The
League of Legends 26.20 Patch Notes are here. Following the
official schedule, Patch 26.20 is expected to drop on
Wednesday, October 7, 2026. This is Riot’s final patch before Worlds 2026 begin on October 15.
Rocketbelt is being repositioned as a pure “go-in” tool for mages, trading some ability haste and repeatability for stronger engage utility, a shift intended to reduce the item’s role in making mages too durable and universally strong at the highest levels of play. Experimental Hexplate receives a further nerf to curb its dominance on ranged top laners, which in turn allows Riot to buff Vayne for botlane without reigniting concerns about durable ranged tops. Stormrazor’s Hurricane tweak is slightly rolled back after being deemed overbuffed, and Yunara faces a moderate nerf to tone down her oppressive level 1 laning despite her strong scaling.
On the champion side, Lucian gains generic power to offset the heavy nerfs to his enchanter supports like Milio in patch 26.19, restoring some of his early kill threat that had diminished after recent support changes. Vayne gets a targeted buff for her botlane presence, carefully balanced against the Hexplate nerf to keep her top lane impact in check. Sylas receives a midlane-focused buff that reshapes his power distribution without significantly affecting his jungle performance. Meanwhile, previously planned changes to Varus and full-scale Sylas reworks were pulled. The patch also hints at further tweaks to long-standing pro staples like Ambessa, Cassiopeia, and K’Sante, with Cassio’s recent changes having undershot in professional play despite working well in solo queue.
The Full Patch 26.20 Preview. Credit: @RiotPhreak on X.
Buffs
Champions: Diana, Kennen, Kindred, Lillia, Lucian, Mordekaiser, Neeko, Smolder, Tahm Kench, Vayne, Swain
Nerfs
Champions: Ambessa, Ashe, Cassiopeia, K’Sante, Yunara
System: Hexplate (ranged), Hurricane
Adjustments
Champions: 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
