Riot dropped patch 26.15 on July 29, 2026, and it's a big one. Bel'Veth got a full rework, Ranked Season 3 started, and League Classic — a full throwback to early-2010s LoL — went live as a permanent mode. Below is every meaningful change, with numbers pulled from the official patch notes and verified across multiple sources.
Bel'Veth Rework: From Early Bully to Late-Game Monster
The headline change. Riot admitted they've been balancing Bel'Veth around her early invade strength for years, at the expense of her core identity as a scaling champion. So they basically rebuilt her from the ground up.
Base stats gutted, scaling juiced:
- Attack Speed: 0.85 → 0.67 (level 1), AS ratio same but starts way lower
- Base AD: 60 → 55
- Auto attack damage modifier: 75% → 100% (hits harder per auto, but attacks slower early)
- Attack cast time: Reduced from 0.25 to a smoother value for kiting
What this means in practice: Bel'Veth can no longer walk into your jungle at level 3, Q-dash four times through you, and auto-win. Her early dueling is significantly weaker. But her scaling has been tuned so that by the time she hits her permanent ultimate form, she's actually stronger than before. If you're a Bel'Veth main, this patch says: farm early, scale, then delete everyone. If you're laning against her, you now have a window to punish her before she comes online.
Champion Buffs: The Winners
Alistar — Moves Back Into Viability
- Base movement speed: 330 → 335
- Small number, big impact. After the removal of Mobility Boots and Symbiotic Soles, Alistar couldn't roam effectively in a meta that heavily rewards roaming supports. The extra 5 MS puts him back in the conversation.
Kai'Sa — Late Game Scaling Returns
- Passive (Caustic Wounds) on-hit damage:
4–24 (+12% AP) → 4–30 (+12% AP) - Per-stack bonus:
+1–6 (+3% AP) → +1–8 (+3% AP) - At full stacks, that's a meaningful damage bump. At level 18 with 5 stacks, you're looking at roughly 4–5 extra base damage per hit plus the per-stack bonus. Enough to make her relevant past 30 minutes again.
Maokai — Jungle Clear Speed
- Q monster bonus damage:
140/150/160/170/180 → 150/160/170/180/190 - Q AP ratio:
+40% AP → +50% AP - Straightforward jungle tempo buff. His first clear finishes faster and his mid-game objective control is numerically better.
Zac — Tankier, More Elastic
- Armor growth:
4.7 → 5.2 - E (Elastic Slingshot) cooldown:
22–10s → 21–9s - Zac gets tankier as the game goes on and can initiate fights more often. Solid buff for a champion that was sitting at a sub-49% win rate.
Champion Nerfs: Who Took a Hit
| Champion | Change | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Locke | Base HP: 655→620; Q damage: 50–82→40–72; W MS: 40–60%→40% flat; W grey health: 40–160→40–120 | Severe. Locke was overperforming in Emerald+, and these numbers hit his laning safety and kill pressure hard. |
| Mordekaiser | R stat steal: 13%→10%; E cooldown: 18–10→16–8 | Mixed. Less stats stolen in Death Realm, but E comes up faster early — a small buff to his laning phase alongside the nerf. |
| Naafiri | R damage: 150/225/300(+120%AD)→125/200/275(+100% Bonus AD); Packmate damage similarly reduced | Moderate. Her ultimate burst drops noticeably. She'll still terrorize solo queue, but back-to-back ult resets won't snowball as hard. |
| Riven | R AD bonus: 25%→20%; R2 min damage ratio: 60%→55% | Light. Riven mains will adapt. Slightly less kill pressure at level 6, but her core identity is unchanged. |
| Sylas | Q1 damage: 40–140(+45%AP)→40–120(+40%AP) | Noticeable mid lane nerf. Sylas was sitting at the top of mid lane tier lists, and this brings his waveclear and poke down a peg. |
| Volibear | Q cooldown: 14–10s→12–10s (flatter scaling) | Actually a buff for early game jungle Volibear. Worse at ranks 4–5, but the rank 1–2 change helps his gank frequency. |
Item Changes
| Item | Change | Why |
|------|--------|-----|
| Bastionbreaker | Cost: 3200g → 3000g; Shaped Charge damage: 30→50 (+150% lethality) | Near-bottom pick rate since release. Cheaper and hits harder. |
| Yun Tal Wildarrows | Cost: 850g → 750g; Attack speed: 40% → 45% | Fell hard from its spot as the go-to scaling crit item. Needs to compete with early crit options again. |
| Terminus | Unique - Shadow now scales: 30 + 10% bonus AD + 10% AP | Meant to be a capstone on-hit item, was functioning more as a mid-game spike. Now scales into late game properly. |
Ranked Season 3 — What Changed
Season 3 started at 12 PM local time on July 29, alongside the patch.
The big shakeup: Aegis of Valor rework. Previously, Aegis gave loss protection AND required a minimum Mastery grade to activate. That created a perverse incentive: players in autofill games would play for S-ranks instead of playing to win. Riot's fix is clean:
- Loss protection removed. Aegis no longer reduces LP loss on defeats.
- Wins now grant double LP. No Mastery grade requirement — just win.
- Every ranked teammate now shares the exact same objective, which is exactly what Ranked should be.
Apex Duo Restrictions:
- Master players CAN duo, but only with players ranked close to them.
- Grandmaster and Challenger — no duo queue. Period.
- Riot's logic: in GM/Challenger, the player pool is too small and the skill gap between duo partners creates lobbies that are fundamentally unfair for the other eight players.
League of Legends Classic — It's Real
Riot shipped LoL Classic as a permanent mode in patch 26.15. This isn't a temporary event — it's a persistent throwback to what League looked like around Season 2–3.
- 60 champions with their classic (pre-rework) kits
- Old runes and masteries
- Single PvP draft queue, Co-op vs AI, and custom games at launch
- Strategy over mechanics — point-and-click stuns, Heart of Gold, the works
If you want to play it: the champions you already own in the main game carry over. Locked champions need to be purchased or unlocked through leveling.
TL;DR — What Actually Matters for Your Climb
- Ban Locke if you're Emerald+. His HP and damage took big hits but he's still playable — just not oppressive.
- Bel'Veth is a different champion now. Don't invade early. Farm to 6, wait for permanent ult form, then become a problem.
- Kai'Sa is back on the menu for late-game ADC players. The passive scaling buff is real.
- Maokai jungle got the clearest buff of the patch. Free LP if you play tanks.
- Aegis of Valor now rewards winning and only winning. No more playing for grades in autofill games.
Patch 26.15 is live now across all regions. Queue up, take the free Maokai elo, and please stop first-timing Bel'Veth in ranked while you figure out the rework. Looking ahead? Our Patch 26.16 preview covers the ADC buffs, roaming support nerfs, and Faerie Court skins dropping August 12.
