Riot has announced a big list of changes for League of Legends in 2026. Players found the game too stale and said that it didn’t evolve enough. The announcements for 2026 should change everything, hopefully for the better. The core champion gameplay looks to be improved, but so does everything else.
In 2016, Riot replaced the legacy draft pick where roles were decided by the pick order in champ select. Players weren’t assigned lanes beforehand, and they fought over the role of mid lane with the rest of their team.
With Season 2016, Riot introduced the draft pick as we know it today. Players queue with their two preferred roles pre-selected, and will be assigned one of these two roles upon entering champ select.
While this is a massive improvement over the old system, it has one downside. Instead of only having to find two teams of five players to pit against one another, the matchmaking now has to find two players per role. With some roles being far more popular than others (namely, mid lane), creating a balanced lobby became much more difficult under the new system.
Riot’s solution to this was the autofill system. A player can be autofilled, meaning that they’re assigned a role they didn’t choose. While a great solution to the problem, autofill has become the bane of every ranked player. People don’t want to play a role they don’t enjoy, and much less play it against mains of that role.
Zaahen, the last champion before 2026. Image credit: Riot Games
Riot has implemented measures to reduce the burden of autofill, making it less frequent. However, the problem remains: these games are still as unfun for the player, and like an LP tax to keep the matchmaking working. So Riot is adding the Aegis of Valor, making players lose no LP or gain double LP on an autofilled match, so long as they tried to win.
Additionally, off-role players should now also face a fellow off-role as their lane opponent, to keep the odds fair.
This is the first time that Riot is addressing this issue in that way: actually making each game feel fair. No more feeling invincible on the main role but regularly losing when autofilled. In 2026, every game that counts will be played on the main roles. Autofilled games will become the opportunity to try at no cost, with a massive payoff. All of this while feeling more balanced.
On patch 25.24, Riot released the option to play League of Legends with WASD controls instead of point-and-click. For seasoned League players, this won’t change anything – people who have played this game for years are used to point-and-click.
However, for people coming from all other games, this is big news. Shooters, most other MOBAs, action games, everything in the market uses a keyboard control scheme. Even games that play with a controller have WASD as their alternative.
League of Legends’ mouse and keyboard control scheme was inherited from RTS games at a time when they were popular. Nowadays, League is the only popular game that uses it. Players cited this as an entry barrier in front of the game. WASD is sure to be a game-changer to make the game more popular again, and more fun for newcomers.
While WASD is already up as of patch 25.24, it will only become available in draft queues in 2026. Players were worried that it would overshadow the legacy control scheme, by making kiting too easy. However, the outrage has died down. It would seem that Riot has indeed calibrated the feature well enough.
Jayce, somehow the best jungler heading into 2026. Image credit: Riot Games
Macro in 2025 ended up being another case of Riot overcorrecting over the years. Back in 2013 and 2014, much of the game was about trading dragons and turrets. Both objectives yielded the same rewards, so teams handshook them without confrontation.
This got changed in 2015, but the problem came back: Every 5 minutes, teams either fight for an objective or give it up. The rest of the time, they can sit back and avoid fights. That takes strategy too, but makes for a boring experience.
To combat that, Riot added new objectives. Rift Herald in 2016, Voidgrubs in 2024, Atakhan in 2025, and shortened respawn timers for Dragon and Baron.
However, the result is a map where there’s virtually always an objective to fight for. Which makes for more action, but also makes the game more monotonous and far less diverse. Push waves, set vision, take up position, teamfight for the objective or drive the other team off of it. Rinse and repeat for each neutral monster spawn.
This isn’t what League of Legends is supposed to be about. It’s part of it, it’s one strategy to play for. League is more than that though, and fighting over objectives shouldn’t define every game. This also feels frustrating, as one fed player will often lack the agency to change the fate of the game when it’s all about teamfights.
So, the number of objectives is going down in 2026, and turrets will give more rewards. Additionally, players will get more ways to damage them. This will leave much more room for sieging and splitpushing.
Sieging becoming a viable win condition again enables many champions that won’t shine in teamfights. As for splitpushing, it lets fed players be able to have impact over the game without being snuffed out in teamfights.
The changes will make so many games feel hopeful instead of set in stone. Gameplay will also become more different from one game to the next, again.
Between gameplay and out-of-game, the 2026 announcements read like Riot making a list of the community demands over the years, and checking them all out. These and the 2027 changes also show that they can – finally – make big changes.
This is good for the short term, it gives many reasons why League of Legends should be more fun in 2026. It’s mostly a great sign for the long term, though. Riot is still very willing to listen to the community, and will commit the resources to improve League of Legends again.
Featured Image Source: Riot Games
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