Patch 26.18

•Bard has been a meta staple for much of the year. Earlier we toned his damage down to what we think are reasonable levels, so this time we are going to target his durability which has also stood out as high given his mobility and long range ultimate utility.

•Cassio has always scaled with skill, but this year has propelled her to new heights of pro play dominance despite being weaker for average players. These adjustments should tap down her laning power, especially in pro where defensive purchases are valued more than raw AP, while giving her back some scaling power. It will still be critical to use empowered E's, but raising her floor lets us be a bit more flexible with tuning.

•As one of our assassins that offer opponents a wider mix of gameplay options, Ekko has found a slightly weak steady state since Dusk & Dawn's update mid year. We believe he has some room for power, especially in mid where he scales slightly worse, without buffing his Hail of Blades pattern.

•Kassadin had a strong start to 2026 but hasn't regained his…footing…since our earlier nerfs. His Q should feel more punchy with his scaling, and we're aiming to provide more early agency through good Riftwalk usage without touching his late game fantasy.

•Yi drew the short end of the stick on the Rageblade bugfix from earlier this year due to his double strike interactions. While the actual impact for most Rageblade users was minor (and we are compensating Rageblade as well for that this patch), he was impacted harder than the other users. He's also just been unable to scale as well as a melee carry compared to his normal power level, so we are also giving him a buff up.

•Nautilus has been sitting near the top of the meta for the entire year, even before our work to bring other tank supports up in power, and we feel nerfing him will open up room for a more variety. That said, we know a lot of his value is in being able to lock down champions effectively, and that'll remain a core strength.

•Seraphine bot has been a source of frustration for opponents for some time, despite a minor nerf a few patches ago. We are nerfing her E's rank up to target this head on, as support Seraphine usually maxes it last (which basically means she never has it maxed as a support.)

•Our MSI changes were effective at pulling her to the forefront of pro play for the first time in years, but unfortunately she's too performant in specific solo queue settings. Our data shows that W damage is a meaningfully larger share of damage in the tiers where she's stronger than desired, so this should help tap her down while still preserving her core fantasies. Her passive is also now better breakpointed to increase reliance on Lost Chapter in early-mid levels, nerfing her higher winrate builds that make do with less mana investment.

•Viego's winrate has been on a downward trend recently, and his players have noticed and begun dropping him. He has a fair bit of room to bring up, both just generally and for the viability of his more bruisery alt build.

•We're using a QoL change here as an opportunity to give Zaahen some love! This might read as a nerf, but Zaahen's Q lined up with his passive in such a way that it meant he always left his resurrection (and GA, Zilean R) with Q on CD, so now he's always happier. His Q2 is also a clean double of his Q1 base damage now.

NEW Cooldown Behavior

•If Q is active, it is now placed on Cooldown immediately upon being put in Resurrection

•Zeri has been slowly climbing in winrate with the recent Runaan's Hurricane and Yun Tal Wildarrows buffs. She now sits very high in winrate compared to her historical resting, which is worrying for a champ that is so skill intensive. As she has also begun showing up in pro, we expect she has a high chance of becoming meta dominant, so we are pulling some power out of her burst and waveclear.

Critical Strike

•150% (+15% IE)

•Reviving all 3 proposed items.

•Adding modern jungle timers.

•Turtle, Duck.

•1. Way too short - 1.87%

•2. Too short - 5.88%

•3. About right - 52.80%

•4. Too long - 26.21%

•5. Way too long - 13.24%

•1. 30 minutes - 16.75%

•2. 40 minutes - 32.68%

•3. 50 minutes - 29.29%

•4. 60 minutes - 11.64%

•5. No preferred maximum - 9.63%

•1. Zz'Rot Portal - 16.16%

•2. Cloak and Dagger - 3.75%

•3. Moonflair Spellblade - 5.11%

•4. All 3 - 60.67%

•5. None - 14.32%

•1. Yes – Add modern jungle timers that are always visible on the minimap - 45.74%

•2. Yes – Only when the scoreboard is open - 23.46%

•3. No – Keep the current minimap - 30.79%

•1. Yes - 55.03%

•2. No - 44.97%

•1. Significantly too snowbally - 8.89%

•2. Slightly too snowbally - 24.99%

•3. About right - 48.82%

•4. Slightly not snowbally enough - 12.24%

•5. Significantly not snowbally enough - 5.06%

•1. Yes, I like them - 69.72%

•2. No, I don't like them - 30.28%

•1. Turtle, Turtle - 11.31%

•2. Turtle, Duck- 52.09%

•3. Duck, Turtle - 28.39%

•4. Duck, Duck - 8.21%