Riot pulled Sylas and Varus out of Patch 26.20 before it shipped, and explained the rest of the Worlds patch champion by champion: longer sleeps for Lillia, crit for Smolder, and nerfs for Ashe and Yunara.
Also inside: Ranked 5s stays open until 4am, replays stay public for one more patch, and True Damage lands in 26.21.
Red Post Roundup
September 30 to October 9
Issue #9Riot pulled Sylas and Varus out of Patch 26.20 before it shipped, and explained the rest of the Worlds patch champion by champion: longer sleeps for Lillia, crit for Smolder, and nerfs for Ashe and Yunara.
Also inside: Ranked 5s stays open until 4am, replays stay public for one more patch, and True Damage lands in 26.21.
The short version
- Modern League: Sylas and Varus came out of 26.20. Varus needs bigger work on his builds, and Sylas couldn't be touched safely while Rocketbelt was changing.
- Modern League: Lillia's sleep lasts longer, because high-skill players were already getting the most out of it.
- Modern League: Ashe and Yunara got nerfed to make room in bot lane, and Smolder's buffs go into crit rather than bruiser builds.
- Modern League: Ranked 5s queue windows now close at 4am server time instead of 2am.
- Modern League: Private replays moved to Patch 26.21, along with True Damage and a new batch of ARAM: Mayhem augments.
- Classic: five more old kits joined League Classic in 26.20, launch-era Aatrox among them.
Want these as they happen?
Our League of Legends Red Tracker collects everything Riot devs say in public and refreshes every fifteen minutes. This roundup is the weekly read. The tracker is the one you leave open.
Open the Red TrackerThe big one: Sylas and Varus got pulled from 26.20
Modern LeagueLast week's preview promised more detail the next day, and Matt Leung-Harrison delivered it early on September 30: a champion-by-champion breakdown of the whole Worlds patch. It ends with two champions who never made it in.
Pulled Changes (Varus, Sylas)
- We pulled Varus and Sylas from the patch
- Varus because we feel like we need larger work on him to make his builds more satisfying and make sense
- Sylas, because we don't feel comfortable changing him overall without messing up his role balance, especially given the Protobelt changes in the patch
Matt Leung-HarrisonLead gameplay designer, Leagueon X
What it means: Protobelt is the old name for Hextech Rocketbelt, which loses half its ability haste in 26.20. Sylas buys it in mid and in the jungle, so changing both at once could have pushed one of his roles too far. The shipped notes have no Varus or Sylas changes at all.
Our last issue passed on the first preview's line that Sylas was getting a reshape. That reshape is now off the patch.
Every 26.20 change, in one place
Riot's preview gives you the reasons. Our PBE Changes page lists every buff and nerf Riot announced with the values read out of the game files, each one marked as announced by Riot or found on the PBE only.
See what's on the PBELillia sleeps longer because good players already use it
Modern LeagueLillia got a buff in 26.19 that barely moved her. Riot went back for a second pass, and the reasoning is about who plays her rather than how strong she is.
- Overall, we want to do a better job of balancing Lillia between skill levels and Lillia typically struggles at the higher skill brackets, especially after we made her early clears a lot weaker
- Average play Lillias often don't get the most out of her Sleep duration, whereas higher skill players are much better at coordinating around it
Matt Leung-HarrisonLead gameplay designer, Leagueon X
What it means: a buff to sleep duration helps the Lillias whose team is ready to follow up, which mostly means high ranks. Lilting Lullaby [R] now sleeps for up to 3 seconds at rank three, up from 2.5.
The same post explains three more buffs. Each one is aimed at a single version of the champion, not the whole kit.
- Diana mid is in a mostly fine spot, but Diana Jungle, which plays more like a bruiser and builds a lot more health needs a little more help
Matt Leung-HarrisonLead gameplay designer, Leagueon X
- Smolder has also been on the weaker side after we made a bunch of adjustments to Black Cleaver and Deathfire Touch several months ago
- We're continuing to add more power to him, but into his Crit builds as his Bruiser builds have worse counterplay given his scaling profile
Matt Leung-HarrisonLead gameplay designer, Leagueon X
Neeko support got a lot weaker after Riot changed how her clone works with vision, and her buff gives some of that back. Diana's shield grows off bonus health, so the assassin build in mid barely notices.
Ashe and Yunara get nerfed so bot lane opens up
Modern LeagueThe bot lane half of the post explains the two nerfs that go with last week's Lucian and Vayne buffs.
- We've added an Ashe nerf into the patch as she is one of the dominant pairings on the patch, even with the Hurricane nerf (as a lot of her builds don't build it)
- We're also adding a moderate nerf in for Yunara as her level 1 laning is a bit too strong given how well she scales
- We expect after this and the Lucian buffs for the bot meta to be in a much better spot
Matt Leung-HarrisonLead gameplay designer, Leagueon X
What it means: nerfing Runaan's Hurricane only touches the Ashe players who buy it, so Riot cut her attack damage growth instead. Yunara is a late-game marksman, and she wasn't supposed to win level one too.
Ranked 5s stays open two hours later
Modern LeagueRanked 5s is the full-team ranked queue that only opens during set hours. Riot's dev account moved the closing time.
We're extending queue windows an extra 2 hours from the previous 4pm-2am to 4pm-4am server time starting this weekend. We're seeing more of you play later in that range and want to give the night owls the chance to get a couple extra games. Happy climbing!
League of Legends Dev TeamOfficial dev-team accounton X
Replays stay public for one more patch
Modern LeagueThe 26.20 notes said you'd only be able to download replays of your own games. A day later the official League account pushed that back.
The announced changes to replays are being delayed to patch 26.21.
We are working on a solution to ensure the creators and coaches out there that rely on replays are not meaningfully impacted by this change and want to have that in place before this goes live.
League of LegendsOfficial brand accounton X
Riot hasn't dropped the restriction, only moved it. We covered what changes and who it hits in Riot Delays Private Replays to 26.21.
True Damage and new Mayhem augments are next
Five True Damage skins ship with 26.21
Modern LeagueQiyana, Senna, Yasuo, Akali and a Prestige Ekko, all in the Know My Name line. Every one is on our site in 3-D.
on X
ARAM: Mayhem gets new augments and Headliners
Modern LeagueRiot teased a Jinx rocket, a big trumpet and bees, then named the mode's new Headliners. Here's every augment leaving and arriving.
on X
Five more old kits join League Classic
League ClassicAatrox, Caitlyn, Irelia, Karma and Quinn came back in 26.20, each as they played years before their reworks. Our 26.20 notes cover all five.
on YouTubeThe Worlds anthem is out
Modern LeagueThis year's Worlds song is Know My Name, performed by True Damage, and the music video went up on October 8. Riot also published a primer and a format explainer for the tournament.
on YouTubeNext week
Riot called 26.20 the final Worlds patch, so 26.21 doesn't have to be balanced around the Worlds stage. Its preview usually lands about a week before the patch, and our PBE Changes page picks up its numbers as they reach the test server.
Don't wait a week
The Red Tracker carries every one of these within minutes of Riot posting it, plus everything that didn't make the cut here. Filter by subject, search the archive, check it whenever a patch drops.
Open the Red TrackerMore Red Post Roundups
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