LoL Patch 26.20 Preview: More Lillia buffs, Rocketbelt receives another adjustment

The 2026 World Championship season kicks off with the release of Patch 26.20. Several staple champions will be nerfed, different botlaners have been buffed, and Hextech Rocketbelt received another change

Patch 26.20 will hit the live servers on October 7th

Riot Games has released the notes for League of Legends Patch 26.20. Per Riot Games’ official schedule, the patch is expected to arrive on live servers on Wednesday, October 7th, 2026. Worlds 2026 will be played on this patch, so these changes could significantly shift the meta at the season’s most important tournament. Sylas and Varus had changes scheduled for this patch, but were notably pulled from the final release.

Jungle Diana, Kennen, Kindred, Lillia, Lucian, Mordekaiser, Neeko, Smolder, Tahm Kench, Vayne, and Swain will receive direct buffs that address several identified weaknesses on this patch. Several proplay stables, like Ambessa, Ashe, Cassiopeia, K’Sante, and Yunara, plus a couple of items, Runaan’s Hurricane and Experimental Hexplate, will receive a nerf heading into the World Championship. Finally, the quest to find a healthy state for Hextech Rocketbelt continues as it will receive an adjustment.

Patch 26.20

Buffs

Champions: Diana, Kennen, Kindred, Lillia, Lucian, Mordekaiser, Neeko, Smolder, Tahm Kench, Vayne, and Swain

Nerfs

Champions: Ambessa, Ashe, Cassiopeia, K’Sante, and Yunara

System: Runaan’s Hurricane and Experimental Hexplate

Adjustments

System: Hextech Rocketbelt

Read more about League of Legends changes on the X account of Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison.

Rocketbelt

We're adjusting Rocketbelt to be much more about the go in aspect of it and less power budget in the haste
The haste is adding a lot to the repeatability for mages in particular, but also as a burst oriented item, it means that the item broadly isn't creating the right tradeoffs with other items like Cosmic Drive, etc. that should be purchased for the higher haste values

Lillia

Lillia's changes last patch were a good start, but we feel we can go a bit further on the Sleep changes
Overall, we want to do a better job of balancing Lillia between skill levels and Lillia typically struggles at the higher skill brackets, especially after we made her early clears a lot weaker
Average play Lillias often don't get the most out of her Sleep duration, whereas higher skill players are much better at coordinating around it

Diana JG

Diana mid is in a mostly fine spot, but Diana Jungle, which plays more like a bruiser and builds a lot more health needs a little more help
Overall, we're not looking to add a ton of power to Diana as she does get a bit statchecky when strong

Neeko

Neeko support (and Mid) have been a bit worse for wear
Neeko support has become a lot weaker, especially at the higher levels of play after we made adjustments to her Clone and its interaction with vision
We think Neeko could use a little more power as a result

Smolder

Smolder has also been on the weaker side after we made a bunch of adjustments to Black Cleaver and Deathfire Touch several months ago
We're continuing to add more power to him, but into his Crit builds as his Bruiser builds have worse counterplay given his scaling profile

Vayne

With the nerfs to experimental Hexplate this patch (for her Top lane), we feel like we can give Vayne a little power in bot lane
She still has builds in Top that don't build Hexplate, but we're more OK with those as she isn't as durable while dishing out a lot of damage

Yunara Ashe

We've added an Ashe nerf into the patch as she is one of the dominant pairings on the patch, even with the Hurricane nerf (as a lot of her builds don't build it)
We're also adding a moderate nerf in for Yunara as her level 1 laning is a bit too strong given how well she scales - We expect after this and the Lucian buffs for the bot meta to be in a much better spot

Pulled Changes (Varus, Sylas)

We pulled Varus and Sylas from the patch
Varus because we feel like we need larger work on him to make his builds more satisfying and make sense
Sylas, because we don't feel comfortable changing him overall without messing up his role balance, especially given the Protobelt changes in the patch

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