The
League of Legends 26.14 Patch Notes are here. Following the
official schedule, Patch 26.14 is expected to drop on
Wednesday, July 15, 2026. It follows MSI with a continued focus on stabilizing the meta, but one of the central discussions this cycle is the place of mages in the botlane.
Riot is clearly taking a firm stance in favor of keeping mage bot picks viable, framing them as a key part of a healthy ecosystem rather than an outlier to remove. While their win rates remain high, the explanation lies in their accessibility and lower mastery curve compared to traditional ADCs, making them more forgiving and consistent in average play. At the same time, marksmen still dominate in pick rate and scale harder into late-game.
A first nerf for Locke
Beyond that, the patch trims several dominant picks and system outliers without overcorrecting. Champions like Garen, Jayce, Senna, Seraphine, and Locke are nerfed to reduce early-game pressure and snowball reliability, while Corki, Mordekaiser, and Nami receive light buffs. Azir also gets a wave of bug fixes to clean up his post-rework interactions.
On the item side, Hextech Protobelt and Protoplasm Harness are targeted to reduce mobility creep and reinforce clearer weaknesses, alongside minor system adjustments like a Blue Buff buff. Overall, Riot is aiming to preserve strategic diversity, especially in botlane, while toning down the most oppressive tools coming out of MSI.
The Full Patch 26.14 Preview. Credit: @RiotPhreak on X.
Buffs
Champions: Azir (Bugfixes), Corki, Mordekaiser, Nami, Yunara
System: Blue Buff
Nerfs
Champions: Garen, Jayce, Locke, Senna, Seraphine
System: Hextech Protobelt, Immortal Path, Jack of all trades, Protoplasam Harness
Read more about
League of Legends changes on the X account of
Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison.
Mages Bot
- We've pulled brand from the patch given the concerns around mages bot
- That said, we know this is a contentious topic, and I'll give some high level thoughts on how we see the situation (and more detailed thoughts in the patch rundown)
- We see mages bot as creating healthy diversity for the bot lane experience overall (roughly 4:1 ratio of traditional marksmen to mages), even though for some traditional marksmen, they can be quite frustrating
- It's important that players experience a mix of games at high intensity (eg. Playing ADC against Rengar/Talon + mages bot) and also games that are more comfortable and low threat (maybe Ivern jungle) as it creates the variety and flow state that keeps the game fun
- Too much intensity or too little intensity would make the game unfun in the long run as you'd never really feel those spikes of cortisol and triumph (which is one of the reasons assassins need to be strong for example) or be constantly stressed
- Marksmen are still the most popular bot carry in both pro and regular play
- Mages bot also need to be viable picks to allow teams to undoom themselves in champ select for an ad mid pick like Zed/Yone/Yasuo
- That said, mages bot have pretty high winrates (often the highest), so aren't they overpowered?
- The winrates don't really tell the full story, but they are definitely strong for several reasons. Mages, especially simple ones like brand, Veigar or Swain for example have quite shallow mastery curves (usually only gaining 3-4% after playing ~50 games and also starting very high on game 1) in addition to not being deeply played in bot lane (ie. many mage bot players haven't progressed the mastery curve that far when you encounter them and the mastery curve is not that steep) -> a similar effect to if you played autofilled Malphite top (high skill floor)
- ADCs by contrast are typically harder to play but also reward that mastery depth more, meaning their winrates are relatively suppressed compared to mages bot
- I'm not saying that mages at high levels of mastery/skill are weak (see them in pro play or high elo ranked), but mainly saying that winrates don't tell the full story and we see them as relatively similar in power level overall, just often more forgiving and can be more tolerant of matchup
- ADCs also have accelerated 3 item spikes in this season (compared to the other roles) due to bot quest, which also presents an interesting strategic balancing point (the mages a bit stronger on early item spikes and weaker on later ones)
- Another balancing aspect of mages bot is that they typically represent a composition tradeoff. Eg. Orianna + Yunara/Lulu botlane and win on 2/3 items or AD mid plus Ziggs + engage bot and need to end the game fast
- If struggling with mages bot, champs like Ezreal/Sivir/Zeri can be quite effective against them (dodge skills and have strong 2/3 item spikes and out scale)
Azir
- Players have been complaining about a bunch of bugged functionality for Azir ever since we made the changes to make on hits work on him
- The team has fixed the vast majority of these bugs, eg. Things like jungle monsters not getting shuffled, PTA not working, conqueror stacks, etc.
- Thanks to all your bug reports in helping track these down and keep them coming!
Locke
- Locke has had a really resonant start, players have resonated with his executes, resets and stack into burst gameplay
- He's shown to be a little skill skewed in the same way that a Katarina, Akshan or other resetty, roamy champions might be, but not overly so
- that said he's still a bit strong when account for mastery growth and true power level
- His level of early game snowballing is a bit too high right now
- That said, we think his damage is appropriate if he needs to work a little harder to access it. As a result we're nerfing his waveclear (currently) to hit his ability to access it so reliably
- We know that one of the things that players find confronting is his damage output right now, but we think it's valuable to retain these types of unique edges in the game for champions
Proto Harness
- When looking at our jungle nasus nerfs, we ended up deciding that a better nerf would be to target proto harness
- Other users like shen jungle are also pretty strong, so we think pulling the champ nerfs and nerfing the item instead is a better direction and helps retain the power level of top nasus for example
Systems
- Rocket belt has been one of the premier items for mages (especially immobile) at the highest level for several months now.
- We like and embrace this type of innovation, but it's also providing a bit too much versatility and removing a core weakness of these champs (ability to be killed), so forcing a bit stronger of a tradeoff
- The other major systems change for this patch is a nerf to the mid boots upgrade for gluttonous greaves
- It's adding a nice texture for playing say, mid vs top riven, but it's also the strongest performing boot in that lane and lacks clear counterplay
