Riot Games has released the patch notes for League of Legends Patch 26.21. According to Riot Games' official schedule, the patch is expected to hit live servers on Wednesday, October 21, 2026. However, it will not affect Worlds, which will already be underway on Patch 26.20 and remain on it for the rest of the competition.
More than a dozen champions will receive buffs, while around a dozen others will be nerfed. Five additional champions will receive adjustments, alongside four items. With champions such as Azir, Orianna, and Ryze receiving buffs in this patch, some fans have jokingly dubbed it the "T1 Patch." Unfortunately for the three-time reigning world champions, these buffs are coming one patch too late.
Buffs
Champions: Azir, Darius, Miss Fortune, Nunu & Willump, Orianna, Ryze, Sion, Taliyah, Vel’Koz, Xin Zhao, Zyra
Item: Dawncore
Nerfs
Champions: Caitlyn, Jinx, Lee Sin, Nidalee, Qiyana, Rammus, Tristana, Viktor, Wukong, Yone
Items: Bastion Breaker, Gluttonous Greaves
Adjustments
Champions: Locke, Varus, Taric, Twisted Fate, Zaahen
Item: Hubris
Read more about
League of Legends changes on the X account of
Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison.
Bastionbreaker
- We’re trying a pretty spicy change here to give Sabotage an infinite duration to help it serve its strategic niche better
- This will also help us give these type of strategic outputs more value (which are often hard to put enough power in to be satisfying) and make Bastionbreaker holistically balanced without being overstatted
Viktor
- Overall, we don’t really think Viktor needs a major nerf here and the pattern of his long range hard to dodge poke is always going to be frustrating
- We think that’s a pattern that’s worth preserving for Viktor and something that his players really enjoy about him
- We think making his weakness more apparent (his inability to move around the map and weakness to ganks), while preserving his strengths is an appropriate way to keep players holistically happy without reducing Viktor’s satisfaction overall
Yone
- We’re opting to nerf Yone this patch, but not Yasuo, as while Yasuo rates highly on banrate, Yone is showing up significantly higher on our frustration surveys
- Players are also more likely to play against a competent Yone than a Yasuo, so that factors into the overall perception of how powerful he is
Locke
- Locke has overall landed pretty well
- One area we think is a bit off is his mana costs and how little consequences there are when he messes up
- We do like his ability to have pop off moments and really high burst when he can meet his success conditions, but it should feel more risky when he messes up (eg. poor usage of W’s and spells in general)
- We’re intending this to be an relatively power neutral adjustment and incentivizing Locke to rank up E second and have a higher amount of power in landing E1 (his W second is more powerful in many cases)
Varus
- The goals of the Varus changes are to reduce power in his lower gameplay W max builds, while moving power into his Q max builds which at least have something to dodge
- This is also an attempt to make Varus Top vs Varus Bot more reasonable to play against for Top laners
Caitlyn
- Caitlyn has been one of the more frustrating champions for average players
- That’s not inherently a bad thing, but we do think something about her strength and weakness profile is a bit off; in particular how much top end burst she can do with little warning
- We want to move a bit of the power out of the some of the headshot damage and into her Q which can be more understandable and also make Q more worth casting later in the game
Xin Zhao
- Since the nerfs to Sundered Sky and repeated collateral nerfs to his AP build, Xin has been a little worse for wear
- So we’re giving him a bit of power back for those attack oriented builds
Lee Sin
- Lee has been a little on the stronger side for a while after doing the adjustments to him in 26.10; we’re taking a bit of power out of how mobile he is (don’t think it’s super far off)
- We think some of his point and click damage is a little on the higher end for how reliable it is and want a bit more of its value to be in using it to reposition enemies
Tristana
- Tristana’s level 1 power is a bit too strong, especially given its hyper synergy with Lethal Tempo
- When Trist is succeeding, we think it’s a bit more appropriate from Rocket Jumping on opponents rather than just low gameplay outpushing enemies
Azir
- As a champion who doesn’t regularly purchase a mana item, regular players often struggle to manage their mana properly, whereas higher skill players are already handling this well
Ryze
- We’re looking to give Ryze stronger late game capabilities, so long as he’s able to get through his early laning phase
- Right now, he is able to get a bit too much throughput from how much his EQs do in the early game
Sion
- This is a high fantasy buff, but we’ll be monitoring the magnitude to see if it’s over
- One of the most fun things on Sion is when you ram your full powered R into someone
Systems
- Gluttonous Greaves is proving a bit too strong, especially on Marksmen; and so we're tapping it down a bit
- Hubris is also being nerfed for Ranged and a buff to melee, as it is mostly strong on champs like Jhin and MF, but suppressed for those other champions
- Bastionbreaker's stats are a bit too strong in particular (the lethality) and so we're moving some of the power out of that and into the anti-structure/objective passive
- Broadly, the item is too good at both killing people and giving assassins wider game impact (we're happier with it if it's purchaseable because of the latter)
- Dawncore is just a weak item that doesn't get purchased, except in situations where the player is already giga winning; it's not fulfiling its spot as a desirable capstone item for enchanters at this tuning
Lee Sin/Qiyana Nerfs
- Lee and Qiyana have been 2 of the strongest junglers, especially in higher levels of play and especially in certain regions
- We're nerfing here, but also (especially in Qiyana's case) being mindful of not double nerfing too hard with the Bastionbreaker nerfs also in the patch
Yasuo/Yone
- Yasuo and Yone have been picking up Shieldbow first a lot more and it's been looking pretty strong on them
- Overall, we're pretty supportive of this as feeling like their passive can kick in early feels great for their fantasy
- Secondly, having access to early lifesteal in lane, (eg. with vamp scepter for bork) makes their lane play lower quality
- Finally, it's good to open up structural weaknesses for them before they complete first item, but allow them to be quite strong when they get there (and have power in durability vs straight up "kill you power")
Taric/TF QoL
- Taric is getting back the ability to have Q and R apply to untargetable allies
- TF ult now reveals untargeable units (eg. Yuumi W, Master Yi Q, Hexgate, etc.)
Overall Approach
- This patch, we're trying to strike a good balance between preserving strengths of champions, while redistributing power budget for champions into places that might be more appreciable power for them
- In some of these cases (like with Locke), trying to make things that are meant to be more costly (eg. mana costs) appropriately costly
- Or otherwise try to expose certain weaknesses for champions in order to allow their strengths to be holistically reasonable
