (Note: Ezreal, Kai’Sa, and Kindred were slightly reduced)

Bugfixes & QoL Changes

• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’s melee attack in brush to sometimes not grant him a stack of ferocity.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rangar to be granted a ferocity stack on leap end instead of leap start.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar to not be revealed when starting his leap from Fog of War or brushes.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar to sometimes be knocked straight up when leaping onto a Blast Cone.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’s ferocity to time out in situations where his E had landed.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’s leap to time out immediately after leaving a brush.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’s passive cooldown to visually reset on hitting a plant.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’s leap timing to be inconsistent.
• Fixed a bug that caused all of Rengar’s leap damage when using ultimate to be increased by Axiom Arcanist instead of just the R leap damage.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’s empowered Q to grant attack speed on attack instead of on cast.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’s Q auto attack reset to be inconsistent.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’s Q and empowered Q to deal an incorrect amount of damage to towers.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’s brush leap to trigger energized on leap start as opposed to upon landing on the target.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar, on activating Thrill of the Hunt (R) while inside a brush to not consume Unseen Predator (P)’s buff if he walks into melee range of his enemy target before giving a basic attack command.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’ ultimate to inconsistently grant ferocity when using an attack in melee range.
• Fixed a bug that caused Rengar’s R ability damage to scale with the attacked enemy champion’s attack damage.
• Fixed a bug that caused Teemo’s Q blind to not cause Rengar’s Ferocity empowered attacks to be consumed on use.
• Fixed a bug that caused Serpahine to return to her idle pose when her recall was interrupted by animation pause effects.
• Fixed a bug that caused Camille’s Q2 VFX to not appear correctly.
• Fixed a bug that caused Annie’s passive VFX to sometimes be missing when her passive was ready.
• Fixed a bug that caused Briar’s W, when targeting an enemy Viego, to be ended early via Viego’s EW combo.
• Fixed a bug that caused Briar’s W to end early if a Twitch she was targeting entered camouflage.

Patch 26.02 Patch Release Date:

League of Legends Patch 26.02 is scheduled to launch on January 22, 2026.

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