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League of Legends 2026 is starting with a micropatch. Today’s Patch 26.01b is the game’s first of the year as Riot addresses immediate balance issues raised by Patch 26.01.
The developers state that the health of the overall meta is as expected, with only a few outliers far above or below target, so they’re taking a light approach with targeted champion changes rather than major gameplay shifts, in order to let the dust settle as they collect more data before Patch 26.02.
Average game lengths have increased slightly, up around 1.5 percent, Riot points out, but snowball opportunities and overall game pace are still strong. With that in mind, Patch 26.01b aims to iron out a few wrinkles rather than redefining competitive play. It gives buffs to underperforming champions and nerfs to overperforming ones, and a key adjustment to Essence Reaver, which may cause a ripple effect for carry builds moving forward.
Champion Buffs in Patch 26.01b
Graves will receive a boost to his critical strike damage scaling, allowing him to deal more consistent and impactful damage late-game when building critical strike-focused items.
The changes made to Quinn revolve around her passive, which will grant her better uptime and overall scaling, which translates into more forgiving roaming windows, stronger dueling potential, and a generally more stable impact during the late-game.
Tryndamere will also see an increase to his base damage along with an improvement to his crowd control duration, helping him to apply more damage in extended fights and continuing his identity as an up-in-people’s-face skirmisher.
Champion Nerfs Target Key Outliers
Aphelios will receive a meaningful nerf to his lethality scaling, which should help to dial back his mid-game burst potential.
Kayle will see a nerf to her early attack damage, along with a higher cost, which should help to slow her scaling curve as well as her ability to control her lane early on in the game.
Nilah’s attack speed growth and critical strike scaling will also be reduced as part of the micropatch. This should reduce her ability to snowball off of early advantages in her lane.Rammus is also getting a minor nerf with weaker magic resistance scaling and a reduction in his base health.
Essence Reaver Nerf Highlights System Changes
Essence Reaver is the only item to be changed in Patch 26.01b. The item has been a standout outlier in terms of damage efficiency and Riot has chosen to nerf it by reducing its attack damage along with an increased gold cost.
Riot is also choosing to wait and see the impact this has on the items and champions that rely on Essence Reaver before jumping into further steps that could adjust it even more.
Items such as Bandlepipes and Dusk & Dawn have also been noted, but were not changed in this upcoming micropatch.
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