Matt Leung-Harrison@RiotPhroxzon
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
