The
League of Legends 26.12 Patch Notes are here. Following the
official schedule, Patch 26.12 is expected to drop on
Wednesday, June 10, 2026. This patch continues to bring many changes while we are only one path away from MSI 2026.
Patch 26.12 focuses on opening up the meta across multiple roles while toning down a few dominant picks. Toplane receives targeted buffs to diversify matchups: Aatrox is strengthened in favorable situations, Gwen regains early laning power to better answer tank picks like K’Sante and Sion, and Jax gets more early trade consistency, especially into short-trade or ranged matchups. The goal is to encourage more counterpicks and reduce rigid priority picks.
In midlane, Riot continues to adjust outliers: Ryze is nerfed for his overly safe and dominant early trading patterns, while Hwei receives power back in his utility to reinforce his flexible identity after previous over-nerfs. Tristana also gets mana-related adjustments to restore her pushing power, particularly in midlane where roaming-heavy metas have hurt her.
On the system and broader meta side, Riot is addressing several high-impact outliers. Lethality Varus is nerfed to reduce oppressive poke and shift power toward on-hit builds, aiming to open botlane diversity. AP Xin Zhao is adjusted to reduce uninteractive healing patterns in lane and late-game sustain. Teleport is reworked to reduce short-range shield abuse in pro play while preserving its cross-map identity. Yuumi receives compensation buffs following indirect nerfs from Moonstone changes.
The Full Patch 26.12 Preview. Credit: @RiotPhreak on X.
Buffs
Champions: Yuumi, Jax, Gwen, Aatrox, Hwei, Syndra, Tristana, Sylas
Nerfs
Champions: Xin Zhao, Nocturne, Lee Sin, Orianna, Ryze, Varus
Adjustments
Systems: Toplane Teleport
Read more about
League of Legends changes on the X account of
Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison.
Cassiopeia
- We pulled Cassiopeia nerfs from the 26.12 patch, but intend to nerf her in 26.13
- We still want to work on a changelist that preserves some of her strengths and the things that her players love about her
Top Lane Meta
- Aatrox has been generally a little on the weaker side, especially for higher levels of play and so these changes are targeted at rewarding him for matchups where he's already favored and able to get sweet spot hits off more reliably
- Gwen is also being buffed a bit with her early laning strength (which we walked back pretty significantly in an earlier patch). With K'Sante rising in priority (from DHelm buff and other meta shifts), we're also positioning Gwen as a good pick into these tanky Sion and K'Sante style picks
- Similarly, Jax is getting more throughput in early trades both in regular matchups and in some of the matchups that favor short trades (eg. ranged matchups)
- Overall, we expect the Top meta to have a few more fringe and counterpick options available
Hwei
- Some of the slow stacking changes to Hwei were a lot more power impacting (negatively) than the buffs that he received in the positive direction
- As a result we're adding a bit more power back into his utility aspects that allow him to be a jack of all trades, rather than just being a master of none
Tristana
- Tristana, has a bit of room in bot lane and especially in the midlane where changes to the role quests (that favor a bit more utility/roaming > farming) have been a bit unfavorable there
- One of the changes that impacted her negatively was adding a mana cost to Q and so we're adding a bit of that back to give her a bit more pushing power
- This is especially impactful because of Tristana's low base and scaling mana pool
Ryze
- Ryze is a bit too durable, especially in the early game and he often wins lanes/gets push by simply autoing champions and hitting them with guaranteed damage through W's, E's and autos
- Ryze will still be on the durable side, especially with his early catalyst purchases, but these nerfs are intended to make him work a bit harder for it
Lee Sin
- Changes to Lee are targeted at bringing down some of his damage through both guaranteed means (as he is more likely to get on top of people with more access to W hops) and unreliable means (Q hits)
- He received a pretty strong net buff in the highest levels of play, more than the winrate movement would indicate
Lethality Varus
- Lethality Varus continues to be one of the strongest bot lane champions and also acts as a meta suppressant
- We're attempting to open up the meta a bit by moving more of his power budget into attacking builds and also nerfing the throughput of his Q poke in the AD heavy builds
Teleport
- Especially in Pro play recently, we've been seeing some usages of Teleport at very short ranges to prepare quite large shields for tactical usages in combats (such as objective fights)
- While this is a cool usage of the spell, it's a pretty unintuitive behavior and we want to skew its usage to be better to use for its cross-map and "joining fights" capabilities
- As a result, we're reducing the duration of the shield and increasing the shield amount by a bit to compensate
Yuumi
- Last patch, we had a change to Moonstone that fixed it being doubly impacted by either Grievous Wounds or Heal and Shield Power
- Yuumi is one of the few champions who has Heal Shield power baked into her kit and so she was disproportionately impacted
- As a result, we're compensation buffing her
Mid Meta
- For average play, AP Xin Zhao has been tearing up the rift with a lot of his power budget in healing, especially in the early lane creating some pretty uninteractive lane states
- We're tapping this down, as well as some of the top end healing in the later game
- Otherwise, a few adjustments to the champions who have a bit of room in Solo Queue like Hwei, Sylas, Syndra and nerfs to some of the top end like Cassio (who really benefited from Deathfire Touch being added) and Ryze and Ori who have been strong for pretty much the whole season
