Riot Games has released the patch notes for League of Legends patch 26.21, featuring buffs, nerfs, or mechanical changes for 25 champions, along with a revised replay download policy limiting downloads to 10 per hour. This is the first update following the version used at the 2026 World Championship, with one of its goals being to recalibrate the end-of-season ranked environment.
Caitlyn, Jinx, Lee Sin, Nidalee, Qiyana, Rammus, Tristana, Viktor, Wukong, and Yone were nerfed. Among these, Caitlyn's late-game headshot scaling was reduced, with some power shifted to her early-game Q; Lee Sin's ultimate base damage was lowered, and Jinx's scaling attack damage and base health were also reduced.
Azir, Darius, Miss Fortune, Nunu, Orianna, Ryze, Sion, Taliyah, Vel'Koz, Xin Zhao, and Zyra received buffs, with changes covering mana growth, ability cooldowns, damage, durability, and attack speed scaling. Taric, Twisted Fate, and Varus saw primarily mechanical adjustments: some of Taric's abilities can once again target untargetable allies, and Twisted Fate's ultimate reveals untargetable units; Varus had his Q and W values rebalanced to weaken his top-lane playstyle while leaving room for bot-lane tuning.
Riot had previously planned to restrict replay access to match participants only, in order to prevent third parties from bulk downloading replays and using them to train scripts or other cheating tools. This approach faced opposition from content creators, high-level players, and teams with analytical needs. As a result, patch 26.21 will not implement full privatization; players can still download their own replays as well as those of friends and other players, but downloads are limited to 10 per hour. Riot stated it will continue monitoring download volumes and adjust the policy to balance normal usage with preventing obvious abuse.