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MSI
MSI 2026
Patch 26.13 will be the one played at MSI 2026, which makes 26.12 the last stop before teams head to the international stage — and Riot is using it to make some real moves. This is no light touch-up: heavy buffs are opening up fresh priorities in the solo lanes, while a string of pointed nerfs takes aim at the picks that have been dominating drafts and ban priorities.
Top lane: Aatrox, Gwen and Jax to widen the pool
Riot is upfront about it: the top lane should regain a few fringe and counterpick options. Aatrox, judged a touch too weak at higher levels of play, gets his Q sweetspot bonus damage bumped (70% to 75%) — a change aimed at rewarding him in matchups he already favors when he lands those reliable sweet spots.
Gwen is getting some of her early laning strength back, after it was walked back significantly in an earlier patch. With K'Sante climbing in priority (helped by the Dead Man's Plate buff and other meta shifts), Riot is positioning Gwen as a clean answer into the tanky Sion and K'Sante style picks.
Jax, meanwhile, gets more throughput in early trades — both in standard matchups and in those that favor short trades, like ranged lanes. Expect a top meta with a handful more counterpick avenues open by tournament time.
Mid lane: Hwei headlines, Syndra and Sylas return
The biggest single change of the patch might well be Hwei. Some of the slow-stacking changes hit him harder negatively than his buffs helped, so Riot is "pouring power back into his utility — letting him be a genuine jack-of-all-trades rather than a master of none". The QQ, QW, QE and E adjustments stack up to a substantial package, and don't be surprised to see him climb sharply in priority.
Syndra has been barely played lately, and the reason was simple: a lack of lane power against the current meta mages. This buff (Q damage up to 90-230 with a 70% AP ratio, base HP to 583) targets exactly that weakness and should make her laning phase competitive again.
Sylas should also return to high-priority status. His buff doesn't just add lane power through the Q (40-140, +45% AP) — it also dramatically improves his scaling via the W heal ratio (20-30% to 30-60%). That's a real lever on both ends of the game.
The mid lane has also been short on viable AD options in competitive, and Tristana could ride back into the spotlight here. Adding a mana cost to her Q hurt her badly given her low base and scaling mana pool, so Riot is handing some of that back — meaningful pushing power for a champion that lives and dies by wave control.
The durability and damage cuts: Lee Sin, Ryze, Orianna, Nocturne
Lee Sin's changes target his damage on both fronts — the guaranteed stuff (he gets on top of people easily with W hops) and the unreliable Q hits. Riot notes he picked up a strong net buff at the highest levels recently, as we could see for example in the LCK given how prioritized he was recently, so this is a correction.
Ryze, the mid laner, is simply too durable in the early game, often winning lanes by autoing people and chunking them through guaranteed W, E and auto damage. He'll stay on the beefy side thanks to early catalyst buys, but these nerfs make him work harder for it.
The big one here is Orianna. The cuts are heavy across the board — passive damage per stack down (20% to 15%), base HP lowered (585 to 565), E resists trimmed, E damage/shield ratios reworked, and a notable hit to her R damage (250/400/550 down to 225/350/475 on the AP base). This is a real dent in one of the mid lane's most reliable picks.
That ties into a broader point: across most major regions, the three most-banned champions lately have been Varus, Orianna and Nocturne. Hitting all three (Nocturne's Q damage is also a bit cut in this patch) should stop the meta from revolving around a handful of near-permanent must-bans.
ADC: Varus reined in across the board
Varus had simply become too strong. On top of dominating bot lane in both its lethality and on-hit builds, it had also turned into a powerful top lane pick into most meta champions. That kind of versatility made it a priority pick in virtually every game — which is exactly why in the LCK, for instance, it was banned in 92% of games played this split.
Riot is shifting power into the attacking builds while cutting the Q poke throughput in AD-heavy setups. The goal is to dial back the lethality/poke flexibility that let Varus slot in anywhere, pushing it back toward the on-hit bot lane identity rather than a do-everything priority pick.
System: a Teleport nerf in disguise
The empowered Teleport change (30% max health shield for 30 seconds to 35% max health for 10 seconds) could be read as a buff on paper, but for pro play it's most likely a nerf. To benefit from the shield, the Teleport now has to land while the fight has already broken out, or the fight has to start almost instantly after the TP.
In practice, neutral objective fights in pro play involve a positioning war between both sides — meaning a top laner's shield that only lasts 10 seconds will, most of the time, have no impact at all.
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