Hot off of the turkey holiday comes some new League of Legends news to share. A new developer update from Riot Games offers a look at what is in store for League players in the first quarter of 2026.
Season 1 2026 for League of Legends will include a new theme: Demacia. This means that Summoner's Rift will be Demacia-themed and include "petricite, gold, and blue accents." The Demacia themed stuff will be focused on old school Demacia, back when they were in their golden age.
The new cinematic in January will feature Demacian champions. The Battle Pass skins for Act 1 will actually feature some non-Demacian champions but with Demacia-themed skins, and a Prestige skin for Morgana.
Of course, there are more changes in store for players. Highlights of those changes and additions are found below. Also included below is the developer update video. Here you will see Paul "Pabro" Bellezza, Andrei "Meddler" Van Roon, David "Phreak" Turley, Nick "Riot Endstep" Frijia, Darcy "Dashijador" Ludington, and Kellye "Riot CallMeKT" Smith sharing details on the upcoming changes.
There will be a suite of gameplay changes to Summoner’s Rift (Ranked and Normal Draft).
Role Quests are being introduced to top, mid, and bot, which will act similar to support and jungle quests. You’ll progress by CSing, fighting, and getting towers in your lane, and helping to get objectives.
Autofill Improvements and Changes
Swiftplay Improvements and Changes
Miscellaneous
- Summoner’s Rift games will start 35 seconds faster than they do now.
- Faelights will: locations that grant temporary bonus vision to wards.
- Atakhan, his Bloody Roses, and Feats of Strength are removed.
- A new mechanic called Crystalline Overgrowth will act as a universal demolish effect (three-hit passive) to turrets.
- Plates will remain on turrets and have been added to inner and inhibitor towers (with no increased gold added to the map).
- There are a bunch of new, and returning, items.
- Crit damage is going back to 200%.
Role Quests are being introduced to top, mid, and bot, which will act similar to support and jungle quests. You’ll progress by CSing, fighting, and getting towers in your lane, and helping to get objectives.
- Top laners will get an increased level cap, more XP from all sources, and access to Teleport (which will get upgraded if you took it in Champ Select).
- Mid laners will get free tier 3 boots and a faster recall.
- Bot laners will get a lump sum of gold, increased gold for the rest of the game, and a seventh item slot.
- Junglers will see Smite deal more damage, get more gold and XP from jungle camps, and bonus move speed in the jungle.
- Supports will get discounts on control wards, more gold over time, and a new control ward slot.
Autofill Improvements and Changes
- We’re improving autofill to better match autofilled players by role.
- If it can’t match by role, it’ll match the number of autofilled players.
- A new mechanic, Aegis of Valor, will reward you for getting a mastery score of C or higher in autofilled games with either double LP for a win or a mitigation on a loss.
- You’ll also receive the Aegis benefit if you play less-popular roles.
- You’ll no longer be able to dodge to avoid being autofilled, and at Master+ it’ll count as a full loss.
Swiftplay Improvements and Changes
- Swiftplay is inheriting most of the changes from Summoner’s Rift, except Role Quests.
- A variety of changes will be made to make Swiftplay faster.
- Players start at level 3 with increased gold, similar to ARAM.
- Grubs and Rift Herald will be removed from Swiftplay, and dragons and the Elemental Rift will happen sooner.
- Sudden Death will start sooner.
Miscellaneous
- For Ranked, we’re adding a climb indicator to the loading screen to show if someone’s MMR is higher than their visible rank.
- We’re bringing Flex MMR closer to Solo/Duo MMR to make Flex games more fair.
- Champ Select time has been lowered to get you into game faster.
- Duoing is back at Apex-tier games.
- WASD is live tomorrow, December 2 PT, on live servers.
