League of Legends Solo Queue Tier Lists for Patch 26.19:
Riot's first pro-focused round before the Worlds patch lands on seventeen champions, and exactly one of them sits in our God Tier: Nasus, who got nerfed. Top lane is where this patch actually points, between that nerf and a Teleport cooldown that comes down for the role quest version and the upgraded one alike. Further down, Nocturne loses twenty seconds off his ultimate and the support item trades early health for regeneration, which hands the melee engage supports a better laning phase.
SEASON 16 - PATCH 26.19 Changelog
Patch 26.19 Tier List Predictions
Patch 26.19 Changes At a Glance
Buffs: Aatrox, Aphelios, Aurora, Draven, Elise, Fiora, Kha'Zix, Lillia, Master Yi, Volibear
Nerfs: Nasus, Nocturne, Poppy, Rumble, Ryze, Vi
Tweaks: Lucian
One item line moved: World Atlas and Runic Compass swap their early flat health for health regeneration. Teleport got cheaper on the clock for top lane, on the free role quest version and the upgraded one. The rest of the patch is League Classic, which gets Graves back along with Fizz, Nami and Nautilus (pre-rework Graves, the bot lane marksman, not the jungler), plus another pass on Arena's Augments. Full patch notes recap here.
Where We Think Each Role Lands
Top Lane
Nasus is the only God Tier champion Riot touched this patch, and they nerfed him. Siphoning Strike [Q] loses ten bonus damage at every rank. Late, with four hundred stacks on the bar, that's rounding (nobody has ever lost a game because a cannon minion took 110 instead of 120). At rank one it's a quarter of the bonus, and Riot wrote the goal down plainly: more vulnerability early, and a bit longer before he comes online. He's led our top lane board all month. We have him dropping to the top of Tier 1.
Garen and Malphite move up a seat each without doing anything, which is pretty much how top lane promotions tend to happen. Teemo takes the third, straight off the top of Tier 1, where the notes never mention him.
The other top lane change isn't a champion at all. The role quest's free Teleport comes down thirty seconds and the upgraded Unleashed version comes down thirty more, top lane only (the non-top Unleashed cooldown is unchanged, and Riot wrote that into the notes as its own line). Riot named split pushing as the target, so the champions who win games by being somewhere else are the ones this reaches. Yorick and Tryndamere climb inside Tier 1. Fiora collects it twice over, since her health growth and her ultimate's heal both went up in the same patch, so we have her out of Tier 3 and into Tier 2.
Aatrox and Volibear both got help and neither got enough of it to leave Tier 2. Aatrox's chains come back faster at the low ranks and his dash heals more per point of bonus health. Volibear's lightning finally scales off attack damage, which is the build Riot has been nudging along all year (his passive scales better with ability power too, so both halves of him moved).
Jungle
God Tier jungle is untouched. Briar, Rammus, Cho'Gath and Shyvana are all absent from the notes, and all four hold.
Nocturne is the nerf. Paranoia [R] goes up twenty seconds at rank one and ten at rank three, and Riot named map presence as what they were aiming at. That much lost uptime on the one button that makes him a threat two lanes away costs a tier. We have him in Tier 2.
Lillia's is the change I keep coming back to. Half a second more sleep is a long time in a teamfight, and two points of armor keeps her alive through the part of her pattern that needs her standing in traffic (Riot's note says her pattern requires her to get in danger's way, which is a fair description of playing Lillia). She climbs inside Tier 1.
Elise clears faster and hits harder on every attack, which is the pair of problems that had her in Tier 3 to begin with. Up to Tier 2. Kha'Zix goes the same direction for a different reason: his evolved dash now covers a hundred more units, which turns a lot of near misses into kills. Top of Tier 2.
Vi loses two base attack damage and a sixth of her passive shield, and gets attack damage growth back in exchange. Worse first ten minutes, better twentieth. Granted, she finishes a long game with more attack damage than she used to have, but the shield is what gets her through the first clear. She slides inside Tier 2 rather than out of it.
The rest of the jungle notes don't move anything here. Poppy's clear nerf is aimed at a role we don't rank her in, and Rumble isn't in the top three tiers anywhere. Master Yi's change strips an ability haste penalty that outlived the item it was written for, and Riot themselves called its Summoner's Rift impact minimal (the note goes on to name Mayhem and Arena, which is who it's really for), so he holds.
Mid Lane
Malzahar, Fizz and Xerath are all missing from the notes, so the top of mid should read the same next week. Somehow this role came out of a pro-focused patch without a scratch on its top three.
Nasus sits second in Tier 1 mid and takes the same nerf he takes up top. He slides a few places and stays in the tier.
Aurora is the buff worth writing down. Ten more base damage on her waveclear at every rank, and her ultimate's rift holds open half a second longer at rank one. Riot's own note is that Rocketbelt's nerfs cost her power and nothing has been handed back since last year. Tier 3 to Tier 2.
Ryze and Lucian both got mid-lane-shaped changes, and we rank neither of them in mid, so nothing moves for either. Ryze in particular reads as a Worlds patch in miniature: damage off the flux bonus on his Q, armor growth up, a trade that leaves solo queue ahead (Riot said as much, calling it help with his bad solo queue matchups).
Bot Lane
Jinx, Caitlyn and Tristana hold. No marksman in God Tier appears in the notes, and nothing a marksman builds changed.
Aphelios has the real case for moving. All five weapons got something, which is the shape of buff that reads small five separate times and turns out to be one decent one. Riot's stated reasoning is that an enchanter meta should already suit a hypercarry and he still isn't showing up. Tier 3 to Tier 2.
Draven gets two base attack damage, on the grounds that role quest gold made his Adoration stacks count for less than they used to. Small, and fairly reasoned. He climbs inside Tier 3.
Lucian is the adjustment. His passive's empowered on-hit falls from 15 plus 20% of his attack damage to 5 plus 15%, and his Q picks up between ten and thirty base damage to pay for it. The passive is the half of his kit that only exists next to a support, and the Q buff is pointed at mid, where he isn't on our board. Basically, bot Lucian covers the bill for mid Lucian. We have him sliding inside Tier 3 bot.
Support
One item line does most of the work in this role. World Atlas and Runic Compass give up their early flat health for a much bigger regeneration bonus, and both items finish in the same place once they're fully stacked. What actually changes is the first fifteen minutes. Riot said who it's for: melee supports, whose higher base regeneration turns that percentage into more health.
Leona and Thresh are the melee half of God Tier support and both come out of it better than they went in. Morgana keeps her seat and takes the other side of the trade (thirty health gone at the first tier and forty at the second, which is real in a level two all-in and irrelevant by the fifteenth minute).
The room underneath is where this gets interesting. Alistar, Braum, Blitzcrank and Nautilus all sit in the middle of Tier 1, and one item line gives all four of them a better fifteen minutes than the enchanters they're stacked against. To be fair, an item line is a small thing to move four champions on. It's also the only thing that moved in this role.
Poppy's nerf lands on her jungle clear. The cap Riot lowered applies to minions and monsters, so nothing she does at support changed, and she holds in Tier 2.
Everything above was written the day 26.19 went live, before anyone had finished a ranked game on it. The League of Legends tier list hub carries the measured rankings and takes its first read on this patch once the games exist.
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