League of Legends Solo Queue Tier Lists for Patch 26.14:
The headline story of 26.14 is the wave of nerfs aimed at last patch's most dominant picks: Locke, Senna, and Seraphine all took real number cuts, yet all three are still performing well enough to hold their God Tier slots for now. Top lane saw the bigger shakeup, with Mordekaiser and Teemo climbing into God Tier as Garen's true damage got trimmed down and he settled into Tier 1 instead. Nocturne and Briar have joined a returning Nasus at the top of the jungle, and Tristana joins Senna and Seraphine in a three-wide God Tier bot lane. Thresh remains the most consistently dominant support in the game.
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
TIER LIST ANALYSIS
SEASON 16 - PATCH 26.14
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
TIER LIST ANALYSIS
SEASON 16 - PATCH 26.14God Tier List
Highest Influence | Good In Almost Every Situation | Easiest to Gain LP With
Patch 26.14 Changes At a Glance
- Buffs: Corki, Mordekaiser, Nami, Yunara
- Nerfs: Garen, Jayce, Locke, Senna, Seraphine
- Tweaks: Azir (no stat changes; item and rune interaction fixes)
Read the full Patch 26.14 patch notes recap for every number changed.
Ripple Effects by Role
Top Lane
Garen
Mordekaiser
TeemoGaren gets reeled in, and top lane goes looking for its next bully
Garen is one of the most played top laners in the game, and his ultimate lost real true damage this patch (150/250/350 down to 125/200/275), trimming the exact tool that makes him such a dominant lane bully. Mordekaiser's own buff (his E hits harder, his ult steals more stats) explains part of his rise directly. Teemo didn't get a single number touched, and he doesn't need a direct answer to Garen specifically to explain his own climb; he's already a strong pick on his own merits, and with the lane's reigning bully reeled in, players looking for the next one to fill that role are finding him right there waiting.
Jungle
Locke
NocturneLocke loses his shield, and Nocturne's dive lands harder
Locke's W lost a meaningful chunk of its grey health shield cap this patch, cutting into the exact tool that let him survive a fight once he was caught out of position. Nocturne wasn't touched at all, but his global ultimate has always been about showing up the instant a lane is vulnerable, and a mid laner with a weaker shield to fall back on is a softer target for exactly that kind of gank.
Nasus
XerathBlue Buff just got a lot better for mages, and that helps more than just the jungler
Blue Buff's scaling Ability Haste is a straightforward power boost for anyone leaning on cooldowns and mana, which is exactly the profile of a caster more than anything else. Nasus was never mentioned in the patch notes, but almost nothing in the game wants raw Q uptime more than he does late game, so a change built around rewarding that kind of champion lines up with his kit almost by accident. The jungler doesn't have to keep the buff either; it can be shared with an ally, and a mana-hungry mid laner is the most common recipient. Xerath's own late-game power leans hard on exactly the kind of Ability Haste this change adds, so a shared Blue Buff is worth more to him than it used to be too.
Nasus
Lee SinNasus's whole game plan happens to counter the jungle's most common opponent
Lee Sin is by a wide margin the most played jungler in the game right now, and his whole identity is early pressure: skirmishing, invading, and forcing fights before his own damage falls off later in the game. Nasus is built to shrug that window off entirely rather than fight through it; he can farm safely without needing to contest those early skirmishes, and once his stacks pile up, Lee Sin's early lead stops mattering the moment Nasus can one-shot him in a straight fight. Neither champion moved this patch, but having a reliable late-game answer to the single most common jungler in the game is exactly the kind of matchup math that supports a scaling pick holding God Tier rather than getting run over by the meta.
Mid Lane
LockeXerathMid's biggest all-in threat gets reeled in, and the safest poke mage in the game gets safer
Locke is a mobile, aggressive mage who punishes a stationary target for standing still too long, and this patch took a direct hit to exactly the tool that let him survive the trade back (his W's shielding). Xerath, who has zero mobility and lives entirely off outranging people, wasn't touched once. He didn't get safer because Riot buffed him; he got safer because the one champion in his own lane most likely to punish him for standing still got weaker.
AzirNo stat changes, but his items finally work the way they should
Azir's patch note is a pure bug fix pass. Liandry's Torment, Blackfire Torch, Scorch, and Hextech Alternator now all apply 100% of their on-hit damage through his soldiers instead of 50%, Conqueror applies two stacks per hit instead of one, and Press the Attack finally applies to his actual primary target. None of that shows up as a number buff anywhere, but it's a real damage increase for anyone building him the way his kit wants to be built.
Bot Lane
Senna
Seraphine
TristanaReel in the headliners, and whoever's left standing looks a lot scarier
Senna and Seraphine were this patch's two most obvious nerf targets. Senna's crit damage and healing ratios both got trimmed specifically to hit her ADC build harder than her support build, and Seraphine's Q ability power ratio dropped from 50% to 40%. Tristana's kit wasn't touched anywhere in the patch notes. She doesn't need to be buffed to rise when the two champions she was competing with both got reeled in; her jump-reset burst just looks more dangerous by comparison now that the field around her got weaker.
CorkiA direct buff aimed squarely at his late game
Corki's attack damage growth went up and his R's recharge-time reduction from autos scales further with crit chance than before, both changes explicitly aimed at giving him "more firepower later in the game," which lines up with his own rise into Tier 2 this patch. Unlike most of this list, this one's a straight line: buffed kit, better champion.
Support
ThreshThresh doesn't need the patch notes to stay dominant
Thresh wasn't mentioned anywhere in Patch 26.14, not a buff, not a nerf, not even a tweak, and he's still the single most played support in the game by a wide margin. That's not a coincidence so much as how support power tends to work: his value comes from hook range, engage timing, and peel decisions, not item ratios or base numbers that get tuned up and down every patch. While the entire bot lane got reshuffled around him, his own job barely changed at all, which is exactly why he doesn't need to react to it, and why the player base hasn't stopped picking him regardless of what's happening to his ADC.
Looking Ahead: Bot Lane Isn't Done Moving
Senna and Seraphine both still hold God Tier this patch even after taking direct cuts, and Locke holds on to
God Tier Mid despite this being his second consecutive patch of nerfs, all while staying one of the most played
mid laners in the game either way. That pattern is worth watching more than the current snapshot is: repeated
tuning on the same names usually means the metagame hasn't fully caught up to how strong they actually are yet,
not that the nerfs missed. Neither Senna nor Seraphine dropped a single tier this patch, but if the trimming
continues next patch the way it has for two patches running, the champions one tier down are the ones to
watch. 
Jinx, Xayah, Ziggs, and Smolder sit at the top of Tier 1 right now without a single change of their own this
patch. Jinx in particular is already one of the most played ADCs in the game even before any of this trimming
caught up to her, which is exactly the position a rising ADC is in right before a gap starts closing.
For the full, current tier list with every role and every tier, see the League of Legends Tier List hub. For every number changed this patch, see the full Patch 26.14 patch notes recap.
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