Splinter

Patch 26.10 Preview! Arena - We're really excited that Patch 26.10 will be 6 teams of 3!! - We're really excited to see how y'all like this Patch 26.9 - There's been a lot of cool and fun things coming out of 26.9 social media 😅 - We've seen AP Statikk Shiv Xin Zhaos, people claiming 36% Winrate AP Ezreal is busted, people having a good time trying to figure out who Deathfire Touch is on... - And also people trying to make some of the alt builds work, but alas they may just be too weak... Systems Changes - Probably the biggest chatter on the patch are Deathfire and Gluttonous Greaves - Deathfire is looking a little too strong, especially in the laning case, but the audience it's landed on has been great in giving some of these champs a keystone they're actually happy with - After the micropatch nerfs, the power level is in a much more reasonable spot, so just a small adjustment here - Gluttonous Greaves has picked up a nice new user base, especially Fighters and AD Assassins who might not have another offensive boot option (outside of Lucidity) - We think the boots are too strong, both in non-mid roles and in mid with the boot upgrade - So far Stormraider's has landed a bit weak, so we're giving it a bit of a tap up - One of our goals with the Dusk and Dawn changes was to help differentiate it a bit from Lich Bane - We think we can give Lich Bane a bit of an upwards adjustment to further differentiate - Will talk about champions tomorrow Apex Ranked (reset regions) - We're going to let Apex MMR's settle for another patch before re-evaluating whether or not duo should be re-enabled - Have investigated several of the "Emeralds in Masters lobbies" cases, they have so far fallen into: 1. A player who didn't play much prior to the reset, so they are still starting from Emerald (as if they were playing in the early days of 2026) 2. A person who is climbing a fresh account and has a really high winrate (and close to Masters); though a reminder that this is not faster to climb than playing on your main 3. An Emerald (or multiple) duoing with another Emerald or Diamond player (especially Diamond player with a high MMR) - So far, I haven't seen anything broken about these games; they are typically fair both MMR and LP wise, even if visual ranks look a bit off